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Discussion on the Variant Skins and their Start with Pajama Guardians/Eclipse Leona

Forhonor321·11/7/2018, 10:35:58 AM·5 votes·3,692 views

Woke up and found out about the news of Variant skins, checked the boards today and, low and behold, some angry posts about it. So, I'd figure to share my thoughts and opinions on the whole matter. And keep in mind, These Are My Opinions. You don't have to agree with them, but I do ask that at the very least to try to respect them.

First off, yeah this is basically Riot trying to grab more money. I mean, come on. Having your Star Guardian skin line with the same effects, but putting them in pajamas is kind of a dead giveaway. You're basically just tweaking a skin that you already put out and asking people to buy it again if they already have it, essentially reusing a skin to sell (which to many would consider it lazy and greedy). Someone even argued that these could of been chromas and if that was the case, then they would probably be a bit more expensive but damn cool if they were. That's not the case though.

BUT... here's the thing...I do kind of like the idea of having slightly altered skins. This mainly being in the case of the new Leona Legendary. I like the idea of her getting an Eclipse skin but to have both variations of a Solar and Lunar Eclipse is kind of nice (Not sure why Diana couldn't get Lunar or get along side Leona but here's hoping in the future and a different argument for another post). To me, it's just a neat idea to see skins taken on in another perspective.

On top of this, Riot has previously mentioned that the skins would be discounted if you already owned the originals or vice versa and this had been further updated from a 30% discount to now a 45% discount (so from 945 to 743/1274 to 1001 for legendaries). I don't know about the rest of you but this seems like an OK deal. Have one of the two, get the other at nearly half price. Hell, the cheapest skins Riot can create nowadays (even though they haven't published any for a while now) is the 750 skins, so you're getting a pretty OK deal from this if you own the original.

So, to recap: Riot is trying an experiment of making variants of pre-existing skins or adding variants to soon-to-be-launched skins, which will be similar in appearance and some recycling effects for some, but at the same time if you own one the original or variant, the other skin will be discounted to nearly 50%.

Overall, I'm kind of looking forward to this as I stated I like the idea of these, but I'm keeping a cautious eye on this as in my mind this could easily turn sour. I also completely understand if you don't like this concept or aren't going to buy into this idea, I can see where you're coming from. But let's just see how well this idea goes and see where we go from there.

4 Comments

Sukishoo11/7/2018, 10:17:06 PM2 votes

Someone even argued that these could of been chromas and if that was the case, then they would probably be a bit more expensive but damn cool if they were. That's not the case though.

That's because they can't be Chromas. The Chroma technology only allows them to change the characters color in their outfits, not change the outfit directly. It's why none of those kind of things have recolored effects or anything like that either. They just have a base color on the outfit of the skin and then an alternate for each chroma. So in order to do that they made these variant type skins, first seen with the Lancer Blitzcrank, then into the recent K/DA Kai'sa and Prestige K/DA Kai'sa. Then they opened it up a bit more and made the Leona skins and Pajama Star Guardians (which are a bit less compared to the rest of these variants since theirs is just a costume change).

(Not sure why Diana couldn't get Lunar or get along side Leona but here's hoping in the future and a different argument for another post).

That's because Diana already got a Darkwaters skin during the Blidgewater Event this year and, on top of that, why does everyone always jump right into a moon theme for Diana? Her post launch skin was Lunar Goddess, and then a few years later she got Bloodmoon and it's just like skins are meant to bring forth other themes for champions. Look at Leona, her skins don't revolve around the sun, only her Legendary skins do now.

On top of this, Riot has previously mentioned that the skins would be discounted if you already owned the originals or vice versa and this had been further updated from a 30% discount to now a 45% discount (so from 945 to 743/1274 to 1001 for legendaries). I don't know about the rest of you but this seems like an OK deal. Have one of the two, get the other at nearly half price. Hell, the cheapest skins Riot can create nowadays (even though they haven't published any for a while now) is the 750 skins, so you're getting a pretty OK deal from this if you own the original.

I think they need to apply that kind of deal to the previous Lancer Blitzcrank skins since they are variants of each other as well.

Rathar Dashing11/7/2018, 10:06:34 PM1 votes

I'm not opposed to the idea of having variant skins, the Leona and Blitz ones look great. I am opposed to the fact that the pajama guardian skins look bad, no one asked for them, and that they had little to no effort put into them for the price they are charging. I'm also opposed to the fact that solar/lunar eclipse could have EASILY been a Leona/Diana event, and it would have been a much better decision both for players and for business reasons.

Heresey11/23/2018, 3:34:31 AM1 votes

Personal opinion here.

While I think creating variant skins for some of the more favored skin sets is a fun idea on paper and for some skins it might be pretty cool. I am not a fan at all of having a nearly identical skin split from another one and instead just having to buy both of them. I'd rather just pay a little more one time and get a skin that I can change between in game. They did it with a few already.

Elementalist Lux being a huge example since it also changes her recall, particles and skin entirely already. Miss fortune's Gun goddess being one smaller example, despite that it didn't change all the particles, DJ Sona something similar years ago. My original thoughts on the Eclipse Leona was complete and utter excitement because she's my favorite champ and I thought it was going to be a legendary for her. Now that I know that it's just two separate skins, I'll have to purchase both and I can't just interchange between them. I'm personally just disappointed.

I don't like the precedent being set here, not one bit. Re-touching old skins to do something cool and different, maybe... but releasing new skins split in half? Don't like it, just bump the price and make them better.