issue is you can’t really play league without playing with the type of people to play league. that’s enough for me to say no thank you, no matter the game mode or whatnot
I mean, you are definitionally correct. League players are the type of people to play League.
There are great ways to enjoy League without having to interact with League players. For one, there is the PVE digital card game Legends of Runeterra, which has a really satisfying RPG roguelike mode with long term progression. I have likely put over a hundred hours into this and spent zero dollars.
There’s also a new single player feature for Wild Rift which lets you fight AI opponents trained on player matches. You can edit the ranked skill level of the AI and pick/make them play any champion. There are dozens of hours of good times here alone. Again, completely funded by cosmetic purchases of other players and free to enjoy.
Personally, I think turning off chat and teaming up with players you got along with is more than enough to compensate for the “type of people” issue. Playing with pure randoms in any online game is not great for sanity. But lots of folks are looking to make friends and are good co-op partners if you’re willing to DM them.
The matchmaking dynamic has ruined a lot of games and LoL is no exception. I do think folks play up the bad vibes on LoL relative to everything from Overwatch to Valorant to fucking Roblox. If you’re not going into these games with a group of local friends, you’re either going to have a bad time or you’re going to be the bad time other people experience.
Meh it’s not 2003, folks aren’t accepting of being called slurs for not winning a match, especially while ranked as a beginner.
Roblox aside as I’ve never played it, I wouldn’t call any of these games ruined. These are all popular games with growing player bases and lots of folks enjoy them immensely.
It might just be my personal experience and social group, but I believe toxicity is lessening as more people become self-aware and intolerant towards it. The fact that there are more ways to block, silence, mute, and report now than in the 2010 era of gaming helps a lot too. I also notice that toxic people end up playing with other toxic people, and the rest of the game sorts around them to variable degrees of success. This is what the “honor” system mixed with player reports does in PC league for example.
In Wild Rift I encounter an inter or someone who lashes out in the pre-game lobby with a troll pick maybe 1/8 of my games on average? Can’t speak for the enemy team as all chat no longer exists. So if I have 5 members on my team, that’s 1/40 people who are jerks? That’s manageable imo, especially as the matchmaking system refunds you half the loss if throwing/leaving was detected, and you still have a good chance of winning despite them.
It’s also easier to organize a group of friends both in-client and through 3rd party sources like Discord and Steam than it was on Skype and Teamspeak back in the day.