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A Few More Humble Thoughts On a Big Issue

LuckyReden·9/10/2014, 2:38:40 PM·18 votes·2,423 views

Recently the majority of discussion has covered Riot's announcement to rewrite large parts of the lore, I'd like to share my thoughts on this rewrite. Rather than automatically disliking my opinions, please read through, and then answer the poll at the end or comment with your opinion.

(please read the whole thing, but there is a tiny summary at the bottom of the entry)

I started playing league about 2 years ago, so i didn't really ever read the JoJ, but I did very much enjoy some characters. When I saw the Riot discussion about the lore changes, I couldn't help but be awestruck and dreamy-eyed about the epic pictures included. And it got me thinking about freljord conflicts and the epic battles that might ensue, and I had these glorious images of Ashe finding Avarosa's bow (i might have some of these wrong, its been a while since i read her lore), and Ashe rallying the people of a small village to fight back Lissandra's army (not quite canon, but its what i was thinking about). I imagined despite Ashe's great leadership, Lissandra was on the verge of victory. Just then Braum jumps off a nearby mountain, shaking the ground when he landed, and shifting the tide of battle. How awesome would something like that be?

   Something like that wouldn't happen in the current state of the lore.

The main argument against these changes are:

  •    By removing summoners, there is no relationship between player and champion

  •    The League of Legends is a unique aspect and is core to what the game is

  •    Removing the league also completely changes who characters are

  •    Removing the league removes any purpose for a Rift or 5v5 battles

Lets examine these arguments. Removing summoners also removes the relationship between player and champion: How so? Some people believe summoners do not fully control their champion, but that cannot be. Summoners have complete control over their champion, otherwise, what prevents evil champions from betraying their own teams or what causes them to fight at all? I think that removing summoners enhances the relationship between us and the champ. Now I'm not controlling the champion, I am the champion. When I play as Vi and I kill Jinx, it doesn't occur to me, "I just helped Vi maintain peace". No, what occurs to me is "GET REKT, I JUST STOMPED YOU". I believe that removing summoners will increase the player to champ connections.

The League of Legends is a unique aspect and is core to what the game is:

I have to agree with this one, the game as it is has been completely built around The League of Legends. Riot is trying to change the core aspect of the game, because they believe that the previous version of the lore (well the current version) was simply functional and was not good storytelling. The League of Legends is a unique pretense, but that is besides the point. Many people believe that the League gives more reason to fight, because champions have reasons to be in the league. But with the league, lucian and thresh can be on the same team, darius can dunk on his brother, and braum can beat the crap out of everyone. How are any of those scenarios appropriate given their lore?

  The League completely changes who some champions are.

Lets look at Jax; Jax had to use a lamp post just to make it a fair fight. Without a league, why would Jax need to use a lamp post, he wouldn't fight fair. Whoever wants a piece of the champ would get him at his best not when he's going easy. I agree with this argument, Jax would have to be changed the way Riot is going. Brand is imprisoned by the league, but without a league he would be free to rampage the land. Well this is great! That means Brand has chances to create cool conflicts as heroes arise to defeat him.
Why do any champions have interactions with other characters if it doesn't matter once they join the league. When the join the league, anyone can fight with or against anyone. So arguing that you feel connected to a character when u play as him, that you feel their motives.....Thats completely absurd! I agree that certain champions feel different than others, but not because they have different motives. Vi is a great example of someone who actually feels like a bruiser. Braum feels like a big tank even if he is behind. Xerath feels like he is overwhelmingly powerful. Cho'gath feels like a big beast. But Xerath doesn't feel evil, Cho'gath doesn't feel ravenous, and Kha'zix doesn't feel like "I have to eat Rengar".

   Removing the League destroys any purpose of a Rift or any reason of a                                  5v5 fight

Are you kidding me? This is the dumbest argument I have ever heard. In what multiplayer game has there ever been a reason for fighting each other? In COD, everyone shoots everyone, no one cares why their fighting, its because its fun. In Starcraft II, Terran destroy Terran all the time in multiplayer. In TF2, people play as the same person on either team, and they kill each other without thought. There's no reason in standard multiplayer. But in game modes like Ascension, it is lore related and there is a purpose. Thats what Riot is promising now (whether or not this is true remains to be seen), more lore related game modes and cinematics and things similar to the JoJ.

I believe that Riot correctly found the right core part of League, and thats the feel of champions, and their uniqueness (is that a word?).

