Originallity or BS.

Arrion·10/9/2014, 1:10:32 PM·1 votes·498 views

Okay Riot, so you claim that one of your major goals is to make the champions each feel unique and do things no other champ does.

So I present you the following list of champions and effects

Aatrox Revival from stored health(Death prevention.) Volibear, MASSIVE health regeneration(Death prevention) Zilean Ally/Self Death prevention. Karthas Back from dead revenge kill Sion Back from death revenge kill Kog'Maw Back from Death Revenge kill Zyra Back from death revenge kill. Morgana Damage = healing Warwick Damage = Healing

I think the idea of what I'm saying here is rather clear. I could indeed go through all the champions, but fact is no matter how you try and shape it, you're failing at making them feel original. With the exception of MAYBE Azir, POSSIBLY Gnar.

4 Comments

Variks the Loyal10/9/2014, 1:29:45 PM3 votes

Yes, the effects of those abilities are similar.

Do they feel the same? Hell no. The only ones that may feel remotely similar are Karthus' and Sion's passives.

Take away the basest, most simple descriptions that you provide, and add something very important - Flavor.

Sion's passive VS Kog'maw's passive.

One is a raging berserker who refuses to die, trying to choke the last life from his enemies.
One is a volatile creature who's death triggers an explosive response in his body. A response you can aim.

They're both very visually and thematically different, with different ways on how best to use them. Sion needs to get as many auto attacks off as possible during his, relentlessly chasing his enemies down as he rages. Kog'maw just needs to run near them as he get's ready to blow up.

Storm51410/9/2014, 1:38:51 PM1 votes

If you really want to start with Riot and their inability to think of their own ideas, you could easily start pulling at what each champion is a reference to. These are only a few of them, mind you. There are plenty more that I'm sure people can figure out on their own.

Warwick is the big bad wolf Ahri is the generic kitsune Mordekaiser is literally a walking metal reference.

And if you want easy to connect references, there are a few champions released near WoW xpac announcements or release times that have a familiar theme going on with them:

Shyvana, a half dragon, was released around Cataclysm, which was an expansion based around a big angry dragon.

Sion's rework looks a lot like the Orcs from warlords of Draenor (See Garrosh and Blackhand)

Realistically, Riot has never been about originality, they've been about claiming that they have it, while carefully twisting someone else's work into their own.

junglerboy1610/9/2014, 1:44:16 PM1 votes

"There is nothing new under the Sun." There is no such thing as true originality, except if you are God and just created the universe. every single mechanic in any game is just a rehashing of different components in a new way. Yasuo has a unique resource mechanic! ...just like a dozen other champs. Azir uses sand soldiers that deal damage for him! ...interesting take on same old minion mancer mechanics. Ultimately, you won't ever find any ability in any game EVER where there is not overlap within either itself or other games, and there is nothing wrong with that, it is only a problem when there is no effort to make something more than a direct clone of something else. Uniqueness is all about the little nuances that distinguish aspects of the game, and all of those things in your list are different enough that anyone who has played any of those champs could immediately distinguish them if you just described their passive. i.e. when you drop below certain % health, you regenerate a % of you health... Volibear! when you die you turn into a bomb and run at enemies... Kog'maw! etc. the more champs the game has, the less you will see uniqueness (which is ironic, since everyone keeps crying out "give us new unique champs to add to our super massive pool of champions!", while in fact each successive champ will have less and less unique about it until they completely break the game engine and turn lol into an RPG or an FPS), and the more it will look the same, it is just how the world works.