True Meaning of Chromas and the Future of Them
Warning this subject is very tentative since Riot has yet to state any official announcement on the subject. And all the info that we have are from past surveys.
My guess as to why Riot calls these "recolored" skins as "Chromas" for surveys:
Change Hue Roughness Or Make Another Skin
Personally I feel like Riot should make a workshop in which we vote away our favorite chromas making atleast 5 or so of them a year. We get tons of fanmade concepts to appear in reality but most of the time they are slightly altered to represent Riot's Art Style or as to not totally rip off the original design for legal reasons; examples being Popstar Ahri, Pororider Sejuani, and a few others. There is a reason why Dragon Master Swain is taking such a long time. Because how the hell are you gonna top off this while making it somewhat look different and yet still appealing.
I feel like "workshop" isn't the best of words to describe this because it sounds really bad that we are working for Riot. Rather I'm trying to find a name that best suits this as community driven with creativity at its base. This is sorta like "build-a-bear workshop" where you pay to make you're own unique bear.
So where do Chromas go into all this? Simple. Chromas actually already exist in League but some of you fail to realize that they do exist. Catipillar, Sonoran Kog'maw; Bird of Prey, Team Spirit, Noxus Hunter Anivia; Nightblade Irelia; Human, Tribal Ryze; and the list goes on. One of the few things to take note is that most of these skins cost 520 rp ( there are a few outliers that cost more) since most of them have very small changes to the hue or colors of the character as well as small texture or changes to the "roughness" that at times does not feel like it brings out a significant theme but looks good; so might as well call them something.
So with this in mind I wouldn't mind accepting more Chromas into LoL with a few exceptions:
- They go on sale for 390rp (25% off) for the first week of launch. This is similar to how skins such as Assassin Master Yi, Golden Alistar, and White Mage Veigar are offered for new players as cheap starters or alternatives. After that they will keep the 520 rp price tags with the off-chance of going on 50% off sale in the future. These are for the classic base skins and do not hold any vfx/particle changes.
- For creativity purposes I could see potential for non-classic/base skins to receive color changes as well. Not that I know of any but I would call these as sub-chromas; recolors of already owned skins. For example: Imagine One-for-All Full Metal Jayce with Each player being a different color sorta like power rangers. As for these type of skins I would hate to charge players 520 rp for simple recolor on a skin they already own. This is somewhat negotiable but I feel like 100 - 250 rp sounds reasonable for sub-chromas.
- If Chromas seem to fail for some champions then that just means it's time for Riot to "Make Another Skin" for said Champion somewhat down the pipeline.
With this in mind, Riot will yet again need to change or add rules and guidelines to their skin policy especially since skin classification is still somewhat not clear enough to people that they argue about the price at times. Not that anything is wrong with that because negotiations about skin prices have always existed but have kinda died down as of late. Last time I remember about a skin arguement was that of Atlantean Syndra on PBE which was gonna be set to 1350, but Riot ended up pushing the price down since it didn't offer as much as the others in terms of voice filter. Other than that it had new recall animation, new walking animation (somewhat not noticeable to some people), new particles/vfx, and sound effects. The price could have also been reduced to appeal to the Syndra mains that felt that the skin didn't look to well.