Let's Talk About Runes and Early Game Damage

TL;DR - Remove the rune system because it is homogenizing playstyles, it no longer serves its original intentions nor its reworked intentions, and it is adding too much damage to the early game. Please read the rest, as I have (in my opinion) fairly solid reasoning. It can be replaced with either a talent tree system that would actually allow playstyle diversity and adaptibility in champs, more items, or just nothing.

Introduction Hi, I'm gold trash Snow. I'm a moderator in the Soraka mains discord who has been in the "quitting phase" of the game (10 games a day becomes 2 games a day becomes 2 games a week etc etc). I've been playing games since I was a little one and it's one of the things I'm most passionate about. Though I'm not good at League, I care about the game a lot.

About Runes Though I, and many others, weren't around at the time, Runes were designed to serve a purpose: Player Profile Progression with an in-game impact (read: an outlet for the excess in the IP economy). It did just that. Some may argue not well, some may argue they did it clumsily. My point is runes no longer serve their original intended purpose, so we must investigate what their new purpose is.

Runes Reforged Before I go into this, I would just like to thank and appreciate the effort, work, and energy everyone on the runes reforged team put into this. I may not like the final product, but I understand that you all tried your best. That said, let's look at what they were trying to do. World Tour Twisted Fate Good Guy Bard Frozen Assets Gnar Riot wanted Runes Reforged to allow players to augment and change their playstyles. They wanted more player freedom and more player expression. Things seemed good... at first. Once the dust settled, once everyone got a feel for Rune Reforged, we saw the same thing that happened with the old mastery system. People just took "whatever keystone fit their champion best" (remember this bit, I'm going to reference this later). Then, they just take whatever minor runes seem best for that game (this is all assuming that the player is actively using the rune system as intended). For roughly 85% of the champions in the game, they only take 1 of 2 keystones in >80% of games (please don't make me go to op.gg and comb through all of the data).

Conquerer and You AKA The Hashinshin Problem Not long ago, there were cries of "the bruisers don't have runes". While I empathized that it must feel bad to not have a fun toy while everyone else had one, I didn't quite understand the issue. "Electrocute exists, they want damage, that gives them damage" I would think to myself, completely missing that what they wanted was tank killing ability. See, the tanks had two fun toys, Jax and Kled and such didn't have any. They could still succeed, sure, but there wasn't something that suited their strengths. At the current power level, the gap between "high rune synergy" and "low rune synergy" is too high.

High Rune Synergy To paint in very broad strokes, there are roughly three groups of champions in relation to the rune system: those that synergize well with offensive runes (ORS), those that synergize well with defensive runes (DRS), and those that don't really synergize with runes (NRS). Riot right now is looking at nerfing the ORS, by way of electrocute and scorch, as well as maybe others. All this will do is make the DRS group dominant. The only "solution" is to bring down the power level of all of the runes, keystones and basic runes. Like a snake eating its own tail, the game will flip flop between "damage is too high" and "sustain/tank is too high" until the power level is lower.

Example: Viktor Viktor is in NRS. He's a late game, hyperscaling teamfight mage and his strongest rune is Summon: Aery, an early game offensive poke rune. He's recieved HUGE buffs and he's still not good. "But he synergizes with Fleet Footwork too": my counterpoint to that is "is it a strong synergy or just the best option he has?" Example: Veigar Veigar is the blue villain that's chillin in NRS. Mid/late game burst mage. He needs survival for the early game because he's so squishy and low range, yet he doesn't really synergize with anything in the resolve tree. He can't just pull a Fiddlesticks and "just take aftershock" as his cc is not point and click. So he's just kinda sitting in a place where he doesn't feel good to play.

