[CCOS] March Results are Here!

ModEchoing··14 votes·1,735 views

https://media.giphy.com/media/YTbZzCkRQCEJa/giphy.gif Congratulations to the select few who participated! The March CCOS is at an end, and it's time to announce the winners!

But first, your judges!

Echoing. You know one of these days I'll submit a concept just to prove I'm still in the game. BowieTheNifty. The man, the myth, the Shining Force II protagonist!

Honorable mention to daVinci Bot, who hit some serious work-related issues. We thank you for your willingness to volunteer and wish you best of luck!

With that said, the winner of the March CCOS is...

https://media.giphy.com/media/mubhxqkLYKwp2/giphy.gif

Bezalel, the Golem-Maker, by gemini333, with a score of 180/220! Congratulations!...now please step out of the circle, no need for the giant army.

In second place, Torrance, the Last Son of Zaun, by THE RLVER KLNG, with a score of 170/220! That really doesn't bode well for forum health, though - how much RadX did we stockpile?

In third place, Adorna, the Phantom Strider, by Skylarke, with a score of 158/220! The most intense game of tag is on...

In fourth place, Ryka, the Demon of Noxus, by Raxistaicho, with a score of 156/220! Multi-champion drifting?!

In fifth place, Mor Brume, the Crux of the Isles, by Arakadia, with a score of 155/220! Now if we can just move Mor Brume away from the giant pile of regonas concepts we keep in the corner...

You can access my scoresheet here, and BowieTheNifty's sheet here. We should be lingering if you have any specific questions, although I can never answer the ongoing question of how the other judges manage to be more vicious than me sometimes.

I'll attempt to get the next CCOS up by Tuesday. If you're interested in judging, hit me up at "[email protected]" and I'll try to get back to you with a reply. If you're not happy with how only two people got to decide this, that's all the more reason to enlist as a judge.

Don't take low scores personally! We're trying to help you improve, not demean and discourage you! Most of us have better things to do than be nasty to random people on the internet!

I hope you see you again next month!

-Echoing

49 Comments

Ýones3 votes

You should put the date of CCOS' 2 days forward from now on.

Arakadia2 votes

I always love the feedback of this thing. Your really good at it.

ModEchoing1 votes

Who, me?

Not really. I focus too much on negatives and never on what anyone's doing right. I tried to avert that this time, but it's a work in progress - I'll start off nice, but then rattle off everything wrong. In most concepts, not everything is an error, but I don't adequately convey this, and I always worry I come off too negative.

Granted, I guess I'm alright at pointing out those negatives, but I can do the process so much better.

Arakadia1 votes

For me, the negatives are very important for improving. So your feedback is always very helpful.

I think its great your trying to even criticize and improve your critiquing ability. A lot of people have a hard time with self improvement.

I think you did a fine job this time, you weren't excessively negative or anything for me, even calling Mor Brume's lore spoopy to lighten things up. Thanks though, this helps me improve alot.

ModEchoing1 votes

Well, I'm glad I can help.

A lot of people have trouble with self-improvement because they think they're great. I think I'm just okay, and that people are crazy enough to listen to me anyways. If I was REALLY great, you wouldn't see me posting here because I'd be a red on Game Design, and then I can't actually view the board for fear of legal repercussions if something accidentally gets used. I'm still shooting for that goal, but I can do so much better, both here and outside of League as a whole.

...the irony of going from "We should listen to Echoing, he knows what he's talking about!" to the potential inevitable "What the hell is this red doing, that champion is overloaded as hell!" amuses me.

BowieTheNifty2 votes

So yeah I tried to be as best as I could with the feedback. Though I will admit I enjoyed being a judge this time around. If anyone has any questions for me, I would be happy to answer to the best of my ability.

Ýones2 votes

I am quite happy with the feedback I got. My upcoming concept for the next contest will be named Fercrux, the Cursed Horde, and I hope they will get better scores this time (they will be quite different from ANY other champion).

Arakadia2 votes

They, horde, and the name make the concept sound badass. I cannot wait, I trust in your powers.

