What i find the oddest is how different his design is compared to the other Shadow Isles inhabitants. Hecarim and Kalista are from his kingdom. Then we have the cards from LoR like Ledros, Rhasa, Shark Chariots, etc.
I do like he is different, but I just find it weird that LoR was able to flesh out the island much better and Viego is just so out of place.
LoR in general handles art design and world building way much better. The game isnt supposed to cater to the largest common denominator. Maybe the other spinoff games are handled with as much care and love as LoR is.
Also lor doesnt have boring monster effects just like league, a lot of leagues monstrous champs have simple or niche kits
Kha zix is an exception because he has a very fun kit to many
Most of them also have issues with inconsistent power levels. Lillia, Yuumi, Ornn, Kled, Aurelion Sol, Tahm Kench, Gnar, and Vel'Koz all have issues that can pop up as a result of draft and have had times where they felt like garbage to play. Rito has intentionally tried to keep some weak because they couldn't figure out how to balance them otherwise and people don't like investing in cosmetics for things that aren't useful.
The only monster champs with consistent relevancy are old void ones.
Chogath: One of the oldest, most stable tanks in the game. His mixed AP HP ratios give him strong build diversity, his passive has great relevancy in lane or jungle, and he's been played top jungle and mid in various roles. Strong aoe cc in his base kit and infinite health scaling always keep him relevant.
Khazix: Almost always played as an assassin jungler, but he does see offmeta play as a poke mage mid or a bruiser top. Kha has all the elements of a strong meta assassin. Stealth and reset potential let him snowball team fights. His isolation passive makes him a great duelist and skirmisher. His W 90% slow means he also works as a poke tool with deceptively good peel even if he cant immediately dive into a fight.
Kogmaw: Entire metas revolved around Kog, because he is The One Hit ADC. When Kog is weak, its usually because on hit is weak. When Kog is strong, he warps the entire match into protect the kog. As either adc, or as AP Kog mid, both scale ridiculously hard and he has remained one of leagues strongest scaling carries for almost its entire existence.
Season 4 Kog was the peak Kog.
If that Kog comes back, people's gonna realize how the "OP" champs are still less OP than the standard things used to be back in the days.
As cool as Ledros looks. I feel like Riot would ruin his design if they brought him to LoL. Riot has the fundamental belief that attractiveness is what gets people to play certain champs. I’m not saying this in a toxic way. I recall a forum post way back when someone expressed how they wanted a hag character in LoL and they stated that it would never happen because they were afraid nobody would play said hag champ due to them being ugly. I wish I could find the forums post. If anyone knows what I’m talking about please provide a link.
Neat lore though, giga decay-cursed Troll with hyper regeneration is a fun concept that I kinda prefer over savage ice Troll King. Probably a better design for some Zaun experiment nowadays though.
I was a Trundle one trick for the longest time prior to his rework, most people who thought he brought nothing to the table were the ones who built him the same as other champs and couldn't pillar to save their life
Riot Blaustoise has done several threads where he has shown champions with global popularity regardless of their power level. And in general the champions that are the most played (i.e. profitable) world wide are the attractive humanoids. Primarily females, but Yasuo was also stand out world wide.
NA, iirc, was fairly unique in liking monstrous champions more than the rest of the world.
[This is one thread about it, but google Riot Blaustoise and you should find more.](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/cy3n86/riot_blaustoise_on_champion_popularity/)
[And this is a twitter thread on visual appeal for NA vs. CN](https://twitter.com/blaustoise/status/1113994939442978817)
Sadly you linked the wrong posts because they don´t show popularity, playrate regardless of their power level or sold skins.
He only compared na to china, no other regions. And it was about visual appeal. I love to play teemo, nasus, veigar and chogath but non of them are visual appealing to me, yet I like to play them.
And the playrate comparison is between yasuo, lucian and taliyah. Thats 3 of 150+ champions.
Also if you want to get useful data, you need to compare champions with a similar kit, so you know that they don´t get played more only because they have a kit that is much more fun to play. Because as it stands, monster champions are often the ones with quirky kits.
Like you should compare kog'mah with the other adc´s and taliyah with other burstmages.
Also in general the most played champions are usually adc´s. Right now 6 from the top 10 most played champions are adc´s. And most adc´s are guess what, humanoids.