Electocute and Thunderlord's Decree Remember 'League of Thunderlords' when there were 9 thunderlords per game? Maokai would take it, Ahri would take it, everyone took it. Thunderlords did 10 damage at level 1. Electrocute does 50 at level 1. "But electrocute is on a longer cooldown" I can hear you asking. Good point, it's twice the cooldown of thunderlords. That means I'm taking 2.5 times the beating in the same time. "but that's just at level 1", okay, you've got me there. Once it hits level 4, it's a correct exchange on power (however, that's only base damage and the scaling on electrocute is much higher than Thunderlord's). However, Electrocute's high power early game also indicates at another problem that arose because of the removal of old Runes: early game resistances. Boy howdy, I sure loved my MR glyphs, my armor marks, and my hp/level seals. They made me the beefiest boy on earth. It allowed me to try other playstyles and off meta things by allowing me to lower the toll of punishments in exchange for not being able to hit as hard. "But they compensated champions for the removal"- they compensated some champions for that. Like taking attack speed marks on Ahri to cs better? Sorry fam, can't help you, papa riot decided I was a statistical anomaly that does not deserve recognition.

Snow Snaps "but they added" "but they introduced" "but they're adding" But to what end? They're applying bandaids left and right, fixing the leaking holes of Runes Reforged all over, and at some point you just have to ask "what is this all for?" If it does not allow playstyle diversity to the point that Riot pretends it does, if it warps the early game, if it effectively makes NRS champions unfun to play because everyone else has shiny toys, you have to ask: what do we gain? No one has been able to tell me what we gain, they've just told me "League is a ever changing game and it stays great that way. Those that dont like changes will get left behind" (actual quote btw), or that "if we removed it all champions would be weaker" (yeah, that's the idea), or "no really, this system allows press the attack soraka to exist" (it doesn't allow it to exist to the point where it's statistically relevant). What do we gain? Higher in game complexity, that's it. Change for the sake of change is bad, things need justification and reason. If the old rune system was so bad it needed to be removed, I doubt the game actually couldn't function without a replacement. I respect Riot's intentions, I know they tried their best, and the team that did Runes Reforged did what they thought was right. I highly doubt they had bad intentions, they just wanted to make something fun. The art assets for Runes Reforged are great.

Solutions

1. Talent Tree System Upsides: would be much easier to balance individual champions, would allow actual playstyle diversity (talent tree system could support Assassin Ahri and Kite Mage Ahri and even Bruiser Ahri), would allow people to adapt their playstyle to how the game is going. Neutral: would shift power into the mid/late game Downsides: A lot of assets would need to be made, new tech would have to be implemented, a lot of initial balancing, complexity and memory issues (particularly with new players) would be much higher (TL;DR a lot of work would need to be put into it).

2. More Items (what most people would like to see if the rune system got removed) Upsides: could enable playstyle diversity if handled well, runes reforged assets and abilities could be reused, would allow people to adapt their playstyle to how the game is going. Neutral: would shift power and complexity into the mid/late game (assuming they don't add more Doran's items) Downsides: More assets would have to be made, a lot of initial balancing would have to be done, higher complexity for new players.

3. Nothing Upsides: lowered complexity, would allow champions and builds to define playstyles rather than an arbitrary global system Neutral/debatable: but individual games would become more similar and be less unique Downsides: ??

4. Pre-Keystone Mastery system Honestly, a bit unsure of the positives and negatives, but I see this as a possible alternative we should keep in mind.

Conclusion While I appreciate the effort Riot put into the rune system, I think it's actively detrimental to the game. I know my voice is in the minority, I know Riot doesn't care, but if I don't speak out about my opinion, Riot will probably never hear.

Counterpoints "You're just nostalgic for the old days of old Poppy and old Quinn!" I started at the end of season 5, so am I nostalgic for a time I didn't experience? Am I attempting to recapture the youth I didn't have by asking for, what I think, is better game design?

"You're a X main, you just want X to be good!" I was a support main, now I rarely play the game (this week has been the most I've played in 2 months because I'm sick and have nothing better to do). While I did point fingers at damage being too high, I included the fact that if it gets nerfed, tank and sustain will be too high. Stop projecting, let's talk about game design.

"But X is viable now and it won't be viable if runes are removed!" AP Malphite was a thing before runes reforged, it will be a thing after. Same with AP Nunu. Everyone will take a power hit if runes are removed, some more than others. Things, from champions to items, can get touched up or touched down if this happens.