As a player who is playing this game before SoE days i have to say a few things. In general thru the years i see this delusion that game can be perfectly balanced, it can't. You can monitor it and "fix" stuff that you think is bad for the game. In most cases you don't even have to nerf something and i'll give an example, lets say frost amp dominates ranked .. all you have to do is put a few immune to frost champs in game and now that deck is much weaker without a nerf. Now about the current state of the game. Since Sokolov dropped a nuke on it i think it's getting better, rate of these positive changes is really slow but it is getting better. Now the bad news, current meta hevely favors defenders which slows the game and reduces the fun. In most of my games I recently played I had a 90% win rate when the opponent attacked me and 50% when I was attacking. Now this being my personal experience cant apply to every game but observing and playing games this is my strong belief. Every day I had a 60 minutes + game and all of them were because I attacked and the attack failed. Main reason for this slowing of the game is low AP generation and font placement that favors defensive play aka ranged attack champions that have mobility. You can see FS dominating with there superior mobility and range because even if you get close to those champs then can run with no problems since very few melee champions have assault ability. So you get overmatched every game. You have a lot of work in front of you and I think it is getting better. In general the game needs to be fun with infinite replayability. In my opinion melee champions are more fun then ranged and this meta stomps them. And surprise tactic spells need to be added to the game because it makes it more unpredictable and tactical and now I see only AP generation and direct dmg spells used. In general you have to make the game that you want to make and the player number will reward or punish you. Now i'm going to go on another 2 years break since current state even if it is better than the Sokolov days if not fun for me or competitive enough.
I would say that what causes me the most is the change of maps-rotation and the distribution of the fonts on them. I have been playing this game furiously and pretty actively for only two years, but it still seems to me that in the 20-21's everything was better in this regard. But the thing that will never change, is the number of UD mains around... xD