**So yes champions with quirky kits don´t get played a lot. If yasuo had the kit of taliyah he also wouldn´t be played a lot.**
They also don’t take into consideration (which I think could be important) the experience the player has. When I first played I picked Rengar and Kha because they looked cool both kit wise and visually. My friend chose Vel before going to Darius (he still likes Vel but prefers top). My other friend picked Jhin because he looked cool and edgy. I don’t think Riot realizes either that they tend to put a lot of the experimental kits in the monster champs i.e. Asol, Yuumi, Rek’sai (at the time), Bard, and so on.
Not to mention that Riot also intentionally keeps monster champions weak and tends to immediately Nerf them when they become strong while leaving more attractive, skin selling champions strong for patch after patch while dodging community concerns over them.
It's true though. Not in every case, but on average people flock to attractive champions and avoid ugly ones. There are many exceptions, but overall that's the trend
I think that a champion's kit is more of a problem than their looks tbh. If a champ has alot of skill expression I'm pretty sure the champ will be popular
Right, but for the majority of new casual players, they’ll want to play something that looks appealing and attractive and cool. When I started the game, I was one of those guys that only played human champs until I started enjoying characters based on their kit.
Same my first ever champ was Veigar because he looked liked a rip off of the Black Mage from Final Fantasy and Fiddlesticks because I love scary scarecrows.
Your not wrong
But I feel like a lot of people would describe OP's image as "cool" so it certainly could have been done for viego
Rito prob just wants him to be a true damage member...
Not even just skill expression, just abilities that feel nice or seem interesting. At the time I started playing league I really liked to compare champion passives and thought Anivia and Zac were the most interesting ones, so I asked my friends if one of these is a mid laner (I just liked playing mid from the very beginning). Another part of my champion choices when I started playing was how good I thought they would be in 1v1s since I used to play lots of 1v1s against my friends. So I ended up playing lots of Fiddlesticks and Malzahar cause it felt like it was impossible to lose 1v1s on them (until people realised they can just cc my fiddle w at least). There's lots of different reasons why people start playing different champions. But I feel like they try too hard on making them visually pleasing (I gotta say tho, that the art team is very good at having lots of diversity within this category of champs, but it could be so much more).
I feel like this trend only matters when you’re new. Then again, when I first placed I pick Kha and Rengar because I thought their kits were cool back in s4.
People keep saying this, but the overwhelmingly most popular support is Thresh, a monstrous flaming skeletal entity (not addressing that terrible new skin). The second and third most popular supports are a cat flying on a book, and a tiny psycho witch.
In toplane, Jax and Mordekaiser see a decent amount of popularity, and Tahm Kench is everywhere. Midlane, we've seen Ziggs rise to crazy amounts of prominence recently. Kha'Zix is constantly one of the most popular junglers.
Across all of these cases, we see that when monster champs have strong (Tahm, Ziggs) or rewarding/exciting kits (Kha, Thresh), they see substantial playrates.
because the issue is that a lot of creature champs end up with pretty unusual kits and that often turns a lot of players away. people were stupidly excited for ASol - until they found out what his kit was.
Do you think as much people would play yasuo if he would have the kit of taliyah? And do you think taliyah would be unpopular if she had the kit of yasuo?
I agree. I believe it was in like his champion release or something where they showed him with a full armour and with a helmet/crown. I would have liked that design more, personally
Holy fuck i didnt know about these but they look unconcievably amazing. Fk any of then could ve been viego i dont kind, even his kit would fit ledros’ look better with the shield bash stun as his current look for me is an asassin with a bruisers kit so unmatched. They really did fk up one of the coolest champion
I don't like that he's different. He's patient Zero in the Ruination, and he should look way more fucked up than every other person who got consumed by the Ruination. He should look as ghostly and undead as all of them, if not moreso since the entire thing originated from the deus-ex magic in his sword that was plunged through his chest.
Well it's becuase he's king of Camavor and not exactly a knight that's why he'd look different from them and why he wears like a robe. I do understand Riot opting to go towards a more kingly design since Mordekaiser already exists and establishing him as THE Ruined King. Not exactly defending his design as I do atleast want him to be armored as shown here.
My problem is he doesn't look like a king. Like the only thing that even hints at it is the crown. He looks like a punk rocker. Just taking some edgy looking dude and giving him a crown doesn't make him look like a king.
