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Runes are still grossly overpriced

Zephyrous X··306 votes·6,494 views

Even though in May riot reduced the price of tier 2 runes to one IP, the real problem is actually that tier 3 runes; the runes which people actually use are still really overpriced. In ranked you want good runes and it's kind of bullshit that riot is encouraging new players to buy tier 2 one runes and we all know people aren't going to spend 2050 IP for that tiny increase in stats.

Players that unlock tier 3 runes aren't going to spend 7080-28290 IP for a single rune page when they could just pay 30 for lesser runes w/o access to scaling runes for a slight increase in non scaling stats. especially if they are trying to unlock champions. considering that a lot of champions cost over 3150 IP.

It's also a pain in the ass for veteran players to save up the IP as well

Just do what you did with tier 2 runes except removing tier 2 runes for tier 3 runes. the amount of time required to acquire runes is stupid and it should be spent playing the game and unlocking champions.

EDIT: also all of the badass adcs cost over 4800, when i smurf i play AD TF because of that shit

181 Comments

Virgin Ray24 votes

why are there runes anyways?

garren912 votes

I think its because when LoL was newer Riot didn't have the same philosophies that that they have now. (The same reason Urgot exists)

Virgin Ray22 votes

Urgot is perfect.

garren94 votes

Honestly I've never played him, I just used him because he's infamous for his design, and I couldn't use Yorick because I like him too much.

DeusVult7 votes

so that you can adapt your build/playstyle before you even start playing

GuardAbuse5 votes

Ex: You're mid, you see you're against one of these- Ahri Gotta have the move speed in the rune page Leblanc Gotta have that mr Zed Armor in your runes (I also take attack speed against any melee champ if I'm ranged for that auto harass) etc. I have several mid rune pages for different champs. I have tank runes, adc (attack speed), adc (caster), the list goes on.

doombotMECHA2 votes

HOW MUCH IP DO YOU HAVE? also I'm guessing you spent money on those extra pages.

GuardAbuse2 votes

Nah I didn't. Skins for life, yo. I've just been playing for years (still don't have all champs). To be fair though, I've spent a lot of IP recently to get the mystery champ shards for blue essence.

Rivini10 votes

{quoted}

why are there runes anyways?

Other than for a reason to grind IP, they add a bit of spice so the game isn't so predictable and bland. They allow you to give yourself custom stats you want without having to solely rely on what the champions have. Whether your choices are "viable" or not, being given options is a big plus for a lot of people.

The current rune system is flawed and awkward (i.e. why does Greater Quintessence of Ability Power have 4.95 AP instead of a flat 5?), but I think taking it out completely could be a bad move. It just needs to be reworked.

MunchCrunchLunch2 votes

{quoted}

why are there runes anyways?

so you spend ip on runes and use rp for champs. more time gates.

ModCaptainMårvelous15 votes

Fun fact: With T2 runes being 1 IP, the difference between T2 HP quints (60 Flat HP) and T3 HP quints (78 Flat HP) is 6147 IP

Each point of HP costs roughly 341.5 IP. That's almost a 450 champion per 1 HP.

EDIT: However, it is worth noting Riot was sending out surveys asking about Rune system being removed and/or heavily reworked. See here.

Pierce The Veal1 votes

{quoted}

Fun fact, with T2 runes being 1 IP, the difference between T2 HP quints (60 Flat HP) and T3 HP quints (78 Flat HP) is 6147 IP

AKA: Each point of HP costs roughly 341.5 IP. That's almost a 450 champion per 1 IP.

EDIT: However, it is worth noting Riot was sending out surveys asking about Rune system being removed and/or heavily reworked. See here.

I'd rather have my IP and RP back. Who the fuck wants a cosmetic chest per 20,000 ip? Runelord volibear exclusive chroma? Seriously?

For each cosmetic chest you have to have played anywhere between 80-200 games, spending around 150 hours, only to lose the compensation of being able to play a champion in exchange for a chest that WON'T EVEN GIVE A SKIN OR CHAMPION? Nobody wants the cosmetic shards for fuck's sake.

