My suggestion for a rune system rework

First let me say congratulations for agreeing that runes needs some work. It was likely a tough decision you had to make because it's one of the things that makes League stand out.

Secondly, I set some goals for myself that I think you can agree are important.

1. Runes can't replace or overlap with the masteries/leveling system, gotta be its own thing.
2. Updating the runes system shouldn't fuck over anyone that bought a ton of runes and rune pages before.
3. New players shouldn't get shafted.
4. Make the system simpler to read and process and easier and faster to learn.

I think I got them all but I want your feedback.

What I suggest is this: Default runes for every champion. Runes that feature that champion as their icon (yay, reusable art), which that champion starts with by default.

Players can play games as that champion to "unlock" those runes so that you can use those runes on other champions. (Play Evelynn with Twitch Marks, Twitch Seals, Evelynn Glyphs, and Hecarim Quintessences, for example - [odds are this would be weird but, you do you])

Players can still use their old runes.

Each Champion's Runes will be a unique blend of stats, ideally very close to currently optimal for that champion (but changeable in the future, in case of emergency). Some of those champions will have unlockable runes that match currently obtainable runes (thus, they would be an alternative way to get those. An example would be Hecarim Quintessences. Hard to visualize a better option than pure movement speed, so, go ahead and do it and give new and old players a new way to unlock those)

For each Champion, you can get a unique blend of flat and scaling stats, and in some cases hybrid stats of AD/AP.

On that champion's runes, you should be able to hover over and see a short description of the breakdown.

Example: Evelynn's "best" runes right now consist of the usual AP build. Flat magic pen marks, armor on seals, AP on glyphs, and AP on quintessences. But let's say that you want to make her runes special. So we say to ourselves, Evelynn is a great early game champion and we want her to be strong at... level 3.

We take Evelynn's AP on her runes and we make it 1/6 scaling, 5/6 flat. That should, in theory, allow her to back after her first clear, grab an item, and hit a power spike at level 3, where she'd be at her most dangerous. Afterwards, she'd fall off, but not as hard as the flat runes do. Her late game will be slightly better than the pure flat runes would have been. The tooltip for those glyphs and quintessences would read "These give ability power for burst damage, tailored to be at their best when you're at level 3."

Now you have the satisfaction of knowing that all players would have a reason to play Evelynn and unlock her runes (wouldn't even require owning her if you can wait for her to be on the free rotation).

You could have six different AP junglers, and each one would spike at a different level, and the choice of runes would make for a very interesting bit of counterplay in champion select. New players would see very early how the different runes could make an impact - and veteran players would be able to formulate more advanced strategies with builds, and those builds would be a lot easier to do on the fly.

As a special added bonus, each brand new player with a brand new account would have access to 30 levels worth of runes (but not masteries) starting from level 1, and those runes wouldn't be "bad." This makes the leveling process far less painful and you really get the feeling like you're not intentionally being hobbled while you're learning the game. (Nobody learns how to swim while wearing cement shoes. Come on, Rito.) Granted, we can't do much to teach new players the benefits of messing around with runes at first, but if you let them start with some good ones relative to the champion, they will look at other runes based on how much they'd get as a tradeoff - which is a nice step up from having to learn from scratch which runes they should have bought instead of the cool new champion everyone was ranting and raving about.

I think deep down inside, you know how true that statement really is.

So let's do some number crunching.

You have AD, AP, and Hybrid. For each of those, you can set up the runes to spike at various points in the game. But for the sake of our sanity, let's just go with every three levels. Plus flat level 1. That's seven different scaling options per stat breakdown.

You can also have some setups for tanky champions. And then you can have some corner case scenarios, like Hecarim, who wants movement speed, or Kalista, who wants attack speed over pure ad. If you really want to go nuts, you can attach some special passive or activated abilities to say, the third quintessence, but that's probably a story for another day. And if you do decide to do that with a new champion as a perk for buying it early, god have mercy on your soul because these forums would tear you a new one.

But honestly, that's pretty much where this design ends and development has to begin. I'm not even going to begin to pretend like I know better than those of you who work with these numbers far more closely.

But I do think this is a big improvement over the options players have right now.

TL:DR -

1. All champions start off with default runes. You can unlock them (to use on other champs) by playing games as the champion (and not being afk or toxic).
2. Each champion's runes should be, at least, a little special and unique. Overlap is allowed though.
3. The runes will give you an idea of what level their power spike occurs, so you can customize your item build and your playstyle around it for that game.