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New Summoners Rift is drab and washes out colors - Its ugly

NJREpoh·11/13/2014, 3:45:18 AM·23 votes·12,914 views

The new summoner's rift is drab and it washes out colors. Its like all the colors collide with 17% grey and are designed to neutralize and wash out any bright textures color or vibrancy. There is virtually no contrast or brightness of color.

My skins look terrible on the new map and I will not be buying them in the future. Its hard to see other 17% grey champions like the classic Mu skin.

Its just ugly ugly ugly. I want to play bright exciting flashy games. Not drab, color washed out, lifeless games. I like the small upgrades but utterly hate and detest the color palette. Its ugly and drab beyond description or belief.

I will be playing this game much less and see no reason to buy skins ever again until they put some contrast back into the map so that I can enjoy their colors.

So Ugly. So Stupid. This is really going to hurt riot and I think new players will take one look at the rift map and find a different game to play while older players will probably stick with it but perhaps play less and they most certainly will buy less skins seeing as how they would be all washed out anyway.

What a shame.

37 Comments

Lisbeth11/13/2014, 3:51:54 AM9 votes

[deleted]

Best Cym NA11/13/2014, 9:17:54 AM6 votes

Thumbs down! Extremely drab. I don't like the new graphics. The ground/grass appears to me to have less vibrancy, detail and contrast (also, the color just isn't "right" in my opinion(too light green?). I feel similar to other posters, in that the lack of detail makes me feel like I'm looking at a dust covered monitor which obscures the detail. It's so drab/boring/dusty it's distracting and makes me want to play League less.

Okay, the towers look cool, but I don't look at the towers all game, whereas I can't help but look at the ground which is global, which looks so bad to me, it makes me sad. I think it's a BIG step down and in the wrong direction.

I have a good graphics card running everything on the highest graphics setting, and I feel like I 'm on an old computer using a very poor monitor. I know it's all subjective, but that's my opinion!

And for the record, I'm not a hater, I very much enjoy LoL, but I prefer the colors, textures, details and clarity of the old map.

PRN11/13/2014, 4:31:00 AM5 votes

I think trying to relate skins with the map is a joke and Riot won't take you seriously if you go down that road. That's like a 5 year old crying that they will not go to school because their mom didn't buy them that shiny lollipop at the store.

I think the new map is ugly, but I have always said this ever since it's early preview. Riot will never change it now that they have put too much work in it, however. I seriously doubt they will fix all the issues that we have been talking about for months and months now. The map is too grey, pastel-coloured. Riot has backed this up with an excuse of "layers", with the map being the bottom layer and thus must be more desaturated than the champions ("middle layer"). From an Artist's point of view this is a load of bollocks since the champion visuals are supposed to be immersive and work with the environment, not against it.

Put any of one of the hundred champions on the new SR map and tell me that they look like they belong. The truth is they just don't. Nothing belongs in the new SR map, even if Riot is trying it's hardest to create a theme for itself (like those ugly mutant birds and frogs on LSD that keep popping up in LoL lore). Even the store's base doesn't look right -- "Hey guys, the enemy team is pushing our nexus, we should all corner ourselves into that very narrow over-hanging cliff that is falling apart, we'll be safe there. Surely they can't get us."

As much as I used to have faith in Riot over their service to their fans, I think they have also partially given up on us. Much of the league community is quick to complain about the smallest of things and so I feel like Riot has learned to ignore a portion of the feedback and label it as irrelevant. The only times Riot has really changed something about league is when a massive voice is put forward and the community groups together to be the loudest opinion. But relying on the loudest opinion alone will not do for the new SR map. It's the smaller crap too that matters here.

The map itself looks like a horrible resolution. I thought that even if it was ugly and washed out, the scale is all wrong. The floor in the base is made of massive flat stone with no textures at all, and the map is very pixelated. It looks like a smaller resolution stretched out to fit my screen. Nothing about the textures fits at all. The models look GREAT, the towers are GREAT, everything that is 3D rendered looks massively polished and extremely beyond my expectation. But the 2D textures still remain blurry and pixelated around the edges like as if they are not in HD, which is a big disappointment. Especially for myself, as a player on ultra-high settings.

MotherChurch11/13/2014, 8:10:27 PM5 votes

Could not agree more with how much I detest the change. I will not spend another dime on this game.

The color scheme is just terrible. It is dull, under saturated, and boring. No one in my four person group last night liked it. It feels like a bad copy of the Dota 2 look (which is bad).

They removed the details that made the textures interesting. I cannot believe they call this an "upgrade." Way to waste money Riot. I can't even think how awful this going to look on the e-sports stage.

MotherChurch11/13/2014, 9:54:43 PM5 votes

@RiotForScience

Perhaps an analogy can help here. Which soccer field would rather play on?

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/20248269.jpg

or

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/eb/94/47/eb94478ed2f98afd0453d575aa0a5d44.jpg

Thuban11/13/2014, 9:28:35 AM5 votes

I would rather see combat events, not the map. I also don't want combat events blending into the map so you don't see certain things. The point of the design is for clarity, not something to benchmark your graphic cards.

The map is freaking beautiful, anyone who hates it is a plain hater and won't be happy with anything.

SpaceToad11/13/2014, 4:07:31 PM4 votes

Same here, new map just looks flat!

MotherChurch11/13/2014, 8:12:41 PM4 votes

Beyond just the terrible new color/textures. The game no longer looks like LoL. I cannot believe they would throw out the best parts about their art theme for no apparent reason.

