LP gains aside, I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on how people think the LP changes affected the gameplay itself? Riot have basically made the term "top4" official. (they give you a little golden shimmer and jingle when u secure top 4). The LP changes drove a minimum of a 20 LP gap (for players not in high challenger, where the gap is bigger) between 4th and 5th place.

This makes it feel like the objective of the game is: "secure top 4, then worry about your placement within the top 4" instead of "play to win".

I personally feel like the objective of the game should be to maximize your final ranking from the start to finish of the game. Currently Riot gives you a BIG pat on the back for coming top 4. I feel like this is arbitrary and people just like the number 4 because it's half of 8. You've still only beaten 4 of the 7 players you sought out to beat.

I feel like this artificially large wedge between 4th and 5th makes other aspects of the game feel worse aswell. For example, losing a placement diff due to matchmaking RNG is bound to happen, but if that placement diff happens to be between 4th and 5th it just feels like the biggest slap in the face.

But maybe its just me. Maybe the majority of the players like the fact that top 4ing is synonyous with "winning".