New Customization System Concept: Masteries, Keystones, and Summoner Pets
Right now the customization system for League of Legends is an illusion of choice and really comes down to reskinning things that all do the exact same thing (with very few exceptions to this rule). To some degree, this is fine, but right now it is in the extreme camp of not offering the player any truly meaningful choices and LoL is too far gone to have a proper system in place (well, it can have it, but it would be too much work, would need an entirely new game to start fresh to properly implement a great system having the customization unique to each champion so it can have meaningful impact and easily balanced).
This concept post is taking masteries, keystones, and summoner spells and entirely removing them from the game as you know them for a more stream-lined system that demands less of the player, but offers a lot better system to fine tune and even change up how you play the game / each game based on your choices and set up.
Masteries will be turned into a load-out-like system where it will not do things too crazy, but fine tune how you play the game and your champion of choice for that game. ~ This means you have a point system and the same minimum and maximum amount of masteries you have to choose which automatically assigns one point to that mastery. Raw stats will be very minimal to non-existent, leaving room for player choice to how they want to deck themselves out rather than choosing the strongest or perceived strongest at any given patch (avoiding clearly best choices as much as possible, with the exclusive of some masteries being needed for certain positions / classes); no penetration values, attack damage, or ability power will be included.
Keystones will be turned into something more akin to Summoner Spells, but are just passive effects that DRASTICALLY change how the game is played with the balance here is everyone can only choose one keystone and everyone gets one. The keystone is changed in a way that breaks a rule to the game instead of having a flashy effect, this offers actual player choice and sets them up to prioritize a certain build, instead of choosing the currently most powerful effect for that patch. Basically they are cheat cards to break the rules of the game AND COMPLETELY SEPARATED FROM MASTERIES. ~ Examples would be things like reducing the soft restrictions to movement speed or armour/mr so you can build even more of those stats respectively. Another thing is increasing your cooldown reduction cap or attack speed cap to further change what you want to do. There will be some champions that mindlessly take only the same keystone every game because it benefits that champion the most, but that is fine and also showcases the flaw of having a system that is not unique to each individual champion (again, need to make an entirely new game to do things differently).
Summoner Pets will replace Summoner Spells directly, offering the ability to do more with them than what you can do with summoner spells, but some pets may just end up being the exact same thing, but cooler with a companion following you around for player satisfaction. You can only have one Summoner Pet chosen, so choose wisely, with Teleport and Flash being incorporated into the game. ~ Flash will be set to the "F" key by default (you can change this by rebinding the key to something else), with its range and cooldown being exactly the same as it is now. Perhaps a Keystone could modify your Flash in special ways? ~ Teleport will replace your Recall slot WHILE YOU ARE ON YOUR SUMMONER PLATFORM, being used the same way with a 300 seconds cooldown and an increased channel time to 8 seconds (same as Recall) when you activate the spell either by pressing "B" by default or clicking on it and selecting an applicable allied unit, ward, or tower. Perhaps a Keystone could modify your Teleport in special ways?
SUMMONER SPELLS:
As a reminder, this concept has Summoner Spells completely removed, some of which will be implemented as more player satisfying effects with a pet companion following you around doing similar things i.e. true damage burn or team healing. While Flash will be assigned to "F" as the default key being the same thing as it does now and Teleport being changed and implemented to the Recall key ("B" by default) while on the Summoner's Platform and having its base channel time increased to 8 seconds instead of 4 to match Recall's channel time and has a 300 seconds cooldown, both of which will have ways to enhance and modify their performance much further.
This new Teleport channel is cancelled the same way as Recall's channel is canceled, only relevant information for its enhanced version. Matches the same channel time as Recall, so Baron Buff would affect its duration.
Flash range is 400 units, just for clarity.
