[2019] New skin lines ideas

Whoa, I love the ideas you have going on in here!

I'm the Producer on the Thematic Development Team for PIE (Player Immersion and Expression aka "Personalization") on League, where we source new thematic ideas and develop them through narrative and visual exploration. We're always striving to make cool stuff that y'all love, so posts like this get us so excited and inspired! I really like where you're going with all of these, and I can say that there are elements from a few of these that we've taken inspiration from before.

I personally really love the Battle Mage idea. Reminds me of Guild Wars Elementalists, Battle Mages from Age of Sigmar + Elder Scrolls, and Steiner from FF9.

What kind of aspects do y'all see in some of your favorite skin lines? Or aspects that you'd like to see that haven't been represented yet with our current thematics?

Ohhh, I'm ALL about badass warring queens!

That's a really interesting idea to have each skin drop be a unique lore/community pairing. We tried something similar for Heartpiercer Fiora and Heartbreaker Vi.

Hahaha I've heard of Reverse Nami, Soraka, and Teemo, but not Yuumi. That's just too funny think about getting First Blooded by a cat-riding book that says intimidating literary stuff like "Your chapter's coming to a close."

With these Reverse skins, the main challenge for me is executing on the idea in a way that's satisfyingly ridiculous, while still maintaining primary gameplay reads in terms of character model/silhouette (e.g. TF's hat) and animation (e.g. Nami's tail movement).

Ahh, that's interesting. I didn't expect the runic shapes to be such a draw. What do you like about runes? I'm also curious if you like other skins that use runes like Karthus Lightsbane.

I really like the idea of extending core facets of thematics further like Dark Star extending towards other stellar objects or Warring Kingdoms using different gemstone weapons. Doing this well without losing the core identity of a thematic is something that we'd like to explore more.

I'd love horror skins too! What we've found is that there is a relatively narrow preference for "Scary" thematic moods globally (most players would want a "Magical" or "Dark/Edgy" thematic over a "Scary" one for example). North America and Brazil are two regions that seem to prefer Scary thematic moods more than average though. Another interesting note here is that "Grotesque" character styles are strongly not preferred globally, which is something that we have to keep in mind because Grotesque and Scary typically go together. This is not to say that we won't ever do horror skins, but we would like to spend more time figuring out what's best way to execute a horror thematic so that players will most likely love it globally.

Noted on the surfer Taliyah skin. Just makes sense with her Passive! :]

I've also been thinking about ways to do "Real-World" execution really well. That's interesting that you bring up Safecracker Evelynn because burglary is probably a step more fantastical than the average occupation, so maybe there's something to making real life inspirations a bit more fantastical. "Real-World" thematic settings are also not strongly preferred globally, so we have to take time to figure out the best execution strategy here too.

Thank you so much for the comment, this has been really useful and interesting!

For sure. We're making an effort to do this in the future. :]

Aww this is my favorite Ori skin! I agree that it's definitely a unique blend of creepiness and whimsy, which works so well for a Champ like Orianna. Whether it's through Sewn Chaos or some other thematic, I think there's an opportunity for us to execute on a creepy thematic well. :]

Ahh, I never thought about Zilean working into this! What is it about the fantasy of having a heavy, armored version of him that excites you?

Agreed! :D

Same! I love all things nymph- and faerie-related. They bring such natural magic and whimsy to every fantasy world, so yes pls!

Ohh, super cool. How does an execution like Deathsworn Katarina, Viktor, and Zed feel like to you?

Gotcha, that totally makes sense. There's something fresh and exciting about a mage that's actually decked out in armor and will tank the f*ck outta your team. I believe Celestine Soraka was the closest thing we got to pursuing this type of Battlemage direction in the past.

Something that we do have to consider in these cases is the gameplay implication of bulk and heaviness as being tanky. We ran into this a lot with Gun Goddess Miss Fortune because the bulk of her exo-suit was giving her a much tankier feeling, which goes against the typical read of marksmen, so we had to make adjustments to show bulkiness in very specific areas.

