How so?
You either had the runes to make the item you wanted, or you didn’t.
If you mean “you equipped something else until you could create the runeword you wanted” then yeah, exactly the same as uniques in as far as “progress towards.”
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That rune system had a unique feel to it. You had to get a solid base item, then you had to get the runes. Then you often had a huge power spike. There was some randomness in rolls, so there was a thrill of getting a great roll.
You collected runes. You could make incremental progress toward them by trading for each. Say you find a Jalal’s mane, but you don’t need one, you have your eyes set on getting a hoto. You trade the Jalal’s for a Pul rune. You now have a form of currency you can use in combination with other drops (pgems, skill gcs, other uniques) to trade up in rune value, or you can cube them to get 1 of the next highest rune.
It was a currency system, it was incremental character progression, it was a deeper itemization system that turned white and gray socketed/ethereal items into something with actual value.
So… tempering then?
20chars
They could just implement runes to create the legendary glyphs or to improve the mercenaries/followers. Could also be used to roll a aspect or alter your skills like in d3.
For example if i want lightning hydra i would need to make a runeword to put on the hydra skill (note on the skill not on a item). Could also have rolls like light hydra attacks have 5-15% chance to spawn a crackling and 5-10% to stun. Meaning u would need to redo the runeword until u get perfect.
Such system would however lead to runes becoming a currency.
Runewords is basically tempering without the bricks. Game still needs more content to do not more items to 1 shot monsters with. Use some creativity here.
They just need to be careful with them.
I’d rather they implemented runewords into the paragon tree over anything.
i dont want another temper roll to max on an item.
Could be simple as adding a few nodes that are runeword slots, allowing you to buff that set paragon board.
Depends on which rune system you are talking about 
. D3 does have runes… Its just for skills 
Please no to runewords, and sets.
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It’s only currency if you trade - a lot of player’s don’t.
I guess it’s progression in the sense though that you are building up to something instead of it being 100% random.
The “rune system” as part of the overall itemization of D2, was elegant and made sense - the key is that overall itemization was elegant and made sense. It even made a loot filter unnecessary because you basically knew what was on the ground without having to inspect it, 95% of the time. The “Diablo gameplay loop” hinged & thrived upon the elegance & simplicity of itemization.
Those arguing that it was both loved & hated, or that it meant power creep, have no argument. They haven’t thought it through, or are pretending. The power creep isn’t because of runes or runewords: but the values of their stats. That’s like arguing that the aspect system = powercreep because certain half-baked aspect implementations happen to be OP. It’s a pretty simple concept, someone should diagram it for the kneejerk crowd. You can still have a runeword system but not make runewords ridiculously OP. Shocking, I know. (Build-defining or “essential” =/= OP, in case it needs to be said.) Don’t like Enigma? Then you don’t like Enigma… see how that works?
The aspect system is pure bloat - and ofc its implementation is powercreep incarnate. This is a game that still hasn’t begun to address the mind-stumping problem of “barb haf for weepon”. So let’s flap those capes a bit more selectively.
D3/D4 crucial detour IMO was always itemization: they “streamlined” it, they dumped attribute allocation (to make the game more accessible?), and it created a host of problems they’ve been dealing with ever since, not the least of them powercreep. They probably thought they were simplifying this job for their designers, but they were really just locking players into a loop of staring at tons of trash items that blur together. D3 scaled this bloat back slightly by eventually introducing promoting sets, D4 will probably do the same eventually. I don’t see how they do it without trimming the stats/aspects/tempering execution first.
The jump in power by 1.09/1.10, with the most egregious runeword powercreep, was something on the order of 10k->20k Attack Damage, when you factor in mercenaries. The kind of mad fluctuation in power in D4 (nvm D3) due to ill-conceived aspect/tempering/stat implementation makes D2 look downright grandmotherly. It’s an absurd comparison/complaint.
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