Champion Concept/Kit: An Artificer (Critisicm wanted!!!)

Baxter900·5/15/2015, 2:45:38 AM·1 votes·933 views

#Champ design: The Artificer

Hi! I'm a hobbyist game developer in high school at the moment, and I just wanted to see how much my current knowledge of game design can be reflected into League. My goal with this it to try to come up with a bunch of different champion ideas, and let people critique them. Feel free to give any and all critique on the kit, I can take it (I hope...)

#The Final Kit Passive: Each of [champion]'s abilities alternately tick every x seconds, applying extra effects.

Q: [champion] tosses a hextech orb which deals damage when moving. All other basic spells can move the orb. Tick: The orb applies a stacking slow to everyone around it.

W: [champion] channels momentarily, then places a long lasting area. Tick: Rotates all orbs in the area around the center.

E: [champion] throws a runic spear which deals damage and briefly stuns the first champion hit. After hitting a champion or traveling to the part of the ground clicked on, the spear sticks to the ground. Tick: Moves all orbs in the direction it's pointing and damages all enemies in contact with it and briefly stuns them.

Ult: [champion] hypercharges their gadgets, causing them to speed up their ticking over x seconds, before reaching x times the ticking speed and exploding, dealing damage. Tick: [champion] gains a speed boost for a short time.

#How I got to this kit

#The Core Concept So Core Concept is an idea in game design which basically says when designing something, you should choose the thing that makes it unique, and build off of there.

The Core Concept of this champion is one of an Artificier, someone who essentially creates the magical equivalent of gadgets. Specifically, I want to see if I can focus on Hextech, because I like Hextech, but that's by no means a necessity. Ideally, I'd like this to fall into feeling like they character has a "gadget for every situation", rather than either having a core gadget, or inventing on the fly. The reason being that it allows me to differentiate him from heimerdinger, who definitely has a main, defining gadget, and who while doesn't invent on the fly, does construct them on the spot.

#Core Mechanical Feel So the core mechanical feel is essentially, how the actual in game implementation feels in game. In league, this means how playing the character feels, but also playing against them in every situation, and playing as their team. As such, I'm going to seperate this into a couple of categories.

I play support more than anything else, and as such I'm attempting to target this champion towards supporting, since I know that the best.

Kit as a whole: I want the kit to feel out of control and maybe a bit convoluted (without being hard to understand) for both the player, and those playing against it. Thus it should have elements of unpredictability which both sides should be able to exploit. Additionally, I think that each ability should be relatively predictable on it's own, but as the spells are comboed, things should become more chaotic, and less predictable. This additionally means that the spells can have extra power which couldn't be used otherwise, and also means the champion will likely excel at zoning more than actually hitting his abilities, as his abilites might be really threatening, but they might not hit.

In lane, early: So since the abilities are going to be strong individually, but lose some of the power in exchange for zoning when comboed, that means that a decision has to be made about how well he should be super early. For example, leona is super strong level 2 compared to almost every other support. I think that the champion should not be super strong early, so that means that I have to limit his initiating power when making his kit. Thus he either can't initiate well (Janna), needs his ult (Braum), or needs to combo his spells right (Thresh). Though the last one sounds contradictory to the feel of the kit as a whole, it can still exist as a kind of "if this hits your screwed, but you'll have a big chance to dodge it" sort of thing. Since the abilities are going to be zoning a lot, the character should be squishy throughout the game, and with no escape, as he'll likely have a bunch of CC on his abilites for the zoning.

In lane, later: So as I've mentioned above, the unpredictability means that his spells are massively effective for zoning, as they could cover a wider area. Thus that should really be the focus in lane, zoning so your opponent can't farm, or initiate. This leaves a problem though, as I have to make his spells threatening without huge amounts of damage, or allowing him to guarentee an initiation. As such, I need to make sure any form of initiation he has gives you a large chance to dodge, meaning it's primarily for zoning or teamfights, since in teamfights it's hard to notice and react in the middle of a teamfight.

Roaming: Since the champion has a lot of zoning, and therefore a lot of strength in hard to hit abilites, it makes the champion extremely unfair if they can roam well unless that is one of their strengths by design. That means there has to be some weakness opened up for them. Some weaknesses include: inability to push (only relevant in solo lane), really slow, can't initiate on a dime, easy to see coming, easy to murder if caught out of place. I actually intend to use the last three, and maybe the 2nd to an extent. I don't want him to be able to burst initiate, I already said no mobility, I want him to essentially be far away from combat and toss in abilities. So all in all, he should be super bad at roaming.

