Have You Noticed the Pattern?

Takran··328 votes·65,551 views

I can't believe it took me until now to notice, but the last four champions added to the game have serious implications for League as we know it.

http://i.imgur.com/hoCDCW6.jpg

Gnar, Azir, Kalista, and now Rek'Sai each break some sort of design principal that developers have insisted we would never see under any circumstance, ever.

Mechanics that we were told would break the game. Aesthetics that would drive away customers. Concepts that didn't belong in the game that league wanted to be. Look at this:

Gnar - The champion's entire identity centers on a mechanic that is completely out of the player's control. Sure, they have input, and there is enough telegraph to call it random, but there is no direct control over his transformation. Getting poked while small, now you change. Taking CS for a while, now you change. Interacting with almost anything for some duration of time, you will change at some point, willing or not. In the past, Riot has said that random chance, even with some mild influence is an unhealthy mechanic. Some people find this infuriating, but others love it. It adds an interesting new option for gameplay that is fun and refreshing that makes Gnar unique.

Azir - Azir has to micro manage more than one unit and one pet. He can control the battlefield by simultaneously controlling himself and up to three soldiers. His entire kit rotates around this principal. Riot has stated that such a champion would be too confusing and too much like DotA to consider adding to the game. Azir is here now, and has a Shurima sized army of fans.

Kalista - Riot has stated that they would never release a champion that could directly interact with another teammate's champion in a way that takes control from one player's hand. Kalista can grab an ally and take them with her at the push of a button, regardless of what that ally wants. There will be troll Kalistas out there, but the ones who take the champ seriously can make some of the most incredible plays I've ever seen. There is so much potential in this champion for greatness - just wait for competitive matches. Kalista will blow minds in the professional field, and be amazingly fun in the casual play when taken seriously.

Rek'Sai - I'm sure everyone remembers Omen. This champ was scrapped before Riven's release for being too unrelatable, too generic, too strange, and overall too inhuman. The community at large begged Riot to reconsider scrapping Omen. The champion looked like the monster everyone wanted for so long, and was being deleted for being so. Fast forward to Zyra. Everyone was hyped for a female monster champion, and were greeted with a scantly clad women with a few leaves covering key points. While Zyra is a cool and interesting champion, people were outraged that male monsters could look as crazy as Cho'Gath, but female ones had to keep a human form. Riot placed the same argument as with Omen, and left it at that. Now though? Now we have a female monster that is as far as human as it can get. It doesn't speak...it growls. It doesn't have eyes. It's mouth can't make expressions. It's body looks so streamlined to kill, it can barely gesture. It is the most monster-y champion EVER, and it is a she. How cool is that!? It blows my mind, and I love every part of it.

So what does this all mean? Riot is finally becoming open minded to more interesting champion design. With well over 100 champions now that follow the "easy to learn, hard to master" gameplay, and "relatable humanoid" aesthetic, they are finally branching out and making more interesting characters. Characters that are hard to pick up on your first attempt. Characters that you don't understand their entirety at a glance. Characters that aren't typical shapes and sizes.

This is the best thing to happen to league in ages.

Almost every fundamental design rule Riot has set up has been broken. The only one I can think of is "no invoker style champions that fuze abilities", and at the rate that rules are being broken, this could happen VERY soon. This means that old precedents are gone. The sky is the limit. anything is possible. This has been what I have dreamed about for league since season one, and it is finally happening.

Riot, I just have to say: Well done. Your champ designers have been on point lately. This is what the game needed, and I look forward to seeing where things go from here.

EDIT: I've been away a while, and am surprised and happy to see this is still going. Tham Krench really impressed me with an ability that interacted directly with allies the way it does! Plus all the wonderful shenanigans with Gangplank's rework were phenomenal. Riot is still rocking, and I am still thoroughly impressed!

324 Comments

Visys203 votes

For some reason I expected this to be a complaint thread..

Glad I was wrong.

The Epicer ONe61 votes

not for some reason, EVERY thread is a complaint thread.

FluxBound34 votes

I expected it to be iluminati Velkoz item 3078

Takran38 votes

Oh, you "expected", did you?

http://i.imgur.com/UVNcrGx.jpg

Alëk8 votes

For some reason I expected this to be a complaint thread..