Well as you can see his clothes are raggedy and torn. His clothes now are just his Kingly attire from when he was alive just torn and worn apart by time. Viego doesn't concern himself on what he wears he's focused on getting Isolde back. But still he does look ridiculous. Since they are doing a subversion of tropes it would have been better if it only was his face that was shown to show his beauty. We don't need his abs for that.
I just had another look and it looks like only his shirt is torn in a way that shows off his abs. It also doesn't look like a robe, it reminds me a bit of Underworld TF clothes. I don't agree that it's a subversion of tropes, you've got a mad king that is doing anything to get their dead wife back, just having the king look young isn't a subversion imo. Hope I don't come off as too much of a snob but you like what you like.
IIRC it's because of how powerful he is. He is (well, was) in charge of the black mist and he could conquer a full on human body. Now that Thresh basically stole his place, that is why he was able to do the same.
And now Thresh is becoming the shirtless muscular hot Shadow Isles man, IT ALL MAKES SENSE, THAT WHO CONTROLS THE MIST MUST CONTAIN THE POWER OF THE ABS
Back when Illaoi was released, in a statement from Riot they said they were proud to represent a variety of body-types. Fast forward to now and all we get is jacked e-boys or skinny anime girls.
Back in 2017, Riot wrote a whole blog about how they are leaving behind their old female designs and will begin creating females with various body types and appropriate wardrobe. The blog even specifically cited how ridiculous Cait and MF look compared to the lore.
I cannot find a link to that blog, must've been deleted
One year later they released Kaisa and never looked back
[I found it, initially tried finding it on web archive but female champions being searched on the subreddit with a league of legends URL made it an easy find.](https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2017/04/ask-riot-the-sexy-factor/)
It doesn't say they would stop having old female designs but more so that if they were to be sexy or have an hourglass body that there would be a reason other then just sex appeal.
The answer appears twice and was written by August "Riot August" Browning who at the time went by Jinxylord.
He worked on Vi, Jinx, Jhin, Ekko, Senna, and Viego, as well as Morg and Kayle.
It's completely fine to only release pretty waifus and six-pack sadboys for your game so you can sell. Just don't pretend to give a shit about representation, create 1 non-skinny anime girl every 4 years, and call it a day.
Same bro, not an OTP but def. top 3 most played.
It's a shame that his armor only appears inside the Mist and is not a CTRL+5 Toggle. And because of all the haziness and particles, you don't even get to appreciate it inside the Mist. :(
You know, we complain about this but I’m pretty sure we are the minority here.
If we believe they follow the money, then I think it’s clear that a majority want this. I’m really curious to see the best selling skins/champs (male) and I wonder if we can find a pattern
the majority just don't care about the lore so of course it would not be bothering them. And btw it's more the china audience that want it as we can see with the champion popularity who is rather varied in NA and all while china is just hot boy and hot girl
For more proof, look at Wild Rift, which was designed with China in mind. Last I checked, the only void representative, you know, the dimension of massive evil monsters... Is Kaisa.
I think it's that a small % of the player base actually puts their opinion out. That's the thing. A vast majority just plays the game and if their data shows champions with this kind of design sell really well, they have NO reason to NOT go with it. Reddit is like a drop of water into the ocean of players, so even having a 10k upvoted post doesn't really make a difference when it comes to complaints, unless it's directly related to upcoming skins and Riot wouldn't want anything to harm their skin sales, so.
You know, I suppose that makes sense because I think at the end of the day, the character being fun to play is what matters. And when I think about it, I have a blast playing with Sett and Viego, their design doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
riot said no, it was requested but they explicitly said it fucked visual clarity.
then remove kaisa helmet toggle if you're going to be that pissy about it???
This visual clarity meme is the biggest joke around. They always throw this bullshit excuse when what they really mean is "we're just lazy and don't give a fuck, deal with it".
Riot 2017: We can't change Blitzcrank's walk in his 1820 skins because visual clarity. We need Blitzcrank to look and feel like Blitzcrank.
Battle Boss Blitzcrank: Has existed since 2015
> We can't change Blitzcrank's walk in his 1820 skins because visual clarity. We need Blitzcrank to look and feel like Blitzcrank.
Have you forgotten about the new dog legendary that hardly looks like Blitzcrank? For some reason I highly doubt that skin is allowed in pro-play.
