I thought the hat was pretty determinant to Cait's general shape, I was surprised that they removed it completely for her legendary skin although her huge gun is probably also pretty iconic in order to recognize who she is in-game... could this be considered the general guidelines for her eventual VU?
Hey!
The hat was something we had a lot of discussion around in development, and we really honed in on what we felt were some of Caitlyn's identifying features. By the end of it, we realized that while yes, the hat is something players identify Caitlyn by, but holy hell, she has a huge gun, too. :P
Since her hat's MIA in this skin (okay, maybe not in the recall), we opted to give her darker hair, like her base has, and keep with the big gun reads. We tried a few other hair colors (including lighter blondes and whites), but we didn't want to stray into PROJECT territory, nor remove another semi-defining feature, which as I'd mentioned, is her darker hair color.
It's hard to say what a VU could/would look like, but that said, Pulsefire is an alternate fantasy! Is the hat something you'd want to lose in her base? Having it 'gone forever', so to speak, would that remove some of what you've come to know/love about Caitlyn?
Will she does put on a hat during her B animation as a reference. Otherwise I'm glad Riot is exploring this option for Having a hatless skin for Cait. The only other champ that immediately comes to mind with hats on almost all their skins is Miss Fortune. The only hatless skin she has is Secret Agent.
To me, Caitlyn's main visual indicators are: Gun (long barreled, held diagonally across the front of her body), Skirt (or other draping fabric from the waist), and headgear (large and / or brightly colored).
This skin doesn't have the hat and the tail of her coat is fairly subdued. Still, her other skins don't have all of these elements strongly present either. Ultimately it's up to Riot to decide their own standards and all we can do is state our dissatisfaction.
That being said, I have no interest in this skin at all. Just makes me sad that now we're even less likely to see a Neon Strike Caitlyn to pair with Vi.