Runelord voli is cool, but not exclusive. A freaking chroma is all we get for having invested the IP from 1500 hours of playing into runes?

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

Unfortunately that probably can't happen because they'd have to go through...I have no idea. Let's pretend League has 100 million accounts ranging from legit players to smurfs to bots. To go through every single account and reward them would be a nightmare, not to mention an insane increase in IP/RP that would go against common business sense.

Best thing they can do is offer some compensation that makes people feel valued.

Pierce The Veal1 votes

{quoted}

Unfortunately that probably can't happen because they'd have to go through...I have no idea. Let's pretend League has 100 million accounts ranging from legit players to smurfs to bots. To go through every single account and reward them would be a nightmare, not to mention an insane increase in IP/RP that would go against common business sense.

Best thing they can do is offer some compensation that makes people feel valued.

... Even an entry level CIS graduate can do that no problemo. It's really not that hard at all. It's not impractical in that sense at all. I assure you they already have a database with all the information necessary to refund. In fact, it would actually be entirely possible to get it done within a day or two maximum, though they might spend a month preparing for it. Really nothing they couldn't handle, but they simply don't value customer loyalty all that much.

But yes, releasing all that ip and rp back would cause a drop in sales for a short while, which they would outright not tolerate.

I assure you, however, that the awards they're planning don't make people feel valued.

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

I'm no comp-sci person so I wouldn't know.

Also: I missed it in your last post but Runelord Voli actually is exclusive. The one in the game right now is "Runeguard Volibear", which would mean this would be a different skin with a chroma...or maybe they misworded. Not sure. Either way, I think having an exclusive skin/chroma attained ONLY through buying a ton of runes would be decent enough.

Pierce The Veal1 votes

{quoted}

I'm no comp-sci person so I wouldn't know.

Also: I missed it in your last post but Runelord Voli actually is exclusive. The one in the game right now is "Runeguard Volibear", which would mean this would be a different skin with a chroma...or maybe they misworded. Not sure. Either way, I think having an exclusive skin/chroma attained ONLY through buying a ton of runes would be decent enough.

Getting just a few slight cosmetic changes in exchange for 1500 hours of one's life is a good deal? I play this game for fun, but guess what, if I had spent that much time working I'd have a lot more than a handful of cosmetic changes. Even minimum wage workers would. It's clear here that loyalty to Rito and the game are not rewarded, but rather punished.

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

I won't say that the rewards couldn't be better, but think of it this way:

You buy a WoW subscription for, say, 10 years. (That's about $1800 if you use the minimum 15 per month). Blizzard eventually sends you a thank-you statue. Is that statue worth 1800? Of course not. It's worth even less when you consider how much time you probably put into WoW.

Companies want to reward you but don't want to spend much. Despite what you feel, you -are- rewarded for spending so much time and in-game currency on the game. The thing is you don't feel the reward is enough. It's not a Riot games thing: It's a business thing.

Pierce The Veal1 votes

{quoted}

I won't say that the rewards couldn't be better, but think of it this way:

You buy a WoW subscription for, say, 10 years. (That's about $1800 if you use the minimum 15 per month). Blizzard eventually sends you a thank-you statue. Is that statue worth 1800? Of course not. It's worth even less when you consider how much time you probably put into WoW.

Companies want to reward you but don't want to spend much. Despite what you feel, you -are- rewarded for spending so much time and in-game currency on the game. The thing is you don't feel the reward is enough. It's not a Riot games thing: It's a business thing.

Or they could refund 75-100% of the IP and RP and literally not lose any money because everything spent there is already in their pocket. As for continued profits? Refunding runes will cause a hiccup, sure, but the continued profits due to a simpler and less predatory rune system and a loyal older playerbase will far outweigh the losses due to them refunding some ip and even some rp.

I have studied enough business to know that in this day and age, that is not a very viable or sustainable business practice in that it sacrifices the long term in exchange for minimal returns in the short term.

