What were Yuumi’s prototype names/appearance/abilities like? Was she always a cat or did the concept start out as something different altogether?
Once we saw the concept art for a cat with a book, everyone was sold, and we changed her playtest name to Catbook. It remained that for a long time until we got the final name in. We still call her Catbook from time to time.
What was the worst thing to code about her? Im assuming having her jump on a champ could create so really weird interactions like Zed going into his ult.
The attach mechanic for sure. There are so many intricacies, timing issues and bugs that were created. /u/RiotLtRandolph is downright a hero for getting it all working.
What where some of the most hilarious bugs/champion models or stories you encountered while making her?
Also how did you choose the name? I like it very much and I think it's very fitting.
In order to make the attachment work, we had to overhaul how other attachments work (including things like Kayn, Lamb and Wolf, and Nunu's snowball). There was one test where Kayn ulted someone under turret, they died, and then he was stuck there. He got blasted by the turret and died, but when he respawned, he was still stuck under that turret, so he just kept respawning and died over and over, unable to move.
At /u/RiotMaxw3ll, is there any reason for yuumi to have extremely low base mr? IMO the untargetability doesn't really warrant that given that she also has one of the the lowest health pools, and if she still needs a buff it could probably be changed to standard ranged champion mr growth.
There were a lot of instances in playtests where she would get out of situations that we really felt like she should have died in. Getting caught warding super far from her allies, for example. But with two E charges plus a large range dash to safety, she wasn't getting punished enough. It's possible we went overboard there, and that we should've hit something else.
The other thing is that a high level optimization for Yuumi is to unattach to take skill shots for your ally, and I didn't want Yuumi to just blank enemy poke, so doing this had a meaningful cost.
When designing enchanters what are the different tools or design niches you consider?
Some people like to simplify the role down to just heals, shields, and stat buffs, so internally what are the different things you are willing to try or boundaries you can push in order to make the role more dynamic and differentiate new champs from other enchanters?
We knew we wanted to do this attach mechanic, so we started looking for things within that wheel house to differentiate Yuumi from other enchanters. The most natural path wasn't what she was providing (heals, shields, ect), but who she could provide it to. Because she follows you anywhere, completely safely, she can hop onto a diver and follow them to the backline and buff them, which is just something Janna and Soraka can't do.
Was Yuumi too strong with allowing her passive to get reduced by landing autoattacks and/or abilities? It feels like something that should happen when playing with her and it was a bit awkward to realize that it does not happen. I feel like it makes the lane phase not too interactive because you don't want to put yourself in the open as often.
We had a few versions that reduced CD's on Yuumi for auto attacking, but I wanted there to be points in time where it wasn't a mistake for Yuumi to just be chilling on her ally. Players want to play the attach support to attach, and if you're constantly being rewarded for auto attacks, then you feel like you're missing out when your attached.
What was the decision-making like around what her Q would do and be like?
I think the attached version is really cool; being able to direct it like that is pretty neat. But... I really wish it had a small AoE on it, even if the AoE was only on her Q when she's not attached to anyone. I've found if you're in a situation where you have to be by yourself, pushing a wave even slightly can be very hard.
We wanted her Q to be something that Yuumi players would have to invest some focus in while attached, since they wouldn't be burdened with move commands. It would be one of our few opportunities to do a high-demand input like that.
There was an AoE on it for awhile, but we cut it for a few reasons. The most major one was because Q is a highly reliable spell, we wanted minions to be more of a point of safety for enemies. Ducking behind minions, but still taking a percentage of the damage, plus spell thief + scorch proc often led to more poke than we were comfortable with. We didn't want the only counterplay to be 'run away the whole screen and wait.'
Are enchanter supports going to receive more attention? I mean, the last enchanter was released in 2013 and the enchanters that received some work between that period were just Janna and Zilean mini-gameplay update and Taric VGU (this one is a mix between an enchanter and a warden). As a enchanter support main, I'd like to see more enchanters.
Why is Yuumi made to be a female support? The only 2 male enchanters were released back in the early league days...
We made Yuumi specifically because we hadn't made an enchanter in awhile. I'm not sure when the next one would come out, but we always try and make sure that we're making champs for all player types; it can just take awhile some times.
What was the main reason for not considering making her a yordle? Was it because she'd be too similar to Lulu?
We wanted to make a non-humanoid, since we haven't made one in awhile and Yordles qualify as humanoid. Specifically we wanted to make a non-humanoid Cute champion since all our current non-humanoids are monstrous
To start, I'd like to thank the champ designers for making the first champ in 5 years that I both want to play and am capable of playing. And that I actually want to continue playing!
Question: It's still early, obvs, but I've had solid success using Coin, rushing Deathcap, stacking AP runes (Eyeball, Focus, Storm), and using Q mostly to zone or check bushes. At 1 item you're basically worth a BF and ~50% MS.