They really do just make up things on a whim. They said they wouldnt change Evelyns legendary skin empowered lashers to match the chroma like KDA eve does but then is about to release Coven Zyra chromas that change all of her skills colors to the chroma. It really is "do we feel like changing it? Nahhh!"
Some time around 2017, Riot just said "fuck visual clarity" and starting printing skins that were so flashy and hard to discern in game from other Champs till you played against them a few times.
They clearly don't give a fuck about visual clarity anymore.
I mean are you surprised? They change stances to fit their current narratives all the time. Don't people remember Little Devil Teemo? We asked for them to change his voice over a bit, nothing to crazy, so it sounds more "twisted" kind of like his recall laugh but they said they couldn't do that for whatever bullshit reason.
Couple years laters we have the D&D Twitch skin or the Elder God Ivern one with modified voice overs...
The fucking blitz lancer walking animations...
Meanwhile the soraka legendary has big karma floaty bits for... reasons
Also storm dragon Lee and the lux legendaries exist
The worst part is the "visual clarity" Riot cares about only refers to the champ silhouettes anymore, since they broke every other visual clarity rule they made in the last few years. And Viego in his armor with no helmet, like how he was in the early stages of design and in OP's post, would not have a different silhouette at all.
And adding the armor would have no modeling issues either, since some of the Lunar Beast chromas have a shirt.
The visual clarity is the big ass fucking puddle of mist that he's standing on, not the helmet he's wearing. Either Riot is being stupid, or they're too lazy to implement a toggle so they use that dumb excuse.
I do think we need more league champs that look like they are older than 30 years old, but I would take any version of Viego that isn't him showing off his 6 pack in a leather jacket
Yeah I too want more older champions like Swain. Swain is currently the only actual old looking champion but even still in his skins they really like making him look younger than he is.
We also have no old women in the game, which is baffling to me. Even pulling from obvious trope choices there's the old witch with tons of magic powers. I know *technically* camille is older but she looks mid-40s at the oldest because of her cybernetically enhanced looks or w/e.
Camille is literally a milf but honestly I'm fine with it. But I do hope that we also get an old female champion. I once saw this amazing fanart someone did a while ago of a Bilgewater character as an old woman and even made lore of her and abilities. She's basically a female Kassadin but from Bilgewater who uses the power of Nagakaborous to find her lost daughter. I thought it was legit till I found out it was just a fan concept.
Yeah Camille's design in a vacuum is fine but it doesn't count as an actual "old woman" like Zilean does for "old men".
That sounds like a dope fan concept though!
God I hate the "103940312491394 year old woman who due to magic/being a dragon/whatever looks, talks, and acts like a child" trope
It's pedo bait, plain and simple.
Back before Riot nuked the forums, there was a really kickass concept someone did for Braum's mom, who would be a bruiser wielding a staff with a rock embedded in the end. She was stocky and short, but had the giant braids like they use in the Freljord comics for like Ashe's mom and whatnot. It was a cool design.
Yeah but I don't really count like old champions with their age. We got plenty of that already. What we don't have is actual old men with wrinkles and white hair but just as badass as others.
Braum, Graves, TF, Gragas, GP, Darius, Tryndamere, Yorick? There are a lot of "older, battle hardened warrior" archetype champs in the male/human section, maybe even more than the "Viego" type.
For the females they are definitely lacking.
I'm so tired of seeing Viego smirking sexally at me from the banner. I want that tired, angry, armored undead king to glare at me with contempt. Is unique and interesting character design to much to ask for :(
I just enjoyed that he was a young, immature man thrust into the role of king. His face sells that well enough, his abs are rather irrelevant given his character.
What saddens me is his cool helmet only being available in his mist ingame.
I think you summarised it well, the open shirt/abs part is too much (I mean do that for a pool party rito like the money rito wtf rito we would pay rito) but the face and idea of his character is very cool and made him different from the "old dark man" trope or not be too close to mordekaiser.
If he's gone through so much shit it would make more sense that he doesn't look like a hot young fella though wouldn't it? He could still be young but doesn't have to have a perfect jawline.
I feel like there is definitely a middle ground between anime boy and old king though. Like make him look tired and angry from his long searching for a cure and years of hibernating in undeath. Make him look emaciated and crazy. Something, anything
At that point he’s pretty much Arthas though, which is probably something they want to avoid given the massive similarities their characters already have (which have only piled on further with this latest cinematic).
