What I Think is a Key Flaw in Riot's VGU Process

This was something I brought up in my Swain-related discussion, and the first part of the following I more or less copy-pasted from there. But I thought it warranted it's own discussion and I'm curious to see what others think about this idea specifically.

Original Argument

"It seems like the Swain VGU is a great example of what I think is a key flaw in Riot's VGU process. With every Champion update, they distill their themes down to a much more simplified version of what they think WE think of that Champion. With somebody a little more thematically complex, like Swain, they run into problems. Purely judging from their Insight article and some other comments on Swain's development, they started with "ruthless dictator of Noxus" as Swain's theme. But immediately they run into problems: this is only one aspect of Swain. Ok, so he's also a dark mage. They try to capitalize on these two complimentary themes. But even STILL it doesn't feel like Swain. So they have to add the ravens back in. Do you see what I'm getting at? Riot (at least their Champion teams) has gotten really good at delivering on one specific theme or fantasy. They usually introduce some twist or slightly new take (for Swain, it was that he made a deal with a demon but actually conquered the demon) but otherwise all the focus is on that one limited (albeit very compelling) theme. This works on someone like Evelynn who didn't have much going for her other than her core theme of "stealth seductress", but Swain has always been more complex than that. I think this is actually good and part of why I was such a fan of Swain despite not playing him. He started as this bird-mage Noxian that keeps things close to the chest, and then reveals some of his hand when he finally does take over as Noxus' Grand General. It's one of League's earliest story beats, and I think that stuck with a lot of people just what a character Swain was developing into. These things are not something you can capture with a very limited scope on the theme.

This works perfectly fine with brand new Champions ("reclusive blacksmith" or "guy who fights Darkin scythe for control") where they start from scratch and have no pre-established themes or story beats to worry about. But Swain had several themes, many of which were as equally compelling as the others. The result is a Champion that, while much more cleanly executed and delivers superbly on one or two of his core themes, is still is just shy of the mark when it comes to other important themes.

Thoughts? I wonder if this distillation of theme was also a problem on some of the other VGUs."

A Possible Example

I also want to look forward to other likely candidates that might have a rework in there near future (maybe not someone like Irelia, who is probably too far along to reverse). For example, Kayle and Morgana. Now, I'm going to focus more on the visual/lore side of things, so while I'm sure everyone has their opinions on gameplay, and its fine if you share, that won't be the focus.

At first glance, Kayle and Morgana seem like a pretty cut and dry "good vs evil" setup. But what we got from some of Morg's older lore is that she thinks she's in the right, sort of a "hero of their own story" sort of deal. They also share this theme(incredibly underdeveloped theme...seriously what is their psuedo angel society even like?) of rights of the individual vs greater good. Kayle and the "establishment" of their society are strict, but their strictness stems from a desire to protect everyone. Morgana eventually gets fed up and turns to extreme measures (dark magic) to protect the right of the individual. Both are appealing cases, but each is an extreme on her own side.

A theoretical VGU of the pair would probably result in Riot attempting to distill the "undelivered theme" from each. Kayle would probably be a "righteous warrior angel" and Morgana could be described as a "fallen angel" trope. But this paints Morg as solely in the wrong, which would miss the spirit of the original. So they could subvert the trope: Morgana is the "fallen angel" who is actually in the right, and Kayle is actually an "overcontrolling righteous angel". Well, this still isn't quite right. They both have to be in the wrong in some respects for this balance of "perceived good and evil" to work, otherwise you get Morgana or Kayle fans respectively unsatisfied. So their ultimate theme is a lot more complicated than the obvious "good and evil". Yet I have a sinking feeling Riot wouldn't go for the more complex take just based on their track record.

A Possible Failure

We are encroaching on controversial opinion territory here, so bear with me. While I, on the whole, like Swain's VGU and felt it delivered on very Swain-y themes, I don't think that every departure Riot has made is perfect. Galio is the poster boy for this, and I believe he completely missed the mark when it comes to recreating a pre-established character. The team that worked on Galio zeroed in on the theme "statue guardian". However, much of what Galio fans liked about the character had to do with his history of loss and his generally morose attitude. While the character they created is by no means bad or even uninteresting, the point is that it isn't Galio. It is missing a few of his core themes, and it's possible that because they chose to simplify his themes instead of going for a bit more complexity, he resulted in an unsatisfactory VGU, from the perspective of hardcore fans of the character.

Conclusion

Riot's strategy of distilling a Champion into a relatively simple fantasy or theme only really works if the original character is either a blank slate as it is or basically only IS that fantasy. Evelynn was never expected to be anything more than a sexy killer, and as a result the Evelynn team was able to deliver on this and more, resulting in a mostly well-received VGU. Nunu I believe will be another example of this down the road: beyond "Yeti rider from Freljord" and possibly "relationship with Yeti called Willump" I don't think there's a great deal of depth to the themes necessary for recreating and updating Nunu. So this strategy of "distilling a Champion to one or two themes" CAN work.

However, once you approach a Champion with either confused themes or, I believe in Swain's case, many compelling themes that add up to a character, the cracks start to show. It seems like the Swain team ran into this problem; again going back to the Insight on Swain, they had this great character with multiple compelling themes and it STILL didn't feel like Swain. The birds turned out to be a key part. I hope that the members of the team that worked on Swain learn from this and apply it to future reworks. They did a great job on Swain's VGU, but I think they can do even better.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I'd really like to hear other thoughts on Swain or on VGUs as a whole, just please don't get too tense about it friends. [sg-ahri-2]