Lemme flesh out an older post of mine. From highest to lowest:
Texture Rebalancing would be repairing any sun damage, or filling in any chips in the paint. Maybe even just washing some dirt off the car. (LeBlanc)
Lowest level of work. Many of these can be done at once, and occasionally you'll hardly be able to tell what changed. Can be seen as a Texture Update by some.
(Not an official ChampUp project, and it doesn't interfere with the normal shipping schedule. It's more of a cleanup project.)
A Texture and/or Model Update would be repainting your car. You might even add a spoiler during the process. Man, what a cool car! (Anivia, Renekton)
Generally a 3D Character art only project. Renekton is a good example of this, as only his model was updated, with new textures to match. Maokai is a bit between this and the next tier (which is why we're kinda moving away from using some of terms), with updated models, updated VFX and a very small amount of animation work. We prefer to touch more on a character as we have the bandwidth available.
A Visual Update would be like if you decided to completely redo the chassis of your car. It's still the same car in there, but holy crap! That thing looks amazing! It looks like a completely different car... but the engine and all the interior parts are still the same. (Karthus, Twitch)
Karthus and Twitch are good examples of this one. Nothing was wrong with their gameplay, but we just took the time to push all of their art up to a modern standard. When we find opportunities, we also add clarity when possible (such as appropriate ranges, making spells communicate better, etc.).
A Gameplay Update would be fixing up all the problems under the hood. Problems that you don't really see just by looking at it. Perhaps it's running slow, or the gas mileage is acting funky. Perhaps the engine isn't working at all, or perhaps it's just the Check Engine light that's on. At the end of the day, you have a better car, but it probably looks the same. Since you're already working on the car though, you might consider making it look better. (Soraka as a basic example (though she's getting VFX), Sona as a more mixed example)
Rengar, Kassadin, Cassiopeia, etc. Kit reworks, as some people know them by. If needed, we'll accompany this with new VFX to support the new kit. Other times, we'll just try to fit in small wins as we can (icons are decently common).
Mixing a large scale Gameplay Update and a large scale Visual Update would be as you'd think. You're fixing that engine, and you're spit-shining the car. Damn, this car is gonna be sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. (Heimerdinger, though it was over a few patches)
Large gameplay changes with large art changes. Heimerdinger as a whole was one of these, and Sejuani back in the day probably fell into this camp too.
Characters like Sion and Karma also fall in here, and they're basically a new champion worth of work. Everything is touched, but pushed even further.
**Know that we're starting to just refer to things as '[Character Name] Update', because of how much the scale can vary based on an individual champion's needs. This whole thing can be a little confusing, so a shorter version... **
- Update means something is changing.
- A Visual Update implies visual changes. 3D art, Textures, Rig, Animations, VFX, SFX, VO, etc. are all things that CAN change during one of these.
- A Gameplay Update implies changes to the gameplay that are higher than just number tweaks. This can range from a full kit change (no abilities are the same), to the feel of some abilities changing (like Viktor), to a single spell being completely reworked.
- The level of an update changes from champion to champion. No two champions have the same problem set.