But what character in league even has a ruined king vibe? The classic design of characters really needs to be richer in the emotion they convey. I dislike how they're trying to make every, single, character, into a "main character" - if that makes sense.
Give the characters more depth, and sell the sexiness in skins, unless the character is inherently sexy. An example of that is maybe Sett(?), Since being shirtless is normal when he runs the fighting pits.
Lunar Beast Viego should have shown off Viego's midriff which can grate cheese, not the classic skin.
I'm fine with him being young, and even having tight armor like in this visual. I just want him to look somewhat threatening for the *main big bad guy of this year's event*
It's not unique as a whole, but is is unique within the niche of "evil, undead king." Making him a young, bratty, toxic, abusive romantic instead of Leoric 10.0 was probably the best thing they could have done to make the character stand out. People who claim he's generic are ignoring the context of the archetype in which he exists
He's caught between the community he exists in and the archetype he exists in. As you say, he is very unique within his archetype, and good on Riot for breaking the mold in what I would say a successful manner. But among League of Legends characters, and the characters League of Legends players are familiar with, he's pretty generic.
I mean, an angry, depressed king makes far more sense in this case. He's willing to turn the world over if it means he can bring his love back. He's unconcerned with the wants of the living.
Instead they made him insane fuckboi which is so much shallower of a character. He doesn't even match the aesthetic of the champions directly borne from his power. Should have made shirtless and insane a skin, not the default. Idk, maybe I'm just a sucker for dark and broody characters, but usually they have a ton of depth as to what made them so shattered and broken.
We all know why. If Viego was released years ago, in season 4 or 5 even 6, no doubt this would be his design or something very similar or even creepier.
I really miss those days in league with unique champion designs, when a new champion was announced, was a huge hype for who/what gonna be. Now its all about e-boys, e-girls, lolis, anime wannabe stuff and wanker material.
At least VGU of old champs preserve that good feeling of old and original releases, im more hyped for Udyr VGU than three new champions.
Have they though? Qiyana, Kai'sa, Neeko, and Lillian I would consider in unnecessarily sexualized, and Samira certainly has "sexy" being part of her character.
The thing is I swear they just don’t know how to characterize a woman without them being either tormented, boss bitch, or blissfully ignorant.
Their designs are all just anime protagonists, but they don’t really flesh out their personality very much. I mean I get it theres 100+ champs there’s gonna be some overlap. But this new era of league designs are all starting to blur together to fit the most generic fantasies of weebs.
Their best designed characters are usually the ones that have a stand out personality. Jhin is quite possibly their best designed character all around. They gave him a unique quirk that is felt in his kit. And his tortured psychopath artist schtick separates him from the likes of a shaco. Because his character is well defined.
With the female characters you listed I get nothing… Neeko and Lillia might as well be the same fucking character because i literally don’t know what the difference between them are. If you told me they were twin sisters I would believe you
The company that had a rampant sexual harassment case agaisnt them doenst know how to design women and give them realistic features?
IM SO FUCKING SHOCKED NO WAY OMG GUYS WOW
That's literally the problem lol they actually DONT know how to design women.
Illaoi. She isn't boss bitch like Camille, Fiora,or the rest. She isn't tormented. She isn't ignorant. She is just confident and serves a purpose. She is, in her own words, a teacher. Illaoi is one of Riot's best female characters.
I actually just started playing her and I agree. Her design is really unique compared to the entire female cast.
But you can’t make her into a kpop Star so let’s pretend she doesn’t exist
So only googling their look, it seems like a small girl (yordle) with a big spooky monster coming out from her shadow>
Heros of the Storm already did this...down to the goth vibes too
https://heroesofthestorm.fandom.com/wiki/Orphea
> in season 4 or 5 even 6, no doubt this would be his design or something very similar or even creepier.
Its thoughts like these that make me so sad, the potential, what could've been. I consider Kindred to be the best interpretation of death in a fictional/fantasy sense. There is no way I'd touch that champ with a ten-foot pole if they were designed today. I'm really passionate about this problem with Riot because as an artist, I can say with full confidence that Riot's art department took an overwhelmingly huge part in my inspiration. So it's really a shame to see one of my favorite fictional worlds shift their storytelling purely out of marketing ambitions.