Gary B Enkelis6 votes

AD reds, Armor yellows, MR blues, AD quints Mpn reds, AP quints

You have all the standard runes now and only need the two free rune pages.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/store/sales/starter-t3-runes-permanent-discount-2-weeks

What like 7671 IP? Yeah it's a lot. Free would be best. It's better than +100k on runes which is what I did......

Spending 1 IP on a tier 2 rune you only lose like what 20% compared to tier 3 but you're still like 80% better than having nothing? Ok my math is bad but do you see what I mean?

Thaurron6 votes

The most obnoxious part is that you need special runepages for certain champions, and scaling pages are tier 3 only.

You can flub 10% CDR with tier 2 runes but it's suboptimal if you want to get the most out of characters like Riven.

Also WHY DOES A RUNE PAGE COST AS MUCH AS A NEW-ISH CHAMPION. There's nothing fun or interesting about getting a rune page, it just feels like you've been cheated out of getting something fun (i.e. a champion).

Gary B Enkelis1 votes

{quoted}

The most obnoxious part is that you need special runepages for certain champions, and scaling pages are tier 3 only.

You can flub 10% CDR with tier 2 runes but it's suboptimal if you want to get the most out of characters like Riven.

Also WHY DOES A RUNE PAGE COST AS MUCH AS A NEW-ISH CHAMPION. There's nothing fun or interesting about getting a rune page, it just feels like you've been cheated out of getting something fun (i.e. a champion).

I feel somewhat cheated but rune pages work on all champions so it's not that bad if I want to do the bare minimum. I dunno.

And I mean advanced pages with scaling stuff are nice but it's not like a good Riven is going to do significantly worse without optimal runes. I think....

And I mean a GOOD Riven .... I dunno.

GayFluffyUnicorn4 votes

Missing runes are hella noticable. When playing on my smurf i have only AD, MR, Armor runes... When playing Zed u definitely notice the missing armor pen. Usually i start the game with 15 arpen, first back 25. U deal absolutely no dmg and it is very hard to make that work... Atleast in my case.

Zephyrous X2 votes

{quoted}

Missing runes are hella noticable. When playing on my smurf i have only AD, MR, Armor runes... When playing Zed u definitely notice the missing armor pen. Usually i start the game with 15 arpen, first back 25. U deal absolutely no dmg and it is very hard to make that work... Atleast in my case.

Yeah, i always run AD marks for last hitting and it's a huge difference without it

Braum Mechanics4 votes

When I started playing I calculated the total cost of all the runes I wanted. It came down to 80,511 IP. I was going to give up on League but my friend told me there is a rune sale everytime a season starts.

It gave me hope but I hated getting trashed in normals when I was obviously against players who had runes. I was at a disadvantage. So I spent some of my IP getting runes that were most commonly needed of each kind. It helped somewhat but I couldn't wrap my head around the total cost of the runes.

A small decrease in the rune price would be awesome. Or have rune sales should be more regular.

Aatrox Mid 1v54 votes

The rune system is just an old spaghetti feature that rito refuses to remove

Elikain3 votes

And they won't remove it. League has worked all these years with it that it's practically core for the game. They've admitted that the stats they give are already optimized by the players for years and one rune page per class serves the same purpose for every champion - ADC, mages, tanks. So are masteries, summoner spells and items.

You don't really expect of Riot to remove all these things and turn the game into HotS?

Aatrox Mid 1v55 votes

dont mention heroes of the storm please i might throwup

Velzard of Koz3 votes

Don't mean to be dck but after Heroes of the Storm release, they already have Mastery system like HotS (except for not as much rewarding) and Recolor system like HotS (except for not free). HotS just made it better in these two aspects. You level up character and feel like you're getting something more than image, and ultimate reward is you have free recolors you don't have to spend real or virtual money for since it's really just small cosmetic change.

The only two things to note are that heores in HotS are hella more expensive and that Riot tries to make the new Chromas more than just new color for your scarf as they are testing right now.

CEO of Aspergers4 votes

[deleted]

Princess Íncest5 votes

{quoted}

Yeah honestly to hell with runes. I'll tell you from personal experience: the main reason my friends quit the game is because they get to level 20 and don't want to spend all their IP on runes for the next year instead of getting champions. It's ridiculous.

