I have a friend who is just barely getting started, and we like to play together sometimes, but when he plays with me he not only faces those of higher skill, but those who have runes. This got me thinking, buying runes is pretty much worthless until you get to level 30, so what I was thinking is how about we have the runes build up into the better runes, like tier 1 runes building into tier 2, etc. Just a thought.
The subject of runes gets brought up every so often. One solution is, as you mentioned, allowing players to upgrade from Tier 1 -> Tier 2 -> Tier 3 runes at an adjusted cost.
Another suggestion - the method I prefer - is to make Tier 1 runes free and remove Tier 2 runes. This allows new players to experiment with runes as they level up to 30. It doesn't exactly address the issue of rune power disparity between new Level 30 players and veteran Level 30 players, but it's highly unlikely that Riot will ever remove IP costs from runes entirely.
