Please keep the art team prioritizing League of Legends
https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/client/client-features/saved-login-credentials-coming-soon
"Will the login screen look any different? Because you'll skip the login screen once you've stored your credentials and get into game quicker, we're going to have them include static images without background music. Most of the time, double clicking the League of Legends shortcut will send you straight to game, so we didn’t want to have flashy or resource-intensive things you’ll barely ever see. This change also frees up the art and music teams to put more time into other exciting projects."
"This change also frees up the art and music teams to put more time into other exciting projects."
The music and arts team are almost always always acclaimed, and with the removal of artists from making login screens to "working on other exciting projects", I really hope they're working on League of Legends. If it turns out they're not actually putting more effort into things like in game models, art, cinematics like Awaken, etc. then I really will begin to consider League a dying game, as the Arts and Music team is really what holds this game together at this point. Beautiful splash arts (not Prestige Caitlyn's shoulder neck), beautiful cinematics, beautiful themes, careful effort, and much more are all things that these two teams always manage to put out.
Effort is clearly seen in many tiny facets of their work. For example, in the Legends Never Die music video, when Garen is about to meet the horde of enemies head on, the horde's charging cry morphs into the crowd cheering for the worlds competitors. Little touches like this really add to the quality of a product, and I'm so glad that the art team is capable of doing things like this. Although I will miss login screens, I will consider it a worthy sacrifice if more quality content can be put out like this.
If it turns out that there is indeed new games coming out from Riot Games, and the artists are being moved to those projects, I know my enjoyment will go slightly, and it'll be more apparent as to whether Riot is actually removing resources from League of Legends to save money or if they're simply redistributing work in a more meaningful way.
My suspicions arise from the repeated pattern of safe moves from a business standpoint. The heavy investment into e-sports, the heavy urgency of viewership in missions, the choice of skins for champions, the removal of champion themes for Qiyana and Yuumi, despite them still having access to login screens, etc.
Analyzing this new batch of skins, Caitlyn's skin is the only one that makes sense. A shooter game, although done by Miss Fortune already, is pulled off slightly better with Caitlyn, and I honestly like what the art team did with this. Qiyana got this skin due to its overlap with her release, and the execution for her is also done as best as it could be. The clash comes from the choice of base material rather than the execution, so props to the art team for pulling that off too. Kai'sa and Yasuo are obviously uninspired. Kai'sa's skin count is through the roof for a champion released so recently, and she isn't lacking in high quality skins either, so my bet is that League simply wants to make a skin for her thanks to her player count. Yasuo is Yasuo.
The problem arises when the common point of primarily Xerath is brought up. As of recently, he has a play rate of more than 6%, which when combining his Support and Middle game presence, exceeds 3x the average champion's play rate. This is concerning, as Xerath fits the theme perfectly well, and as of right now actually has a decently sizable player base full of players who would gladly buy a skin. League's decisions right now are not only motivated by greed, but are also hasty, as they don't pull in statistics from all regions, and simply generalize which people tend to spend the most money and appeal to them, which makes them lose out as they forget that people don't have infinite money. Are Yasuo mains really going to buy a new shitty skin when they could stick to Nightbringer / Odyssey Yasuo? Are Kai'sa players really going to buy Arcade Kai'sa when amazing skins like iG Kai'sa, K/DA Kai'sa, and even Bullet Angel Kai'sa already exist? They don't match the themes too well, and better skins in terms of sheer quality exist. Why not give them to a champion where sales will not only be better received, but also more highly purchased? Although Kai'sa's pick rate is almost 40%, not many are interested in yet another skin for her, and Yasuo is the same, where many of his mains are already complaining about the bad reputation they have despite them not wanting that skin either due to its obvious lack of quality.
These lazy decisions and reliance on the art and music team to patch up their shortcomings makes me concerned for the future of League if Riot decides to reduce the amount of artists working on League to focus them on other projects.