Have you seen any success with these sorts of builds, or is Q deliberately intended to be ranked first and W last?
I'm glad you like her!
Q is definitely supposed to be the first max, and W maxed last. Your W doesn't really scale with levels so much as it scales with items in the game. If you level it up at level 3, for example, you're gaining the extra stats on your support item and your ADC's Doran's blade. Compared to the extra stats you get from Q rank up, it's not even close. I do like the AP build personally, but if you want to be threatening your enemy, I think you need to be putting points into Q.
Were there any other abilities you considered giving Yuumi, that while fitting the character just didn't fit her kit at all? I figured maybe something with portals might have been considered given Book's story.
Also, I love Yuumi a lot. I know she's getting a bit of a bad rep right now, but I do fully believe it is due to the fact that a lot of players suddenly became support mains with the new champion. So because she isn't a killing spree kind of support like Pyke was, people are saying she is weak. As a support main who plays a lot of healing champs like Nami, Soraka, and Taric, I think she is a wonderfully fun champion who can be extremely powerful in the right hands, and the right comp. ♥
We actually tried a spell where she would do a mini-ryze ult to teleport anyone in a circle around her to the targeted position. It was way too much safety granted to her ally, who if ever CC'd would just be whisked away, but it was a cool portal call out.
More of a comment than a question, but I am worried that a lot of new players will main Yuumi to start and climb, then negatively impact games when they cant play her (bans, nerfs, etc.) because her playstyle is inherently different than the rest of the champion pool (for instance, not having to worry about positioning during laning phase or crutching on other people for map movement in the midgame).
We saw something similar with Mercy in Overwatch, where players who climbed with Mercy couldnt do much once she got nerfed because they had not developed "core skills" important to playing Overwatch.
It's still way too early to tell, but from what Ive seen, Yuumi could be starting a similar issue; so I guess my question is whether that is a concern and, if so, are there plans to make her more relatable to other champions while keeping her unique kit?
Thank you.
I think it's too early to tell. The way we've been playing her internally still has you doing normal support things like warding, harassing, buying active items ect, but we're still gathering data on how the community is playing her.
What was the most extreme version of Yuumi's W that you tested?
There was one version where it didn't have a cooldown at any point in the game (kinda like what it is now after level 11). Her laning against melee supports bot was close to unbeatable. There was another version where she was unstoppable while using it so she would just buffer all CC heading towards her team.
What was the most extreme version of Yuumi's W that you tested?
The one we shipped was pretty close. We talked about if she should ever be targetable at all, and what that would mean for a champion. There were versions where she was untargetable during the travel time as well as when attached.
What are some of the scrapped abilities from her kit?
So many.
I tried making her ult something that she would use to attach to enemies, the most hilarious of which was a version where she would push the target across the whole map until they hit a wall, then dash back, regardless of where they were. It often failed to do much since the targeting was hard, but when it worked, it was hilarious watching a cat tackle you across the map then Nope right out.
Her unattached Q went through a lot of iteration, at one point it was a missile that would cook for about a second, then fire off at some of the fastest speed of any missile in the game. We tried a bunch of versions where unattached Q was a separate spell that was about setting up fights and attached Q was about capitalizing on it.
u/endlesspillows had a spell I thought was super cool wh...
Read moreIs this related to the decision to give her a lower base attack range (500)? She would lose in a poke war with other ranged supports from her low stats anyway, and if she can't auto attack while attached, it seems like it was made to deter her from auto attacking in general
The range decrease was because at high levels, Yuumi can just auto attack harass for free, and dodge every counter attack by attaching to her ally. At 550, Yuumi's harass was super oppressive.
How do you feel about the community reaction to her entrance in the game?
We figured she'd be weak on release due to the learning curve, but we underestimated by how much. Hoping that the hotfix pushes her out of meme territory, but we always kind of expected players would need some time to get used to her play style.
Was she ever a yordle in development? Or was she always planned to be something other than a yordle?
She was never a yordle
Do you think yuumi might be able to spawn in a new meta of the support going mid or top?
Probably not, bot control has historically been too important, but I'm not really an expert. I'd be real happy if different champions were enabled to go bot lane because of her, though!
Okay I got a few!
Would Yuumi get along with Skarner?
Why does she refer to Morde as a big metal cat, is it because of his awesome new horns or is there another reason. Other than Morde totally being the kind of villain who'd have a cat to stroke with his clawed gauntlet...Which is probably why he kept Veigar around.
And lastly. When are we getting a Nekonomicon skin for Yuumi?
Nekonomicon was one of my favorite things that I saw posted in r/yuumimains right after her release. I can't believe I never thought of it.
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