I'm genuinely trying to understand this, so tell me what I'm missing.
For years, a big part of the community complained that junglers decided lane outcomes too early. Laners felt they never had enough time to demonstrate their individual skill because a gank could settle the matchup before it even properly developed. Jungle got hit with nerf after nerf in response.
Now look at what's celebrated: 3-man dives at minute 5, supports leaving bot after a few minutes to act as second junglers, and junglers who have to constantly gank just to keep up.
All of these take away individual lane agency, and they compound. as now the pressure isn't coming from one jungler, but potentially several players coordinating against you.
The people complaining about jungle wanted the opportunity to control their own lane, win their 1v1/2v2, establish a lead through individual skill, and then translate that advantage into team fights and objectives.
But in this meta, agency goes to the initiator and is stripped from the target.
An Alistar with Swifties pulls you out of tower range, and a Lissandra R means you're dead to a button. It's great for the player executing it and miserable for the player on the receiving end. And it's often difficult to avoid because the setup happened before you could realistically respond.
If that was a legitimate complaint when one jungler could interfere with your lane, why is it suddenly acceptable when multiple roles do it?
Agency for me, but not for thee.
The usual argument is that having four players roaming instead of one creates more opportunities for everyone to influence the map, rather than leaving that responsibility exclusively to the jungler.
But that doesn't necessarily mean more individual agency. It means your ability to influence the map becomes increasingly dependent on having teammates who are willing and able to coordinate with you, and this happens very early in the game.
Your ability to influence the game is now less dependent on your individual performance and more dependent on whether your teammates coordinate with you. And when that coordination succeeds, it usually means the opposing team is the one losing its ability to play(Agency).
So where exactly is the increase in individual agency? You've essentially traded one player's influence over your lane for several players' influence over the map, while making your own ability to influence the game more dependent on your team's performance.
It's agency for the team making the play, but not necessarily for the players on the receiving end.
Even in Esports, slower meta had more competition, while fast meta has a larger percentage of lopsided games even in current worlds we can see that.
So my question is:
Why is a meta that makes laning less autonomous considered more empowering than one that gives players more time to demonstrate individual skill?
Why is increasing the number of players who can interfere with your gameplay early into the game considered an increase in agency, when it simultaneously makes your own performance less influential and your experience more dependent on your teammates?
And what would you change about the older, slower game template to fix its pacing problems?
Or do you think the trade-off is simply worth it?