That is the most pathetic excuse to leave tbh

TROiiDA4 votes

brb gonna get those CDR runes...aaaaaand 16k ip straight down the drain

Verdade1 votes

You and people upvoting you like strawmans. Why would you want to spend 16k runes on 10% CDR when you can get scaling 30% CDR (you get your 10% at level 6 and MUCH more afterwards) for half the price? It's not like you desperately need that 10% CDR that early in the game...

TROiiDA2 votes

Are you new or have you just never heard of a champ like Fiora?

Ace Access 4 votes

I think the 2000 IP runes should have their prices cut in half

GarthBrooksIV4 votes

The point of Runes costing money is so that you will be incentivized, but not forced, into buying Rp to buy your champs. The reality is Riot needs to make money. They've created a competitive game millions love and they want to be paid for it.

ADC Uber3 votes

I Agree with you 100%, The grind for T3 Runes is worse then grinding to high elo just about lolKarma

Serika Zero3 votes

Me and every other player in the first 5 years payed for those and there was never an issue. Now you got discounted runes and still want more and more and more

The best proof that this game is going casual

Kairya7 votes

Oh no. A casual player! Whatever will we do?

Seriously. League of Legends was/is mostly casual to begin with just like any other game or sport for that matter.

Zephyrous X2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Serika Zero,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PLw1hsky,comment-id=0027,timestamp=2016-08-13T08:33:49.254+0000)

Me and every other player in the first 5 years payed for those and there was never an issue. Now you got discounted runes and still want more and more and more

The best proof that this game is going casual

in the first 5 years there were WAY less champions

Serika Zero1 votes

and they are constantly lowering hero price when a new one gets released

Alex Throwe3 votes

Yep. By about 1500 ip. Not a lot less. And it's once per champ. So for Kled, who will be 6300 ip, they lowered jayce (6300 ip) to 4800. It doesn't help that much.

MToTheAtrix3 votes

I had something like this before. All the Riot defenders get triggered when you ask for any sort of sale or price reduction. 'Its a free to play game so earn it yourself or go get a job' Not thinking half of the players that play this game are under the age of 15. Anyways upvote from me :D

cheesestickDaddy2 votes

Not to mention you don't really have much of a way to purchase runes with rp, so even if you did " have a job" that wouldn't help you any. Also if you do "have a job" you have less time for LoL and thus less ip from games. Did any of that make sense? lol item 3070

Im The Jayce God2 votes

If they were just all half off, then id be fine with the price. But ive thrown thousands and thousands of IP for cooldown reduction for a Nasus rune page. Literally just one champ. And another 30k on all the other champs i have. Pretty lame. I also wish theyd buff some of the runes, for instance, GQo Experience, GQo Energy, etc. They cost a butt load but give you a buff that is hardly noticeable.

Wulfy1 votes

I have literally every IP-purchasable item in the game. Just play the game. It's not hard lol

Teslium15 votes

Not everyone plays league everyday since season 1 you know.

dominusx4 votes

i play since season one i still didnt have everything possible on my lvl 30 accs. you need to litterally play ALL DAY to have everything. and those streamer you see with 100k leftovers play 12 hours a day 5times a week

Piper2 votes

aaaaaaa

MKDkilla2 votes

I can understand rune pricing, but rune pages is what I don't understand. You let us have 20 mastery pages from level 1, why do I need to pay for rune pages? Runes are already expensive as hell, but buying rune pages just crosses the line for me. That's why I only play with an AD and an AP page; buying rune pages is the least satisfying thing ever.

DarkRitual2 votes

Remove the rune tiers completely. At certain level thresholds, the player gets a Hextech crafting item, which can either be crafted into a random rune group (3x of a single one, or 1x Quint), or a random champion permanent. Offer a basic rune bundle for certain roles at a small discount. As an example, basic AD Rune Package would give 3x Attack Damage, 3x Armor, 3x Magic Resist. Keeping it as 3x's allows it to be sold for lower IP amounts than a full 9x set. This lets them still save up for champions at a decent rate.

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