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Does anyone feel like Riot...doesn't really make new skinlines anymore?

ModCaptainMårvelous·9/26/2017, 4:52:16 PM·34 votes·1,867 views

Don't get me wrong, Riot's skin quality has gone through-the-roof in the past few years...but I have to admit I miss when they were more creative with skins.

Generally, Riot used to throw ANYTHING at the wall and see what stuck. Champ skinlines based on other franchises, jokes, weird AUs, corrupting/pre-corruption, etc. Take a look at Malphite: Seastone, Obsidian, Frost, Mecha, Glacial. The dude has a huge amount of skin variety with weird, experimental skin types.

These days, what do you see when a new skin comes out?

  • Project
  • Arclight
  • Super Galaxy
  • Mecha etc.

Skins don't feel unique anymore. Skins feel like they're all being put into neat little boxes. And sure, I love making groups around matching skins, but it tires me when skins end up coming out with no real "surprise" to them. "Star Guardian Caitlyn" gives me a pretty obvious and clear idea of what she's going to look like. "Mecha Darius" gives me a clear vision of what he's going to be. I want to be blown away by skins.

The caveat is Riot does this for new releases: Every new champ gets one pretty interesting skin line unique to them. Candy King Ivern, for example, was pretty awesome and not what I expected. Freljord Taliyah had some great effects. The Xayah/Rakan skin combo was an awesome idea. It tells me that Riot can STILL make original, unique skins...but would rather go with the safe option every time and expand an established line.

32 Comments

JooshBox9/26/2017, 5:20:35 PM22 votes

The Immortal Blade skin line that features Sacred Sword Janna, Soaring Sword Fiora and Eternal Sword Yi is a new skin line. I think they are just trying to expand more on current major skin lines. Personally, I enjoy them but that's just me.

Tormentula9/26/2017, 5:18:44 PM10 votes

Its less about riot not experimenting and being less creative,

and more about the community asking for expansions and their champs being additions to a skinline.

PROJECT is a skin line everybody loved so much the first time, everybody wanted their champion to be apart of it, and riot is trying to slowly satisfy those players.

Star guardian was a skinline a lot of players asked for more on, and they got it with a lot of the top favorites becoming star guardians.

Dark star, while nobody asked for ori or kha (that I know), people ask for Dark Star skins because the skinline itself is bad ass.

Super Galaxy is another flashy skin line alternative, and I'm personally very happy with it (players are just mad about annie getting another skin, but fact of the matter is, these skins are good and fitting this time.)

For instance, nobody is asking for Trogan Horse Hecarim because it simply doesn't exist and nobody would know the result of the skin to really beg riot for it as much as they could probably beg them for a PROJECT: hecarim skin, where they have a pretty good idea how it'd turn out right at the name.

Simply put, players are more likely to resonate their champion with existing skinlines and unless they get the champion in those skin lines, it won't satisfy them as much (unless they're really freaking good like dark star thresh and varus). Additionally there are so many skinlines at the moment, its hard to come up with brand new ideas that are as fitting as simply plugging the champion into the skinline they're asking for and make everybody happy.

######real talk I just made up Trogan Horse Hecarim in like 5 seconds and that sounds really cool now...

Deep Terror Nami9/26/2017, 5:22:32 PM8 votes

If I had to say something about them returning to established skin lines more frequently than creating new ones, I'd simply say that they are just capitalizing on a proven success; ones which probably already had a bunch of "honorable mentions" that didn't make the cut the first time around so have lots of concepts drawn up or even partially developed.

Catastrop9/26/2017, 9:07:11 PM4 votes

I mean there isn't any point creating entirely new skin lines when the community as a whole would much rather their favourite champions get incorporated into current skinlines.

Like it's nice and all to see completely new skin lines every now and then, especially like what they've done with the Sacred Swords. Personally though. However as an example, if given choice to get a new Lissandra skin within the year, I'd gladly vote for something like Elderwood, Ravenborne or Darkstar as opposed a new skin line.

Sona Ping9/26/2017, 5:22:19 PM2 votes

I would follow your point and say that the whole concept of "Skin lines" is part of the problem in the first place.

Think of one good idea, fits with the champ and has a kind of funny little observation about them. That's a cool skin. But then a couple years later, people liked that skin so poach that unique observation or copy that joke and slap the most superficial similarities to it on 3 or 4 other champs and call it a "line".

Coming 2018. Paint Malphite and Rammus turquoise and glue a spatula to their back.

URF Line. 1350 RP each.

Kanzler9/27/2017, 11:45:25 AM2 votes

Beekeeper singed?

Ralanr9/26/2017, 8:21:08 PM2 votes

Ikr?

Honestly I feel this ruins champions having unique skins that no other champion gets. I don't hate new skin lines, but it seems too simple to fall back on old skins and make whole lines out of them.

Blakiepug9/27/2017, 1:19:31 PM2 votes

They definitely still do make new skin lines, it's just that hardly anyone buys them. How many times have you seen Chemtech Tryndamere in game? This year we've gotten the new Immortal Journey skins, Pug'Maw, Renektoy, Chemtech Tryndamere, Thunderlord Ornn, Soulhunter Kayn, Dawnbringer Riven, Nightbringer Yasuo, Beekeeper Singed, and the Dreadnova skins. You probably only notice the skin lines like PROJECT and Star Guardian because they get people much more excited. There has certainly been a good mix of old and new skin lines though. This year they also expanded Dark Star and Cosmic skin lines to actually become full on skin lines themselves.

Salson9/26/2017, 6:34:35 PM2 votes

I like skin lines, they let designers pump up more stuff.

-But...but...hurhurdurhuehue...Rito is making more money. Like what the hell is wrong with that. You think you would get a patch dedicated to Archlight Yorick? Hell no, they gave Yorick to fans and Yi/Fiora/Janna for quick money.

