I understand why they'd remove my favorite and most customizable part of the game to improve game health (Which I still think is silly) but don't phrase it in a way where you're just "Altering" runes. You essentially just swapped the word Mastery with the word Rune, and basically gave everyone 3 keystones worth of power.
I think we deserve not to be told we're drinking wine when you're serving water.
The analogy isn't really accurate. They wanted to try and further abstract out-of-game power. To do so, they have to solidify the level which existed underneath that abstraction, which was the old rune and mastery system (bar keystones). By that i mean by abstraction is, put less power with the actual numerical values and more into the mechanics involved in utilizing the numbers that do exist.
It's more like they're trying to build a pyramid out of concrete, and before they can start building the next level, they must first let the previous level solidify (E.g. take it out of the players control). Yet they want to make these mechanics very impactful, even more impactful than the old system, which they just set in stone...
Here's a visual example of the pyramid riot is attempting to build. (Width = Power, Height = Abstraction)
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/inverted-pyramid-segments-shows-hierarchy-24615808.jpg
Watching this beauty of stupidity collapse is gonna be quite the spectacle
Teeeeeeechnically they didn't lie.
The masteries and runes systems did get combined, we now have a system that works sort of like the old master system with the added limitation of rune pages from the old rune system. So it is technically a combination of both systems. A combination that sucks for everyone.
Riot could have been way more honest and clear about it by simply saying they would remove the rune system completely, revamp the masteries system and paste onto it the limitation of rune pages.
Um, no... That's like being told your drinking cold water when your being served warm water. I completely agree with you, you just need a less drastic analogy.
It should be "Masteries Reforged" IMO, because you're right. Runes have been removed. Runes have a cooler name though, that fit with the game's theme better.
It is a "reforged" system because it mixed the 2 together. Your old runes are in the Set Bonus effects along with a few of the other runes for stats. The Masteries is the special effects you get from the stuff you select.
