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The existing problem of Races in LoL

Macilento·1/9/2016, 1:22:43 PM·5 votes·1,488 views

Okay so , i am not a lore nerd, but i have a simple question in mind. We have so many human champions, we got a good chunk of yordles, we got some void creatures.... but then what about the other races?

I mean, if League of Legends is in the fantasy genre, why don't we have champions of other races as well? So that we can create more consistency across the board.

For example is Trundle the only troll in existence? that would be lame, Why don't we have other trolls champions? (no bad jokes here guys :P) Volibear is the only talking bear? I'm not talking to "mythic" champions like Kindred, Bard, Tahm etc... i know those are specials.

Also what about NEW races? I mean, this world cannot be just filled with monsters, humans and yordles right? It's a fantasy world, and i would love to see other factions or races introduced, so to expand our horizon.

Having only 1 champion for these races kinda feel bad, couse it kinda screams: " here you got ex. Trundle, he is our version of trolls.... But sry we got only him..." Basically what i mean is that we have come to accept humans and yordles in this game fantasy because there are MANY champions of that same race, meaning we can relate one yordle to another and so on.

But for example in the case of Trundle, we get the exact opposite feeling: instead of saying "hey so these are the trolls in LoL", i only feel like: "this troll feels so badly out of place..." because there is no others like him. And this is not right because it's not like Trundle is the only existing of his race. If you think that creating more champions of that same race would become a duplicate, well it's jsut wrong: Look at how many and different yordles are. The exact same thing applies for anyone else: We could have more of the likes of Volibear for example, but looking diffrent, with different kit, story, all different. This would automatically helps Volibear feeling more "in-place" in this game.

Hope i was clear, i would lov too hear Riot stance on this topic, that is hardly talked about ever

24 Comments

GreenLore1/9/2016, 2:06:57 PM7 votes

The problem is simply that TrundleAlistarVolibearFizzNamiSkarnerAatrox were pretty much designed to be THE Troll/Minotaur/sentient bear/etc. -champion of the game(heck Alistars title even is "the minotaur") and their races were mainly created to justify their existence.

Now you might ask why we have so many humans,undeads and yordles if thats the case,but the thing is that every human or yordle is in the game to represent a specific type of character Caitlyn is not in the game as the human of the game,but as the sniper/sherrif of the game.

I think in general there are 2 ways to avoid this problem with these races:

  • The first one is to make every member of the race extremely different from the other ones.Thats why we have so many undeads,voidborn and ascended,because everyone of them represents something entirely different.

  • The second one is to define a member of the race not by their race,but through something different.There are so many yordles because everyone of them has more or less a different "class"(tristana is a cannoneer,teemo a scout,rumble a mech-pilot,veigar a black mage,etc.)

I think the Ursines and Minotaurs have the lowest chance of ever getting a second champion,both races leave little variety,so the first solution wouldn't fit and Alistar and Volibear have nothing unique going for them aside from the fact that they are the only member of their race,so without some big rework to them there is barely any chance for their races to get another member You might now say "why don't we make a new ursine champ who is also a wrestler to set him apart from volibear",but the problem with something like that is that the new champ would represent the same thing as voli and even more,leaving voli as less unique,so that isn't really an option

The trolls have a slight chance to get a second one,I mean trundle is not just the only troll in the game,but also the only brute with a club(though that would restrict riot to never release more club wielding champs like that) and he is the only champ who is focused around being a king(tryndamere is also one,but its barely a part of his character) add to that the fact that the species of the trolls is rather ill defined and it could be possible to make a troll champ who looks more like a goblin(and thus fills the character type of the goblin instead of a troll). In the end I wouldn't count on there being a second troll champ,but its not impossible either.

The races of fizz and Nami have a rather good chance to get more members if you ask me.I mean there are so many unique underwater creatures,they could release members of their species that are based on specific ones,like an angler fish-based one,a sharkman or an octopus-champ(like a seawitch).Heck it wouldn't surprise me if they'd merge the species of the 2 into one...

The Brackern could also get more,I mean nothing says that they all look like scorpions,the others might look like completely different animals(or mystical beings,just imagine a brackern sphinx). It might make the whole "crystal-creature"-theme of skarner not unique,but Skarner would remain the only scorpion champ in the game regardless.

And last but not least the darkin are almost guaranteed to get more members of their species.There are barely any restrictions to their looks and I doubt that they mentioned the other 4 darkin just for fun,they most likely have already some vague ideas what they want to do with them.

Dominick Destine1/9/2016, 7:28:59 PM1 votes

Evelynn