A suggestion for the Rune system
My goals with this are to help with player-onboarding into optimizing for their unique playstyle and champion preferences, and to help alleviate IP grinding. Here are my following suggestions:
1.) All rune slots are available, always.
2.) @Summoner level 10, players should get a "package of runes" for a rune page. This would help relieve some pain with new players figuring out "what is good for this role/champion". -These packages would contain a full-page's worth of runes standard to a particular role (Marksman, Support, Tank, etc.) -The player would choose 1 of 6 that are available. -The remaining packages would then be available in the store, purchasable with IP.
3.) For Summoners levels 10-30, there should be an end-of-game rune reward system. -By playing games, you fill up a "reward bar", much like ARAM's Reroll "meter". -You opt into what type of rune you want from the reward system (Ability-type Marks, Utility-type Quints, etc.) -When you complete a game when your reward bar is full, you get a random rune of the type you opted for. For example, opting for Utility-type Glyph would reward you with a CDR glyph, mana-regen glyph, etc. Opting for Ability-type Glyphs would reward you with a flat AP glyph or scaling AP glyph. -When opting for Quints of any type, they should take twice as many games to cash in on. -When you cash in your reward bar, the animation for a mystery gift comes up with the chest opening, saying what rune you received.
What I believe these suggestions accomplish (and additional comments): 1.) A fully available rune page helps players to begin optimizing their champion freely. 2.) Level 10 seems an appropriate time to introduce players to the rune system, since they have gotten the gist of in-game mechanics. 3.) Low level summoners can use their "package" of runes to try them out in-game, see what kind of a difference they make, and to think about what kinds of runes they want to earn/buy in the future. 4.) Helps to alleviate the IP grind. You can earn all the runes you want without spending IP, but it's dependent on how many games you play and the RNG system. You can still spend your iP to buy runes as you please.
Further questions: 1.) What do we do with rune tiers? -As a note, one of my friends did some math on the cost-effectiveness of runes. Tiers 1 and 2 were MUCH more cost-effective than tier 3 runes (when comparing how much IP/stat number). It's just that Tier 3 yields the highest values, and you have a limited amount of runes to use in your pages.
-Perhaps what we could do to address rune tiers is to incorporate them into package and reward system.
-Level 10 summoners choose a rune page package (out of 6 available) that are all tier 1 runes. Level 20 summoners get access to tier 2 rune page packages. Level 30 summoners get access to tier 3 rune page packages.
-Level 10 summoners can only opt into tier 1 runes for the reward system, and so on, as in the previous point. The higher the tier, the more games it should take to fill the reward bar and earn your rune.