Boards›Dev Corner

Buying Runes Between Now and Preseason

RiotRiot Cactopus·7/20/2017, 5:42:04 PM·1 votes·230,289 views

Hey friends,

In May we announced that new Runes will be free when they launch this preseason. We've since seen tons of questions about how we'll transition to the new system, as well as what players should do about purchasing runes now. We're still working on the first question, but let's talk about the second.

So here's our plan: when preseason arrives we'll refund all the IP you've spent on runes since May 30th, 2017 (the date we published the Riot Pls video linked above). This deal is effective now, so if you've got the IP for some runes you want, go ahead and grab 'em! We'll refund you later. We were originally going to roll these changes out with our bigger announcement in September, but we wanted to put this out there now since many of you have been asking about rune prices.

At some point before the transition to the new runes system we'll also drastically reduce the prices of all runes. We won't refund rune purchases made after that point.

But what about rune pages, you ask? The plan is for your rune pages to carry over into the new runes system, so prices on rune pages aren't being changed and they won't be refunded. The difference is you'll be able to edit them in champ select.

Let us know if you've got any questions and we'll be happy to answer in the comments.

1,063 Comments

UOL LagsAlot7/20/2017, 5:55:31 PM115 votes

So, you said that you want to keep multiple rune pages. But what's the point of multiple rune pages if you can edit them in champ select? This way (as I do with masteries atm) I only need one page which I change in every champ select.

What does the extra rune pages offer me?

Recons7/20/2017, 5:45:35 PM94 votes

So all the IP I spent buying runes 2-3 years ago, won't be refunded? Is there anything to compensate older accounts?

RiotGhostcrawler7/20/2017, 8:18:20 PM94 votes

Warning: frank discussion incoming.

One of the things we haven't talked about a lot with you guys, but which should come as no surprise, is that Riot does make revenue on runes, which we ultimately invest back into League to make the game better.

This is indirect revenue, because it comes from players purchasing champions with RP since they don't have available IP to get those champions, since some of that IP goes towards runes. Freeing up rune IP (in the absence of any other changes) would let players buy a bunch of champions and spend less RP overall.

Now we are making some other changes to the system, but overall, Riot is losing money on this deal. Potentially a lot of money. This was something we had to talk about a lot internally, but everyone was ultimately behind the decision, all the way to Tryndamere and Ryze. I don't want to make too big of a deal out of this, but if we seem cautious with some of our decisions here, this is part of the reason why. (Another big one obviously is that we are taking a gamble by overhauling such a core part of the game for something that we believe will be better.)

We are making the new runes free because we believe 1) That it's the right thing to do for League and for League players, and 2) Our business model has always been to make a fun game that players want to keep coming back to year after year. Runes Reforged is a long-term bet on League of Legends (and Riot for that matter).

If we thought that Rune Pages made no sense with the new design and risked feeling like a cash grab, we would absolutely just kill them as a feature. But we have found they are useful with Runes Reforged, just less mandatory than they were before. Definitely open to discussion on this topic however.

Buffy4327/20/2017, 5:44:18 PM65 votes

What plans are there to reward players who already have all runes and nothing to spend IP on? As the game gets older, the lack of options to use anything with IP gets frustrating.

Psyrik7/20/2017, 5:48:14 PM55 votes

Why not make them free now and save the trouble? Whats the point of refunding it when you can make them free now?

Wizard Hat7/20/2017, 6:59:44 PM39 votes

But what about rune pages, you ask? The plan is for your rune pages to carry over into the new runes system, so prices on rune pages aren't being changed and they won't be refunded. The difference is you'll be able to edit them in champ select.

The only reason I bought multiple rune pages was BECAUSE I COULDN'T EDIT THEM IN CHAMPION SELECT. If I could, I would have made a custom rune page for every matchup during champ select, just like masteries. I would have never wasted my ip on rune pages.

If the new system lets you edit in champ select, multiple pages are pointless, and I'd like a refund.

RiotGhostcrawler7/20/2017, 8:12:09 PM28 votes

"Just make runes free until preseason."

We talked about this as a solution, and we went another way for a couple of reasons. Would be interested in your thoughts.

  1. The current rune system is not very robust technically, which in fact is one of the reasons for why we wanted to rebuild it (though not the main reason). For example, there is a maximum rune number that you can hit, but the game doesn't really communicate that well, and so many players open up support tickets when they can't add another rune. Yes, we could go fix all of that, but why spend the effort on a system that we have already planned to remove?

  2. Letting players get as many runes as they want invites a lot of experimentation and unusual builds and trying out runes they never had before. All of which is kind of the wrong focus for a system that is about to go away. We'd rather players be making posts and videos and streams about the new rune design rather than pumping a bunch of excitement into the one whose days or numbered. It just felt like a weird message to send.

So we hit upon the solution of making runes cheap enough during the transition that you could still pick up a new champion or try out a new build, without encouraging everyone to go out and grab every rune they could find.

Kumungu Affair7/20/2017, 6:42:17 PM27 votes

So what about those of us that spend RP on rune page bundles, will there be any sort of compensation for that?

RiotGhostcrawler7/20/2017, 7:53:49 PM26 votes

I posted this on Reddit just a few minutes ago, but when we first talked about the new design I said "So rune pages are going away, right?" Because I assumed you would just make all the rune choices in champ select.

But once we got farther into implementation, we found that we were using rune pages in our playtests. It's just helpful to have a few of them set up so you can spend more time in the lobby figuring out who is playing what champion (or heaven forbid, talking strategy) rather than quickly trying to grab the right runes.

I wouldn't say our solution for rune pages is finalized yet by any stretch. We are still iterating a lot on the rune system (and IP and everything). Feedback on all of this is appreciated.

KaRniVooL137/20/2017, 5:52:40 PM20 votes

i have all the runes i could ever use... i have 20 rune pages... i have all champs . legit all of them

what am i to do with IP ?

refund ip ok? so im gonna have more IP with nothing to do with it

[zombie-nunu-bummed]

Zielmann7/20/2017, 6:42:39 PM20 votes

So, waaaaay back in the day, you guys sold special runes with things like the Harrowing and Snowdown. They were identical in stats to the T3 runes, but were basically just reskinned.

I'm a big fan of limited/exclusive content, so I bought one or two of them when they were available (didn't have all the extra IP back then to buy them all). Are these just going to be gone forever now? That'd make me a little sad. I don't even know what might fit in with the new system sensibly, but it'd be cool if there were a way we could keep an equivalent of that limited content in the new system, for those who still have them sitting around.

ShieldWarrior7/20/2017, 6:53:20 PM16 votes

I ask, if we can edit them in champion select unlike now there is no need of other 19 rune pages i have. If new system is like mastery page i will never use other 19 rune pages, so can i refund them later?

Lvl 4 Mew7/20/2017, 6:48:54 PM16 votes

What about those who spent RP on rune pages and what not? I don't want to lose actual money.Jinx