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Can we make a change to runes please?

Ayu Tsukimiya·12/12/2014, 4:18:50 PM·41 votes·2,824 views
      League of legends is a great game, but it is very unfriendly to new/low level players, mainly due to the way runes are managed. They are not only expensive (for no reason, as they cannot be purchased with RP, so there is no monetary return in this), but also unavailable in their full potential to new players, and this trains them to do absolutely nothing of importance, but simply limits them from learning certain things, such as how to jungle.

Look at it this way. League of Legends is not about runes. Its about Mechanics, Knowledge, and Decision Making. Having runes be so expensive, and limited to near useless runes to low levels simply puts them at a disadvantage for literally no purpose (The same can be said about summoner spells. Why force early adc's to use ghost? Why must flash be a level thing? That is not what league is about. Its not about leveling, its about playing right.)

      It is also noteworthy to mention that with the increase in difficulty of the jungle, it limits new players to either not jungle at all, or play WW or Fiddlesticks.

Here is what I propose.

  1. Remove all level restrictions on runes. As stated, limiting new players is worthless. This isn't WoW, or any other game revolved around leveling up.
  2. Reduce or remove the cost of runes. Having runes be so expensive is pointless. I can understand the champion cost, as riot is a company and wants to sell RP, but runes cannot be purchased with RP. This causes us to slave for days over games to earn enough IP for something that should simply be relevant to a players understanding of runes, not how much time they have to play games and earn IP. (Being a college student, getting a crit runes page took ages.)
  3. Possibly also remove the level restrictions on summoner spells. There is no reason someone should have to play a certain amount of games to flash. That's ridiculous. Flash is instrumental in almost every game. "1940 Janna Flash" is something that would never be seen in chat if it weren't.

So what is the purpose of levels? To force people to play the game before entering ranked, basically.

Here is what I am asking. Stop making new players worry about levels, and start making them worry about learning.

Thanks for hearing me out, Luna

PS. I asked TSM_Santorin about this on his stream, and he agreed with me, which is why I opted to ask for a change.

28 Comments

Saianna12/12/2014, 7:27:06 PM7 votes

I'd personally rework rune combiner, where you could get runes just lil bit better than from shop. But there would be restrictions like 1 legendary quint/3 seals/marks/glyphs. They'd be unique giving stats that normal runes do not. Maybe crit% per lvl?

And yea something has to be changed with runes. I've asted my hard earned IP in noob days just to get few of them. Later i've learned i've just drown my ip in toilet :/

Teridax6812/12/2014, 5:16:52 PM7 votes

Level restrictions are just one of the many issues with the current rune system right now. I also agree that their cost needs to be reduced or eliminated: perhaps at the time when League was created, there weren't that many ways to spend IP, what with the limited champion roster, but now there are over a hundred champions to pick from, plus more that are getting released at an increasingly rapid rate, on top of seasonal IP sinks (namely, the icons that occasionally pop up as part of a new event). I guess the main drawback is that there are so many runes out there (and so many that just aren't good at all) that they'd risk overwhelming new players even more if they were completely free, but then again the existence of essential and "trap" runes means there's already a knowledge barrier to new players, one that can seriously screw them over if they spend IP on the wrong runes.

7ha7guy77712/12/2014, 8:19:55 PM6 votes

it's pretty insane that the runes for a** basic** set of AD and AP rune pages with shared glyphs and seals cost about 17000 ip. that's almost 3 top price tier champions. then the rune pages themselves beyond the first 2 are 6300 ip and you still need other runes to fill the extra pages which will most likely exceed 7800 ip

SmokingPuffin12/12/2014, 7:58:59 PM4 votes

Reduce or remove the cost of runes. Having runes be so expensive is pointless.

It's exactly wrong. Runes being expensive and valuable is precisely the point of runes. They exist to soak up IP so new players want to buy RP.

This causes us to slave for days over games to earn enough IP for something that should simply be relevant to a players understanding of runes, not how much time they have to play games and earn IP. (Being a college student, getting a crit runes page took ages.)