I think there's a way that we can execute on something like this well by finding the right balance of armor, weight, and bulk in our visual explorations. Your idea for still keeping the robes but making them feel plated and heavy (like heavier than Classic Lux's armor) sounds like a cool direction to explore. I'm SO down for floating artillery.

And noted on the Swain suggestion too. :] Thank you!

Roller Derby Nova

was my favorite skin in Heroes of the Storm, and I love Whip It

. I'm so here for this. Who do you think would work well in this? I absolutely want Vi in this with thrusters on her that propel her skates as she Q's forward or charges at you when she targets you with R.

Wow, that's a fascinating visual style! I think that's a unique direction that we haven't really explored in LoL so far. I love your thematic wrapper of Nightmares and Dreams as a way to execute this direction. I'll bring this up with the team, thank you. :]

Oh wow, this is incredible. You've put so much thought into this! I'm such a lore nerd, so this gets me super excited. I really enjoy the relationships that you've built here between SyndraxZed and YasuoxRiven because they're complex partnerships that keep you wondering: "How long is this partnership going to last? Is this a true partnership? What will happen if X occurs?"

In your eyes, what's this primary conflict of this universe? Different monarchies fighting for power in a Game of Thrones-esque type of setting?

Ahh, I can absolutely see that with the visuals that /u/for_gentlemen_only laid out.

Ahh ok, so straight up Shadow Isles, with the teal flame aesthetic that you see on Kalista and Hecarim. Also, we do have Gravelord Azir!

Thanks! Yeah, one of the things that we have to be careful of with skins is to remember that we're not only designing a skin for the player using the skin. We're designing a skin for the 9 other players in their game too, so things like readability are extremely important.

And totally agree on Swain! If there's any tanky mage to apply this thematic to, it's definitely him.

For sure, I get that. Putting our words into action is what matters. The reason you've seen new skins for Shaco, Ivern, Udyr, Galio, Anivia, and Nunu recently is because of these efforts, and we're planning on doing more in the future. /u/Bellissimoh gave some extra context on this here. Hopefully we can regain your trust by putting out skins for our less common champs that you and other really love.

As for this Elements Master Yorick, I think this is f*ckin awesome. That's such a unique idea to take the darker, shadowy side of elements for a more sinister Elementalist direction! His minion master design lends itself really well to this type of fantasy, and I want all these Maiden concepts.

I will say that Legendary and Ultimate skins are a significant investment from many teams, even beyond PIE, so we have to be more selective when choosing champions to ensure that the investment is worth the amount of players that will get to enjoy the skin. That means lower play rate champs like Yorick may be less common at these tiers, but that certainly doesn't mean that they won't ever happen. And you can definitely bet that a badass Ultimate like this would get new VO if it gets made. :P

Also, I'm sorry if it's been said that there aren't any awesome skin ideas out there for Yorick. Heck, I think Arclight Yorick was a pretty cool example of taking something players have brought up before and putting our own twist on it. There are incredible, creative skin ideas for every champion--some that we already know of and some that we have yet to stumble upon--and it's our job to discover them and execute on them in a way that makes players happy to spend their time and/or money on.

Oh....my....goddess, this is such a cool idea. I really like that. Syndra makes a lot of sense as the monarch that thinks she can better the world under her singular rule and stomping out other people in power that argue against that. I can definitely see Zed as her champion that would do what it takes to solidify her position, considering that he's rebelled against authority that he disagreed with in the past.

Just picturing these badass queens going into battle in order to do what they think is best gives much such excitement. It almost feels reminiscent of the Battle of Freljord between Ashe, Liss, and Sejuani but expanded out to a much larger scale + adding in champion partnerships.

Questions that stand out to me now are:
- What is the power source of this universe and how does it differentiate from our classic LoL universe?

- How would we create a visual identity for this universe that makes players immediately go "that's the Warring Queens thematic"?

Haha sweet! Glad our spooky king Azir works then! :)