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Arclight Yorick and why this is a bad move by Riot

Xenos von Faneli·9/13/2017, 12:52:28 AM·43 votes·40,084 views

So as a Yorick main you know I've been looking forward to the thought of finally getting a new skin, especially considering it's been 2,274 days at the time of writing this since Yorick last had a skin, which is to say he only had his release skins (this is back when champs released with 2). Now being as it has been so long many people, myself included, believe Yorick would get at least a legendary skin when he did finally get one (some even talked of him getting the next ultimate). So you can maybe imagine my surprise to find him get an epic skin.

Now let's dissect this skin we're getting, Arclight Yorick. https://www.instagram.com/p/BY6IbUtHG08/?taken-by=leagueoflegends Whereas it's not exactly poor quality or anything I do feel it's rather bland, with Yorick looking like some nondescript light Guardian that you'd expect to see in any fantasy game nowadays set in a heavenly realm. The ghouls being even worse as honestly I can't even tell what's going on with them, being glowing figures with strange gold armor shoulder things (not really sure what that's supposed to be). And being an epic tier skin means it maintains the gloomy original voice lines of base Yorick, which very much clash with this bright shiny Yorick. And if this skin looks at all familiar to you that'd be because you've probably seen this fanart from about a year ago. http://imgur.com/a/qzvN1

Now as some who's been waiting so long this kind of comes across as a bit of a slap in the face, and I'll explain why. When I heard a while back the Riot intended to make skins for the numerous champs like Yorick who'd been waiting a while I was very excited thinking they'd finally be showing the Yorick mains some love. And for any of you who main a less than popular champ you probably understand the frustration of seeing another skin for Ahri, Yi, Yasuo, etc every time a new patch roles around. So when I find that Yorick, having waited over 6 years, is finally getting a skin, only to have it be an epic tier skin based on someone else's idea, well it feels like instead of putting effort into something new and deep that Riot was just trying to get Yorick out of the way by doing something quick and easy like a generic light version.

So I've gone into why I don't like this skin personally, but why is it a bad move for Riot? Well as stated above I feel it shows lack of effort to make a quality skin for Yorick, instead taking others idea, and might I add that this isn't like the recently announced Beekeeper Singed, where it had been a popular fan idea that people had been asking for for years. See they do make skins based on fan idea from time to time, like the aforementioned Singed, or Devil Teemo, or even skins based on fanart like Void Fizz or Deep Sea Nami. But this skin never gained the same amount of traction for it never really gained much traction in the community apart from people thinking it was mildly cool and being one of the rare well polished fan skins for Yorick (mainly due to Yorick's unpopularity). The only fan idea for Yorick that does meet the criteria of these other skins is the old Crazy Cat Lady skin http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=769430 which has been a running joke for years and is probably the only other Yorick skin we'll ever see (in 2-3 years, likely on April 1st). And this brings me to my biggest problem, not only does the new skin feel subpar but it is made all the worse by the realization that this skin is likely the last us Yorick players will ever see barring some meta shift the makes Yorick popular. The message all this send is that unless you play a popular champ that Riot doesn't care to invest the effort, that instead they'll just throw a rushed product every so often in the hopes that the community of mains, starved for skins, will buy up whatever they're given for lack of a better option.

The other reason all this saddens me is the Riot has said that they've been trying to shift away from more generic skins and towards skin that had unique fantasies. Skin lines have done wonders for this, and we've seen an overall boost in content with more events usually going alongside a release to hype up and further explore the fantasies. Most recently we've gotten another helping of Star Guardians along with a new game mode and short story. Apart from the skin lines we've also seen unique legendary skins such as God Fist Lee Sin come out giving us unique takes on beloved champs. With the overall increase in quality this feels like a step back by Riot. Now after all this criticism one might wonder what would I prefer? well I made a big long post a while back about just that that you can read here https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/huIva7d5-yorick-ultimate-skin , but basically to sum it up I want to see a version of Yorick that flips his personality on it's head, less of a guy with the world on his shoulders trudging through the task he never wanted and instead someone who is the master of his own destiny and has grasped power by his own hands.

I want to end this post by talking about Yorick as a champion, if you haven't tried him I highly recommend you do. He has quite the enjoyable kit and really fulfills on what the juggernaut subclass should be. He's very strong in lane once you get used to him and is extremely effective at tower taking and providing pressure on the map, you can build him tanky and be a pain for your enemy to kill or if you're feeling bold build damage and proceed to smash people in the face with a shovel, I myself prefer a bit of a middle ground build, going Triforce into Titanic and then stacking health and ad to capitalize on his ghouls's scaling. However you build him he's a real blast and can easily 1v2 if you get good with him making him quite the force to be reckoned with. So I hope you all give him a try.