Soleka11/13/2014, 5:04:12 AM3 votes

for some reason new SR defaulted to low everything, so when I first logged in I wasn't impressed cause it was super fuzzy. However after discovering the problem and turning up my settings I did like the changes.

I like the more subtle muted colors compared to the brighter colors of old SR. The waterfall on bot lane really caught my eye. Which is both good and bad. I LOVE the waterfall. It's fantastic, however During the heat of battle I found my eye getting attracted to the waterfall, and distracting from the battle we had going on. I think the muted colors do help differentiate between players, minions, and background. I found I wasn't getting lost in the action as much.

I do have a minor splash gripe with the minimap. Ezreal's portrait icon on the map had me confused with Shyvana's portrait at one point (it's a bluish tint to his skin caused from the shadow). Is there a way to increase the icon size so that it's a little easier to read?

DWT1234511/13/2014, 3:47:05 AM2 votes

why didint you say anything earlier?

bigbabyprox11/13/2014, 4:30:33 AM2 votes

your crazy

Der Lindwurm11/13/2014, 3:44:50 PM2 votes

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oK8UTRgvJU

Chaoscontrol11/13/2014, 6:30:40 PM2 votes

Its rly ugly, totally unsaturated and blurry. I don't care if they make it so people can follow easier what happens in a LCS game. The game should be build to be beautiful to play and not clear to watch on stream.

Ninpire11/13/2014, 2:34:31 PM1 votes

Looks more ominously magical lol

YoungFarmer11/13/2014, 12:31:45 PM1 votes

The awesome new creatures in jungle makes me not even care about the grey map. The Baron is absolutely gorgeous

Killer X 1211/13/2014, 4:25:27 AM1 votes

The map looks bad sure, but i don't see what that has to do with my skins.

Xonra11/14/2014, 3:30:39 AM1 votes

You people that think this map is bad are trolly or just looking for a reason to complain.

I'm all for everyone having their own opinion but this map is nothing but overall improvements. I'm sorry to be a bit rude about it but man come on. Riot works their butts off to improve this stuff and you just come on here complaining about one of the biggest, and by far best improvements visually we have seen.

I've played long enough to remember the first Summoner's Rift update and this blows it out of the water.

Telanor11/14/2014, 10:13:17 PM1 votes

I agree, new map art style is awful. There's WAY less detail in everything and it looks extremely cartoony. This doesn't fit the old style of league and is no where near on par with the new champion art.

Graphics settings have nothing to do with it, the art style is just one of "no detail". I can bet there's an argument being made that "oh the old style had too much detail which caused distracting visual noise, so we cut down the detail so you can see better!" When has anyone ever complained, "man, I died because I got distracted by all the lilipads in the river! I HATE THIS MAP!" The only time I "lose" something is my cursor, which is fixed by... making a better cursor icon, not removing all detail in the map and then desaturating it.

It's kinda like how this board is nothing but lame, boring, solid colors compared to the old forum that had ACTUAL, nice looking art. Yea the old map is looking dated, but this new map is like looking at concept art, barely anything to it. And it won't get any better, because that's the style: no detail.

Compare these screenshots of the two maps: http://imgur.com/a/h6xte (click for the album; all settings are on very high). The new map is washed out, fire particles in the new map lost their distortion effect, the trees look like cardboard forest cutouts. The dirt is now just some kind of brown, perfectly smooth slime. The rocks have no definition, they just look like grey blobs poking through the slime-dirt. Notice in the jungle: the signs are gone, the blue lamp is gone, a lot of the torches are gone. I didn't remember to take a picture of the water specifically but you can see it off to the corner there. The water in the old map looks terrific, whereas the new water looks like more of that bland, boring slime.

MotherChurch11/14/2014, 10:22:34 PM1 votes

I agree with the above. Seeing the screenshots side by side also shows how weird the new trees look. They look very much less treelike than the old map. Sort of like a cardboard forest.

SoulTouch11/18/2014, 2:17:47 PM1 votes

In my opinion the new visual update reminds me of another very popular moba game only the map is less interesting. It appears more dull to me. I would have thought Riot would have increased visual quality and detail making the game look more vivid rather than decreasing it so I'm rather disappointed. If I had to choose between sticking with league or the other brand which tends to have more champs/selections then I just might switch. I'm sure other players who have played both games or have seen streams of the other game may be thinking similar thoughts. Right now the map to me looks flat. I would enjoy seeing a more intense and indepth map with maybe some new content rather than the current less detailed and more clear map. To me the new map looks like one from a young child's game. Reminds me of when cough Runescape cough changed from the good old graphics (2004) to the current new very polished but awful looking one which drove many players away. They literally self destructed. Might as well not have upgraded and added new events instead. But anyhow.. Your player base doesn't consist of only young children. Plus you need the map to look good during competitive matches. So... be a bit more hardcore. Don't hate this is my personal opinion I can't speak for everyone.

Steam Engenius11/18/2014, 5:21:35 PM1 votes

I honestly can't even play on this map. I have eye sight problems. The map is so washed out... I just can't do anything. I just played my first game with the new map. I took a bit of a break from the game for a while while busy with work. So I was pretty excited to check it out. I was lost the whole game. I couldn't track my mouse cursor, couldn't track champ positioning, just felt useless the whole time. Reality of it is this is going to force me out of the game completely.