I made some changes to the Alpha Client pick phase after watching the Worlds's layout!

Namazu Ebisu·Oct 9, 2016·257 votes·13,569 views

Right now, the alpha client's pick looks like this (it's pratically the same for blind & draft dw) :

http://i.imgur.com/I1BYnTP.png

I love the way they show the champions as banners in the worlds so i made this :

http://i.imgur.com/iUcGicc.png

I was lazy and didn't do all of it but you get the idea i hope. I think it's way more esthetic and stylish to have a full view like this of the splash rather than just a tiny icon. The "centered" splashes that were introduced among the Alpha Client are PERFECT assets for this, and i would really love if Riot considered to make something like similar.

73 Comments

Ozzie StormOct 9, 201614 votes

Great idea :)

Better yet i beleive that we can have the best of both worlds. Cricular design: when chosing the champion before the banning phase Banner design: after the champ is locked in (with some fancy transformation between the 2 designs).

I hope riot takes note of this because it looks so much better.

TormentulaOct 9, 20169 votes

I would love it so much better if they did that.

WeatheredOct 9, 20166 votes

Half of me is saying "wow that would be a really good idea".

The other half is saying "wow I want that client regardless now".

420 StylishOct 9, 20163 votes

Definitely looks 10x better.

NiyumiOct 9, 20163 votes

I definitely like the second one better, but that'd cost more money since they'd have to crop all the pictures and whatnot. So, since we have our wonderful company Rito and Tencent who care so much about things other than money, I doubt it'd happen.

GengarOct 9, 201650 votes

{quoted}

I definitely like the second one better, but that'd cost more money since they'd have to crop all the pictures and whatnot. So, since we have our wonderful company Rito and Tencent who care so much about things other than money, I doubt it'd happen.

More money? You know the people who do their jobs are paid regardless of what is done. I don't believe everything Riot does involves commission.

NiyumiOct 9, 20162 votes

Oh no, it's not commission, but they're paid by the hour. If they take three times as long to make the champ select, that's three times the money. If they take the shortcut way, they save a lot of money. So, unfortunately, I'm expecting bare minimum.

YrzenOct 9, 20164 votes

Reminder that "Curse of the Sad Mummy," among several other projects, were made without any profits in mind.

NiyumiOct 9, 20161 votes

Well, they must have had a reason to make it. Was there a new Amumu skin back then, or a Shurima champ, or something? Didn't play that long ago. Maybe someone was applying to be a music guy, and that was in his portfolio.

Electro522Oct 9, 20166 votes

No, and no. They simply realized that Amumu had barely gotten any recognition anywhere, and they really wanted to capture what it would be like to be him. Both the music and video took MONTHS to make, possibly even years, if I recall. They even hired a renowned violinist and cello player, and spent hours, upon hours perfecting certain parts of the music.

If Riot was in this only for the money, then "Curse of the Sad Mummy" was a horrible business move. They do have a video......somewhere detailing the behind the scenes of making that one piece of music.

NiyumiOct 9, 20161 votes

Well, it must have been done before Beck was overtaken by his greed, and before they sold out to Tencent. As I said, I wasn't around back then.

Not all companies are bad, and Riot was good in the beginning. But then they got a taste of the money, and everything went downhill. But, I was addicted to WoW when League was just picking up, so I don't have any first-hand experience.

huughOct 9, 201616 votes

Riot was bought by Tencent a long time before they released the Curse of the Sad Mummy video lol.

Riot has made plenty of bad decisions, but they have always put us first. They give us consistent, high quality skins, champions, and even free skins, they listen to feedback and communicate with us. Just because they are making money, the main goal of a business lol, doesn't mean they've been overtaken by greed.

And also, not to be a shady bitch, but I don't really think that you should really be commenting about how Riot has changed considering the short time you've been playing the game and limited knowledge you have about Riot's past.

Fenikkusu1Oct 9, 20161 votes

They listen to feedback? When? I've never seen a community suggestion ever actually enacted upon by Riot yet, and there have been some really good ones just like this.

LimrickOct 9, 20166 votes

Excluding a role when you choose fill is being added. Replays are being added, solo queue is coming back. Baker Pantheon and Devil Teemo have been fan wants for years. I don't know what you're talking about, Riot has always taken our feedback seriously.

Fenikkusu1Oct 9, 20161 votes

And its taken them HOW long to get to this point? The fact that its taken literal years for them to finally add these features shows the community request aren't top priority, and rather things like LC$ and WORLD$$ BIG PLAY$ are what they really care about.

MelledoneusOct 9, 20168 votes

I hope you realize each skin takes 4-6 months to make, each rework takes 9-11 months to make, and each new champion can take anywhere from 7 months to a YEAR.

Riot doesn't release half-assed content and the time they spend on it is proof of that. Hell, they've been hesitant about Chromas because they're lower quality than their usual releases, so they were worried we wouldn't like it.

Riot puts a lot of effort into this game and I think we should be grateful.

Fenikkusu1Oct 9, 20161 votes

I guess I'm just a toxic bronzie then eh?

MelledoneusOct 9, 20166 votes

I'm not dignifying that with an answer.

ElikainOct 9, 20161 votes

What you should also realize is that Riot has their own artists and analysts that do their jobs. They make sure their originality is in League first and foremost and then all the fan stuff gets added. And they always go the extra mile when they end up being late.

Don't forget how fast the rest of the Star Guardian skins came out after Lux, with their theme, video and a site. This is the extra mile i was talking about.

Vellich0rOct 9, 20162 votes

void fizz was a fan made concept a while back that they made into an actual skin.