It is undeniable that Riot is handling this poorly though. Something that has been "2 years" in the planning, and they can't reveal anything because its not "for sure yet". This is absurd.....how busy could you have possibly been for the last 2 years with other things? And you also claim you haven't been talking with the players because nothing was definite. THATS THE REASON YOU SHOULD TALK TO US. Ask us what we think about the decision you're making. This big of a thing shouldn't be a 'Do first and then ask for forgiveness' kind of a thing. When every single Riot comment is below threshold, that means you're doing something wrong.

Those were my thoughts on whats been going on.

Summary: I loved the way league was before, and though it is going to be a rough change, it will be a good one in the long run. Riot didn't handle this well.

21 Comments

mi ramfan9/10/2014, 8:24:08 PM9 votes

The change could be good IF it gets fully followed through on.

By "fully following through", I mean:

  • Lore universe gets taken very, very far; Riot takes full advantage of not being tied to the League of Legends in order to write tons of brand new stories taking place in the League universe.
  • Characters get full, fleshed out backstories instead of two paragraphs apiece.
  • Lore events cross into in-game once in a while through events like the current Ascension event.

Unfortunately, Riot's writing team has given us no reason to believe that something like this will happen. So instead, we'll just get another year of passe, whatever-will-buy-us-another-month-with-lore-fans lore until the next big retcons are announced.

Tyravinor9/10/2014, 10:24:10 PM3 votes

I didn't vote, and I will explain why.

You make some good points, but unfortunately most of them are moot. Let's cut the BS and get right to the heart of the matter, agreed? League of Legends began as a Defense of the Ancients knockoff; a chance to capitalize on a great new idea and make it better. I think we all know this. It became absolutely enormous... it's the most played game on earth now right?

In this vein, Riot has become increasingly dollar-centric over the years. I will not speculate about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing because it's not relevant to the discussion. It simply is. New cyborg skins make money. The new half-naked ashe skin makes money. The new fancy-particle-effects-veigar skin makes money. The new cassiopeia lore does not, but neither did the old lore. In terms of the almighty dollar, no one cares about the awful new skarner backstory. Riot's developmental resources are obviously finite, and it's very clear how they intend to allot them in the foreseeable future.

Does the new lore suck, by and large? Yes, badly. Was the old lore much better? No, not really (have you ever seen diana's lore? Dear god.) I've read better work composed by schoolchildren. The writing and storytelling is juvenile, but it's always been juvenile. Until someone comes up with a way to subsidize 'champion lore' in a MOBA game (i.e. never), the situation will not change.

If Riot were a more forward thinking company, we might see more crowdsourcing of such minor details as character backstory. Many of us love the game enough to be more than willing to spend our time writing champion bios for free. As the thread creator pointed out though, Riot is more of a 'do first, ask forgiveness later' kind of entity. How unfortunate. Maybe someday.

C'est la vie.

Arddun9/10/2014, 7:16:52 PM3 votes

I agree that this change can only be good. The whole concept of the League of Legends was to prevent large scale conflicts, and instead allow nations to represent themselves as champions in the arena. While that's a good idea, it really stagnates the world outside the league, and that doesn't breed great story telling environments. With that addition nixed from the world, it allows tensions to rise between factions, and it allows the focus to switch back to Valoran at large and the champions that call it home. That sounds like a healthy change to me.

As an aside, I never liked the idea of summoners. Why would you want to believe that you're controlling the champion? That cheapens their value considerably. It should be about the character, not some random guy that dictates what they do.

LUS Montplaisir9/11/2014, 12:47:50 AM3 votes

You make some very good point; however, there are many things that need to considered alongside your points.

