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Did Riot's rework of the Runes succeed like how they wanted them to?

UniSect·3/14/2018, 1:24:08 AM·5 votes·566 views

Riot's before season 8 came, said they were remaking runes so people can be more creative in the field. Words said as The new rune system will bring over the keystone system and there’s about to be some really neat skill and passive additions to help cater to your specific type of gameplay. However, it feels like nothing really changed but just the runes itself and not how to players use them. Remember the "Paths to Victory" videos they made? I swear, I dont see anyone rune those, or anything similar, to those builds on those champions. Maybe some times at the beginning of season 8 but later on... not anymore. World Tour Twisted Fate turned to Arcane comet/Unsealed Spellbook Twisted Fate. Fastest Nasus turned to Grasp/Kleptomancy Nasus (Honestly Klepto is still funny but working).

I felt like the goals for Riot hit the achievement of new, game affecting runes but not creative runes for specific situations. Like maybe sometimes the primary rune but nothing really silly. Just wanted to point out.

5 Comments

Huang Shaotian3/14/2018, 1:35:59 AM5 votes

They do succeed in a lot of ways. The new system is faster and a lot less complex. It's cheaper/free and more accessible to new players. It's more visual and players can better understand it and get feedback about how each of their choices are impacting the game. The choices themselves actually have more of an "impact" in terms of the power they provide in game.

However it also fails in a lot of aspects. There's absolutely no doubt there is a lot less creativity and different weird and unique builds you can do with the new runes. That's an incontestable fact. And while even though each rune has a significant impact on your in game power, the fact that there is a very clearly defined must pick rune for most champions and each option you do get to pick limits the rest of the options you can choose it can leave you feel like there is actual little real flexibility or choice involved.

Busty Demoness3/14/2018, 3:07:31 AM3 votes

Where they succeeded:

  • Making runes free to all players
  • Enabling players to edit rune pages in champion select

Where they failed:

  • Making it clear that Runes/Masteries were not actually being merged. It was Masteries being renamed to Runes and bringing over the Rune Page system for having access to more than 2 custom pages.
  • Customization is gone. Previous runes, while only plain stats, still offered a means for players to properly augment their play styles and offer choice in how they did so. Now it's a case of Mastery Pages with combat effects and no raw stats. And there ends up so little choice because there are many cases where it's a clear cut case of what rune to take.
  • Forcing stats on champions based on runes that were commonly taken. Not only does this further destroy the customization ability, it also lowers the skill ceilings of all champions because you are no longer required to understand how certain stats applied better (or worse).
gileskd3/14/2018, 4:48:54 AM1 votes

I think it is a visibility creep issue,

in earlier seasons you could sneak dragon (and baron I think) with no global sounds indicating it was taken. blue and red buffs didn't let you know the respawn or generic respawn time if you didn't have vision of them. they mastery keystone was visible, but you weren't necessarily sure where the other 29 points were allocated. and then runes, I could take full scaling armor rune page against a zed mid lane, build normal AP on Galio or someone and they would never know unless they checked my stats. full cdr and get my nasus q stacks stacking faster. etc etc.

By the first minute of the game, you should know what your opponents are attempting to do. O, Vladimir went into the sorcery tree, I wonder what rune he took? gathering storm maybe? O, Alistar went into the inspiration tree and took spellbook , he didn't take aftershock so I'm gonna poke him down in lane. etc etc.

for me I think it failed, there's no crit chance option, no energy regen, and you have to take a mixture of things. I want tons of armor, only 2 runes give me that in the resolve tree, 1 of which I need hard cc to get it, and if I do, I only get it for a couple of seconds. health is easy, wait nope they just removed celestial body and nerf the hp if you went anything besides resolve and inspiration. adding new runes, removing old ones, taking the time to try and balance them, this is gonna take a while.

Sky of Smiles3/14/2018, 6:19:31 AM1 votes

AurelionSol item 3030 item 3151 item 3116 item 3135 item 3027 + glacial