Sieging/Being under siege: By nature of what I've described this should be a naturally strong point for the champion. He should prevent them from initiating by zoning when under siege, and he should be able to set up for his full combo of chaos when sieging.

Teamfights: This champions should essentially play similar to lux during teamfights. He should sling in spells, readjust his positioning to optomize their effect, and hope nobody tries to assasinate him.

#Core Mechanic Ideas Well, with that over we can start with ideas. The Core Mechanic is the thing that makes a character feel utterly unique. There can be multiple ones, or only one. And some can be stronger than others. A really good example is Zed, his are his shadows, or Azir with his soldiers. Others, like the new guy, Ekko, have their power distributed, but you still know what they're about (His rewind ult). Lastly, a few don't even have a clear one (Sion, who's mechanic is pretty much wade in there and hurt).

The Core Mechanic I've been hitting on throughout this has been unpredictability and chaos, and I think the best way to represent this would be to have the Champion's spells move in an unpredictable manner. There are a couple of ways I can think of to do this:

His abilites can each apply a movement to his other spells when cast near each other.
His abilities could each apply a movement to his other nearby spells every x seconds, with x varying with each spell.
His abilities could each expand in a different way, based off of how they get hit by his spells.
His abilities could each move in the direction of all skillshots hitting them (enemies and allies).

Now I can either choose one of these, or have each one have a seperate one. Each method has different advantages. The first one keeps things relatively in the players control, but forces them to make choices. The downside of it is that it's easier for the player to predict than the enemy, and thus adds a lot of strength which could exist elsewhere. The second is the most chaotic, with the patterns being hard to predict for anyone, and accomplishing the goal of covering a wide area. The downside is that it creates a steep learning curve, where you have to figure out some patterns to be good with him. The third allows for the most area control, and creates a Zyra-like play style where you have to optomize your spell casts to do damage, and hit other spells. The downsides of it are that it creates a lot of mechanical complexity, possibly more than any existing champion. The fourth is interesting because it's outside of the players control, and turns it into a tug-o-war between the two teams pushing the spells around, the downside being that it's a really weird strategy, throwing your spells to try to push your allies spell or against your enemies spell once teamfights start, during laning it's fine. Additionally, building more than one spell that does that would probably be bad, since they'd feel the same.

Ultimately, I think that the second is the best choice, because it accomplishes both of the things I wanted, chaos and zoning, while also establishing a nice balance between skill and strategy on an ability. Quick aside, skill vs strategy. Skill is essentially how well you know the champion, using Zed as an example, being able to position, then switch between the two shadows for the most damage. Strategy is trying to outsmart your opponents or play mindgames, again with Zed, it's when you run away, then juke back to that shadow you left in a perfect place at the start where they didn't see it as soon as you enter a bush. An ideal champion ability has some measure of skill, and some way to use it for strategy.

#Tying in mechanics Most champions you see being made now have mechanics which combo off of, or tie into other mechanics. This is actually one of the hardest things about making a kit, as it either requires a lot of forethought, or a ton or iteration on a basic design.

The most immediate mechanical tie I can think of would be to tie something about the ability to it's movement. Here are the ones I can think of:

An ability which toggles on and off, or switches effects, each of it's "ticks" of moving other spells.
An ability which has an additonal effect when moving.
An ability which has an effect each "tick", rather than all the time.

Each of these gain benefits from ticking faster, and that leads to the last one I can think of. 4. An ability which makes everything "tick" faster.

So from this, you can already see the champion taking place, the champion will excel at zoning, and will be able to set up different spells which all interact with each other to create one great big machine which is extremely dangerous to be in, and then maintains the machine throughout the fight.

#Types of movement So now that the champion is becoming more concrete, I can start talking about ways to make the different movement of spells different.

There's really two types of movement in this case, there's linear, then there's circular. There can then be different strategies such as changing direction of movement, but those can potentially cause problems, and as such I'd like to avoid them. The interesting thing about circular though, is that small circles and large circles behave differently, which means that having them both makes the machine more unique. Thus I'd like to limit the machine to large circles, small circles, and linear movement. Maybe with the circles having different directions (clockwise and counterclockwise).

