@Riot Why Keep Choosing "favorites"?
As the title asks, why do you, @Riot, choose favorites so often when trying to make decisions? It seems given the amount of players in the game, and the amount of potential players, there is room for something for everyone. It seems far too often however, that instead of making the choice to make things "fair for everyone" or "fun for everyone" that you force yourself into a hard choice that will leave someone out, or make someone angry, and choose to do so, when you don't actually have to (which is the key there).
There are choices to cater to pro players over the normal player base (I know you may disagree, but there are far too many examples for me to feel I am wrong here), and to save a wall of text from becoming a novel, I will skip to the most recent example, with the allowance of now 3-5 players to group in ranked.
I will speak only for me here, and not for anyone else (so please read it as such), and just skip to the point; I feel a bit left out here as someone who DOESN'T prefer to play with lots of people in ranked. As a matter of fact I feel left out as someone who actually has zero people on their friends list currently (and I'm okay with that). Is League more fun with others? Sure it is. Problem is, I don't know anyone that plays, and the ones I did have long since quit. I don't even have the option to play with "friends" in league to go 3-5 people in a game, and it feels a bit frustrating because you feel this choice gives others the option to be more "social" and play ranked with others. What about those of us that don't have that option, or simply choose to play solo in ranked? This feels like a gift no one asked for to those that have the option, and a punishment of sorts for those of us that don't have the option at all.
It is like giving people more IP for grouping, well that's cool, but why do I get nothing simply because my friends choose not to play the game? I have no problems with people getting more, but why only give extras to some, and leave others out who don't even have the option? You are actively choosing to cater to one group while disregarding those who honestly don't even like dealing with Duos in solo queue, but now we have the chance (even if you say it is small) to go against or be teamed with more than 2 people.
I have seen quite a lot of people reacting anywhere from sighing in frustration to up in arms about this, and I'm more in the sighing to myself camp, but I've not actually seen anyone cheering for this, let alone asking for it, unless you guys have some secret meeting somewhere outside of the boards or Reddit. Sure, those two are the "vocal minority" but I think the vocal part is the key there. If the ones that might like it say absolutely nothing, but the ones that don't, express it, how do you actually take the data from that and then push this sort of feature out?
I have no problem with it on the surface, but what I do have a problem with is the fact that I have no option to opt out of it, and that is what has me the most frustrated.
In the end, I just have to wonder why there is no road for both groups (like having a queue for those who prefer NOT to deal with groups in ranked, since our MMR and ranking acts as if we are solo, but is actually based on strangers)? It seems like a good way to alienate those of us who play ranked Solo, just to include more people grouping just because "reasons". You guys seems a bit too willing to allow the experience for some to suffer, (as well as accurate rankings to suffer) just so some people can group in ranked. Lower the barrier of entry for ranked 5s, and please leave this out of ranked...not sure what to call it now, is officially no longer "solo queue".