We have done a visual appeal study previously on champions. Just going to note that if you split the data by age bracket and gender, it will have different outcomes. However, because most league players has similar demographics, it does bias the data. :) also there are regional differences too!
My only feedback is that I think I'd prefer slightly fewer pros so we could hear the designers interacting with the pros a bit more. But overall great stuff.
We ended up chatting so much about Aurora! It was a bit unstructured and I took tons and tons of notes. While some feedbacks were conflicting, it was great to get deep into how the Pros think! Scene wise, we were just really interested in getting as much play time as possible that day with the Pros :D
This video is actually really good even if you're not into esports - it gives exactly the kind of first look into these champions that spotlights don't really cover, and it even involves some discussion between the design leads and the pros!
If we're going to have the LCS in LA, I'm glad they're taking proper advantage for once by bringing the Riot creative together with the competitive.
Really, really well done.
A note! I'm not the design lead but I did end up discussing many of the points with our lead designer :)
Nocturn!
Weirder names are not due to no translation, but intentional choice of change. Twitch's "The Plague Rat" can be translated directly, but rat sounds uncool in chinese, so calling it the "source' instead feels better.
There's a naming convention in chinese where using 4 words sound appealing. It's like how most champion's titles are "the [adjective] [noun]" or "the X of the Y". Chinese can translate that while retaining the appeal, but has more difficulty with the ones that has abstract titles like Yasuo/Yone (The Unforgiven/The Unforgotten). They are given completely new titles that describes their overall character (Yasuo = Swift Wind Blade Master, Yone = Spiritual swordsman who seals demons) for the sake of coolness
In Chinese there are many literary choices and figurative language that makes certain words sound better together. These nuances and history are often not picked up by translation tools. Also lots of champ names are romanization of their English names, making them hard to remember. There is more wiggle room with the title to make it more iconic. Sometimes certain champions are known more as their title there than names. Ex: Darius = shorten to Noxus' Hand.
But ya there are bad translations too because each character in Chinese can mean a whole variety of things depending on context.
Are you sure that they're playing the same game as we are? 😋
Probably not! At least it feel different :) How players play: Metas, pace of games, mentality around what is broken vs not can influence how a game feel and plays out and even what is perceived as balanced. Sometimes we even see popular opinions change the state of the game.
thanks lexi for the replies, hope that Ambessa gets a stellar launch as well!
(>^^)><3
since there's no more roadmaps this year what about first champ of 2025 usually they are teased at the end of year and come earle like in February to march, will they only get a teaser in January
We are still figuring out what format we want to do this!
Ya'll weren't tryna see every character try dating every character over the course of 15 seasons?
I am waiting for when champs start having kids and their children then becomes the main characters like Boruto >:3
Is there a chance for 4 champions again next year or should we expect 3 champions for 2025?
Number of champions is not set in stone for 2025 yet. It depends on other priority, complexity of the champion/rework/update production and also the balance between rework/update compared to new champs!
TBH league has like 160+ champs at this point, the more they build = its harder for new player to get into league, harder to balance the game and on top of that lots of champs from old roaster fell off hard and are carried by their numbers.
IMO, its better that they are fixing old stuff with some of new content.
I think that is a slight misconception that more is harder. Mostly because we already blew way past that point. If we were to release 3-5 champs a year, we wouldn't reach 200 till 8-13 years.
The realistic difference between 166 to 200 is actually not that much. Especially because new champs are one of biggest ways to bring in opt-in content into the core game that changes the way game is played. Opt-in meant that the bulk of the complexity is on the player that choses to play the champion (though some champs breaks that more than others).
However, I do think its healthy for us to rebalance some of the effort and bring other types of content as well as finding opportunities to update our roster that isn't just big overhaul VGUs or explore other game modes! It brings variety, surprises and delighters to the overall game!
Champs team is also thinking about how to bring back some of that magic during release moments along with other teams. While there is le...
Read moreSometimes I chase people relentlessly on all fours while barking and screaming THE CALL OF THE PACK THE CALL OF THE PACK THE CALL OF THE PACK.
If the police comes for me I troll pole away (they will never find the bodies).
Hmmmmm
Another thought on her value for being in the roster is that we mostly have trained our monster lover players to play jungle (you have next to no options beside the jungle). If you love monsters, you either learn to jungle or do not play.
We knew her pickrate won't be exceptionally high. I'm hesitant to make her a jungler (though that would def increase her pickrate) to really give players an option mid.
We also were never targeting higher MMR players. Thus, we are okay with her not having much play time from those players.
I do think there is an open topic of if we should buff her/ make that assassin experience sharper in the normal to lower MMR.
I don't think it is necessarily bad that her overall pickrate isn't high. I want the players that want to learn mid assassins and/or want to play monster champ mid to player her.
They should eventually graduate to other mid assassins or other monster champs.