#How the "ticking" behaves So there are three different ways the ticking could behave. First of all, everything could tick at once. This has the advantage of looking really cool and being unpredictable, but also has a basic problem at it's core which is best known in physics, called the three body problem. If you know what it is, good for you, if you don't, then just know that it's impossible to actually do everything at once, rather we'd have to set an order of operations which makes the process completely unpredictable to all players. And while I did say unpredictable earlier, a better word was chaotic. Unpredictable has no counterplay, chaotic has counterplay, but requires a quick intake of information. So if we have to have an order of operations, why not go entirely by the order? That leaves the other two options. Spells could tick exactly every x seconds, starting from when they're created, or they could tick every x seconds, starting from the start of the game, with types taking turns ticking. The advantage of the second one is it's exactly what you see is what you get, a spell ticks every x seconds, but it's much harder to predict. The advantage of the second one is that you get this really cool effect of one type activating, then the other, then the other, like a machine in harmony. A kind of order in chaos type thing.This and these if you're wondering what I'm talking about by "order in chaos". They look crazy, but they all follow simple rules. The disadvantage of the second one though is that we still have to deal with the three body problem, just only for type at a time.

I ultimately think the last method mentioned is the best, as it has a good balance between counterplay and understandability.

#And what you've all been waiting for... Abilities!

At this point, I feel confident drafting up some abilities.

Passive: Each of [champion]'s abilities tick alternatively every x seconds, moving other abilities and applying extra effects.

Q: [champion] tosses a ball which deals damage and applies a stacking slow for a short time when moving. Tick: Ball spins other abilities clockwise

Short cooldown on the Q with a decent range. Think Syndra ball sized for the "ball". The idea is to load a ton of these into the area your other abilities are.

W: [champion] channels momentarily, then places an area which rotates everything on it every tick. Tick: Rotates nearby abilities and movable objects on the [ability] counter-clockwise around the [ability]'s center.

The idea with the W is a decently sized area (think Akali W sized) which rotates everything movable on it, or abilities around it on tick. This can bring someone unwary towards your team, allowing them to initiate, or it can be timed right to save your team. This would need a loooong cooldown.

E: [champion] throws an electrified spear that does damage on contact. Tick: Nearby abilities are moved in the direction of the spear and enemies are briefly stunned.

Simple enough spell.

Ult: [champion] hypercharges their gadgets, causing them to speed up their ticking over x seconds, before reaching x times the ticking speed and breaking.

This has some nice tradeoffs, you're ramping up your utility and damage while making it so that if they can leave your area of influence for long enough, you're now useless.

#Refining the kit So I liked the direction the kit was going. It no longer was really a support anymore, but rather a mage, so I decided to embrace that when refining the kit. However, there were some things I didn't like about the kit. Mainly, the W being movable seems like a horrible idea, since it affects your team as well. You're allowed to screw over your team, but now when it's some process you couldn't have predicted. The second was that the spear stunning every tick sounds like a bad idea to me when it's moving. Here's my revised kit.

Passive: Each of [champion]'s abilities alternately tick every x seconds, applying extra effects.

No longer all abilities being moved.

Q: [champion] tosses a hextech orb which deals damage when moving. All other basic spells can move the orb. Tick: The orb applies a stacking slow to everyone around it.

The ball is now the only spell which moves, and only applies a slow on tick. The slow stacks with how many hit though.

W: [champion] channels momentarily, then places a long lasting area. Tick: Rotates all orbs in the area around the center.

I decided to embrace the mage aspect and get rid of the utility on this ability, which I believe would have only caused confusion on both teams, as it's not something directly controllable. The idea of an ability that rotates everything in a circle is sound, but it has to be an activatable ability with a clear windup, which doesn't fit with this champion. Instead this makes it so that this area is extremely deadly to stand on.

By keeping the E from moving that changes it's primary purpose. It no longer blitzes around in circles stunning people, rather it's a dangerous place to step, and a way to bring orbs into the fight from a distance.

I kept the ult mostly the same, but due to the utility I removed from the W and the E, along with the new dependency on comboing the abilities I felt safe adding in the speed boost on tick, which allows the champion time to repositon. The explosion is just an extra incentive to get out, which again, could be added due to the removed utility and the dependency on setting up in advance.

#Conclusion I'm pretty happy with the way my design ended up. Despite starting with a completely different goal in mind, the end result feels to me like a robust champion which offers counterplay, while at the same time having different strengths than other champions. His end result may end up having similar strengths to Heimerdinger, but they are different. This champion requires more planning, is higher risk, and reaps more rewards from success. Again, if anyone has any criticism, I'd love to hear it, and if a Rioter in game design would drop a comment, well, that would make my day. Anyway, thanks for reading through this if you did.

Champion Concept/Kit: An Artificer (Critisicm wanted!!!)

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