To whoever is in charge of balancing the numbers:
Try to imagine the following scenario. Your kid asks you when they’ll be able to afford their own place. You think for a second and then choose between one of two answers:
A) Kid, if you keep working hard you WILL be able to afford your own place after N years of steady pay. You’ll get there eventually, kiddo. pat on the head
B) Kid, if you keep working hard you MIGHT be able to afford your own place. Sometimes you’ll get paid. Sometimes you won’t. Sometimes you’ll get paid triple, sometimes you won’t get paid for years on end. Good luck, kiddo. shrugs
Which one of these answers is more likely to encourage your kid to WANT to work for their future? Which one is more likely to make them want to throw in the towel and quit at the tender age of 7?
The point is: By making a resource as incredibly rare as runes, you are hoping to retain absolute control over progression while the very few that get EXCEPTIONALLY lucky serve as an example for everyone else to keep working the hamster wheel.
And those who get frustrated by the hamster wheel because there is NO measurable, appreciable progress in months or even years? Well, they can pay to get off the wheel (for a little while anyway)! Or quit. Or better yet, do both - stop clogging our servers, but make sure to renew your monthly subscription.
You are not controlling progression better by making things rarer, you are not adding to the game’s excitement by being as opaque as you are, you are pointlessly trying to increase FOMO and frustration levels for 98% of players by being unpredictable with resources.
You could’ve just made runes more common and increased prices accordingly. Not that I agree with your decade long schedule (lol)…
But that at least would’ve created a sense of progression - small goals to work towards. Things to keep people playing REGULARLY, instead of throwing their hands in the air after 2000 battles without a single Cursed Gnome and uninstall the game in frustration.
TLDR: No sense of progression because resource laughably rare = bad. Increase resource availability, create a sense of progression, increase prices accordingly if you must → people have a reason to play the game instead of quitting in frustration.