AnidanOct 10, 20161 votes

someday, Dragon Master Swain... Someday...

AmazoXOct 10, 20161 votes

Pool party Ziggs, Baker Pantheon, Lil Devil Teemo. These skins were too fan made concept.

Gary B EnkelisOct 10, 20161 votes

Someone on the board is responsible for a recent Yasuo change, I believe.

BrianHung000Oct 10, 20161 votes

they are bring back solo q

Fenikkusu1Oct 11, 20161 votes

Yes and it took them an entire season to do so after they tried to fix DynQ, which everyone knew and said wasn't going to work.

LauchmelderOct 9, 201642 votes

Thing is: The LCS already has this layout. It would have been cheaper if they went with it in the first place.

V The Support VOct 10, 20161 votes

Why so many down votes? While whether or not he is correct, this is accurate as far as good business models and unfortunately how companies for profit actually work.

With that stated, I personally don't believe this change would be that resource intensive.

NiyumiOct 10, 20161 votes

^ This. I never did any interning in finance, but I have done work in development. They will cut every corner possible to save every nickel they can. So, yeah, maybe I don't understand the payment method, but I understand how the system works.

Fenikkusu1Oct 11, 20161 votes

Because its the internet, that's why my friend.

CrazFight Oct 9, 20165 votes

{quoted}

I definitely like the second one better, but that'd cost more money since they'd have to crop all the pictures and whatnot. So, since we have our wonderful company Rito and Tencent who care so much about things other than money, I doubt it'd happen.

Are ... you actually ... is this comment real .-. "have to crop photos = more money" - what is this the 1950's? You can google free photoshopping tools if you dont want to spend money.

NiyumiOct 9, 20162 votes

It's not the cost of the tools, it's the cost of labor. You have to pay people for every hour they sit in front of that computer doing stuff for you. It takes a lot more time to crop every champ splash to fit inside that banner than it does to use the already existing icons we have. And more time = more money.

I QOct 9, 20161 votes

It wouldn't take 1 hour to crop 130 pictures dude. Cropping is extremely easy to do and since a team will be working on it, it wont take too long.

GoosetardOct 9, 20163 votes

I like your change.

I feel compelled to reiterate my position that New Champ Select is functionally inferior to the old one in every way, but your specific change is really good imo.

EDIT: I don't think I did a good enough job specifying that what I mean is that the design of the interface in New Champ Select is fundamentally inferior to the old one in every way. The actual champ picking, I think, does a good job and was an overall good evolution of the system.

MasterkerfuffleOct 9, 20161 votes

I'm actually curious, what don't you like about new champ select?

ManiacalCoyoteOct 9, 20161 votes

The fact that you have to select primary and secondary roles probably is one big reason why New Champion Select sucks ass so hard.

kitcat300Oct 9, 20163 votes

What about the new feature they just added to the PBE? If you choose the "fill" position, you can now choose an "undesired roll."

ManiacalCoyoteOct 9, 20161 votes

That's great, if you want to play one of four roles, rather than one of five. But, I just want to play Top. How will the "undesired roll" feature help me? Select "Top/Mid (No Mid)"?

Photos of GhostsOct 10, 20161 votes

Role.

kitcat300Oct 10, 20161 votes

[zombie-brand-facepalm]

GoosetardOct 9, 20165 votes

I get what the other two replies are saying, but I was talking about strictly the interface from a functional design perspective. Here are, in my opinion, the shortcomings:

All the menus you might need to interact with quickly (runes, masteries) are smaller. Additionally, the scroll bars are super tiny and the pixels on them don't quite match the actual clickboxes. Changing rune/mastery setups in a hurry is more difficult.
The window to scroll through champions is smaller
The chat window is no longer central to champ select, despite communication during champ select being vital. In the position it is now in, your first client chat window will cover the lobby chat window. The chat window is now also minuscule compared to the old one.
Bans are not as obvious. Additionally, they no longer show the banned champion's name. This is shitty if you're a new player or can't tell the difference between new trist and poppy splash for a month when they change them lololo. I mean it's like they actually FORGOT they needed someplace to put bans and added it in at the last second.
Picked champion portraits are now a lot smaller.

So a lot of these issues have to do with a lack of space. That space had to go somewhere. Here is what it got used for:

A big portrait of whatever champion got clicked on, right in the middle.
A giant map right in the middle, with super nifty animations when it starts! Just in case I forget that top lane is on the top and bottom lane is on the bottom!
An additional smaller map to the lower right just in case I forget what the big map said!

This isn't to say it looks awesome. They did a really good job of making it look nice. But, from a functional design perspective, it was garbage change only for the sake of changing it.

An Undead bratOct 9, 20162 votes

Why does Eve have the old splash/icon? QQ

Edit: And Darius and Fiddle too

(I know, their splash art updates came in the same patch, I'm only crying)

WonderlandsOct 9, 20162 votes

Thumbs this up and let rito see!!

willuwontuOct 10, 20161 votes

why didn't you post this in the alpha client discussion area as well? It looks great.

inFamous ZionOct 10, 20161 votes

Holy cow. I like the second one so much better. Id never leave champion select. lol

VenedictosOct 10, 20161 votes

God damn that's brilliant. RITO PLS!

GingerNinja03Oct 10, 20161 votes

LOVE THIS

RiotRiot CactopusOct 10, 201615 votes

I think it looks pretty cool too! I'll share with our visual guys.

Obviously we're not gonna take time out to redesign champ select before the other core parts of the client are done, but this is a neat idea. I like the idea of the portrait sliding in to confirm that the champ has been locked.