Glad I was wrong.

^^^

Volt Cruelerz41 votes

Well, yes, with the exception of Kalista. The others if nothing else provide unique things that other champions didn't have before. League is now at the point where more unique champions can be made.

Kalista's passive really should allow another player the choice to say no though, if nothing else, because it could get them talking about strategy.

RiotMorello38 votes

<3

We've learned a lot on HOW to deliver these kinds of things. We believe we'd thrown the baby out with the bathwater in the oldschool design paradigm we had - instead, we want champions that evolve and change the game.

We take this quite seriously now, and can still include things like good counterplay, interesting decisions, and not having you lose at champion select. We still value that stuff, but I think now that we understand how to optimize for it, we can do things that are crazy and allow for that. Omen was a good example in yours - Omen kind of sucks overall (still) as an execution on the voiceless monster. Rek'Sai fucking KILLS it (and is a lady monster which makes me happy!)

Thanks for this post, I'm glad it's not going unnoticed. This will have a dark side on the Champion Reworks front as we'll want to apply some of this to older champions where appropriate as well.

Siachi4 votes

Equal parts intrigued and also a bit worried about how much you'll be able to do with reworks, although if Sion's rework is any indication, I'm actually a pretty hopeful. It definitely feels like the new champs each have their own unique niche, concept wise.

Also, not that I was around for the Omen hype, but is Rek'Sai basically 'Omen 2.0' in a sense?

RiotMorello20 votes

It's the same core idea: let you play as "the monster." The kits and themes outside of that are night-and-day, but the reason of "why make this" has a similar spark behind it.

Narasimha29 votes

Azir - Azir has to micro manage more than one unit and one pet.

You sir, have no idea what micromanaging is.

Samflash357 votes

Azir - Azir has to micro manage more than one unit and one pet.

You sir, have no idea what micromanaging is.

From Wikipedia

In business management, micromanagement is a management style whereby a manager closely observes or controls the work of subordinates or employees

You know what this means...

CORPORATE AZIR WHERe?

Sharjo11 votes

Hey Azir's the closest thing we really have to true micro in League at this point.

MrBuffington19 votes

It's reassuring that at a time where most games would be dying down or have been long ditched in favor of a sequel or successor, League seems like it's really starting to hit its stride, with all the new updates and, as you said, groundbreaking new mechanics. It's an exciting time to be a Summoner (inb4 QQ retcon)

Emperor of Arima7 votes

They shouldn't have retconned the league, like... why is it still called league of legends... it should be calledd like...... Runeterra's Arcade Smackdown or something, the IoW and JoJ were the best things Riot made, screw the lore team, i hate Riot..........

Q.Q

There... is that what you wanted

Grand Eleven15 votes

While Zyra is a cool and interesting champion, people were outraged that male monsters could look as crazy as Cho'Gath, but female ones had to keep a human form.

Some people maybe ... sexy monster girls are my achilles heel, so I was rather pleased. Elise less so because they missed out on a glorious opportunity to make a true spider girl ... but still.

What I find funny about Rek'Sai is this is Excatly what I felt should have been done with Kha'Zix: they could have easily called Kha female with no other alteration and it would have worked out fine.

I like monsters. I like monster girls. No way I'm outraged at either.

Canastus13 votes

Riot, I just have to say: Well done. Your champ designers have been on point lately. This is what the game needed, and I look forward to seeing where things go from here.

Meanwhile at Riot's rework office.Cassiopeia

No, seriously. I wish they'd have the same kind of minds working on poor Cassiopeia.

RiotMorello20 votes

We're not batting 1.000 yet. Though I think Stashu has been trying to work the community to understand how to improve.

(Now let's not make every thread about Casseopia) :P

Stez00720 votes

Stashu has been doing a shitty, shitty job and needs to be removed from Cass entirely.

He hasn't listened to anything we've said and insists on taking Cass in a direction we do not want her to go, changing her in ways we keep telling him will never work and do not feel fun nor satisfying, keeping the garbage passive that we've begged him to remove, etc. Not to mention she's gotten worse and worse on Dominion since this nonsense started, but I suppose that's OK because fuck Dominion right? Those Dominion players are just whiny crybabies that don't deserve to play your perfect game.

