Rune Refunds and Veteran Rewards
With one of the main arguments being the amount that's being refunded to people, why not run two methods to calculate the refund amount? You could calculate amounts generated by two different methods, and then take the higher of the two outputs as the refund amount. Of course this would vary on a per player basis, but it isn't hard to implement.
Method 1 would be the use of the offered fixed rate of 100 BE per regular T3 rune and 300 per T3 quint. This would be favorable to people who have spent a larger portion on cheaper runes as opposed to more expensive runes, while not at the expense of people who have purchased many expensive runes.
Method 2 could be a percentage of the total amount of IP spent on runes, and this percentage could be debatable. Lets just use a theoretical example of say 30% of the total amount of IP you spent on runes to be refunded as BE. This would be more beneficial to people who had purchased many expensive runes, while not taking away from those who had purchased mostly cheaper runes.
This combination would require you to calculate the flat rate that you would receive from the base number of runes, then calculate the total amount of IP spent on runes in total and obtain the percent of that which you believe is fair and not excessive, then compare the results of both methods, and choosing the one that has a higher result. This will make people feel like they're being treated more fairly, because you're giving them the best of two possible outcomes, neither of which are remotely close from a full refund which has been stated to be out of consideration.
> [{quoted}](name=Riot Cactopus,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=o1hsbxt5,comment-id=001b,timestamp=2017-09-05T16:00:16.260+0000) > > That's why we're rolling out the rune rewards, and emotes for players based on how many hours they've played. I think we're open to the idea of doing a little more for veterans, but it'll have to be something like giving you something cool that lets you show off how long you've been in the game—giving away tons more BE just isn't that feasible.
Something cool that people show off are skins. However, it would be hard to give skins to people in relation to something being given as a compensation in regards to people feeling like they were cheated out of their value in runes. While this isn't a direct solution to that, one solution could be targeted to veteran players in general. You could create "anniversary skins" starting from the day League was launched. One skin for every year. Yes, you'll then have to create upwards to 8 skins that you'd be giving out for free, but it would show that you care about your older members quite a bit. After that, you'd only need to create 1 more skin each following year, which should be easily manageable. Every year, upon reaching another anniversary for League, a new skin could be released. They would be unlocked based on how old your account is. You would unlock skins based on the creation date of your account. If your account is 3 years and 8 months old, you would unlock the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year anniversary skins, and in 4 months, you will unlock the 4th year anniversary skin. Thus, all veteran skins would obtainable by everyone, not being exclusive or making it impossible for other people to get like old collector skins. It just depends on how old your account is to determine how long you'll have to wait to get the newest skins. This is a great way to showcase how long you've been playing the game. Of course, your oldest members would be the ones who get to enjoy the higher year anniversary skins first, and thus being able to truly showcase how long they've been in the game, leading people to always admire the rarity of the current year's anniversary skin.
TL;DR Calculate refund based on fixed price (Method 1). Calculate refund based on percentage (Method 2). If Method 1 > Method 2, Refund = Method 1, else, Refund = Method 2. It appeals to people who spent different amounts on different runes. Free skin every year since you've joined, relative to account age, obtainable by everyone.
