User blog comment:Lykrast/Runes: why I hate them/@comment-7765731-20140328003440

Runes certainly need an overhaul, I won't deny that. Top tier players basically stick to the same few rune choices between all their runepages, the ones that tend to differ the most between them being the quints. AD/ArPen/MPen Marks, Armor seals - in certain AP mid matchups, people go without them, but it's rare, MR/AP/CDR/MPen Glyphs. A lot of these are a stretch, and while there are some variety used for glyphs, MR is far more commonly used than anything else. I'm guessing that's largely what they'll try to change with the coming patch. On top of that they are - as has been mentioned multiple times - really expensive.

Because of this, most players are extremely limited in their diversity that runes are supposedly meant to offer for a long, long time. The most effective choice tends to be getting 9xflat Armor seals, 9x flat MR glyphs and 9x flat AD Marks. Shortly thereafter people would likely want to get 9x MPen marks for their magic damage champions. Why? Simply because these rune choices are the most universally efficient ones across all champions compared to the other choices. While there are better choices (apart from personal taste) for certain champions or matchups, these will get you playing on an (almost) even fields the fastest in the most scenarios. For quints, it's another story.. You could get something fit for your main role or something universal like MS quints, but until you're well stocked getting new quints will likely be your choices for any new runes. Just getting these "basics" will take a fairly huge amount of IP. For any new player, I'd advice first getting a basic set of Tier 1 runes - because their cost efficiency - to keep them somewhat up to speed until they've filled out their pages (or even hit 20).

And that's the thing - players will be spending most of their IP for quite some time after hitting 20 on Runes to even fight somewhat evenly with other players (most notably in the earlygame as earlygame runes dominant atm). After that, they're likely going to want a few champions if they didn't already take from the rune "fund" to get a few along the way and unless those are some of the older ones, chances are that'll cost 6300 IP a pop. Anyone fine with playing with the free rotation will have an easier time at this stage. Essentially this is where you can actually somewhat begin purchasing runes for what they are supposedly meant to offer - diversity. Problem is, even now you'll likely just be filling out a lot of the other common rune choices. It will take a lot of time. Once you actually have you'll indeed have a little bit of diversity, though you still don't have the option to go for more lulz/niche rune builds (full AD page, full crit page or just the less common runetypes). Chances are that even if you would want to try something less than optimal, you'll likely refrain from doing so for a long time simply because you feel you'd rather spend that IP getting up to speed on the viable/fun champions you want.

Summary

The diversity that runes are supposed to offer is practically limited to the veterans of the game. I'd go on a stretch and say you're more likely to want to try out lulzy stuff while you're still relatively new to the game, but that simply isn't a viable option for most people.

Bottom line

I have not expressed that I am actually against the runes themselves.. because I'm not. Runes offer diversity and fun choices - provided you have access to them. So in the end my opinion is that the problem lies not the existance of runes, it lies in the cost of the only really viable choice of runes (Tier 3).

When the game was new, the cost of Tier 3 runes weren't that bad. There were only 40 champions and a relatively small amount cost 6300. You needed less IP for champions, since they were both fewer and on average a lot cheaper compared to today. Looking at the game today, I wouldn't want to be a new player for a number of reasons (such as the huge amount of smurfs) but the rune/champion costs are definitely among the biggest. The runes need a huge price drop, or the older champions need to drop in price a lot faster.

Since someone is bound to ask at some point - I have played since 2009 and I have all the champions in the game, 20 runepages and enough different rune choice to feel I still don't have enough runepages. I am mentioning this since I'm sure someone would jump on this and say I'm a new player raging at the system. I am not. I am one of the veterans I mentioned earlier to whom this does not apply, but looking at the facts it is rather obvious that there is a problem and thus I felt I needed to express my opinion.