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What confuses me most about the Splash Art controversy...

Harmony11·3/29/2016, 9:01:43 PM·8 votes·1,074 views

...is the fact that splash art is a very minor aspect of the game when you think about it.

Don't get me wrong I love the splash art. It's a very nice way of giving skins life and a story and I hope they never go away. However the only times you will see splash art on a regular basis are 1) when you select a skin in champ select and 2) during the loading screen. That's it. Once you're in-game the icon is base-art only because your team/opponents need to keep track of it on the minimap (maybe one day they can separate the minimap icon with the player's icon, but until then it's not happening). The in-game model does NOT change with the splash art changes; the only time that happens post-release is usually in reverse order when they change the in-game model and then the splash to resemble it (see: Shen).

Really what Riot should do is allow skin-previews in the client a-la HotS and other modern MOBAs where you can base your purchase on the actual model and not the art. In fact, that would be better in terms of people complaining about the model not being 1:1 due to things like lighting (Sweetheart Annie).

It's one thing to complain about the quality of the splashes in relation to the overall skin. Yes some of them are pretty atrocious for representing the character (Toxic Mundo I'm looking at you) or basic anatomy (base Sivir I'm looking at you now). But when I see complaints over slight details like Ahri's eyes and Janna's skin art (which let's face it all of Janna's design is that of a stereotypical f2p fantasy browser game girl) I wonder how people can allow themselves to get so worked up over something that literally has zero impact once you're in the rift.

Go ahead and leave feedback, negative or otherwise. Just save the pitchforks and torches for the atrocious 3D models that occasionally pop up instead. And shitty merch like that Ahri statue. And the lack of an official model viewer. We have long deserved one of those too.

Thank you.

2 Comments

sealust3/29/2016, 11:27:53 PM4 votes

Splash arts really aren't a minor thing; Riot JXE goes over this in their announcement and I agree.

[...]splash art is one of most important tools we have for conveying a champion's fantasy and personality in League. We want players to have a global, unified experience [...]

Splashes are used everywhere: from champ select to the loading screen, portrait icons, the store, and more recently Hextech Crafting.

And it's one of the things I love about this game, I don't want that to change. However, we do need some kind of model viewer built into league, b/c the splash art don't translate directly to the 3D models.

Splash arts are used to represent champions and their skins, when those pieces of art are cringy, bad, trashy, or totally in left field people are unhappy. I think they have every right to be.

Amoc3/30/2016, 3:33:02 PM3 votes

I think you're grossly underestimating the importance of splash art. While you don't look at it for that long (a few minutes in champ select and game loading as you say) I think it does just as much for immersion as the actual skin in-game. Yes, you look at the actual in-game skin far more, but it's not nearly as detailed and thus leaves a lot to you imagination - imagination that the splash art helps you flesh out.

As for all of the complaining, nobody's exactly going apoplectic. We're just irritated. These are the types of changes that an out-of-touch bean counter would come up with after zero consideration to how it affects customers. It's an arrogant, careless solution that will undoubtedly save Riot a relatively tiny amount of time and money but leave customers who actually spent money on these skins with something they would have never otherwise bought.

This isn't the type of place you'd usually go looking for cost savings/streamlining. The amount of resources Riot saves is likely inconsequential compared to how annoyed everyone is.