ModEchoing1 votes

Definitely looking forward to it. Ogon was a really weird outlier in your lineup - I think your last outright bust was Bubbs, but Ogon wasn't even a bust, just really underpowered. Was he incomplete, or did you overestimate the power of some of your effects?

Ýones1 votes

{quoted}

Definitely looking forward to it. Ogon was a really weird outlier in your lineup - I think your last outright bust was Bubbs, but Ogon wasn't even a bust, just really underpowered. Was he incomplete, or did you overestimate the power of some of your effects?

He wasn't incomplete, but I think I did overestimate his power. Toggled AoE heal sounds strong to me, but now that I'm thinking it could be a lot more powerful.

ModEchoing1 votes

What really killed it was that his heal drew upon his powered-up poking's same power source, and that power source was also your passive, and that both relied on getting minion souls so if you left lane you were out of ammo until you went back to lane. You had two abilities feeding off each other and a third that didn't exist - Ogon's overall power was never going to hold up to any other support.

Ýones2 votes

Goddammit, echoing.

Skylarke1 votes

Patience is a virtue ;)

ModEchoing2 votes

I got whammied super hard with school, and that got me a little too stressed.

Tomorrow for sure.

Arakadia1 votes

Just saw this lmao. I'm so happy I got 5th! I was really close with Raz, but this is my first time in top 5! Thanks alot! I think alot of people love these things, so keep it up! I was realy close to 4th and 3rd too.

And that poke at Regonas concepts, I guess his concepts really were unforgetable.

ModEchoing1 votes

I kinda wish sometimes I wasn't trapped doing the CCOS so I could do something silly like, say, make a contest out of taking one of his concepts and making it a respectable contender. I think that'd demonstrate a lot more skill than just crafting a champion out of whole cloth - you're now working against the guy's original intent and wishes.

Arakadia1 votes

That does sound kind of cool. Sort of makes me want to do that to some of my real old concepts, although their pretty crappy or cliche themes. Like Irelia's brother who happens to have her ult (floating blades) as a kit.

Although Regonas' themes weren't unusable, it was usually his execution that went bad.

Skylarke2 votes

The execution could be good at times. It was just the complete bone-headed refusal to listen to criticism and lashing out at critics with strange demeaning nicknames (Vorazuning, anyone?) which sealed his fate.

Again, there's more to concepts than just having a good kit. It's about interacting with the community as a whole - being nice and giving back which I think is a valuable lesson everyone can take to heart. Lashing out just gets you ostracised. As was his obsession with alt accounts.

Arakadia1 votes

As was his obsession with alt accounts.

Oh god. This was triggering.

Honestly, if it was just this paranoia I think people wouldn't like him exactly but he would have been fine. But your absolutely right, his inability to adapt concepts to feedback was his downfall.

Arakadia1 votes

[deleted]

Skylarke1 votes

I'm currently reading mine. So I think it's up.

Arakadia1 votes

Shit, I forgot. I see it now.

50000000000000001 votes

Ah shoot, I thought the contest just started, but I missed the starting announcement :( I'll come back with a new concept, I guess.

EDIT: also gif not loading?

ModEchoing1 votes

Gifs are broke for some reason and it makes me sad.

50000000000000001 votes

did you add "?noredirect" at the end?

Billcurme1 votes

Good job everybody, and congrats to the top 5! Sorry I missed this the contest this time 'round, but I'm rarin' to join the next one!

Skylarke1 votes

Echoing, the answer to your question is Yes.

To answer your second question this started out as an Evaire redesign which got shifted from AD caster to ADC.

Skylarke2 votes

I was also curious as to how/why you found Adorna's manners as appalingly bad. I'm not sure that I wrote in anything which conveyed this. The intention was that she would be curt at times, but certainly not at the level which you describe it, so I'd like to hear your thoughts behind it.

I'm also unsure as to why you think long monologues strain credibility. I tried to write it more as a conversation than any straight monologue per se.

ModEchoing3 votes

Except it wasn't a conversation.

