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@Riot Developers - Why So Silent About Karma? No One Likes her.

Vanjie·4/4/2018, 2:34:54 PM·8 votes·827 views

Not that everyone expect you to communicate about her lore, art and kit problems. You haven't done it in the past 5 years. Reddit doesn't like her, the boards community don't like her, the longtime fans of Karma do not like her. Even people who don't read lore or like Karma but comment about lore and Karma, do not like Karma. You want to know why?

  1. You took away Karma's shield bomb. The only unique ability in Karma's kit, shield bomb, was taken away from her and put on Ivern by Ricklessabandon. When her relaunch happened you took almost everything fun and unique away from her then.
  2. You took away Karma's fan for a theme that is not very original, doesn't really excite players, and isn't well represented in game.
  3. You took away Karma's role in Ionia and basically put it on Irelia. You made Karma what she is today because you wanted Irelia to shine. Now Karma is a pacifist that is aware of how strong she is, but doesn't do anything about it but meditate on a rock.

What every single Developer has been doing for the past 5 years is trying to force a narrative and playstyle on Karma that NO ONE is happy about or wants. You keep forcing her to be the bot lane support that sits in the back and builds shield enhancing items, a character with no resonating theme that had it before you started playing Swiper the Fox with her, and lore that further solidified her as a champion that does nothing. What are you going to take from Karma next? There isn't anything left on this champion for you to take and put on a popular champion or new one. You took it all away and didn't replace it with anything good. You cannot be bothered to work on her thematic and art issues, you cannot be bothered to work on her kit, and now you just messed up her lore. No one likes it. If this isn't an excuse to do an Aatrox level rework on her, then you guys really must hate the champion.

WHY ARE YOU NOT COMMENTING AT ALL ABOUT KARMA WHEN SHE HAS ALL THESE THREADS ABOUT THINGS THEY HATE ABOUT HER? Is this another thing you want to sweep under the rug and do nothing about? People are upset with you guys and disappointed. We want change, we want communication, and we want work to actually be done. This is not a matter of waiting 5 years and coming up with false statistics to justfiy your changes. Reddit doesn't like new Karma at all, the Boards do not like new Karma at all, and the Karma community who have been playing her the past 5 years really don't like new Karma at all. Karma sits at a very low win and pick rate, her art and theme is bland and half-worked on, her lore is a mess and no one likes it, and her kit is all over the place with no distinct playstyle and is bland. If this doesn't qualify her for any work to be done, what would?

If this was Ahri you would be talking about her. There is probably more of this somewhere on the boards/reddit since the lore update. Players are not happy with anything on Karma at all right now.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/general-discussion/sQiGJu74-riot-karmas-lore-deserves-more-than-a-half-baked-avatar-the-last-airbender-ripoff

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/story-art/YkEoahEd-karmas-new-lore-is-a-mess

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/story-art/4fYwEw85-karma-and-balance

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/story-art/pZvWPZxE-karma-not-the-enlightened-one-anymore

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/2ezJ4OML-riot-developers-karma-is-solidified-as-nothing

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/7t7F6NMZ-riot-im-begging-you-do-something-about-karma

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/88zum7/karma_lore_update/?amp%3Bamp%3Bsh=d880ea1d&st=JFKB8Q1J&sh=d880ea1d

18 Comments

DerMangoJoghurt4/4/2018, 2:37:11 PM8 votes

I like Karma... [cass-cry]

IxtaliKing4/4/2018, 2:56:14 PM6 votes

That's just the way it goes. Whenever Karma is the hot topic the devs just happen to be on hiatus.

Not saying they do it on purpose, but it's just a little something I've noticed. I know Meddler is away for a few weeks, not sure about the others.

I'm sure they've seen the Karma posts though, they know that new story didn't land well. They know this isn't just "cyclejerk", they know people aren't happy with her kit and her art.

They will address these things at some point. But as always, we just have to wait...

Arakadia4/4/2018, 5:44:28 PM6 votes

Not that everyone expect you to communicate about her lore, art and kit problems.

I am not happy with the Karma lore changes, but this is objectively incorrect. Do you not read Nexus? Or Patch notes? Or Dev Blog? Or S@20? Or Reddit? or the boards? Or any of the other platforms Riot communicates through?

My point is that 'Riot hasn't listened to their community forever" isn't true. Riot has issue when it comes to communicating (sometimes they are too late, or don't talk about the right subjects) but they certainly talk to their community and fans a reasonable amount.

HonestJohnTheCon4/4/2018, 2:53:34 PM4 votes

It’s been a total of one day since Karma’s lore was released. About gameplay, I don’t know, but you can’t get on Riot’s case for being silent when it’s only been a day.

If they don’t respond to the criticism at all within the next few weeks, I’ll call them out with you.

Digielf4/4/2018, 4:04:07 PM2 votes

{quoted}

That's just the way it goes. Whenever Karma is the hot topic the devs just happen to be on hiatus.

Not saying they do it on purpose, but it's just a little something I've noticed. I know Meddler is away for a few weeks, not sure about the others.

I'm sure they've seen the Karma posts though, they know that new story didn't land well. They know this isn't just "cyclejerk", they know people aren't happy with her kit and her art.

They will address these things at some point. But as always, we just have to wait...

I don't think there has ever been lore changes because of complaints about it.. when people complain about a skin or character's design there is usually chances that they edit something but for lore i have never seen them changing anything based on players opinions and its not that much of an issue anyway

J0kerclash4/5/2018, 5:03:16 PM1 votes

Gameplay-wise, i'd say her rework was significantly weaker than other champions, but that's because she was one of the first ones, and I feel like her kit is still excellent at displaying the values that were kept as well as the values that were changed, on top of that, the art direction for her character was absolutely amazing. (though the model was slightly underwhelming in comparison to the amazing concept art that was produced for it)

Her fans were quite important for the pre-rework Karma, but there were far more important things that were kept so that's not much of a big deal, at least for me anyways.

The main issue I have with Karma and her recent lore change is that

  1. Her Mantra which augements her 3 other abilities is what i'd class as her signiture ability, the reason the shield bomb was good in the first place was because of her crazy passive, without the passive it wouldn't be very good anyways, Ivern has it now and he's considered not very strong. The movespeed shield is much more effective for helping the adc anyways to be honest.

  2. The theme of having a fan isn't very strong to begin with honestly, the strong focus on Balance and Duality was a much better theme than "fans" and I much prefer the modern version of Karma to the old one, even though the bomb shield was stupidly broken with her mad ap pasive.

  3. I think that similar to the leaders of Noxus, Irelia and Karma are being built to represent the contrasting aspects of Ionia, with one side opting for peace, whilst the other wanting to avenge their fallen comrades, however the 100% peaceful stance clearly isn't Karma at all, the important aspects that belonged to Traditional Karma that were transferred to modern Karma are being retconned in the lore, Karma's duality, and the idea of balancing Ionia's peaceful culture with it's need to properly defend itself from nations such as Noxus was one of the most important cornerstones of her character, and by making her a pacifist, the balance is pushed over to one side. It's very easy to see that she was retconned for the sole benefit of Irelia as well, obviously, Irelia's more bloodthirsty stance is now contrasted by Karma's pacifistic ideology, which lets all the Karma fans know that no one at Riot really cares about what makes Karma, Karma so long as Irelia gets a solid story, they even had the nerve to literally re-name the character.

"Karma agonized over this. Eventually she compromised, deciding to kill just one person, but that it had to be the right person to kill"

The writing for her bio is... undercooked to say the least, it looks quite rushed and uninspired, I'm not sure anyone would think like this.