It also let's me spam stuff when people mention skins: Project Riven, Elderwood Jhin, Pool Party Illaoi, Dragon Master Swain Dark Star Urgot, Arcanist Victor, Dread Nova Wukong, Infernal Anivia Deffinetly Not Yasuo, Winter Wonder Leona, Battlecast Aurelion Sol

Frost Hellfire9/26/2017, 11:47:33 PM2 votes

I don't see anything wrong with expanding the PROJECT line my friend

Kloqdq9/27/2017, 1:39:09 PM1 votes

From a business stand point going to stuff like Star Guardian, Project, etc. makes sense. You want to bank on the stuff has been proven before. For me I like to have the new and interesting stuff as well. I like one-offs more often than the skin lines because they are simple and normally quite special. Bee-keeper Singed is a great one off that I can totally dig. But for business they are harder to market. Soul Hunter Kayn may be harder to market than say a project kayn would have been because one has a proven formula that can be attached to multiple champions to increase the hype while the one is a solo line that you can't invest as much marketing into. Notice how something like Star guardian gets a song and like 2 videos with stories and comics yet something like soul hunter kayn ( I love this bloodborne style skin <3) gets nothing.

It all comes down to what can make the greatest profit and what can help increase said profit. It's harder to introduce a one off and market it when it may not fit with a lot of players but it's a lot easier to expand on something that has. That's why you see new skin ideas get introduced slower. They test the waters to see if that finds players and if they can bank on it.

GenoXx9/26/2017, 5:13:07 PM1 votes

What they are trying to do is expand upon current skinlins. Although they did say that they made Project Ashe, Ekko, and Katarina based on the reception of Yi's project team. So you could say it might reel in more money.

I do believe they need a new skinline though

Rito Staff9/28/2017, 2:39:38 PM1 votes

Funny I was thinking about this but with the opposite argument of "focus more on having a few well defined skinlines (like Star Guardian, Blood Moon etc)" so then we'd have more side-lore and cool sneak peaks into those other universes we like, like the PROJECT one aswell.

Buuut you have your point, I like the food skinline and gandalf ryze alot

ModWulf Helhammer9/26/2017, 5:23:00 PM1 votes

We are literally getting a new skin line and a new original skin in this coming patch...

Nylisa9/26/2017, 6:13:30 PM1 votes

fair point but lets not forget coming up with new skinlines can be a bit of a challenge too.something that can fit multiple champions in them without having major "that champ doesn't fit" backlashes.

community can help a lot in that regard but when you look at sections like "concept and creations" on board there are some nice ideas and rarely see players have any feedback over there. and many ideas gets downvoted for some reason. im not saying you are complaining but there are lots of "dont do this" comments around community and less "do this instead" or "i have an idea" around.

if someone put an effort to come up with an idea and give the skinline a concept with player's support and feedback , riot might make them a thing , have you heard of the Tara concept from overwatch? its gone viral even blizzard is talking about it.

im sure we have countless players with same amount of creativity and amazing ideas to make this happen.

Jeddy0179/26/2017, 6:57:51 PM1 votes

I personally don't mind the expansion of popular skinline, as long as they create original skinlines every now & then (like those Sacred Sword skins). Hell, I hope that some years they put a few popular skins on break & focus on other skins. Like what they did with Pool Party this year & I think they're taking a break with PROJECT (I'm not sure). I think Star Guardian for example could use a break next year. Maybe just release some chromas instead.

I would love to see more unique skins exclusive to X champ. A skin that only X champ & isn't part of a skin line. I don't think every skin needs to become or be a part of a big skinline.

Sanford and Son9/26/2017, 8:47:45 PM1 votes

THIS THIS IS WHAT WAS BUGGING ME ABOUT RECENT SKIN RELEASES

When I first started playing back in like 2012 there were so many different skin types and ideas that just the splash art alone was enthralling enough to take my imagination on a journey. Malphite Malphite , funny you mention, is a great example because he was one of the biggest contenders for most time I spent admiring the different splash arts, alongside champions like SkarnerSkarner , Cho'GathChogath , and AniviaAnivia. It's so different now, almost every new skin that comes out is apart of a line of other skins, now while those existed before, they were much more subtle and equally distributed than they are now, instead of dumping a line of skins of the same theme, some would be sprinkled in and released over time such as the Hextech skins. Overall I blame this trend on Riot's recently apparent interest in shared splash arts (and while it hasnt been too bad in a while) there was a time quite recently where it almost felt like a problem, and even with skins that have no fancy schmancy particle effects or recalls, still shared splash, still apart of a line released all in one patch. I just want Riot to start making some unique skins again, less is more, Beekeeper Singed is a great start though, given its been an idea since way back when. And I doubt we'll see more Beekeeper skins in the future for anyone like YasuoYasuo or KatarinaKatarina (cough cough Project skins are overrated cough)

Jaspers9/26/2017, 9:21:03 PM1 votes

I think they need to do more one offs. All these skins lines mean things look the same. Beekeeper Singed stands out.

DWT123459/27/2017, 2:26:13 AM1 votes

They easily could have tweaked the new super galaxy skins and just made them Sentai skins.

Blue Moon Wolf9/27/2017, 11:26:20 AM1 votes

more Radiant skins could be cool to see, and honestly would be much cooler to see then Wukong's Sun Wukong cosplay.

Deneviel9/27/2017, 11:34:51 AM1 votes

i would like them to develop the infernal skinline a bit more honeslty :/

They released infernal:

Diana Nasus Alistar Mordekaiser

And then dropped it .... such a waste

Tesla Effect9/27/2017, 11:53:22 AM1 votes

They are making new skin lines, its just older ones are getting expanded more in a more visually noticable way.