Ezreal & Rumble icon fix - removing dramatic lighting/glows in character icons

Dustogrei··41 votes·6,368 views

I'm not the first to bring this up. The new Ezreal splash is awesome, and has some really cool lighting. But when you look at just the icon, without the rest of the picture, there's no reason for his face to look blue. I think it's fine for the splashes to take certain artistic liberties, but with regards to the icon the lighting looks weird, doesn't look like his model, and it reduces in-game clarity. The most important thing about the character icons is to be able to quickly recognize who it is from just a quick glance at the mini-map.

Without blue glow + slightly more blonde http://i.imgur.com/QnklDjB.png

Current version http://i.imgur.com/yy6vPvP.png

Also at the end of the game in the results screen the icons are especially small, and details are lost, so it's especially important for the colors to be representative.
http://i.imgur.com/oLmNfUo.jpg

Same thing with Rumble - badass splash, and because he's surrounded by fire he has some red hue on his lower face and his fur color is more purplish, which is fine, but in his character icon it's distracting and he doesn't look like Rumble like in the old character icon.

Without red glow + more cyan/blue http://i.imgur.com/mE35yJG.png

Current version http://i.imgur.com/Z0Xu1ER.png

With the cyan coloring you can easily tell it's Rumble even with a smaller image. http://i.imgur.com/gwFAfP0.png

So I hope Riot considers fixing these icons, and hopefully in the future doesn't just create a badass splash and then crop out the face for the icon - but also makes the necessary changes to make sure the icon as a standalone looks greater/more representative than the old one.

19 Comments

NamesRHard6 votes

I agree with OP. I'm probably just a baddie, but I find a lot of the new icons much less identifiable than the old ones. The new splashes look great, but don't always translate well to a tiny circle on the mini map. Maybe after more games I'll get used to it.

Ad Astra per Asp5 votes

I agree, it's dreadfully hard to tell Veigar from like Gnar in the minimap and even rengar it's all so... the original icons had big basic shapes and simple colors so even if you can' tmake out details it's recognizable. It's alot harder to recognize now imho.

ALLIIAN4 votes

I love it

Squeaky Dreemurr4 votes

Some fine work. Hear our pleas, oh Riot.

Jungle Lux God4 votes

I really like the Rumble icon change. It really looks like Rumble, and you can really tell that it's Rumble.

To be honest, I didn't realize that Ezreal had the glow of his gauntlet on his face in the icon, and didn't realize how distracting it was, although to be honest, I don't think there is too much of a difference between either Ezreal splash. You can tell pretty easily that it's Ezreal regardless of whether the gauntlet glow is there or not.

kDrakari4 votes

I think the "current" rumble icon looks better than your proposed change, though I haven't exactly looked at his in-game model closely so it's possible your version is more accurate to that, but I completely agree on Ezreal. It doesn't look like THAT big of a deal in the full size version, but in the small icon he looks completely blue for no reason.

Diljic3 votes

I agree that some of the new icons need better clarity. While reusing the splash is nice in the sense that you have unity between the two on a high rez display the tiny icons need clarity above all else.

Dustogrei4 votes

The Rengar one is probably the biggest offender. While I think the new splash is better it makes for a terrible icon. Actually had a game where a friend wanted to report the Rengar on our team and he actually couldn't find him by looking at the icons - he was only able to tell who it was by identifying the other 4 champs. It's a little white squigly thing after all.

Arby0992 votes

Rengar looks way too much like KogMaw at a glance to me

MeowMixWarrior6 votes

Rengar looks way too much like KogMaw at a glance to me

I actually have this same complaint if i'm just taking a quick glance at the mini map I sometimes confuse a few champions such as

Ezreal Orianna

Cassiopeia MonkeyKing

Veigar Mordekaiser

The first two aren't clear in my opinion and it takes a second to register who is who.

The second pair i swear to god Cass looks like Wu Kong

The third set has a similar pose and at a glance it takes a second to register.

I don't know. Riot prides itself in visual clarity but some of these icons have way to much going on, too similar to another champion (be it pose or color pallet used) or just too dark.

Duke Anax1 votes

Actually now that they changed both icons, Cass and Wukong no longer look alike to me.

As for the others, I don't see it, are you color blind in some way?

Farranor2 votes

I think the blue glow for Ez emphasizes his gauntlet without needing to see it, which is good in my opinion. Same for Rumble and the red for his Flamespitter. I mean, should Urgot lose the eyepatch and face mask because you can only see the rest of his mechanized parts in the full splash? /shrug

Desmond Law9 votes

The OP is talking about lighting of the icons, which are too vibrant and lacks a central/focused color. Right now, the new splashes look like rainbows and it is hard to tell who is who just by taking a quick glance at the icons' colors.

The old icons were easily distinguishable because splashes back then used mainly 3 colors and 1 primary color. Now, we have intense *color * detail in the splash and it is a little distracting.

Farranor1 votes

The OP is talking about lighting of the icons, which are too vibrant and lacks a central/focused color. Right now, the new splashes look like rainbows and it is hard to tell who is who just by taking a quick glance at the icons' colors.

The old icons were easily distinguishable because splashes back then used mainly 3 colors and 1 primary color. Now, we have intense *color * detail in the splash and it is a little distracting.

I know he's talking about the icons, and I understand. I think it's good that we can get a better representation of the full splash just from the little icon, with nothing more than a bit of color. It's like complaining that we can't see Brand's face behind all the fire.

Duke Anax3 votes

The splashes are for being impressive, the icons need to be clear, or they are useless.

Dustogrei10 votes

Your example is totally off. For one Urgot's icon looks fine - you can easily tell it's Urgot. Second his mask and eyepatch are part of his facial characteristics, so of course we wouldn't remove them. Ezreal's gauntlet isn't. Neither is Rumble's flamespitter. Third this isn't about "removing" anything, it's about fixing the colors so they look like their actual in-game models. The icons are portraits - they're closeups of their faces, not their weapons or abilities. You don't see blitz's fist in his portrait, wind particles around Yasuo, claws/spikes in Khaz'ix, crows in fiddlesticks, I could go on and on.

Trying to convey a character by implying a weapon/tool through a glow/lighting that completely changes their actual appearance is in no way coherent with Riot's stance on clarity.

Rew7111 votes

I like the Ezreal fix but Rumble's red glow wasn't that bad. It might actually look better red. But yeah, Ezreal's blue tone shouldn't be there.

Junkο2 votes

Rumble needs a new icon, it looks like a head on a stick. Not to mention that they removed 99% of his clothes

Bloodpaly1 votes

All these new icons are too fking annoying to tell at a glance looking at the minimap mid game while important stuff is happening.

But that doesn't stop them from making a new one every day.

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