F2P gaming means you spend money or time.

So what is the purpose of levels? To force people to play the game before entering ranked, basically.

Levels are also intended to protect newbies from experienced players. It's mostly successful, but Riot has a significant noobstomping smurf problem.

Wizzleboom12/12/2014, 8:14:42 PM3 votes

It's a stupid system because it costs an obscene amount of time to farm these stupid things. Hate.

Robot Beat Rally12/12/2014, 6:15:09 PM3 votes

[deleted]

SeCKS Egai12/13/2014, 1:44:03 AM1 votes

As someone who's leveled 2 or 3 smurfs in the last year, I can tell you that while runes need improvement, I think you're asking for way too much to be given freely.

Levels only have meaning if they actually unlock something or offer improved performance. I do not believe a level 1 account "base stats" should be equal to a level 30 for several reasons, but most importantly to give the time invested value to deter poor player behavior. If the only punishment to a banned account was losing access to unlocked skins and champions, you would see an increase in poor player behavior as restarting an account would be far less hassle than it is now.

My biggest gripe with the rune system is the tiers. I can understand having slots locked and even having tiers, but having both is simply outdated. I personally would remove tier 1 and 2 runes so that tier 3 runes were allowed at level 1, but strength would be regulated by having to unlock rune slots like we do now. Alternatively you could do away with locked rune slots all together and keep all three tiers, at least that way tier 1 runes would actually offer some measurable value (use lower runes till you spend to upgrade) instead of being a waste of ip in their current state.

I don't think summoner spells having a level unlock is unreasonable, as hitting level 15 the first time isn't too painful once. It's only when you repeat the process 2,3 or 100+ times does it become an issue - look at all the afk leveling bots that have plagued co-op in recent months.

Considering how many folk I see struggle in co-op, learning isn't so much a level issue - that's purely on a player. I've seen so many 30s struggle in co-op it made me realize just how massive the skill gap can be even for experienced players.

Runes having value is a good thing. Runes that tend to be a "n00b trap" are not.

ThatH1N112/13/2014, 2:37:38 AM1 votes

I really think they just need to be cheaper or the IP rewards for matches should be raised a little bit. Im currently a new player I just hit 30 and I am getting ready for ranked. I calculate that I am going to need to grind about 10000 IP for all the runes I am going to need atm. At 100-200 IP a game, it takes quite awhile.

A Corny Name12/13/2014, 2:41:17 AM1 votes

This needs to be addressed especially with the new jungle changes, it's impossible to jungle squishy champs without runes lately and in lower levels it's not uncommon for players to die 3-5 times before they even get to clear the jg once :(

Ruy12/13/2014, 6:39:33 AM1 votes

I think it's ok that Riot makes you play to get IP to get runes. Because playing increases your understanding of the game, and understanding the game helps you to build runes. You can see what would happen by looking at the masteries pages of someone who just hit lvl 30 and a gold or even silver player.

HexTechBomber12/16/2014, 4:32:29 AM1 votes

I do not agree with you. Simply because if you just joined the game and had all these things thrown at you: champions, summoner spells, runes, masteries, understanding the abilities, etc. then you'd feel a little overwhelmed coming into it. The have it set in way that is new player friendly allowing them to learn up the game while excelling at it over time. They sell IP boosts for RP that you could get which would increase your IP gain by a lot and best ones are probably by Wins, but if you plan to sit down for 3 days and play almost non stop then you'd be best using the Day ones but the Win ones still by far are most cost effective. The game is designed to help guide you up into learning the game and then when you hit level 30 you've learned the basics of champs, how to play and now you can work on the masteries and utilizing them appropriately. Rune pages are only useful for most often early game (unless you take the per level ones that scale up quite nicely).