Go back and count how many words Evan gets in edgewise on Adorna. It's really easy to tl; dr the lore down to:

"Hi, I'm a traveler, who might you b-" "LET ME SING YOU THE SONG OF MY PEOPLE"

Adorna's volume of dialogue vastly exceeds Evan's, and continues mostly unprompted. When Evan is portrayed as something of a scholar who would naturally be curious and ask more questions, Adorna's uninterrupted dialogue is pretty glaring in this regard. At one point, Adorna even explicitly interrupts Evan - the poor guy! - who was in the middle of one of his few lines of dialogue.

The general expectation when inviting someone into a house is that you'll ask about them, inquire as to what they do, etc., and they'll in turn do the same after answering you. It's a general basis in reality and in fiction, and this incredibly lopsided exchange makes it really easy to see Adorna as almost arrogant and holier-than-thou.

It could also just be that you had the misfortune of hitting one of my sore spots - it's a distinctly Hispanic thing down here to talk yourself up like everything you do is a big deal, and I can't stand that kind of behavior despite being Hispanic myself.

But the thing is, the format of a traveler stopping by and inquiring about a person to that person? That was probably the wrong approach to take. If you wanted to play to your strengths of long monologues, journal entries or a military briefing would be much better formats to take.

And if you're wondering if a monologue or any dialogue is too long, read it out loud. If it takes more than about twenty seconds to read out loud and there's a second person in the room actively engaged in conversation, you've gone on too long.

I wish I could catch some of these things for you early on, but you generally make the long lore after you've gotten the concept entered.

Skylarke1 votes

I was curious if you had any thoughts on New Vyrda. I'm currently trying to process the story but I'll upload once it's a bit more coherent.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/etfMcYTe-champion-concept-vyrda-the-rift-jumper

midnight oil241 votes

Dammit, I really thought Maut was good ;-;

If I'm doing a total relaunch of an earlier concept I submitted, is that allowed? Like, kit barely resembles the old one?

ModEchoing1 votes

You might just be better off shelving Maut and coming up with something else entirely.

Maut had a really cool theme, for what it's worth. He just fell apart really hard when it came to numbers and sheer practicality in picking him over anyone else.

midnight oil241 votes

Actually, I was referring to a relaunch of Raven. I've been working to try to make his kit better, and I'm releasing some champs that relate to him and tell a wider lore, and don't want him to be left by the wayside. His kit is almost completely different. Would that be allowed in this thing?

ModEchoing1 votes

If the only thing remaining of him is his name? Yeah, sure, I don't think anyone could dispute that.

I'll stop you right there with the whole "Oh, I'll tell his story through multiple champions!" idea though. That's a disaster in the works for several reasons.

  1. I'm not grading them and you're going to be hard-pressed to find judges favorably inclined enough to go through their lore and make the match.
  2. Any mistake there could reflect poorly on Raven due to the interconnected nature.
  3. It's wholly unnecessary as a good lore should be able to stand by itself anyways.
  4. Even with an interconnected lore, i.e. Jayce and Viktor, each story in itself is still whole.
  5. Raven's old lore isn't really redeemable due to how disconnected it is with Runeterra as a whole, and introducing the other characters mentioned there won't help. You're best off trying to redefine him as a character inside Runeterra instead of an extradimensional traveler.
midnight oil241 votes

Well yeah, it's shifted to make more sense why he's on Runeterra: these other people have shown up, he has to stop them. The others fit in better because pretty much all of them have been on Runeterra for centuries by that point.

In addition, not every champ is super tied to Runeterra in official lore. Bard is just kind there, and Aurelion just slipped up, but isn't really a major aspect of Runeterran culture (I get that he's a big player in the lore, but he's not from Runeterra and hasn't made much of an overall impact. He just kinda showed up and got tricked).

To be fair, though, I did do a pretty bad job with his old one. It was confusing, and not clearly worded. I can probably make it work better now, but by forcing him to fit into Runeterra exclusively instead of his history across a variety of areas, I have to make him, along with other champs that i'm either making or rereleasing, to conform. One that I'm redoing is my concept for Arlo. He's more of a commando, with modern-ish weapons. But by forcing him to conform to Runeterra, the only area he'd fit would be piltover, which Raven woulnd't go to, and would also force his weaponry to become all steam-punkish and magical, when the point of his character is that he's "the normal one," the one who doesn't have god-like powers, who uses what's given to him and became as strong as he is through sheer determination. By forcing him to be confined to one of two high-tech nations in the game, he loses what makes him his own character and makes him another "oh look, he's got hextech weaponry!" or "he's got guns!" guy instead of "the guy who became as skilled as he is because he had to keep up with people of god-like strength."