MASTERIES:
RULES: You have a maximum of 30 points to freely spend on masteries to upgrade them however you like. Each mastery can be upgraded to a maximum of 10 times (rank 10 is the maximum for further clarity, rank 1 is the minimum) and you have to select a minimum of 6 masteries which 6 masteries is also the maximum limit that you can select as well.
To simplify everything once again, Masteries are divided into Offense, Defense, and Utility since you cannot have more than this and players know what these terms mean, no need for confusing fancy names that means nothing to the player.
Things will be stated as "[(base) / (scaling)]" to signify what you get for simply taking the mastery (base) and what you get for every point into the mastery (scaling) instead of saying something like "1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10" and make it more readable.
OFFENSE:
Attack Speed: Gain [3% / 3%] bonus attack speed.
Cooldown Refund on Takedown: Gaining a kill or assist against enemy champions, enemy structures, or epic monsters will refund [5% / 5%] of your active cooldowns on your basic abilities.
Attack Range: Gain [30 / 5] bonus range to your basic attacks, but deal [5.5% / 0.5%] less damage from your attacks. Champions with 600 or more attack range gain [5 / 5] bonus range instead and deal [0.75% / 0.75%] less damage from their attacks.
Minion Slayer: Deal [11 / 1] bonus damage to minions and non-epic monsters from attacks and damaging abilities. Executes permanently increase this bonus damage by 1, up to [5 / 5] bonus damage to minions and non-epic monsters.
Objective Destroyer: Deal [1 / 1] bonus damage to epic monsters and enemy structures. Executes permanently increase this bonus damage by 1, up to [10 / 10] bonus damage to epic monsters and enemy structures.
DEFENSE:
Life Steal: Your basic attacks heal for 5% plus up to [1% / 1%] of their damage dealt based on your level, but total healing from attacks is capped at [29% / -1%; 20% cap at rank 10].
Spell Vamp: Your abilities heal you for 8% plus up to [1.2% / 1.2%] of their damage dealt based on your level, 40% less healing for non-mana users. 65% less healing for area damage.
Self-Healing: Your healing abilities and healing abilities from other allies will heal yourself for 5% plus up to [1.5% / 1.5%] more based on your level.
Team-Healing: Heal your allies from your own healing abilities for 5% plus up to [1.5% / 1.5%] more based on your level. Additionally, heal for [2% / 2%] of the healing you provide to allied champions. Your damage is reduced by [0.5% / 0.5%].
Titan Healing: Heal for [2.6% / 0.6%] of your missing health over 10 seconds. Additionally, heal for [1.5% / 1.5%] of your maximum health over 10 seconds when out of combat for 5 seconds. Your damage is reduced by [1.9% / 0.9%].
UTILITY:
Cooldown Reduction: Gain up to [2% / 2%] cooldown reduction based on your level.
Movement Speed: Gain [8 / 3] bonus movement speed, but boots offer [7 / 2] less movement speed.
Boot Discount: Boots of Speed is [65 / 15] gold cheaper after 8:00 minutes. Sell value reflects what you actually paid.
Resource Restoration: Increase your current mana restoration by [10% / 10%] or current energy restoration by [8% / 3%].
Crowd Control Amplification: Increase the duration of your crowd control and slows by [2% / 2%], maximum [0.05 / 0.05] second increase, but deal [1% / 1%] less damage.
KEYSTONES:
RULES: Completely separated from Masteries, you can choose a maximum of 1 Keystone which is a rule breaking effect that completely changes how you will build and/or play for the duration of the game. This is the most important decision to make before the game begins, so choose wisely, as it dictates what you want to do and/or achieve for that game.
Keystones are separated into Offense, Defense, and Utility to help the player know what does what for what purpose.
OFFENSE:
Cooldown Limit Breaker: Increase your cooldown reduction cap to 50% and all cooldown reduction you acquire is multiplied by 1.25 times.
Attack Speed Limit Breaker: Increase your attack speed cap to 3.0 attacks per second and all bonus attack speed you acquire is multiplied by 1.25 times.
