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Riot, read this. A problem with the new lore: everything is vastaya

LunSeiSleidee·4/4/2017, 9:18:52 AM·4 votes·1,280 views

I do not care if the usual "Riot can never do wrong" fanboys put a million downvotes on this thread. Riot is far smarter than most of their fans, and this thread is for the game devs, not for the players.

So, we've got the vastaya now. The first, very noticeable issue, is that it's an extremely uninspired idea: every single generic cookiecutter mmorpg out there has their very clichéd "furry race" who just happens to look very human.

The second issue is that the "animal race" puts the humans at the center of the universe. I do not like the anthropocentrism of having human+another animal as the defining characteristic. It would have been far more original to have animal+another animal as their characteristic. Rat+crocodile, for example, like the character Phinn from the videogame Vainglory. Bug+dog, like another Vainglory hero. Now that's more original. And here we come to another issue: everything is vastaya now. Is Elise a vastaya? Do the ascended Shurimans become a form of vastaya? Has Warwick turned into a wolf because of forcobly awakening a vastaya heritage? Volibear, Wukong, Ahri, Nidalee, everyone is or can be a vastaya now.

When a character is part animal or shapeshifts into a animal, it feels redundant to NOT make them into vastaya.

The idea of grouping up all the unexplained half-animals of League to explain them has a good reason to be. But the execution has somany flaws.

SHORT VERSION: vastaya feel like the generical anime furry race seen in a million uninspired mmorpg, and they make characters lke Nasus or Elise feel redundant.

9 Comments

GreenLore4/4/2017, 9:51:42 AM4 votes

The thing is that we already have a lot of champs who are likely related to the Vastaya Ahri Alistar Fizz Nami Nidalee Rammus Rengar Volibear MonkeyKing could all turn out to be Vastaya(Ursine,Marai and so on would be subraces of the Vastaya).(No,the ascended and Elise would obviously not count,as they are transformed via magic)

So we have already a bunch of human-animal hybrids and what Riot did was giving us a name for their race and give these races an origin. I think the trope "Meta origin" describes it pretty well. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MetaOrigin

Because the thing is that it would end up rather jarring to have so many races/individuals that just so happen to be human-animal-hybrids,especially since most of the time these races are only introduced to give us a single champion and are then promptly ignored because they were only invented as a backstory.

KuroCaliber4/4/2017, 5:36:06 PM3 votes

Read about how Vastaya came to be. Then read what you wrote. Repeat until you realize why you're wrong. Also, when the best insult you can give is that something is anime, I feel like you're scraping at the bottom of the barrel here. It's like saying sports themed things in league are bad. It's a hobby, and, judging by Rioter comments, a very common one at Riot headquarters. So like it or not, a bunch of anime fans make your favorite game.

Requiemsfire4/4/2017, 12:17:48 PM2 votes

If you actually read the lore and have some basic biology knowledge, you'd know that Vastaya aren't a single species or race and that they rather share the same Phylum at least according to the Eduard Santangelo's journal. Refer to the Taxonomy of animal kingdoms. Furthermore, all champions who possess Vastaya traits do share in common certain traits but their origins and stories are all still unique in how they came to existence.

Tesla Effect4/4/2017, 10:29:06 AM1 votes

Elise Elise and Shyvana Shyvana maybe special cases of vastaya created not by natural magicks, but with dark magicks.

Kayle, Morgana, Soraka may also be another form of vastaya from celestial natures.

Twitch and Warwick maybe vastaya through artificial chem tech means.

Vastaya is also a taxonomy for all sentient chimeric beings evolved through magical means. While some individual races within the taxonomy are also called Vastaya, that doesnt stop each individual races, sub-races, special individuals being called vastaya in the same named taxonomy.

This may also explain the in-universe existence of chimeric beings of close to near human nature, all share magical natures and their forms being created from magical means (natural magicks, dark magicks, celestial magicks, chem techmaturgy).

I wouldnt be even surprised if the Ascended are just another form of vastaya...given that in the journal some vastaya can also be considered immortal and legendary in nature, just created by solar magicks.

This would differenciate them from elemental beings like Dragons, Brackern Skarner , Monoliths Malphite , and Phoenixes Anivia, tree-beings Ivern Maokai , which maybe also given a special taxonomy for their own natures.

For me it seems there are 5 types of taxonomies for sentient beings: Human, Vastaya (chimeric beings), Elementals (natural elementals and elementals of artificial means like Iceborn; it may also consider Celesital beings within the Elemental taxonomy like Bard or Aurelion Sol), Spirits (including Demons, Darkin, Undead, and Yordles), Void (all voidborn void like beings)

Digielf4/4/2017, 4:05:22 PM1 votes

I hope Ezreal is Vastaya because hes my favorite

Ralanr4/4/2017, 4:09:07 PM1 votes

So it's more original to have a hybrid race character that is the only one of its kind?

We had at least three already. Rammus, Twitch, Ahri.

It's not a great character concept anymore.

Korios4/4/2017, 9:58:29 AM1 votes

I agree with the SHORT VERSION.....a lot..... But again, try to see it in other ways. Try to think that Furries or Anime or whatever the hell comes to your mind didn't exist.Would you feel the same way about Vastayas? I know they seem generic, but I hope RIOT will make them interesting with their ways ;)