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Possible ways to increase game clarity further

i cant move wtf··3 votes·1,116 views

These are just some ideas I came up with to make the game more intuitive and visually informative. I don't think they're perfect by any means and they could of course be refined further. But I think they can serve as starting points to come up with even better ideas.

Also I think all of these effects should be able to be turned on/off in the game settings if players prefer a more stripped down look.

Health I think the new health bars look great and they're a definite improvement to the game. That said I think a good way to express a champion's health more immediately would be to alter the character model's size. As a champion gains more max health their size could increase proportionally. Players new and old would be able to see immediately who on their team and the enemy team has a lot of max health without ever looking at an item slot or the density of lines on the health bars.

The biggest caveat I see with a system like this would be how this would affect hitboxes. If a champion's size increases with max health then wouldn't their hitbox increase as well? I feel like it would have to at that point because skillshots would be too annoying to land otherwise. But if the hitboxes did increase as the champ's size increases that might be an interesting tradeoff to building lots of health and could justify making tank items stronger to compensate. I don't know, I think it could be interesting.

Armor What if as you stack armor your champion becomes more metallic? Think along the lines of 'metal mario' but less extreme/opaque unless perhaps you have 6 armor items in which case you would look completely metal. I feel like the champions in League have strong enough silhouettes to be able to pull this off without sacrificing game clarity elsewhere.

Magic Resist As you stack MR your champion would develop a translucent purplish barrier around itself similar in shape to Creator Viktor's recall to be able to distinguish it from things like Banshee's Veil/Hexdrinker/Night's Veil. As you add MR it becomes a deeper purple but remains very translucent. I think it should only appear based on extra MR from items though and not be affected by the base MR of a champion.

AD/AP For these I think it might be cool to recycle the visual effect red pot and blue pot give off but make their size vary proportionally to the amount of ap or ad. And the color of the aura would be red/blue/purple in proportion to the ratio of AD to AP a player has. So if they have equal parts AD and AP then the aura would be exactly purple. Then for red and blue pot the extra AP and AD they give would just simply add to the size of the aura.

Closing Thoughts Again I think these visual effects should be able to be turned on and off in the settings based on player preference. But I think little touches like these would go a long way to make the game both more accessible to newer players/spectators as well as more intuitive for newbies and veterans alike. Let me know what you think or if you have any related ideas you think would be even better or would add visual clarity to different aspects of the game not mentioned in this post. Thanks for reading!

4 Comments

RiotRiot MapleNectar4 votes

Don't have time to leave too many thoughts, but to chime in quickly on your ideas:

Health - seems cool, though increasing size of champions has the potential to mess with their fantasy. If I go tank teemo, I wouldn't expect to scale to the same size as a Malphite, I'm a little yordle who revels in pissing people off.

Armor/MR - These sound cool in practice, and could certainly see them being beneficial for clarity - but feedback we get pretty consistently about putting effects like this on a champion means we cover their texture, and again, the potential fantasy we're trying get across whether it be a base model, or a skin. Sej passive and Malz passive are two examples that do very similar things to what you're describing, but are far from the most loved effects in the game.

AD/AP - this one actually seems the most viable out of the ideas presented here. We've been thinking of things like "what if the sound effect of your auto attack scaled with the amount of damage you had", but what you're proposing could help people understand how they're supposed to be itemizing which is neat. I think before going that route though I'd want us to find another avenue of communicating that isn't just adding another particle to an already busy screen.

Cool ideas though dude! This is the kind of stuff we're always thinking about! :)

i cant move wtf1 votes

I see your point about a health/size dynamic affecting the teemo fantasy. If I were to come up with a counter argument though I'd say if you're building teemo tank then you're already not invested in that fantasy because you're itemizing toward a damage absorber more than an annoying ambush/poke/trap style. But I see both sides and it's definitely debatable.

In regard to your thoughts on the Armor/MR ideas I mostly agree with you. The concepts I provided I think are pretty weak tbh. But the idea of expressing armor and MR visually is really interesting IMO and I feel like it is possible to have some kind of effect that either looks satisfying enough that armor/MR stacking players would enjoy it on their champ or is really cleverly designed so it can be subtle and yet immediately apparent what it signifies. It's definitely a challenge!

Your concerns with the AD/AP visuals I agree with as well. I do see one advantage of a visual signifier over an audio one however, and that's that when a player gets significantly enough ahead that this information is critical, by the time you'd hear the audio from the attack you're probably already dead. But you save all that visual space, I see the lure. In a hectic team fight I think an audio cue like that could still be helpful though. A red/blue aura throughout the whole game probably would add too much clutter overall and not be worth it. I have no doubt a much more elegant compromise could be found. I was kind of hoping there were more people interested in the subject to nerd out on it and iterate/develop more refined ideas. Maybe this Rioter bump will drum up some more activity :P

Thanks for the thoughtful response!

Finite Duress2 votes

Main concern is these effects just make the game harder to read.

Additional effects should be obvious and not interfere with any previous visual effects, The HP size effect you propose would negatively affect the clarity of Cho' Gath, Gargoyle Stoneplate, Zac, and Elixir of Iron. Armor and MR effects would affect any visual effect that gave a "super saiyan"-like aura around the champion, Elder Dragon, Lethal Tempo, and Righteous Glory. AD/AP would affect many auras around a champion which are numerous but off the top of my head there's Dark Harvest, Sunfire Cape, and Elixir of Wrath.

Secondary Concerns would be Skins, these new effects would affect nearly every champion and not only negatively affect their unique visuals, but also their unique VFX (DawnBringer Riven's Ult Form for example).

So really these changes would require work/time in design and code (Not to mention about redesigning the other VFXs) to give mediocre clarity (I'd rather look at a clear and precise number by clicking the champion than trying to judge a character by their Super Saiyan Powerlevels). Plus adding this as an option means players have to adjust one more setting before they can play a game, even a one time setting is detrimental to setting up a new computer/account.

Multiple VFXs work only when each VFX is VERY important, easy to read, and non-mandatory (Meaning a build requiring many champions to build things like Guardian Angel, Gargoyle, Righteous Glory, Sunfire, and other VFX heavy items would probably require Riot to redesign some VFXs).

i cant move wtf1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Finite Duress,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EBfgoHku,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2017-12-07T11:07:33.021+0000)

(I'd rather look at a clear and precise number by clicking the champion than trying to judge a character by their Super Saiyan Powerlevels).

See I disagree. I love visual manifestations of stats. I don't want to know I have a dark harvest proc by looking at a box in the UI, I want to see my champion's hands glow red. I agree the ideas I presented are pretty half-baked but I think the goal they strive for is well worth the mental effort it would take to come up with some worthy visual representations.

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