Elite Objective Destroyer: Deal 25% increased damage against epic monsters and enemy structures. Gain 250 bonus gold for kills or assists from epic monsters or enemy structures.
DEFENSE:
Shield and Heal Reversal: Your shields will heal instead. Your heals will shield for 2.5 seconds instead and have their cooldown reduced by 25%.
Resistance Limit Breaker: Your armour and magic resistance is 25% more effective and you gain 10% more bonus armour and magic resistance.
Objective Tank: Gain 60% damage reduction against epic monsters and enemy towers. Gain 25% damage reduction when near your own structures.
UTILITY:
Movement Speed Limit Breaker: Your bonus movement speed is 25% more effective and your movement speed bonuses are increased by 10%.
Super Flash: Flash's cooldown is reduced to 240 seconds and cast range is increased by 50%.
Super Teleport: Teleport no longer has a cooldown and can be cast from anywhere. You no longer have Recall.
Global Shop: Purchase items from the shop anywhere and anytime! Gain 10% bonus gold from all gold sources. You no longer need to be next to the shop to buy items.
SUMMONER PETS:
RULES: This is basically the summoner spell where you get an animal companion that follows you around for increased player satisfaction instead of a boring spell!
You can only choose 1 Summoner Pet and their entire purpose is to aid the user in some fashion.
There are two things about Summoner Pets: You choose an animal and an element to go with it, adjusting what the animal companion will do based on the combination of the two effects. So the combination of the animal and the element offers for a lot of customization, despite there being a small pool of choices of each (can be expanded upon, this is just the rough concept phase), allowing the player to feel like their Summoner Pet is THEIR OWN and not doing something that is default to a role / position.
The default slot for the Summoner Pet is the "D" key.
ANIMALS:
Dog: Forever the loyal and faithful companion!
Passive: Will run back and forth to the nearest [800 range] enemy champion to harmlessly paw them and lick you when he returns to heal you for 3 - 25 to 12 - 100 health based on the distance he ran.
Active: Will heal nearby [700 range] allies around him for 40 - 240 health. Nearby [700 range] enemies are overcome by this action. (210 seconds cooldown)
Cat: Though may be cute, is also disloyal!
Passive: Will run back and forth to the nearest [600 range] enemy unit and attack it for 8 - 45 true damage.
Active: Will damage all nearby [425 range] enemies around her for 50 - 250 true damage over 5 seconds. (180 seconds cooldown)
Penguin: A super adorable and lovable flightless bird waddling behind you!
Passive: Will slide on her belly to the closest [750 range] enemy champion, slowing it down by 10% - 35% for 2 seconds and then waddle her way back to you.
Active: Get your little penguin to slide [750 range] in the target direction from her current location, slowing all enemies struck by 40% and reducing their damage by 40% for 2.5 seconds. (210 seconds cooldown)
Poro: Just a very cute and fluffy fluff ball always there by your side!
Passive: Will occasionally jump in the way of incoming champion damage against you, blocking 25% of it, but being wounded from the blow for 20 - 3 seconds. The target then feels guilty for wounding the poor, innocent little poro.
Active: Instantly recovers from his injuries, if he had any, and the next time the brave little poro jumps in the way, he will block all of the incoming damage and all other bad effects that would come with it, within 5 seconds. Additionally, he makes all enemies nearby [900 range] feel guilty for hurting him, and not just the target. (150 seconds cooldown)
ELEMENTS:
Fire: Your pet will now apply grievous wounds to enemies they affect. Passively for 1 second and actively for 5 seconds.
Water: Your pet will now knock back enemies that it affects. Passively by 125 units and actively by 450 units.
Electricity: Your pet will now move 50% faster. Poro recovers from his injuries 50% faster.
Wind: Your pet now reveals the area around its target by 800 units and can affect those nearby and inside brush. Passively reveals for 2 seconds and actively reveals for 7.5 seconds.