While every champ concept that goes in here definitely needs to tie into Runeterra and take a look at Runeterran culture, I don't see why a champion can't come from another world. My plan was to have Raven be under Demacian lockdown for being suspected to be magical, and his horror and respect for Demacia and Noxus. He'd provide an outsider look, and could further the world through this new perspective, rather than "lived there his whole life but suddenly was accused of being a magic-user," or something like that.

I imagine you don't agree with me, though.

ModEchoing3 votes

The main differences here are that Bard is actually a known factor in Runeterran culture - enough that there's stories about him - and while Aurelion Sol isn't wholly connected, the Targonians definitely are. Bard helps explore Runeterra as a whole, while Aurelion Sol not only explores the cosmology of the universe, but also puts an entirely new spin on the Targonians that we would have never imagined.

When you're doing this extradimensional thing, it's about as close as you can get to cheating in a literary setting. You can explain anything, and get away with anything, just by claiming it's from this other dimension. Once that happens, though, it's more or less a giant black hole - now anything could logically happen by using those same rules, and no other rules can be allowed to have any real power or consistency. It's more or less a total override of the original setting. Let's not make any bones about this - what we do is more or less fanfiction, and more or less the entire point of good fanfiction is to play by the rules of the universe we're writing in. When we start throwing out those rules, we end up stretching the credibility of what we write, and make it less about fitting in to the universe and more about our amazingly special character.

Yeah, I disagree, but only because I don't think you quite see every angle of this just yet. You've got a bit of a limited imagination with Arlo there - just because his tech would have to be Piltover in origin doesn't mean he has to stay there, and not all tech is steampunkish, what with Jhin's hand cannon and Graves' shotgun and Warwick's chemical injectors. I think you should explore other possibilities first instead of deciding "Nope, this isn't gonna work, time to break out this other world!"

midnight oil241 votes

First off, I did make a mistake with the whole "other dimension" thing. That's different.

One of te problems with everyone being forced to exist on the same world is that it also eventually begins to limit the types of stories that can be told. With Raven I can tell a story of him accepting the fact that he used ot be associated with some pretty bad guys and also show him a place like Noxus, where he is accepted despite his weird powers that scare others off. It would be eye-opening for him. But if he's already on Runeterra, it has to become one of two things iwth him and Noxus: Either he's from Noxus already, removing the conflict over who he is and finding a place that accepts him unconditionally, or it has to be that he has preconceived notions of Noxus only to find out that they're wrong, which is a plot that has been done to death. If I have him come from off-world, trying to deal with the people who made him the person he is in a bad way, only to find Noxus, it allows him to have an unbiased opinion. Any character that comes from Runeterra has to have biases, and that can affect the story negatively.

In addition, there are actual aspects of Raven's personality and past that would need to be removed for him to fit as a native of Runeterra. He'd have to lose his first interaction with Arlo as a child, which is a shaping moment for both of them, he'd have to lose out on meeting Deryn (who may or may not be a character that I make, I have quotes prepared just in case), and removing his past with the other "Regent" champs, the other demon contract characters who made him the violent person he is. By losing that first meeting with Arlo, for example, Raven remains a violent child, and Arlo never really gets the thing that turns him from being a ruthless contract killer into a caring person.

And once again, with the whole "come from certain places" thing: I have characters that that will not work well with. Sure, Arlo can leave Piltover, but he won't be... he won't be ARLO. He'll be someone else with Arlo's name and Arlo's kit. He's the second most important person in the world to Raven, but by having him come from a place that Raven wouldn't go to, it removes him from Raven's story altogether, and those two are the catalysts for each other's stories. Sure, he can leave piltover, but if Raven doesn't go to Piltover, and Demacia and Noxus are the worst possible places for Arlo to go, it removes them from each other's stories. Their character arcs would have to be completely changed.

