Hey Riot, please reconsider some of the changes regarding Maokai updates...

I was wondering why I hadn't gotten any discussion in 20 mins, I posted this in Gameplay & Balance -_-

Hello boards, I'm posting this here because the most I'd get in OCE is a Rioter's opinion if I'm very lucky.

I've been playing Maokai for quite a while, in fact I'm a "Maokai hipster", I played him for quite a while before all those buffs a few months ago. I find him really fun, think he's a balanced jungler who has a strong kit that compensates for his reliance on blue buff, and I think he's one of the best designed champions. I wasn't too excited to hear that he was getting a texture update because while some have been "WOW" (rammus), others have been quite dodgy.

The new splash is great (it looks like he'll also have a decent face icon thing too), I wasn't expecting the new effects and they are even better. The new model is ok and I'm sure it'll look better with the style of the new map.

However, what's not so great is his skins. As many people have said, Charred Maokai has had all it's detail removed and is a completely different skin. It's just glowy-red-Malphite looking now, and I don't think this is something that should be happening with skins. It's gone from a cool little skin with some decent detail to a dodgy recolour. I don't know how you can justify having the current splash art for Charred Mao serve as the splash for this "update".

Then there's Totemic Mao, which, while it's far from as bad as the previous skin it's a different skin again. I don't think it's good that skins are being simplified so much, he's gone from being a spooky dark tree with glowing eyes, gold tips on the end of his spikes and a creative colour scheme to a stereotypical goofy face paint mask which is a completely different skin.

Festive Maokai has a massive green puffy thing coming out of his back rather than being a Christmas Tree. Detail has been really simplified and again, it's not a texture update, it's another skin. How can this have the old splash art? They're completely different.

Haunted Maokai really didn't need any change whatsoever, and I think Riot shouldn't be touching any of the holiday skins, but at least his was nowhere near as extreme or devastating.

Why fix what isn't broken? Amumu, whose skins look like they're being updated at the same time, has a reasonable update, and he'll look fine in-game. Why does Mao have to have his skins ruined?

I think that because Maokai has nowhere near as big of a fanbase as most champions this will be overlooked and it'll go through PBE, but please, if there's anyone who could try to take the skins back to the start and make them look somewhat similar, could you please try to do so because the first three all look quite tacky and are, as I said, really different skins. Could we just try to fix this? The new splash art, default skin and effects are amazing and a great surprise, but I really hope these skin updates don't happen.

(I'm not sure what response I'll receive as I've heard this is more reddity, but could we have discussion rather than circlejerking please? Sorry if this sounds rude, I just don't have much experience with boards and don't know if it's as cringy as s@20 disqus/reddit)