  1. Riot's History With Lore: Riot has tried, in the past two years, a few different things with lore. They've begun experimenting with Cinematics, which is kind of awesome. They've also presented a conflict in the Freljord; and with the exception of Gragas, did very well with the retcons, reworks, and general presentation of that small conflict. The JoJ was fairly well written, and through the years, they've managed to present 3 dimensional characters surprisingly well.
  2. Riot's History USING Lore: Going back to the Freljord opening, Riot did a great job presenting the three tribes and their champions, as well as their main motivations and so on. However, they never really USED that lore to follow through on any narratives. Like, any. There were plenty of options to tell functional, thematically viable stories with all of the champions involved that were never explored or followed through on. Blackfrost Anivia was about as close as we got. Queen Lissandra/Queen Sejuani never happened, even though the overwhelming amount of Icons unlocked/utilized during the event where Frostguard (I believe, might have been Wintersclaw). Given that the same set of people are working on this lore set makes me nervous at best.
  3. The Management of THIS Rework: So, as we've all known (or ought to have known), Riot has been making moves in the past few years to kind of eliminate the League. It ISN'T something I agree with, but it IS something I can understand. However, once they've decided to make that announcement, there should have been a large-scale move to retcon champions and references to the League, or there at least should have been a solid statement indicating that that was coming forthwith.
AkaiNeko49/12/2014, 7:37:16 AM2 votes

To take your points one by one (hopefully in a relatively nice, respectful way):

(1) Removing Summoners will not somehow increase our connections to the Champs. I'm not going to somehow magically know how Cho is thinking and feeling as he messily devours his victims, I'm not going to suddenly be a TACTICAL GENIUS like Swain, I'm not going to be overwhelmed with sadness and self-hatred by playing as Riven. That's not how it works. What the Summoner system did was not help us feel more connected to the Champs, per se, but to help us feel more connected to the events of the game. If I'm Garen, why am I floating way up here, able to see most of the battlefield at a glance, and not down there? But of course that makes sense if I'm the Summoner, and it feels cool when a Champ talks to us in one of their quotes.

They haven't shifted player emotions, from feeling like a Summoner to feeling like a Champion; they've just eliminated some of them, by killing our direct, canonical link with the events on-screen.

(2) The League is a unique premise. We agree there. The second part of this noe, however....

"But with the league, lucian and thresh can be on the same team, darius can dunk on his brother, and braum can beat the crap out of everyone. How are any of those scenarios appropriate given their lore?"

....no offense, but you missed the mark spectacularly on this one. See, these thing are still happening with the new Lore. The difference is that before, there was a reason: For some reason or another, they were on different teams for that match. Riot never explained how all that worked, but their Summoners were on different teams, or the councils they represented disagreed, or something. And no one really died - it was a temporary thing, undone in like a minute. But now, when Garen executes Lux, or Darius executes Draven, or Lee kicks Udyr to death, there's no longer any sensible explanation - or any explanation for how they come back a few seconds later.

(3) Yes, removing the League really does have some serious f***ing ramifications for a lot of characters. Why is Ahri there? She's supposed to be trying NOT to kill people - she was working for the League in exchange for research to help her. Why are Caitlyn and Vi there? Shouldn't they be in Piltover, doing their jobs as police officers? Why is Riven there? Massacring a bunch of people on a mountain doesn't seem like a great way to atone for her mistakes, especially as many of them are more-or-less good guys. Why are Swain and Leblanc there? Shouldn't they be ruling Noxus? Why is Sona there? Isn't she an internationally famous musician and performer of the highest caliber? What does killing people on a mountain have to do with her? And so on.

And please, stop buying into that whole "The League stops things from happening elsewhere in Runeterra" thing. Because it doesn't. S*** still went down just fine in the Freljord. And in Ionia. The League only got involved later - the Institute's primary concern is keeping Runterra from being destroyed, not from eliminating war entirely. Things can still happen elsewhere.

I'm....not actually sure what the point of the other half of that section was. It felt like it belonged in a discussion of Champ design. Sorry.

(4) OK, so this is sorta the big one, because this ties together much of the above. Here's why removing the explanation for the Cinco a Cinco setup of the League of Legends matches - along with us not being Summoners anymore, the reasoning for the improbable team-comps, the explanation for no one staying dead, the reasons for so many of the Champions to be there at all - ....

....

....dear God, do you realize that they aren't "Champions" anymore? They were "Champions of the League of Legends". That's....that's not even a f***ing thing anymore. Holy shit. That honestly kills me a little.

Anyway, here's why removing all that s*** matters so much to so many players, new and old: It pushes us much farther back from the game.

(ran out of room, continued in reply post)

AvariceSyn9/11/2014, 3:30:52 PM2 votes

I will forever remember the old lore, and should I forget, at least the wiki has all lores recorded. On that note, they can make any changes they want. But if they remove the League from League of Legends, I demand a name change for the game.

Tiropat9/10/2014, 8:10:30 PM1 votes

I voted 5 even though it is worded terribly

do you mean "I think it will improve later"?