It also changes character dynamics. Raven got his powers from a demon contract. Problem now is, if he's forced onto Runeterra then the demon has to be magical, lest this fit into "fanfiction" realm (something every champ concept is, in all honesty). That destroys his entire thing going on right now, where he's locked up in Demacia for being accused of being magical, even though he isn't. If he IS magical, then the Demacians are the ones in the right. The other option is think up a new reason for him having his powers, reject what has been his power source for two years now, and remove another character element of what makes Raven Raven.

FloRaider422 votes

Since he has the preconceived notion that people are scared of his powers discovering Noxians accept him has the same thematic regardless where he comes from and I don't understand why you think being from a different dimension makes it any more impactfull.

Why exactly would he have to lose his interactions with Arlo? Is he somehow unable to travel?

Why won't he be Arlo just for having Zaunite or Piltovian weapons? What exactly does that change in his character? Why can't he just travel the world and meet him?

How exactly is a demonic contract not magical? Could you please shed some light on how this is supposed to work when the definition of demons is pretty much: "magical evil creature"?

I think you can change some aspects of your OC and still have them keep the same theme and personality.

midnight oil241 votes

Okay, I'll try my hardest to explain. Sorry if I don't do a good job.

First off, as I said above, I kinda messed up with the "dimension" thing. It's really more "Raven's existed for a really long time going planet to planet. Mostly due to him not knowing how to function in society, accidentally pissing off a world leader, and getting hounded by a new civilization."

On the topic of Arlo, pretty much everything we've seen come from piltover and zaun is a fancy, magical or futuristic weapon. Arlo does not use flashy weapons. He's athletic, sure, but he's not showy. He's just about being efficient and using different weapons. Caitlyn's not showy, but she's got a needlessly complicated sniper rifle that can apparently be changed on teh fly to fire different types of ammo. Arlo's got: grenades, a rifle, two pistols, and a sawed-off shotgun. Not inventing anything new here.

What wouldn't make him "Arlo" isn't the fact that he's using weapons from that place, though. What makes him "not arlo" is how he'd lose his history with Raven.

Raven is basically on lockdown in Demacia due to being suspected of being magical. He's under watch by the crownguards (only because Lux knows the fear of being discovered), so he's not really going anywhere. If anything happens plot-wise, it would be Lux breaking him out, but Raven isn't really able to get out on his own.

Arlo, if he's from Piltover or Zaun, is probably not going to Demacia. He would not like the over-structured-ness of Demacia. Or Piltover, for that matter. He also just wouldn't fit in in piltover. But on to him losing his history with Raven. Raven wouldn't associate with Piltover, as he's not "techey." He avoids that area, and is also on lockdown as was mentioned previously. Arlo and Raven are highly linked as characters. Raven, except for one dark period, lived alone for millions of years. Arlo is sent to kill him because Raven is not a threat but will be. Arlo is about to kill Raven, still a child in the grand scheme of things, in cold blood, but Raven shows him a place that has a beautiful view, as that's where he'd like to die. Arlo realizes that he can't kill a child, and takes Raven under his wing. The two are incredibly close, and Arlo is even Raven's moral compass in society.

For the demon part, this will actually take some explaining (which would have been done in the full-on post for raven, but I'm gonna clear it up for you here).

Basically, Demon is more a classification in this story, split into two major groups: Burning Legion Demons, basically demons that work for one main character, Deryn, and Tartarus Demons. They aren't subordinates to Deryn. Raven is a tartarus demon, for example. The major difference besides forced servitude and not forced servitude is that Tartarus demons aren't all magical. Some of them are just people who went bad to the point where they lost humanity. Sometimes they're just a representation of the forward motion of time and the universe's inevitable heat death. That's what the demon Raven made (more like was forced into, but that's not important) a contract with. Not that no demons are magical in this, all the ones native to Runeterra are, but Raven and his demon are not magical beings.

I was already making 500 changes to the story to make it fit, it's just a little hard being told that your character's lore is pointless if they're not from that world, even though having them come from somewhere else allows for an unbiased look at the world. It's impossible for a native character to not have a bias.