It's well past time Cass was handed to someone that actually gives a shit about her and her players. I have serious doubts a person like that exists at Riot, though, but anyone would be better than Stashu. Even you.

RiotMorello40 votes

This seems productive.

Tendrian25 votes

This seems productive.

To be fair, the way the Cass rework was and is handled heavily discourages players from being productive/constructive

Gixia16 votes

Does it? While the ball was dropped initially, every few days I'll see the Red Tracker suddenly flooded with posts by Stashu where he acknowledges some of the community's desires. She's still on the PBE, still getting changes, still bringing her back closer and closer to the goal each time. At what point is it time for people to stop holding a grudge and at least see the guy is genuinely putting in the effort to give people what they want (while at the same time leaving room for the fact that this is not design by committee and that no matter how many people bitch about wanting her back, old Cassiopeia is considered unacceptable and never returning. If she wasn't considered unhealthy for the game, Riot would never have given him the go ahead to rework her in the first place).

Tendrian12 votes

Does it? While the ball was dropped initially, every few days I'll see the Red Tracker suddenly flooded with posts by Stashu where he acknowledges some of the community's desires. She's still on the PBE, still getting changes, still bringing her back closer and closer to the goal each time. At what point is it time for people to stop holding a grudge and at least see the guy is genuinely putting in the effort to give people what they want (while at the same time leaving room for the fact that this is not design by committee and that no matter how many people bitch about wanting her back, old Cassiopeia is considered unacceptable and never returning. If she wasn't considered unhealthy for the game, Riot would never have given him the go ahead to rework her in the first place).

The biggest points of critic where:

  1. that her E became an overloaded clusterfuck that takes up too much of her power budget and has too many mechanics attached to it

  2. that a stacking system is literally the dumbest possible idea for a passive on Cass

These points were addressed by

  1. adding yet another mechanic to her E

  2. Stashu saying that the passive will be the last thing to be changed just to make sure people hate it as much as they say

All of this was accompanied by a slew of posts stating that Riot was confident to make "huge steps in the right direction". You can't really fault the community for getting upset after everything Riot wrote and did was completely disconnected from the feedback they recieved.

Stez00710 votes

where he acknowledges some of the community's desires.

And then he does the exact opposite.

She's still on the PBE, still getting changes, still bringing her back closer and closer to the goal each time.

His goal. Not our goal. He doesn't give a flying fuck about what we want.

At what point is it time for people to stop holding a grudge and at least see the guy is genuinely putting in the effort to give people what they want (while at the same time leaving room for the fact that this is not design by committee and that no matter how many people bitch about wanting her back, old Cassiopeia is considered unacceptable and never returning. If she wasn't considered unhealthy for the game, Riot would never have given him the go ahead to rework her in the first place).

He hasn't given us a single thing we've wanted, just piled on more and more of things that we have repeatedly said we DON'T want.

Unacceptable my ass. If Cass is unacceptable then Ziggs, Syndra and any other champion that can poke at range and do well in lane is unacceptable.

But here's the thing. If Cass doesn't come back as she was, fine. But Stashu has been trying to change her role entirely without changing her kit. THAT DOES NOT WORK. Her kit is designed to be strong in lane. Anything else will never, ever, ever, ever, ever produce a decent champion. I've explained it too many damn times now. If they want a new Cassiopeia they should scrap her entirely and create a new one from scratch, not shoehorn a lategame single target hypercarry into a lane bully kit.

But Stashu does not give a fuck.

Gixia2 votes

where he acknowledges some of the community's desires.

And then he does the exact opposite.

How so? The community liked the mana mechanic, he brought it back. They wanted more poison, he tried to make her poison more relevant again. The only big issue I'm seeing that the community just can't stand is the passive, which he's said he's gonna be tweaking more. And while I'm not convinced it's the best fit for her, I'm not gonna declare her ruined forever because of it.

She's still on the PBE, still getting changes, still bringing her back closer and closer to the goal each time.

His goal. Not our goal. He doesn't give a flying fuck about what we want.

If that was true he wouldn't even bother posting. Considering the vitriol, I'm surprised and impressed he's kept at it as long as he has.

