makes game 10x more snowbally
#everybody acts surprised
"New Runes wont add any new playstyles because there will be only 1 efficient rune to run per champ" -Everybody before rune changes
#surprising intensifies
"Meaningful Choices"
I used to have hope "maybe the runes won't be so bad forever, besides it's just pre-season, they'll fix it by mid".
now it's basically midseason. They are actually so bad.
Balance team if you can read this, just do everyone a favor and revert the "runes of anti-diversity" to the old one. The old mastery trees.
No one likes playing against kleptomancy (and no support champ in the game even uses it which is the most ironic part about it). Leona being nerfed because you designed aftershock around her which made her OP on release, so you nerfed her so she can only run aftershock, isn't "freedom of choice" and just sends us back to the previous problem of being forced into a rune. So many champs in this game still don't have a comfortable rune to use; Poppy still uses Aery as her most common choice because every other option just sucks. Most Battlemages like Karthus feel awful without a real keystone and even worse with all the things you've put into the runes to hardcounter him (free stopwatches, magic damage shield on low health).
I absolutely despise new runes and have since their introduction. Now instead of thinking "darn Vayne got me," I think "darn Fleet Footwork is op." The game has become less champion-centric in a way and too much focus has been put on a rune system which makes a bulk of champions feel very similar to play against.
My thoughts exactly. When Runes Reforged was announced to us, I made a thread that said much of the above, explaining that the system would ultimately do nothing to fix the mistakes of previous mastery systems. Once the dust settled, we'd go back to having a solved game with little added gameplay or diversity for anyone, and the game would be just as difficult to balance as before, if not more difficult. I was not the only person to suggest this, either. Fast-forward to now, and to no-one's surprise, that's exactly what happened. One did not need several years' worth of game design experience to realize that repeating the exact same structural mistakes as before would lead to identical structural problems, though that certainly did not stop Riot from following through with an update that created huge disruptions in balance, for little to no positive long-term impact.
At this point, I think Riot needs to realize that any kind of generalized bonus system, no matter how refined or overly strong, will simply not be good for League. Any such system will fail to generate meaningful diversity, and will only continue to generate balance issues and design limitations, as champions will be forced to remain functional under those bonuses, often to the point of being balanced so hard around them that they become dysfunctional otherwise. This is why I think Runes Reforged needs to go completely, and beyond that Riot should also reevaluate what they want out of summoner spells and even items, both of which are systems I think have also aged poorly. Summoner Spells were once a selling point that distinguished League from the competition, along with its runes and masteries, but in the long run the system has ended up homogenizing the strengths and playstyles of many champions, as well as warping the game's balance in unsavory ways. Similarly, items were once intended to allow players to fully customize their champions' playstyles, but that fell apart very quickly when Riot realized that certain stats and effects were simply not healthy on certain kits. At this point, none of these systems generate real diversity, and frequently they fail to generate meaningful gameplay as well, with marksman items in particular still mostly acting as stat sticks. Additionally, all of these systems only complicate balance further, adding layers upon layers of conditionals that hamper the devs' ability to focus on what makes certain champions specifically imbalanced or unhealthy.
At this point, we have plenty of MOBAs that have shown greater diversity of gameplay, as well as stabler balancing overall, via entirely new customization systems that are tailored to individual champions, such as HotS's talent system. While League should probably not try to copy these systems, as Dota did, Riot could certainly take a page out of those games and try to streamline its own systems. Both summoner spells and runes can be rolled into itemization, particularly since there's a ton of overlap between these systems (e.g. Second Wind and Spectre's Cowl, Overheal and Bloodthirster, Cleanse and QSS, etc.), and doing so could even help Riot achieve their other goal of trimming down lobby durations, which currently they've attempted to pare down by limiting actual strategic depth for players, i.e. by having everyone ban a champion all at once instead of going through proper pick/ban phases.
RUNES REFORGED MEANINGFUL CHOICES
What do you mean, OP? That Riot failed once again for the worse!? Impossible, UNTHINKABLE!
Except this is largely false. Games were more snowbally because of other changes riot made to the game to try and reduce how long the games lasted in general. The only way runes impacted this was after repeated nerfs to early game ADC items and runes that benefited them.
Also, every single champ in the game has numerous viable runes and situational rune options.
We need Season 5 runes and masteries back (+ make all runes and pages free), not keystones. They are not only making the game impossible to balance, but completely remove diverstity and playstyles.
Honestly, they should just remove keystones, give up on putting runes in their distinctive paths ( domination ,orcery, precision, resolve, inspiration) ,because there's utility in damage paths, durability as well. . . It's all mashed up. Just mix in all up in one tree, balance all runes and let us choose each five we want ( no restrictoons and no keystones).
And please, considering assassins are pretty strong on midlane, made Nullifying Orb scale of AP,HP or/and mana,but not AD. There's nothing wrong with having a few runes that are exvlusive to only AP/AD.
EDIT: Add the keystones on new items
Come and get me guys XD
Granted I'm not an expert, but I feel RR could have been a good update IF there was actually some variety and more then 3 runes per row. For example you could take A for damage or B for more roam potential, or possibly C because it gives you more survivability. But it would have been in more ways then just raw stats.
There are champions who can swap between several runes. For instance Zoe can use Unsealed Spellbook, Comet, Aery, Electrocute, and even (some people do this) Dark Harvest.