Also, I know you're trying to make me feel bad about how I ended the thing, and I do feel bad. I'm just stressed out.

FloRaider421 votes

Planethopping isn't much better than Dimension-jumping since it allows the use of many more planets, even though we don't even know everything about Runeterra yet. He could just be a hermit on Runeterra, though I don't know how he would be able to piss of world leaders, since so far we only have nation leaders.

The champions we have seen so far from Zaun and Piltover are either experiments or special forces, but from the cinematics we know that normal citizen there have access to much less futuristic weapons. He could just use standard weaponry that is avaiable to the common masses (think GP and MF using functional but far less modern weapons). However using that many weapons sounds wrong, since it's easier to train and maintain lesser amounts.

Raven can't always have been locked up in Demacia so he could have met him earlier. Why would Lux want to break him out? Arlo could be from anywhere and since he uses standard weapons he could work anywhere as a merc or bodyguard, so no need to lock him up as well. Even if he doesn't like Demacia or Piltover I don't think he would be against travelling through there to get something.

Living alone for millions of years sounds really wrong (I don't think even Morde or Ryze are that old). Since this plays in Ravens childhood this could happen before he is locked up. Storywise: How would "they" know Raven will become a threat and why send someone that isn't suited for the job?

Demon already is a classification in LoL already so you would need something like Deadra, Dremora or the likes to signify a different species. Why are they called Tartatus demons if they are just humans? If those demons aren't magical what else are they supposed to be?

It just seems unnecessarily complicated to outsiders to introduce all these new aspects for a handfull of characters. It's impossible for any character to not have a bias, even someone from another world would say something like "back home we have X".

You sound exhausted, did you have a stressy week? I hope you will get better soon.

The Dreamwalker1 votes

XD I would have entered. I had no idea this was going on. Alas, I will just enter next month.

gemini3331 votes

Wasn't expecting first place, but I'm really happy I got some feedback now. Congrats to the other winners as well!

@ Echoing: I think I messed up my wording for Bezalel's 'Clay Golem' ability. To clarify, Bezalel can only a maximum of 3 golems on the field at the same time, not 10. The mana cost cap is merely showing how much golems are going to cost if you keep summoning them in a short period of time. In other words, it's like the ultimate stacking cost effect of Kassadin and KogMaw .

ModEchoing1 votes

Ah. Well. Having three pets with increased ward HP out on the field is still pretty nasty, especially when they just keep coming.

I loved Bezalel since, more than anything else in this round, he represented a different style of gameplay we didn't really have. The closest would be Malzahar, but the focus is entirely different there. My soft spot for golems slightly helped.

AcidTheWarlock1 votes

I think I'll enter, sounds fun.

Got a concept already lined up.

fugertech1 votes

I need to do so good one of these months that I maybe hit the top-5. Shooting for the dream...sometime.

Anywho, I gotta look at the feedback I was given and then say thanks for it. I'll be a few minutes :D

BowieTheNifty2 votes

You will get there mate. You got a lot of interesting ideas. I did actually really like the last concept. :)

fugertech1 votes

Alright, I read the critique. Big shoutout and thanks to Echoing and Bowie for their amazing feedback in regards to Thanos. Glad to see that he had a bit of novelty in the face of an overloaded kit. I figured I shoulda toned down some of his numbers, but by the time I was ready to make those changes I noticed it was...oh, say around the 25th?

Judges don't have any obligation to check over a concept after they've reviewed it, so I figured any changes I'd make would be in vain. Ah well. There's always hope for next month, aye?

Big congratulations to gemini333 on his first-place win. It's interesting to see someone else in first place for once.

Congrats to all the other people who placed in top 5 as well. It's nothing I haven't seen before in terms of top 5-ers, but always fun nonetheless.

I hope to see all of you (and maybe even a few more people than this month) come back for the next competition! It's always a great experience. Best of luck to you all in your life endeavors, and here's to hoping you Stay Frosty!

*clinks glass*

Ýones1 votes

Fercrux have come to life, I'd like to have feedback before I sudmit it to the next month's contest. :-)

ModEchoing1 votes

Beat you to it.

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