I also do think there is a future that we would wan...
I love this. This is so wholesome <3
I'm a bit confused but is the arcane vgu thingy still this year? cause roadmap said next year but then someone said no, it's this year
It this year! But it will be towards end of year, mostly because we don't want to spoil anything!
Lexical, speaking of Ixtal, we don't have any marksman from Ixtal, can you consider that for the future? And one criticism I saw for Skarner is that we are missing a "benevolant monster" type of champion as opposed to dark/evil or in Skarner's case paranoid. I personally think Smolder has potential to be an upright monster in the future
I think Skarner is still benevolent! He is good to his people, just less logical/good to intruders :) I do think the intention of the spill the beans was not to sell him as evil, but more that he is powerful and awe inspiring. While he is a wise sentient being, he does let his thoughts of a potential outcome get the better himself when driving out intruders. He will chase them down, bulldoze them and smack them with rocks.
I do think Ixtal is missing a marksman mostly because Ixtal is so magic driven. Its an opportunity space that is missing!
Read moreit would be a bit odd for Arcane to not touch on it at all if we are a shared universe.
Arcane doesn't touch on the ancient goddess who protects and watches over the cities. It doesn't touch on the cyborg spymaster manipulator who has controlled the cities for decades either, in fact it directly contradicts her existence. It doesn't touch on mutated rats or deliquent doctors.
It doesn't touch on those things because stories need to focus on what matters to them emotionally and storytelling wise.
If Riot's perception of PnZ and the world is purely based on what Arcane shows then I weep for the future of the setting.
Fairly siloed.. off on his own.
That just means you could have fleshed out why the Brackern were so powerful to begin with or in what ways they may be important for Runeterra as a whole. If their crystals can warp time, what does that say about them? What if they guarded the w...
Arcane was written before one runeterra. Skarner old lore was as well. Every narrative choice we make has consequences and hundreds of hours poured into pros and cons of each decision. We are no longer at a point where we can wave our hands and decide because we want to make sure our Runeterra is cohesive for decades and decades. We learned alot from the past rewrites etc etc. We want to make sure moving forward, every decision matters because it will be held as universe truth.While I can't completely show everything right now, which I understand makes it a bit hard to empathize with what we are trying to accomplish, but these choices did not come easy. It took months and months of looking at options.If this comes from you loving old Skarner lore, it is completely understandable! Players hate it when we take away something that is beloved (I myself still really love the old Trundle lore tbh). We did have to weigh our options here. While its not ideal for you, we did pretty deep res...
Read moreRead moreWhen we looked into it, what we didn't like about Skarner's lore is that he didn't really control his future and outcome. This really made him someone who was suffering an outcome rather than a main character with compelling goals that can be expanded upon, loved and empathized with. We don't want players to just feel sorry for the sad scorpion.
That's because...you guys only wrote the beginning. Aurelion Sol is literally enslaved by a mind controlling crown, does that suddenly make him unworthy of being a champion? How many heroic journeys begin when the hero loses their family or village? You can be both a hero and a victim, and victimization can be the catalyst for someone fighting for something greater.
Fighting for your species is about as heroic as it gets, and if people "only feel sad" it's because Riot failed in portraying it as an heroic journey. But also, what's wrong with the primary emotion that a champion invokes being sadness...
While its true we can try to continue the story afterwards... it would be a bit odd for Arcane to not touch on it at all if we are a shared universe. This gives both team creative freedom and space to do their best work instead of putting all of the energy into how to twist a story to fit Skarner's background.
The other problem is that Skarner's lore is already in the space where he isn't given agency. His past story left him collecting the rocks of his brackern. Fairly siloed.. off on his own.
His new background puts him at the center of political struggle of a region.
"WHAT'S UP WITH HEXTECH NOW?"
whatever is happening on arcane.
This. And stay tuned for S2 :O!
it’s probably more that arcane S1 already premiered, and it’s not like they can (easily) go back and remake it to fit skarners lore. since they wrote the show to not fit skarners lore and be in some weird lore limbo (and have now changed it to be fully cannon) skarner and the brackern don’t entirely make sense.
You are correct in some regards. It was a couple of things. When we looked into it, what we didn't like about Skarner's lore is that he didn't really control his future and outcome. This really made him someone who was suffering an outcome rather than a main character with compelling goals that can be expanded upon, loved and empathized with. We don't want players to just feel sorry for the sad scorpion. But instead to understand his goals, his ideal outcomes and knows he has the power to potentially influence the political systems of a region. We also didn't want to completely take away the sense of loss of his beloved bond, so we thought the Ixtal people and the history he had seen can be part of that forlornness. His decisions has impact on the world versus being a victim. He is now in a position to decide, if he wants Ixtal to go down one path vs another. This also help build out Ixtal and the differing view points of some of the key players in that region. Previously, it was ...
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