“Why does League need a pre-game system (ie runes, masteries)?”

Because it creates interesting decisions that are (in an ideal sense) engaging for players.

Adapting to what is going on in the game is a really important skill and we don’t want to diminish that. You make choices about what item to buy, what lane to gank, what objectives to take based on information you’re gathering from the game state and filtered through your experience and intuition and maybe a little bit of luck.

But not every interesting decision needs to be about adaptation or responding in the moment. The pregame system is more about what kind of character you want to make. It’s about experimentation and thought experiments. If you ignore the current implementation of runes and masteries (which we agree aren’t meeting the goal), then you can imagine how it is fun for players to sit around on their drive home or in a boring meeting thinking about a different way to play a particular champion. It’s much harder to have those thought experiments about situations you’ll find in game, because those are so variable. “I wonder what Katarina is like with a cooldown reduction build?” is easier to noodle on than “I wonder what I should do next time I run into a fed Zedd and slightly wounded Ziggs at Baron?”

Think about a racing game (not my cup of tea overall, but it’s a decent example). Whether to try and overtake and opponent is the equivalent of League’s item choices, and in-game strategy and tactics.What kind of wheels you want to put on the car is a different kind of strategy that you ponder before the race even begins.

A secondary benefit of having a pregame system is the combinatoric effects. Ideally, an Elise who makes one set of mastery choices might play a little differently and require opponents (and maybe even allies) to respond slightly differently. That sort of thing (when done well) can add depth to the game even after you’ve played 100 games with an Elise in them.

3/15/2017

