Runes Pages And Their Issues
I've been playing quite often this preseason, and the one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb the most is the rune pages. There are various issues I will list and try to provide my full reasoning for disliking, please reply and add to the discussion.
1.) Number of Rune Pages - This has to be the biggest issue in my opinion, not because of how bad it is, but simply because of how simple it is to fix yet has not been fixed. The number of rune pages is a large inconvenience for a few reasons. Being unprepared is certainly one of them; it is very difficult to be prepared when you only have 2 pages you can have premade, unless you buy more which I will talk about next. If the two champions you have prepared are banned, you don't get your role, or some other issue. You are stuck trying to make a new page for the champion you wish to play. This would have been no issue before hand, you could have easily made a page as most builds were cookie cutter. However, as you (Riot) have tried to appeal to more diverse builds and setups. Preparing a page in time can be rather difficult, especially if you don't know the champion well. You're stuck switching through multiple pages searching for what might be best for you, or what might not work, whilst reading the large description of most masteries. This is even more of an issue if you play blind, you have far less time, and you might have waited too late to choose your champion and you are out of time. However, all of this could be easily fixed by making "rune pages" into what they were before, mastery pages. Because in no way shape or form do these resemble rune pages. You completely removed runes, that's why you provided every champion with some base buff to compensate for that. However, you still proceed to label them "rune pages" and add a price tag and limit to them when they are resemble mastery pages far more.
2.) Price of Rune Pages - Going off of what was stated before, the price of Rune Pages is a slap to the face to most players. The reason you made this new system in your own words, was to lower the IP players were spending on runes, so that they could instead spend it on champions. However, players still can't really do that. You took masteries and runes and mashed them together making a abomination that still costs money. You kept the limitation to number of rune pages and the price tag, then removed all the runes and replaced them with masteries. That's not okay. You made them more important to players, so that they will more likely spend money on them. Before hand you would finish a AP and AD page and be done with your runes. However, now you constantly have to work with these "runes" (masteries), but with a limited number. Encouraging players to either spend money, or to spend in game BE so they can actually have enough pages to be comfortable in case they have didn't get their champion, because in that case they have more backup pages. In that case, you've really not removed the hindrance that runes caused for players, you just changed it's form and how obvious it is. It's very much a dick move and a cash grab in my opinion. Just make them free and give us at least 20-30 pages.
3.) Power of Runes - Moving away from the actual pages themselves, the "runes" (masteries) are ruining the balancing of the game in my opinion. The game has moved from a tank meta revolving around strategy and teamwork to a burst meta revolving around the damage a team can dish out. Games have become quicker as teams can snowball monstrously off very few kills, essentially ending the game at the point. Once a certain lane gets out of control, unless the team works together to shut them down, nothing can be done. Teamfights become one sided slug fests as the winning team completely obliterates them. Back in the old day, there was actually strategy, you could win with good plays if the enemy screwed up somehow. I'm not going to tell you how to balance, I understand how tedious and delicate balancing is, essentially causing a domino effect for everything if a mistake is made when touching up stats. I do like what you did the most recent patch, it's a step in the right direction with a few nerfs and buffing up the tower (though I do think a damage buff against champions would help a lot). All in all, please just bring back the teamfight and strategy Rift that used to be.
I added a poll below, but it might oversimplify how many of you view this topic, so please feel free to reply.
