@Riot, How do you choose your weapons?

Yeah I kind of assumed most of that was the case. I think I know too much about character design/development, honestly.

Anyway, any weapons in particular you guys over in champion design and such want to explore in the future?

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A lot of champion designs begin with an opportunity space such as Pyke being a support-assassin, or a gameplay hook like Camille's literal hooks. In those cases there's already some pretty solid leads for visual exploration around what those champions are doing. Once we get to agreeing on a faction or role for the champ (Bildgewater spear-fisher, Piltover secret agent) it starts becoming very clear what kind of weapons they might have access to.

Other times we could start by looking at what exciting fantasy weapons we haven't already explored in LoL. I have a big book on my desk called 'Weapon', it's got everything in it! I will say if you take a look at a list of projectile-weapons we've covered almost all of them, we even played with the idea of a slingshot for Neeko. Next ADC is gonna have to just throw rocks... oh wait! !

In terms of priority, we've gotten pretty good at a very collaborative workflow with art, design and narrative staying flexible and iterating to support the best ideas each discipline is bringing to the table. Sylas' lore and visual design began by being built around his ultimate and how it felt to use in playtests (opponent-reliant, intelligent, improvisational, very very cruel) which gave us the idea of a sinister mage held prisoner. Originally he had more of a traditional caster look but on the narrative side the writers felt a Demacian mage held in secret would be best, and we wanted someone who looked just like Demacia's heroes ( ) to play foil without it becoming a Thor/Loki Jock/Nerd situation. Then once we saw these huge hefty chains in concept art a lot of his kit was tweaked or reworked to best utilise the whip-like restraints.

League is an interesting case in terms of game design. Some of our best champions embody their weapons: Darius' kit is like a top 4 of things you can do with an Axe, even down to a passive that causes bleeding and the haft doing less damage than the head of the weapon. His personality is sharp an decisive, there's not a soft bone in his body! My favourite examples are and . Other champions are more of a fantasy trope ( ) and their weapons are secondary to the theme. Casters are generally very difficult, without clear real-world metaphors like a spear or a shield connecting gameplay to visuals can be much trickier but there are still ways to bring ideas together and not just Staff + VFX. I think , and are all good examples of finding a weapon for a mage that can inspire gameplay.

So how did get bananas?

{quoted}

A lot of champion designs begin with an opportunity space such as Pyke being a support-assassin, or a gameplay hook like Camille's literal hooks. In those cases there's already some pretty solid leads for visual exploration around what those champions are doing. Once we get to agreeing on a faction or role for the champ (Bildgewater spear-fisher, Piltover secret agent) it starts becoming very clear what kind of weapons they might have access to.

Other times we could start by looking at what exciting fantasy weapons we haven't already explored in LoL. I have a big book on my desk called 'Weapon', it's got everything in it! I will say if you take a look at a list of projectile-weapons we've covered almost all of them, we even played with the idea of a slingshot for Neeko. Next ADC is gonna have to just throw rocks... oh wait! !

In terms of priority, we've gotten pretty good at a very collaborative workflow with art, design and narrative staying flexible and iterating to support the best ideas each discipline is bringing to the table. Sylas' lore and visual design began by being built around his ultimate and how it felt to use in playtests (opponent-reliant, intelligent, improvisational, very very cruel) which gave us the idea of a sinister mage held prisoner. Originally he had more of a traditional caster look but on the narrative side the writers felt a Demacian mage held in secret would be best, and we wanted someone who looked just like Demacia's heroes ( ) to play foil without it becoming a Thor/Loki Jock/Nerd situation. Then once we saw these huge hefty chains in concept art a lot of his kit was tweaked or reworked to best utilise the whip-like restraints.

League is an interesting case in terms of game design. Some of our best champions embody their weapons: Darius' kit is like a top 4 of things you can do with an Axe, even down to a passive that causes bleeding and the haft doing less damage than the head of the weapon. His personality is sharp an decisive, there's not a soft bone in his body! My favourite examples are and . Other champions are more of a fantasy trope ( ) and their weapons are secondary to the theme. Casters are generally very difficult, without clear real-world metaphors like a spear or a shield connecting gameplay to visuals can be much trickier but there are still ways to bring ideas together and not just Staff + VFX. I think , and are all good examples of finding a weapon for a mage that can inspire gameplay.

Thank you for the detailed reply!

About Kayn, is there a reason why you guys choose a fantasy scythe design over a more realistic and practical war scythe?

That makes sense, although since we aren't actual game designers or part of the champion designing teams, all we can really do is speculate.

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I guess it varies, but my best guess is that the champions basic vision is done first, then it’s organic (I.e. A mage would utilize magic or some sort of magical artifact or a warrior would have a large weapon such as a sword or spear) Obviously, the abilities must come first before weapon, but must work in tandem, so I’m thinking they have the idea for the ability, then the team working on the potential champion choose a fitting weapon for him/her/it.

Interesting point!

While I see where you are getting at with the hammer, I think we already have quite some hammer wielders in the game and therefore I am not sure if we need another one...

Some other weapon archetypes I am missng in the game:

Chainsaw Would most likely have to be a hextech or chemtech weapon, would fit a juggernaut probably (since this weapon would probably be damn heavy and brutal). Could work well with mechanics like armorshred or fear.

Scissors There are different ways to implement this as a weapon. It could be a magical ritual artefact, giving their wielder the ability to seperate the souls of people from their body (for example). Or it could be a big scissor used to behead victims, could fit an insane serial killer type of character.

Syringe-gun We still don't have a real medic champion (someone who uses modern medicine to cure people, not some magic mambo-jambo), Dr. Mundo even doesn't count anymore, since they changed him to be an insane guy just pretending to be a doctor. Having a marksman-support mix, giving them the ability to heal their allies with auto attacks thanks to this gun, would be interesting.