Refunding Runes for the New System
Leveling, IP, and Rewards | Riot Pls
“With runes soon becoming free, we want to show our appreciation for those of you who’ve invested time and IP into runes over the years. Previously, we announced that we’d refund runes purchased since the end of May. But we think we can do a little more. So, for runes you bought before the beginning of the 2017 season, December 7th of last year, we’ll give you 100 blue essence for each regular Tier 3 rune, and 300 blue essence for each Tier 3 quint. For any runes you bought since the beginning of the 2017 season, we’ll refund the full cost.”
At first I had nothing to say against it because of how I interpreted it when I first heard it, but after writing it down and reading it again, I see why everyone is upset. If you truly want to show your appreciation for those of use who’ve invested our time and IP into runes over the years, then give everyone their FULL value of what they paid for their runes, or at least the full value of what they’re currently worth. If anything, people who purchased their runes before that specified date should get a full refund AND that additional 100 blue essence for each regular T3 rune, and 300 blue essence for each T3 quint on top of their full refund. Anything less than a full refund to people who had purchased their runes in the past and at the same time giving a full refund to people who only recently purchased them is a slap and a spit in the face to long time players who owned their runes for a while now, not a show of appreciation for them. People who owned their runes for a long time shouldn't be receiving anything less than people who only just purchased them.
You don’t put money into a savings account and expect it to lose the majority of its value over several years and be happy about it, do you? No. You hope to see a slow gain in interest, or at the very least, maintain its value. If I put $10,000 into a savings account 6 years ago, and another person put $2000 in their account last month, and the bank wanted to refund people, but only offered to give me $2000 of my $10000, and at the same time offered the other guy their full $2000, I’d feel like they betrayed me more than anything else. I’d settle with getting my $10000 back, even if I feel like I should be receiving $11000+ for being with them so long, and then would be appreciative if I got what I was expecting.
I understand that you don’t want people to just obtain a flood of currency that they had previously spent, but can you even justify it and say that they haven’t earned it? How can you justify giving a full refund to people who were made aware of something and went ahead to get the runes because of it, while at the same time not giving a full refund to people who had no prior knowledge or warning to such change? That’s like selling poisonous food to a dozen customers, and then making an announcement that it’s poisonous immediately after the last person made their purchase, after the previous customers already consumed most of it. Then only offering a partial refund to the previous 11 because they consumed it, and offering a full refund to the last person because they barely touched it.
Some people have suggested a little scaling, such as 50% of the rune cost being refunded, which is better than the proposed 100 and 300 blue essence per T3 regular runes and quints, especially since different runes have different values, but that still remains a 50% loss of what we've earned and spent in the past, with the people with more recent purchases still getting back their full value, which is incredibly unfair from my point of view. Even if Riot decided that they would not increase the refund for people who purchased runes a time time ago, changing the refund for people who purchased runes recently to equally match the refund amount to older runes would create balance. Of course they likely wouldn't do that, as they've already promised people the full refund. However, they did say they were open to changes, and the refund amount for older runes doesn't seem to be set in stone just yet.
All you need to do to make this statement so much better is to change one word. Change “refund runes purchased since the end of May” to “refund runes until the end of May” – with the word “since” being changed to “until” which changes the meaning of the entire paragraph to include all runes purchased over the years receiving a full refund; and now you’ve decided to give people additional benefits for owning runes for a long period of time, and provide a full refund to people who recently purchased runes without that extra benefit.
Another alternative would be to include exclusive rewards for people who owned runes over a longer period of time, and scaling based on how many runes they owned. This could be done with exclusive icons that scale with different values, or a loot box and key for every X many runes owned before that date. This would help to offset the anger for people who feel like they're taking a huge loss, whereas others may not be so negatively affected, without giving them a flood of currency.