Post splash release edit: I just want to add now that the splash art is released that it really saddens me, whereas I still think the arclight thematic was a poor choice from the start, especially with it not being legendary, I think the splash art shows the best possible interpretation of it and its a shame the in game model is so far off from the design of the splash. https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GA8-7nRCypE/WcFcwgvoPHI/AAAAAAAAu-c/pUn8JJbnYqwcoJ2JTeP6nGGaY9xbr2IfwCLcBGAs/s1600/9ef651d47d96fc54.jpg

Second edit: This "We made minor adjustments to hair color and cape transparency to bring the model closer to icon and splash, and made adjustments to splash to bring it closer to model ;)" was said by RiotStellari on reddit recently regarding the new Fiora skin, and honestly it cuts deep after seeing the huge differences between Yorick's model and splash. Almost every skin I've seen go through PBE has recieved tweaks and touch ups before release to either address player feedback or make the model and splash align better. Yorick being the exception angers me and actually pisses me off a lot as it comes across as clear favoritism, and I say this knowing just how often people falsely cry favoritism but at this point that's the only explanation left, that Riot simply doesn't care enough about Yorick and have put as much into the subpar skin as they are willing to.

134 Comments

Riotmoonstones9/13/2017, 11:41:03 PM21 votes

Hey Xenos von Faneli -

First off, thanks for some well-written, critical feedback. There's a lot in this post, but I did want to touch on a few points here, and offer a bit of context.

I'm sorry you feel like this skin was meant to be a check on a checklist. Internally, we were actually excited to work on a new Yorick skin, and had been asking when we would be able to slate a skin for him. After the rework, we were pretty antsy to get our hands on him. The concept artist who worked on Arclight Yorick was super passionate about the skin, and hyped up the team.

Crazy Cat Lady Yorick is a hilarious concept, don't get me wrong. As a player, we felt it would feel off (?) if you waited for 6 years and we made a joke skin.

A large reason Yorick didn't receive a skin for six years was because of his pending rework, which wasn't immediately announced to players. With that knocked out of the way, there isn't a blocker between us and Champ Up, making him 100% eligible for another skin.

You're right, we have been trying out new thematics, such as the newest 'sword' skins that hit PBE yesterday, but, we also want to elaborate on existing skin lines/fantasies. In Yorick's case, we wanted to create a skin that broke him away from what he and his skin catalog already had - dark and gloomy.

I took a look through your ultimate idea, and honestly, I think there's a lot of potential. Whenever we talk about ultimate skins, we always talk about armor or accessories being equipped, removed, changing. I'm also a huge fan of this idea overall. I actually smirked when I read your VO pitch between he and his maiden; it's pretty clever.

Again, thanks for jotting all of this down. It's important for us to see where we do well, and where players feel we can do better. We can't know what works and what doesn't without some form of meaningful feedback - more than just 'this sucks' or 'omg I love this.'

Knowing what you know and have probably seen of Arclight Yorick, are there any VFX/SFX, odds and ends that you like/dislike/have suggestions? I get it's not the thematic you were looking for, but any specific feedback, in addition to what you've already provided, I'd be happy to pass along to the team for discussion. :)

venvi9/13/2017, 1:46:42 AM11 votes

My issue with a lot of skins lately is I feel like skin lines degenerate each time one is made.

Arclight Yorick doesn't look unique or interesting compared to the first arclight skins. It looks busy, like the assets are copypasted from other skins onto him. It looks made quickly and without care. It has nothing to do with his character.

Kind of like the Inquisitor/ Warden skins or whatever they were. No one uses those for a reason. They're heartless. They're generic armor copypasted onto those models. And this is exactly what arclight yorick feels like to me.

weevil9/13/2017, 1:41:48 AM6 votes

I completely agree with you. I'm really desperate that they'll at least try to touch up this skin further, but this has been the biggest let down I've EVER experienced in League.

Yorick as a character means so much to me, and this skin just... doesn't hold up to anything after how long we've had to wait. As a diamond Yorick 1trick with 500k+ mastery, this is just so heartwrenching for me.

Although I would have probably been more upset if they DID go with cat lady Yorick; as I'm one of the few people on this planet that absolutely hates cats.

Late For Tea9/13/2017, 7:40:07 AM6 votes

I feel extremely mixed about the Yorick skin. As a top laner who enjoys playing Yorick, and has been fairly vocal about him not receiving skins, I'm happy that he's finally getting a skin after 6 years. But because it has been 6 years I almost feel forced to have an attitude of "I should take what I can get" instead of being genuinely disappointed with the skin, something white-knights love to hammer on.

