Those rune changes leave a sour taste in my mouth.

ploki122·Mar 21, 2014·3 votes·550 views

So there was a recent post about the upcoming rune changes, and I must say this is the single change that disappointed me the most in all the history of LoL. I mained Karma before her rework, I played a lot of support before the complete rehaul of supports, I loved to pickup Leviathan and HoG both, but they're gone... But th ebiggest difference is that all those things were done for a specific purpose.

I'm sorry Riot, but those rune changes seriously look half-assed. I see no reason that a full rune page of HP/level costs 34.6k IP If you play 1 game per day and win it, (plus a few losses in between so I can round down), it'll take 4 months to complete that rune page. I also see no reason that some scaling runes break even before level 5 while some others are still worst at level 11. Also, I still don't understand why scaling AP quints are worth 41% more than their primary lower counterpart, while the same comparison for scaling AD gives 91% higher efficiency. I see no reason that the specializaton red = offense, yellow = defense and blue = utility doens't exist yet (actually, I kinda see one here, but I believe they have the manpower to accomplish it). I see no reason that some entirely useless/unpicked runes are still for sales (highlight level 2 runes here).

There are many many many problems that have existed with runes forever, and I feel like this update doesn't even cover half of the tip of the iceberg.

I actually wrote a more detailed reddit post for those interested.

11 Comments

MackleDogeMar 21, 20141 votes

I get what you're saying, but let's keep in mind that these aren't all that they are going to end up changing. The way I see these changes, is that first and foremost, it hurts ADCs early since the armor is worth less as is the LS quints. But after that I feel like this might encourage a bit of health rune inclusion for seals on some supports, mainly Thresh and Leona with maybe some Sona/Zyra mixed seal usage to help negate their inherent squishiness? And then a potential to see some mid's or heavy casting champions using a mixture of MR with CDR for their glyphs. Obviously, that's just a small potential that it's my opinion might happen. So I can definitely understand your perspective on these changes.

ploki122Mar 22, 20143 votes

Don't get me wrong though, I do like the direction they're taking... I simply think that they could've probably spent their time better...

MackleDogeMar 22, 20141 votes

Yea, it could just be that they don't want to change to much at once, since drastic sweeping changes have a huge risk involved. Or maybe they want to test the waters with the community?

huntsodaMar 22, 20141 votes

Runes are probably in need of a drastic change at the moment. Like the OP said, runes are expensive and these are pretty half-assed attempts. I think nerfing popular runes does not change the fact that it's an unfun system with less than satisfying consequences for participating in it. (I know, you need runes. But i don't really see why as 90% of the player base will end up with identical runes for champs.)

MackleDogeMar 22, 20141 votes

I never said they didn't need to be changed. But when you look at how the majority of the community reacts when large changes are announced (Lee Sin changes anybody?) they have reason to take things slow and test them out. How can you possibly suggest that potentially breaking things by just throwing everything out there is better than taking the appropriate amount of time to test and balance things as changes role out?

ploki122Mar 22, 20142 votes

But it's already too late to make these changes, we'r enearing the second split of the LCS... Whatever isn't included now won't be included in the 2014 Season...

huntsodaMar 22, 20141 votes

I agree and that makes me pretty unhappy. I love eSports but I wish they didn't dictate balance so heavily. I still think a much lower bar to entry would make runes more fun as a system though. (going from 0 of a stat to like 12 or whatever instead of just 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 each week.) The overhaul I'm describing would have needed to happen by now, or happen in next preseason.

MackleDogeMar 22, 20141 votes

Well, it's not like this is the last season ever... Things take time regardless of whether done in a huge change or done a piece at a time. Riot wouldn't have pushed stuff to live just to make it into this season of LCS if it wasn't ready anyways yea?

huntsodaMar 22, 20141 votes

I'm not saying breaking things is good, I'm simply saying PBE probably needs to get really broken for a few weeks while they focus exclusively on fixing runes. And then have a few patches in which runes are the focus, and balancing around what a dramatic shift in strategy would cause. It'll be ugly and hard and long, but fixing runes is probably worth it. Or at least make them cheaper so that while they do their gradual settling of rune's power level normal humans can afford to keep up.

I think the community's tendency to over react can't necessarily be ignored here, but it would only last a month or two after the dust settled to return to normalcy. I think that compromise is a bad option here because Riot will always stop short of their ambitions for the rune changes.

MackleDogeMar 22, 20141 votes

Hmm, that is a good point, and definitely something to think about. I'm not opposed to sweeping changes as long as they communicate with the community. Not necessarily change things off of that or back out of it, but it won't hurt them to gather the feedback (the intelligent feedback at least).