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Are mastery and rune systems really needed?

P1zzaman11·10/18/2014, 10:15:09 PM·5 votes·1,317 views

I know I'm going to get a lot of "just go play Dota" flack for this thread, but it has always been an issue I have had with playing league. Why have such a complex underlying system with a game already relying on players knowing champion skills? Not only do I have to know what to do if I am up against champ A, but also memorize over complicated background of stats that add nothing to the game's feel except for confusion. Many usually say with this argument that its part of the skill level to realize what masteries/runes someone is taking and how to counter it, but overall it is detrimental to mechanical freedom and balancing. Masteries and runes represent everything that is RNG, about League's current state. Players should not need to have to sift through a players spreadsheet at the beginning of the game to understand how that champion will play. Moba's thrive on the design choice of making champions gameplay be fully represented by their appearance and abstracting that more with background stats just confuses the player. Let the designer design how a champion is supposed to play like, and the player should only need worry about how to use the champion's strengths to the current situation in game.

Not only would the designers have more control over the type of champions that could be made, but also it would actually make you feel as if you are playing a unique champion with unique strengths. For example instead of encouraging players on their own to create good rune and mastery pages for Sion, why not give Sion a unique stat pallette that plays to his tankiness making the opposing champion actually think "oh I'm playing against a Sion in lane, so he'll be hard to fight against early but he scales less later thus I should do strat a.". As opposed to "Oh i'm against a sion and his runes/masteries make him tanky, but I have the same runes so I am basically the same champ early game with slight differences". This will not only give more communication to how a champion plays to new players (as gameplay is represented by the champion, not in hard to reach spreadsheets and rune pages), but also give each champion more personality as a champion like Sion will actually always feel as if you are playing an undead juggernaut, not after you give him rune pages and masteries to make him play as an undead juggernaut. Items already do a wonderful job of allowing for champion customization, League does not need more.

I know that the reason behind runes in particular is as an ip sink (and thus more implication for buying rp), but I would much rather have champion in general worth more ip if it mean't to have champions feel more unique and fun to play. I don't know for sure, but I 'd be willing to bet the profit margin for making league more fun and balanced would be much greater than the money made from buying rune pages.

I'm not sure if I made my point 100% clear (never was to great with writing stuff down lol), but I'd love to hear what other's have to say and I'm open to change my mind if I see a good pro mastery/rune argument, but atleast how the system is now... there needs to be some sort of big design change.

17 Comments

The Storm Dragon10/18/2014, 10:22:41 PM6 votes

No, I agree. Runes and masteries distort the game by covering weaknesses and introducing strengths that weren't properly accounted for and serve no purpose other than to give people who've played the game longer a statistical benefit over those who haven't, even though there should already be a skill difference to begin with. (For anyone who thinks I'm whining because I don't have runes, I have 14-ish full rune pages and tons of IP left over by this point).

Worgslarg10/18/2014, 10:22:40 PM3 votes

Runes and masteries allow you to augment your playstyle for some champion beyond simply ingame items. For this augmentation, base stats are lower than needed.

I do agree, runes are too limited by ip cost.

Quepha10/18/2014, 11:39:31 PM3 votes

I think mastery pages work well since the power there is relatively minor but still interesting and there are a few choices (mainly in defense and utility trees, there's very little wiggle room in offense) that really come down to preference. also the power of masteries is kind of level from early game down to late.

But I hate runes. HATE. they are almost exclusively used for early game advantages, they're all raw stats so it's difficult to tell which ones are making the biggest effect on your character, and the IP cost for experimentation or even just copying what people think is the best page is INCREDIBLY RESTRICTIVE.

Their main purpose seems to be to make people more likely to buy champions with RP and I would argue that they do this in a way that is more likely to turn away new players than it is to do anything else. The way most people play with runes is to get the minimum number of pages together to do "fine" in every role so they can play ranked and then very rarely buy them again, opting to spend their IP on champions they like. So new players start playing the game and look at what stands between them and playing ranked to test their skill: attaining level 30, 16 champions, and rune pages so they can compete. level 30 just takes time and they understand that's to get them more experienced with the game, they WANT to buy champions and 16 is not a difficult goal if you're looking mainly at the 450 and 1350 level, but building rune pages is unfun, expensive, and they have to make an incremental choice between "do i want to spend a smaller amount of IP and only have two rune pages that are sort-of not bad for most champions, or do i want to spend another month's worth on a rune page, and ANOTHER month's worth on runes to fill it so that i am slightly closer to good for a slightly higher percent of my champions" what's the exchange rate between getting punched in the gut or kicked in the ass? the answer is play DOTA (or HotS or smite or strife or...) And the players who decide to muscle through the rune grind? they're done buying runes, it's not an IP sink anymore.

It already takes just under a month to save up 6300 ip for one of the champions in the most expensive pool and there are THIRTY TWO OF THEM. out of OVER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY TOTAL. It would take a player well over 3 years to afford all the champions without spending money and none of that even matters because your business model also involves selling us ward skins, summoner icons, and champion skins that have totally ingrained themselves in the culture of the game.

RoyaiChaos10/18/2014, 11:56:36 PM2 votes

Masteries: Yes, Runes: Meh As a support main, I NEED that extra gold at the start.

Salidfingers10/18/2014, 10:30:15 PM2 votes

I like the system, but my only problem is tier 1 and teir 2 runes. It is such a trap for new players.

I take full benefit of the runes, I think on 1 champ i play i have 3-4 different rune setups vs certain champions

SpecterVonBaren10/18/2014, 11:28:55 PM2 votes

While I agree that runes are somewhat pointless, I feel masteries are fun and useful for what they do. I really don't think masteries fall into the trap of one optimal build. And even my problem with runes is more because they're gated behind needing lp to get them.

ValyrianBlade10/18/2014, 11:40:44 PM1 votes

As a player who's yet to reach 30, I find both runes and masteries to be a huge motivation to keep going. There was a sense of thrill each level from 1-19 where I'd go look at my 2, 3, .. Now 6 mastery pages and see what new skill to add to each. I was lured in to the noob trap of lower Tier runes for levels 1-9 and at 10 couldn't see what rune slot unlocked (thought the Quint was just decoration) so I Googled it and immediately saw all the advice to wait until 20. So I stopped after spending only under 1k ip on Tier 1 runes and was ecstatic to hit 20 with about 15k ip Saved up and splurged on attack damage and magic pen marks, armour seals, magic res (flat and scaling) glyphs and movement speed quints (I know MS isn't standard but I really like them and since quints are expensive didn't want different ones for each page for now). Now, every level it's still the same excitement of what mastery to get (the fact that I know what runes I'm going to buy already sort of negates that excitement). I'm about to hit 26 now, which makes me excited for ranked but also finally getting complete mastery pages and rune pages is almost as exciting. Even if most do the same thing, I feel like it makes me more immersed in the game, gives me a greater influence on my champion.

junglerboy1610/18/2014, 10:37:09 PM1 votes

I personally like the Runes+masteries setup league has, it provides motivation and acts as delayed gratification which incentivizes continued play for new player while leveling up to unlock ranked and other cool aspects of the game. It also provides a really cool level of customization to the game, (you can play such and such champ, but I can do this with my runes and make us play completely differently). While it certainly isn't a perfect system and could use updates to how it works, I think it is actually a very subtle but extremely core aspect of playing this game.