Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Riot Screwed Evelynn again (KDA)

TStrm LastCaress·11/8/2018, 8:54:02 PM·33 votes·25,378 views

back when Bloodmoon Evelynn was released the community complained about its lack of quality and then they still released it, despite the complaints for a recolor or at least a chroma to take full advantage of the Beautiful bloodmoon line. They declined and did hardly anything at all to make this skin better. Now we have a different problem with riot cutting corners on KDA Evelynn's SFX. Hearing the brand new sound effects had me extremely excited for what they may do to her ulti and Q. Now I sit here disappointed once with Riots failure to give us a Skin that properly matches with the skin line it comes from. Akali Kai'Sa Ahri

All of their sound design is distinct and unique within their skill sets sure the auto attacks all sound the same (except kai'sa) but for the most part you feel like the skins were put in a large amount of effort. Now before I dig into Riot and Evelynn let me say I love the particle effects and model of this skin, this is only targeted at the sound design. Most of these videos you have to mainly listen to.

Now lets talk about my Favorite champ in the whole game Evelynn. The Ult and W sound great though I wish the Ulti didnt have her ghoulish shout in it. Now for some real criticism the difference between KDA Evelynn's Q and her base skin Q is depressingly sad when compared to the amazing SFX design on the other KDA skins. To be fair the initial Q sounds fine, its the three Qs afterward that are lack luster. the sound effect of the Q hitting still sounds like the old skin, its hardly any different, in fact when I play the skin in game I hardly hear it. On top of that evelynn voice lines in where she lets out her ghoulish shouts are also still present in this skin going over the Q making it even harder to listen to the brand new SFX work. Now I wouldn't be complaining about a problem without just trying to give a solution so here it is. I would make the old sound effect quieter than the new sound effect and give it a bit of an echo to match the KDA aesthetic, and of course remove the voice line from the Q activation. then the skin will retain its Identity without giving riot more than 30 minutes of work.

Moving on to her E it shares a similar problem to to her Q in which the new sound effect is absolutely overpowered by her new one. So the Base skin E compared to the KDA E. Her empowered E does have a sound effect, but no matter how many times I listen to the unempowered E I cant hear a single changed sound effect maybe there is one that I just cant hear but that just bring up the point of the old SFX still overpower the new ones. at this point in my post you get the Idea and I would just be echoing my points in the previous statement so lets jump to how I would fix this. Firstly like I stated about the Q I would make the Old SFX on the empowered E quieter while the new sound louder so it can be heard yet. As for the unempowered E if there isn't a sound effect then I would for sure just leave it as is, I don't want to make riots job harder, if there is one give it the same treatment as the empowered E.

As a paying customer of Riot Games I feel as though this skin was created unfairly to the others in their skin line. I would also Talk about Blood Moon Evelynn some but T B Skyen had already made a great video about it. Please watch it, its great. Lastly before I hit Post Discussion I want to let all of you know that I am not complaining just to complain, I am giving Riot a constructive feedback on how the skin presents it self in line with the rest of Its Sisters(the KDA line). If this problem gets fixed I would be very grateful. Evelynn

Edit: I found out Via the Evelynn mains subreddit that a rioter already had said this was a goal to fix her SFX issue with her Q and then we never got it

17 Comments

RiotRiot Zimberfly11/9/2018, 8:12:49 AM33 votes

Hey everyone!

Sound designer for the K/DA skins here. Thought I'd chime in about the points you mentioned above, which were very sound arguments by the way. See what I did there? Sound? Anyone?

Okay so! First things first. For context, there are chordal synth stabs on Eve's Q spikes, and they randomize so that every time you hit her 3 spikes, you get slightly different melodies. Similarly to what's going on with K/DA Ahri's 3 dashes on her ult.

During development, I did have a version of the spikes that was very heavy with the synth/musical elements, and week after week I consistently got the feedback from Evelynn mains that while it was cool, after clearing jungle camp after jungle camp it became extremely fatiguing quickly. Not only that, that high frequency TICK TICK TICK of Eve's spikes are a pretty iconic part of her kit since her VGU. I really tried to hit a tasteful balance where you do hear the music, but it doesn't get super fatiguing to the ears when clearing camps.

However! After exploring some of the feedback I got when the skins were on PBE, I did notice a trend where folks were hoping to hear more of the musical elements on Eve's Q spikes. So in service of that, I submitted a change that downplayed the spike elements and increased the volume of the musical layers. That change is currently on PBE and will patch out to all regions in 8.23

On a broader note to the point above, one of the biggest things I try to keep in mind when designing the audio for a skin is "how do I make this skin shine as epically as possible and explore new creative ground while protecting gameplay at all costs". Eve has certain very key components that make her recognizable. One of them is her Q spikes. Another is the savage scream on her ult. Similarly, I also wanted to protect the cadence of her E. I really worked to dial up the pop awesomeness on her empowered E, and left the less damaging unempowered E less embellished on purpose: to widen the delta of impact between the two versions of her E. Note that the unempowered E still has new SFX - it's a subtler shimmery crystalline tail to inject some airy popstar flair into the ability, but I didn't want to go too heavy-handed.

I hope this provides a bit of insight into why I felt it was best to make the design choices that ultimately shipped with the skin. Eve was one of my favorite K/DA skins to design, so my hope is that this helps folks understand that these sounds were made with the best play experience in mind. Also I really love nerding out about sound design too, and I appreciate that this thread was made because I love the passion. :)

QMighty11/9/2018, 4:45:59 AM8 votes

I mean do you blame them? Do you not wanna screw Eve?

KimoNova11/8/2018, 11:46:44 PM7 votes

I love the skin a lot still, It would be a great QOL change to have her Q have the same treatment as say Kai'sa's Q

Hexs Fortune11/9/2018, 12:34:04 AM6 votes

I really like the music that plays during stealth, but it would be cool to enhance the Q sounds a bit 2.

ManaWisp11/8/2018, 11:23:28 PM5 votes

I agree, it would be nice if they made her q and e sounds more distinct.

Ionian Vulpix11/9/2018, 2:40:14 PM1 votes

But doesn't Eveleynn like being screwed?

snoamari23111/10/2018, 3:33:09 AM1 votes

Thanks a ton for the awesome reply!

Raddix712/16/2018, 4:41:00 PM1 votes

I would appreciate if they implemented the car from the kda video and the splashart into the game somehow. That would be really awesome in my opinion :)

chewyycat12/16/2018, 8:00:14 PM1 votes

It’s super cute how much @Riot Zimberfly cares about sound design [sg-jinx]