If you also are wanting to learn more on changes to masteries and the best masteries for Season 5 hit up Phreaks Twitch Steam for videos on utilizing your Masteries and Runes appropriately. He even goes through showing you best to use if your strapped for IP, not just those with unlimited IP. I recently used this to update my runes and change my masteries and I feel it's had a pretty great effect.

Preaks Stream http://www.twitch.tv/phreakstream/profile

My post on this too: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/tips-tricks/3u0HtAWn-phreak-breaks-down-season-5-runes-masteries

Edit: Okay lowering costs wouldn't hurt but you should not spend any IP on runes till you get to Tier 3 Runes. Edit2: Have an upvote to because I liked reading your post and people with ideas like these help make the game :)

SuperSourCat12/12/2014, 6:44:17 PM1 votes
  1. No, why do you need to by them at a low level. No one (who is smart) starts buying them till 20. That way your used to the game and you know what your doing with them.
  2. No, because then your just gonna have a bunch of randos at low levels running around with every single rune. And that would defeat the purpose of IP at that point because you could only use it on champions.
  3. Use the spells as they become available to learn what bthey are and their utility not just start with ignite and flash.

Bottom Line: Do you want the game to be a skilled video game or a sandbox game?

Angry Monster12/12/2014, 9:27:46 PM1 votes

Runes are expensive to make you keep coming back into the game. You can buy champs and skins. But you can not buy the in game experence for a game changing stats.

(Non smurfs)Low level players do not know enough to buy runes any ways. I have seen players with full AS rune pages as soon as they are 20 cause they do not know better, this just shows runes early is a mistake.

I would argue RUNES should be completely locked out till level 30(though this is not a real answer). Most new players are not competent enough to understand the power of runes. They should worry about learning champs and basics first. Not optimal rune setups. an example of this is last hitting. Learning how to last hit without runes makes you better later on.

Anyways giving more power to new players is not a great idea in my opinion. They need to take the time to learn the game and genre.

ladention12/12/2014, 11:23:55 PM1 votes

Me: I saved up to 6000 IP. I think i'll buy runes so i can do better in ranked! Goes to Store... 2000 IP FOR A SINGLE RUNE!!!!??? So much for doing well in ranked...

Hyrum Graff12/13/2014, 12:43:11 AM1 votes

I agree with you that the IP cost of runes is prohibitively high. However, the level limitation is there to help new players ease into the game a little. Remember when you were first learning, how freakin' complicated league seemed? Now imagine if you had to learn Runes at level 1!

&nbsp Personally, I think they should do the following:

From levels 1 to 15, you unlock 2 mastery points per level.

Just like live, but faster, since runes are still completely locked

From levels 1 to 15, no runes are unlocked. You are automatically given a basic AP/AD rune page depending on your champ for each game.

Although you can't customize your runes, you're not losing power.

At level 15, you can customize with basic runes:

  • Red: Mpen, Hybrid Pen, Flat AD
  • Yellow: Flat AR, Flat HP
  • Blue: Flat MR, Flat cdr
  • Quint: Flat AD, Flat AP, Flat AS,

This gives everybody three choices: blues, yellows, and reds for ap / quints for AD.

They're all early-game options, so nobody is going to feel like, "Wtf, why is my lane opponent stronger than me?"

At level 20, Add on Armor pen reds and scaling options for the runes mentioned above

Now people have a choice between early-game and scaling options. This is an excellent way to introduce this choice, while still restricting them to decent options

At level 25, unlock all options

Now you have the chance to experiment with less optimal / more interesting (depending on how you look at it) rune strategies, but before you hit 30 (so people aren't jumping into ranked games with "OP new rune setup."

WhiteGuyWannaBe12/13/2014, 1:40:54 AM1 votes

I'm fine with the tier system, however, level 1 runes should be dirt cheap with current or close to current level of power. They should be an inviting option to the new player to try out, not a daunting purchase with high cost, low reward. Unless a new player is following a guide of some sorts they will have no clue what to purchase and will be experimenting around, as they should be. The current cost makes this completely impossible in any meaningful way.