When he first released, I was rather happy that he finally got a skin. But after seeing the Wuxia skinline reveal 1-2 days later, I can't help but be disappointed in the Yorick skin. It is by no means a bad skin in itself, it has plenty of detail, but the Arclight theme is incredibly bland. Meanwhile other champions get skins from a completely new and unique skinline. It almost feels like Riot was thinking "We have to give Yorick a skin a this point, but we really don't want to. Lets just give him an Arclight skin and be done with it." Going with probably the most generic theme instead of actually putting any thought into it.

Hexs Fortune9/14/2017, 2:21:42 AM5 votes

The feeling is Yi gets two skins within a few months period, where as this will probably be the only yorick skin we see for a couple of years. Nobody will be surprised if Ahri comes up again either, despite just getting a legendary.

pãrk9/13/2017, 12:31:15 PM5 votes

I do not enjoy this skin in the least I really hope they cancel this it like they did with sewn chaos blitz and amumu. I honestly feel those skins were in much higher quality than this and question those who would say otherwise, the theme is bland and over done and the art work just seems like a jumbled mess. I dare say that this skin takes away from yoricks character rather than give a diffrent perspective on him as new skins attempt to do.As a yorick main I am extreamly disappointed.

Tactical Barrels9/13/2017, 12:50:19 PM4 votes

Extremely generic skin, pathetic.

Arakadia9/13/2017, 1:51:31 PM4 votes

Some people don't want a legendary skin because they want the only new skin Yorick has to be cheap enough to buy.

GreenLore9/13/2017, 9:54:04 AM3 votes

I do think the face of the skin looks kinda bad,but otherwise I do think it is a pretty good skin.

I mean the walkers look like the angels from bayonetta,which is something that I do like quite a lot,as that game actually has a pretty accurate depictions of angels(there was a reason why they always told people "fear not" when they appeared)

The gold and marmor design of the faces on Yoricks back also look pretty well and the maiden being the ghost of Yoricks lost queen is a nice touch to the skin.

Yes the VO is still a bit gloomy,but in the end the arclight series is a pretty dark take on the whole "warriors of the light"-thing and pretty much all the arclight champs have a rather gloomy voice over.

And overall it looks like you expected a legendary or even ultimate tier skin(since those are usually the only ones to get a new VO),but it should have been clear that this is not going to happen for Yorick,as it would be a slap in the face of every yorick main if his only quality skin would be an expensive legendary skin(not to mention that crazy cat lady would definetly come out on april 1st,so there wasn't really a chance for it to happen now in september)

KuroCaliber9/13/2017, 1:31:54 AM3 votes

I think it's a bit of a tall order to expect Yorick to be chosen for the ultimate skin. It might happen, but chances are that it'll be for a different Top Laner. That being said, I rather liked Arclight Yorick, both as a concept and the version Riot made. Once I get enough money, I'm definitely paying for this one. While it wasn't an original skin, the line itself was made by Riot. If arclight thresh were released, I certainly wouldn't cry out that it was uninspired, or failed to turn his gameplay fantasy.

You do raise some fair points though. I think that if Yorick did have such an obviously positive skin, that it should have been legendary tier, due to needing voicelines changed. Unlike Star Guardian Syndra, whose dark angry voicelines can be explained easily with her Bio, Arclight Yorick is so obviously a lawful good type skin that its potential only exists in a video, not in an actual game, where lines are heard.

Here's what I do point out. Skin development has changed A LOT since Yorick and other low-count champions have been released. More specifically Skin LINES have been more frequent than standalone skins. This allows riot to create up to five skins per patch for five champions. Now, looking at the 139 champions we have right now, it would take 28 patches or 56 weeks to make and release a skin for every champion that currently exists. LOGICALLY that is, which Riot won't follow because of E-sports events (Champion, Conqueror, and Worlds skins). However, skinlines due allow neglected champions to get skins more often NOW.

If we go this route, it is highly likely that Yorick would get another skin in about 1.5-3 years given his rework. Before, for the majority of the six years he existed, Riot didn't even consider him a champion, and did their utmost to keep players from playing him, newplayers from finding him, and keeping him in a rough state until further work was done on him. I don't think it is fair to complain about 6 years without skin attention, but I REALLY AM PISSED that they didn't VGU him sooner. That is really worth calling them out for. If you consider his VGU the time when Riot actually began considering giving him a skin, it took him, one year to get a skin. That's right in ONE YEAR after his VGU he got a skin. IDK about you, but that is pretty good. I know it's kinda spitting in the face of old Yorick mains, and I apologize for that. But it's probably what riot did. Yorick was a failed champion by design, and Riot was kinda ashamed of him. Some brave souls saw the beauty in that champion, and so were punished for liking something that Riot, (and a lot of his lane opponents) really hated.

That problem should be fixed now, so I'm 100% confident in saying this isn't the only skin we'll see for another six years.