At what point is it time for people to stop holding a grudge and at least see the guy is genuinely putting in the effort to give people what they want (while at the same time leaving room for the fact that this is not design by committee and that no matter how many people bitch about wanting her back, old Cassiopeia is considered unacceptable and never returning. If she wasn't considered unhealthy for the game, Riot would never have given him the go ahead to rework her in the first place).

He hasn't given us a single thing we've wanted, just piled on more and more of things that we have repeatedly said we DON'T want.

Hyperbole at its finest.

Unacceptable my ass. If Cass is unacceptable then Ziggs, Syndra and any other champion that can poke at range and do well in lane is unacceptable.

Telling you now so you won't becaught off guard later. There've been several rioters in the not too distant past who've commented on the problems Syndra's causing, so expect her to get a redo too.

But here's the thing. If Cass doesn't come back as she was, fine. But Stashu has been trying to change her role entirely without changing her kit. THAT DOES NOT WORK. Her kit is designed to be strong in lane. Anything else will never, ever, ever, ever, ever produce a decent champion. I've explained it too many damn times now. If they want a new Cassiopeia they should scrap her entirely and create a new one from scratch, not shoehorn a lategame single target hypercarry into a lane bully kit.

First off, she is getting some of her early game power back. Second, Cassiopeia has pretty much ALWAYS had the highest sustained single target late game dps of any champ. This isn't new, nor is it a surprise that they've chosen to push her in that direction considering the direction the game as a whole has been moving. To say her kit is only designed to be strong in lane is not at all accurate and never has been. And to assume that if Stashu wasn't working on this kit that the next person to come along wouldn't take her in a similar direction is folly.

Stez00710 votes

The changes on the PBE are going to be pushed to live as-is. They're part of 4.21.

We have been telling him for ages that we do not want her kit to be so E-focused. He has responded by making her E even more of the focus.

Cass has never been the sustained single target late game champion. She has always been the stay-back-and-poison champ that only threw Es to secure kills/duel. Her lategame DPS may have been good, but she has never been picked for that DPS. She has always been far, far too squishy and E too short ranged for that DPS to manifest in any meaningful way. That has not changed at all with her rework. She's still insanely squishy and E is still short ranged.

And goddamn we HATE that passive. But instead of changing it, or removing it, or tossing around ideas for a new one he has just tweaked it slightly and made it even worse, and he has no plans at all to remove it. He's happy with her, he damn well said as much. We are not happy in the least. He does not care.

He has not taken any of our feedback to heart, at all. The only reason we wanted the mana return on E was because she lost her cost-reduction passive but didn't get any costs on her skills reduced. We don't want to be OOM, so we'll take the E mana return, but it's not something we wanted to have to rely on. We want less focus to be on her E, not more.

We tried to tell him that stacking is not what we want. We even offered suggestions to make the stacking less about reaching thresholds and more about gradual progression--humoring him--and he ignored them entirely and made the stacking even less fun and more about tedious waiting.

We tried to tell him a lot of things and he has spat in our faces. He does not deserve to work on Cass any longer. He failed, he continues to fail and he does not deserve a fourth chance.

Gear Kitty10 votes

Does it? While the ball was dropped initially, every few days I'll see the Red Tracker suddenly flooded with posts by Stashu where he acknowledges some of the community's desires.

Acknowledgement does not mean action.

I acknowledge that there is starvation in Africa, child sex slavery in east Asia, crimes against humanity in the Middle East, and a humongous amount of drug trade and murders in Mexico.

However, even though all those make me ashamed to be a member of our species, I'm doing nothing about them. At all.

Cass's new passive goes against her characterization (even in the new lore). It breeds a bad play pattern for a mid-laner (going to help bot in a gank could easily be worth less to her overall power compared to staying and farming, even though it could help her team immensely).

And to top it all off, Stashu himself said her playstyle was better served by Brand, which is laughable to the point were I suspect some players want to see his credentials. Brand may have DoT, but his kit and optimal use paradigm is a burst mage. Cass however WAS a DoT mage.

Stashu and Riot changed her because she is much easier to balance this way. With so many "levers" in place, they can easily tell how powerful she'll be at any point in the game, which by and large can be answered with "about as threatening as an outer turret is lategame" for most of play.

