Regarding the State of the Game, from a Long time League player
People always complained about the state of balance being the worse it has ever been but for the most part things have not been too bad. What really made me, and most of my friends but the newer ones, quit was the release of dynamic queue. Last season I reached gold 3, this season I abused dynamic queue to get back there again, but then thereafter solo queued until i broke platinum. I did not really notice the affects of dynamic queue until I got there, at this point ive reached plat 4 3 or 4 times all of which resulted in myself being demoted to plat 5 0 lp. The real problem is that not only does the triple queue of good players and smurfs put solo players at a astronomical disadvantage at that level of play and above, but it enhances the tilt that is already so prevalent there. Plat is arguably the most toxic league and it doesn't help when a team of full solo players loads into 3-4 enemies with (XXX acronym for there future LCS league team name). I have had countless games where a 3 or 4 man premade just goes ham on a lane to tilt them which just transforms the game into a giant shitstorm that I have to wait 20 minutes to surrender in, in fact dynamic queue has bread such a miasma of toxicity that almost every game the only communication that occurs is someone threatening to troll or flame on who to blame for a misplay which always invetiably snowballs into a loss. This is to an extent where I myself have become considerably more toxic, and I have stopped playing as a result. However I think the entire state of the game, at least circa 3 weeks ago when i last played, just promotes so much toxicity and prevents solo player success. All my ranked games result in either a four or five gaming winning spree, where we absolutely crush the enemy team in all assets of the game, or a 4-5 game loss streak where no matter how hard I play we end up getting absolutely steam rolled. I am a jungle main, never in my past three seasons have I felt so little impact on the outcome of games as a result of such changes as the adc rework. The rework along with many other factors such as items so heavily favoring them as resulted in being scared to queue without the addition of an adc that I trust. So much power and responsibility has been shifted onto them, I feel as if everyone else besides assassins are just a support at this point. It seems to me that it doesnt matter how many times I gank lanes, take dragons/objectives, ward etc. because no matter what, games come down to whichever adc misplays and dies during the ever prevalent 25 minute team-fight that decides the game. And jungle diversity? there is none, why pick any other champion to jungle with If you can pick graves or kindred, which successfully out perform most other picks when played at a similar skill level due to the damage being insane right now and cinderhulk,warriors being ridiculously under powered. As I have not played for about a month all of these grievances may be out of date and old news, however, given the amount of reworks this seaon, it feels like we are in a never ending preseason, where wins are based on OP spam similar to the warwick incident in season 5(which was a crazy wr/br at the time but since has been overtaken practically every 2 or 3 patches by similar monstrosities(kogmaw, tank ekko, malzhar etc). It seems like riot is preferring to spit out new content in order to keep the game fresh when in reality they need to fix the horrendous state this game is in, it is already causing a majority of its veteran players to quit from what I hear, from both boards and anecdotes. I have only really ever enjoyed one other game as much as I have League of Legends, that being an old mmorpg called Runescape. When they went agaisnt the community for something they thought was better(EOC) the game died, being a hollow shell of it's former self, today trying to scrape back as many players as they can through Old School RS for which they reverted the game to its better 2007 state. This trend seems to exist for many popular games where the game gets a huge fanbase because of the developer catering to their wants and needs, where thereafter they assume they know whats best for their game and go against that same loyal community causing the game to ostracize older more hardcore players in favor of newer and more casual ones. In most cases it results in the same, the game losing its hardcore fanbase which kills the game as a result. League has been a game that I have cared for and spent money on time and again, having made friends and quite a few experiences to share, and I do believe it is still a GOOD game, however it is just not the game that I first got hooked on. Then again players starting now might recall just as I did for season four, that season 6 was the best the game has ever been and that season 9 is killing the game with its horrendous state of balance and cash grabs. I will revisit League In maybe a year or so again, but for the time being I have captured that spark I have for video games again in Overwatch a game that brings back that same golden feeling that I had when was a level 5 first playing summoners rift in season 4 with my best friends. These are my thoughts from a long time league player regarding the state of the game, sorry for the wall of text and good luck for those still playing and enjoying league of legends.