League Of Legends Devs Discuss Potential Changes To Runes

The pre-game process of League of Legends has certainly been talked about quite a bit recently, especially with the new 10-ban format that's set to be implemented in Patch 7.11. While the banning system has been receiving the majority of the attention lately, the Riot Games team is also looking closely at other parts of the pre-game build-up, one of the most important parts being the current state of runes.

A /Dev Blog from Thursday began with the Rioter Fearless hoping to explain the advantages that the pre-game offered amid a "web of choices" that have to be made before players actually get into the game. One of the main factors of the pre-game phase is that it gives players the chance to work with their team to develop strategies while also looking to combat the enemies' strategies by choosing certain champs and electing to take one summoner spell over another.

To avoid the pre-game choices predetermining the outcome of the game, Fearless said that there are certain restrictions put on the pre-game process to limit its influence. Pre-game choices typically are made with consideration to other pre-game choices; the enemy picks this, so you pick that, thus two pre-game choices are made that affect each other. This limiting of the power to the pre-game window makes it possible to make beneficial decisions based on the current game instead of creating formulaic strategies that must always be implemented.

But then there are the Runes, one element of the pre-game process that does call for a second look is the runes system, according to Fearless.

"At the moment, runes aren't delivering on this type of goal," Fearless said. "Runes frequently require some very obtuse mastery, with low visibility impacts, leading them to be unsatisfying for most players. They offer little skill expression. It's hard to outplay 9 armor or 4.5% movespeed, for example, and it's hard to examine what those choices do for you moment-to-moment or across hundreds of games."

Fearless went on to add that while runes aren't always satisfying to use, they represent a large portion of early-game power. Players who check the opposing players' runes while loading into a game or those that attempt to fill the Jungler role during early levels without the proper runes can certainly attest to the influence that the raw stats have on the early game. He also chose not to touch on masteries or summoner spells too much in the post, saying that each of those systems had much clearer impact in-game and gave the chance to make meaningful decisions based on windows of opportunity.

Moving forward, the post closed by saying that the team would be "looking hard at runes and masteries" to decide where they wanted to go with the pre-game decisions next to make sure that each choice feels like an impactful decision. They're looking for player feedback about the current systems to help them decide what changes they should make, and even though creating a new pre-game system will take some time, they're determined to get it right.

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