He wants her to be a lategame hyper carry, but fails to realzie the one thing all the hyper carries have: mobility. Ryze is the only odd man out in the group without a jump, stealth, teleport, or dash, and he at least has his MS boost on a click AND has targeted hard CC. Cass has to hit with her Q (a delayed 75 unit AoE) to move faster, place a miasma pool and wish she was facing someone who didn't have a jump, or land an ult with the enemy facing her.

She doesn't have the invulnerable, heal, and dash of Trynd. She doesn't have the untargetable and dash of Fiora. She doesn't have the untargetable, heal, and Slow immunity of Yi. She doesn't have the range and safety of Trist. She doesn't have the tank shredding, invisibility, and reliable knockback of Vayne. She doesn't have the stealth, range, and multitarget kill potential of Twitch. She doesn't have the safety and self peel of Jinx. She doesn't have the Dodge, jump, and bonus stats of Jax (hyper carry is iffy on him these days). She doesn't have the insane mobility, safety, and teamfight potential of Yasuo (safety is shield and windwall). She doesn't have the tank and reliable CC of Ryze (tank from item buys).

All Stashu has given her to claim she's a hyper carry is a scaling passive that eventually makes her a little stronger than she was earlier in the match, and gives her a decent heal on her most hated power. He took the DoT mage people loved, and turned her into a wanna-be Marksman without the target agnosticty that comes with them.

You know who wants to keep hitting their target until they're dead because they're worried about ability resets?

Assassins (and Trist, though she works off assists as well).

That's her problem. Her kit synergizes like an Assassin, Stashu wants her to be like a Marksman, but her playstyle and low mobility leaves her stuck as Mage.

I don't fault Stashu for trying this idea. I fault him for sticking with it in the face of near universal anger and outcry.

THEJJSLAY11 votes

The main issue being ignored is what is frustrating people. We do not like cass's new passive. Why does she need to be a late game hypercarry? Why would you pick the dullest way possible to get her there? Why is it not at all cohesive with her identity or her kit?

The5lacker15 votes

Perhaps if you put someone on the rework team who actually cared about the champion they reworked and didn't just have a fetish for needless complexity and pitiful ratios, and who actually talked with the people, I dunno, playing this game, there wouldn't be a festering resentment against him.

Just a thought.

oxygen bandit7 votes

About as productive as "You guys hate this tedious passive? Okay, I'm gonna make it more tedious for you."

Kowe The Ewok8 votes

Having the complaints about the Cassiopeia rework reappear for MONTH however should be a hint. I have rarely seen the community as united as opposing this rework.

Like somebody else phrased it "Stashu makes Cassiopeia what Ryze was supposed to be, opposing her identity and gameplay"

I totally agree with that statement. It's just saddening to have a passive ability with the whole purpose of holding you back instead of granting you cool features (Like Annie's Stuns, Anivia's Egg or Rengar's jumps)

This is just not fun and it's saddening how you guys at Riot ignore HUNDREDs of pages and dozens of topics stateing that the rework is not only flawed in terms of powerlevel but much more destroying actual gameplay.

This migth sound harsh, but that's EXACTLY what we Cassiopeia player's feel like.

Karn Bishop8 votes

I agree with all of the above, though on the pbe there are people trying to get riot to add actual words to her dialog, I hope riot stands firm and says no this is the theme we are designing for her and if you don't like her you don't have to play her, just like if you don't like how we built gnar you don't have to play him.

RiotMorello27 votes

That's set in stone. No worries :)

Cuix6 votes

That's fine, but I sincerely hope that she doesn't end up being our only speechless champion. Most of our monsters should've been that way, but since they're not it makes her seem weird. Some people like that kind of weird as "interesting" and "alien", others dislike it as being "lacking" or "jarring".

Karn Bishop6 votes

Hugs, never thought i would love the lord of evil, but this time i make an exception.

A Slime Appears8 votes

Everyone jizzing their pants over a female monster make me sick. Go outside and get some sun, hopefully the perspective gained from going outside for once will make such trivial shit seem...trivial.

RiotMorello148 votes

Yeah, screw people who like stuff! Those losers!

MrBuffington20 votes

I'll have you know I've never loved anything in my entire life. Ever.

