Why are all champs/skins gender-locked?

Vekkna·4/5/2017, 2:49:04 PM·4 votes·4,979 views

Another game I play that is based on Marvel comics has costumes that change gender. Most Spider-man costumes are Peter Parker, but some are Gwen Stacy or Mayday Parker.

So I'm wondering why we don't have that in League. Seems like an easy way to reimagine champs, make lots of money, and walk the line between diversity and pandering. Kinda seems like a win/win. Think about a few examples:

Ivern as a Gaia type
Graves as an Annie Oakley type
Zyra with a sorcerer's body
Lee Sin as a Chun Li type
Ahri as a sexy dude - the money prints itself
Xaryah and Rakan in various combinations
Tryndamere as a Barbarian Sonya type
Ursula-got - again, the money prints itself!
Leblanc as a Loki type
Jinx as a Joker type
Ezreal as a Samus type

The cool ideas basically never end, so why don't they do any of this?

45 Comments

Ralanr4/5/2017, 2:53:08 PM7 votes

A lot of extra effort for a pretty superficial gimmick?

Kouga4/5/2017, 3:20:42 PM6 votes

Its a neat idea, but I don't think its a plausible one for a few reasons. One that was mentioned by others is opportunity cost. Creating a Genderbent version of a Champ is roughly the same work as creating an entire Champion (from a Visual design standpoint). New VO, new model, new animations - its the same work that would go into a new Champion.

Also, Riot talks a lot about a Champion's "silhouette", the visual read on a Champion so that you immediately know who you're looking at. With 130+ Champions you immediately need to know if the character coming out of the brush is Caitlin or Graves, and if Graves is Annie Oakley, you may risk blurring those lines even more. Certainly you could argue all day long about how you'd make a certain Champion maintain the same visual read while being genderbent but it still weakens that element of immediate identification, which can bring up some tactical/balance issues.

Personally I'd be more interested to see the Champion designs themselves be a little more diverse - more androgynous or genderfluid characters, but that risks flaring up the community if poorly handled.

RiotVonderhamz4/5/2017, 7:44:06 PM4 votes

The idea for this has actually been toyed with for a legendary skin before. Imagine picking Lucian and leading in as Senna in some sort of alternate timeline. Sounds really cool on paper, but then you get into game on the opposing team and are looking for the Lucian you're supposed to lane with, and instead you get a character with a totally different feel, animation set, sound, personality etc... It makes for really confusing gameplay.

WitchQueen Annie4/5/2017, 9:41:14 PM4 votes

LE MAO

Absolutely hilarious (not sure if intended), most hilarious thing I've read all day

MAYDAY PARKER? What the...

GreenLore4/5/2017, 3:00:19 PM3 votes

Well one reason is tha it would require a new Voice over,thus it would need to be at least legendary. Another is that Riot wants to keep the champ recognizeable in every skin and changing the gender would make the character look like someone else entirely.

Hauling Ashe4/10/2017, 10:16:12 PM2 votes

Because genderbending is lame and belongs on tumblr and deviantart.

ItsOrval4/10/2017, 10:09:31 PM2 votes

Because this game doesnt need your Social Justice Warrior bullshit

Hyperiön4/5/2017, 3:12:56 PM2 votes

Because why can't you be satisfied as what they are? And it is crossing a slippery slope when it comes to this topic.

OverpoweredSoap4/5/2017, 7:52:36 PM2 votes

Readability.

Raxistaicho4/11/2017, 6:58:36 AM1 votes

That would involve making completely new skeletons for most champions on top of new models.

midnight oil244/5/2017, 2:56:05 PM1 votes

Well they'd all need new VO's, and they'd have to pay more voice actors for that, and make entirely new models, and all that stuff takes time.

Plus, gender-swapping a character tends to sort of... devalue the original character, in my opinion. It's not a character with a unique place in the world, it's someone who can be swapped out for another person of another gender. Legendary skins have major changes, sure, but they almost always change the personality. This would basically be paying to get the same character, and I'd rather they get a unique, cool look.

Also Joker actually plans. Jinx does not. She's closer to Harley Quinn, but doesn't reach Joker's brain power level (actual joker, not the recent "joker as nothing more than a complete psychopath." He's a psycho, but he's got other stuff about him. Recent stuff dumps everything besides the psycho.) (besides lego batman. That movie was fantastic.)

Magical Zoe4/5/2017, 3:07:46 PM1 votes

It'd be expensive af for them.

Placentas4/5/2017, 3:28:09 PM1 votes

Reverse Annie

DuskDaUmbreon4/5/2017, 3:33:25 PM1 votes

Because males and females have vastly different body shapes. Riot would have to build a new model from the ground up for each champion, and would have to make it recognizable as that champion. Ivern would be pretty easy (only two living trees, and both vastly different, although showing that Ivern's inverted would be hard), but would an inverted Katarina even still feel like Kat? And champions like Thresh , whom are pretty much a-sex, would be impossible, not to mention the difficulty of swapping Kindred ((fe)male in their particular case is symbolic).

And that's just the base appearance. Animations would change, voices would be different, hell, even ability descriptions would have to be changed. And it'd have to change for all of the thousands of skins in League.