Apakakuta4 votes

Yeah, screw people who like stuff! Those losers!

Love the sense of humor :) On a serious note I agree with this guy I love the direction league is heading. I've been playing since barely post beta '09 with the new champs on the block was EzrealEzreal and ShenShen . I've seen the release of nearly 80 champions now. In the beginning I was able to somehow relate each champFiora to being sort of like x champMasterYi while having y in common with z champXinZhao as well. While not all champions were directly relate-able not many brought much more depth. Over the last 2 years the quality of champions has grown exponentially. With the most recent champions all having game changing mechanics makes them both strong in their own unique way and extremely fun or a challenge to face. I love AzirAzir and GnarGnar I will be trying Rek'sai much more shortly on my pbe account. As for Kalista, while she is really awesome I've never been the biggest fan of adc's. Although I love the ability to make plays with her ult and the fun little things in her kit i like sending out the little mobile ward ghosts. However I can not compliment the champ design team enough on these recent champs ( Jayce till now being recent in my book for this anology) .

Fed by Snu Snu3 votes

So the game is learning from dota.

Hardcore fan-boys kept on going about how they sticked to league because it isn't dota.

Now that lol is learning from them, the same hardcore fan-boys are saying it's the best things that happened.

You know, that's why I consider some people unworthy of even trying to converse with.

Fury and Emperor22 votes

So the game is learning from dota.

Hardcore fan-boys kept on going about how they sticked to league because it isn't dota.

Now that lol is learning from them, the same hardcore fan-boys are saying it's the best things that happened.

You know, that's why I consider some people unworthy of even trying to converse with.

League has strengths over Dota. Dota has strengths over League. Why not take the best from both?

SecretAgentHulk3 votes

It also speaks to the fact that Riot is becoming more creative. All of these were things they said they wouldn't do because they thought they couldn't be done. Instead, they found a way to do them, and that's awesome.

(Also re: Gnar, uncontrollable is not the same as random chance, but that's a niggle. Great post!)

RiotMorello49 votes

Additionally, we said we'd never do a healer. Instead, "what will it take to do a healer" was the better question.

I'll say it straight. You guys were right on some of this stuff and helped us understand our limitations we'd created. It's a hard ship to turn, but I'm glad we are doing it.

Cuix16 votes

I'm hoping something like this happens with Cassiopeia later on. "An AoE mid/long range DoT mage will always be problematic" or "a DoT-based champion will always lack satisfaction and clear counterplay" seem like some assumptions to challenge~

RiotMeddler28 votes

I'll say it straight. You guys were right on some of this stuff and helped us understand our limitations we'd created. It's a hard ship to turn, but I'm glad we are doing it.

A big +1 to this from me. We've been pushing on some particular things for new champions as you've mentioned and player feedback calling out where we should improve/where our past releases have sometimes fallen short of the mark's been enormously valuable.

Also wanted to say thanks for the thread. Discussion can get pretty focused on what's problematic at times, and while that's really useful to hear it's also very helpful to cover the what's going well side of things sometimes too.

Rebonack3 votes

Hey Morello!

Have you guys considered using some new forms of isolation mechanics like, say, something that removes a champion from allied/minion vision and makes it so they can't send pings for a few seconds? Basically, you drop this debuff on someone who's alone and their team probably won't notice that they're getting ganked until it is too late.

RiotMorello22 votes

We have, but think this is overcame by third-party voice and chat programs. Since that can eliminate the certainty that the character is "silenced," we've avoided that one.

Mirage Night1 votes

How about a passive stealth mechanic?

EXAMPLE

When CHAMPION breaks vision with enemy champions, they will gain stealth within .XX seconds. CHAMPION will remain in stealth for X.X seconds, or until they cast an ability or attacks.

It Hertz When IP6 votes

Evelynn

Cuix1 votes

The only one I can think of is "no invoker style champions that fuze abilities", and at the rate that rules are being broken, this could happen VERY soon.

That's going to be the next release, in the form of our Dancer champion.

RiotMorello12 votes

It's less of a rule than a lack of perceived value outside of "cool" in this case.

For these champions, even being more unique, they have a purpose and goal around HOW they evolve the game. If we get to the point on that for an Invoker-style champ, we'd consider it, but not for its own sake.

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