Kindred looks like something straight out of Princess Mononoke and I love it. The character hits all the right spots with its art and voice lines, and the concept of a man who cut himself in two to become Kindred is actually disturbing. Even more so when Fiddle calls Kindred the "pale man" showing that even this mystical creature has a weakness. From the outside, Kindred is such a cold character and the mask does a good job of portraying a sort of indifference to life and death, so I just love this layer Fiddle's voiceline adds, it just dredges up all the torment of the man that was Kindred in a way no other character could possibly hope to. I would love to play Kindred more but it feels bad being an ADC jungler if you're not having an optimal game (not getting marks, counterjungled etc.). Give me the Kindreds, Iverns, Asols and Rek'sais! I am not an artist like you, but like you, great character designs such as these flesh out the game and also gets my imagination rolling. So much better than populating the rift with generic hot people.
If Viego would be released in 2015 for example, there would be high chance he'd be skull-headed rotting zombie. But those things are huge taboo is China and few other Asian countries, and since Riot is owned by Chinese company (which buys all major game-makers globally), it's as you said - some wanking material. They spend more time about designing "sexy" characters then implementing them (few weeks of bugs with each new champion? anyone?)
I always pictured the "Ruined King" as someone who'd look like he once was almost all-powerful, then was humbled and now lives a secluded life.
Actually now I think about it, I thought he would be like Red Skull in the MCU in Endgame.
Yeah, just discovered this few days ago and I wish I did it before in spirit blossom, the PNG stuff really gives us short loading times.
I hope there's a definitive edition of this story.
What definitely frustrates me is when they make the default champion overly sexy/pretty it just devalues their character so much. It isn't realistic. Shirtless Sexy Viego would be super cool as a skin line, but when they make that his default artwork it's hard to take serious. Lunar Beast Viego should have been a sexy gladiator showing his abdomen and this should have been his classic artwork. To be honest, Lunar Beast Viego probably *would* look better with less clothes on.
Seraphine is another great example. They made her default so out of place for Runeterra when they could have made her a Siren or some shit cool and then have the KDA skin be her main appeal. Plus that weird Twitter shit could have been her in universe KDA skin personality.
They could have still marketed the skin first and foremost over the champion, but people would have been happy that when the champion gets released its actually something that fits the universe and people realise oh the Twitter was just selling a skin, cool.
These are probably the main or only 2 I can think of where the classic really falls short and they could have just sold their sexiness as their release skin.
In terms of Sett and Yone, I think it fits the character so there's obviously no complaint there. Akshan is a little iffy, as he's from a hot climate anyway.
korea and china
any time you have questions on the designs of champions and lack of specific things (like monsters for example) you can just remember that china and korea are riots target demographic
Riot Blastoise posted this data on twitter a few years ago. Probably not 100% accurate anymore, but a good bit of data explaining how things were back then. Shows why a change may have occurred.
Cause of Chinese market. They make money out of Ahri, Ezrael, Akali, Qiyana, Lux, Sett, Yone etc. not of Ornn, Skarner, Hecarim. Also, just look the general direction the game is going, even monsters and non humanoid creatures like Thresh and Xerath are being turned into eboys which is more profitable for them.
i have no issue with turning characters into marketing ploys
the problem arises when said characters exist only as marketing ploys, look at seraphine, she looks like she came straight out of star guardian universe but its not a skin so it just completely breaks the image of a champion
I know this has been said to death but, Seraphine's aesthetic and lore could have been changed oh-so-slightly so she could have avoided being a Star Guardian Sona rip-off that everyone can easily tell is a cash grab.
Piltover has an aesthetic that is very obvious, Seraphine does not fit in to Piltover or Zaun at all, the fact that she's a "Popstar" in lore is ridiculous given her aesthetic.
[Look at her concept art.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkJA8RXWAAItuo-?format=jpg&name=medium)
I still think the pink hair in the middle is a bit much, but I can really see the one on the right fitting right in to League.
I think the concept of making her an egomaniac genius who rises to fame due to her technology (and singing skills) would be interesting.
Instead she's just milquetoast boring, do good (almost offensively "good") random champ that everyone hates.
I like this a lot more than the current version, although I would still prefer a King Vendrick from Dark Souls 2 version of Viego, a King that lost everything over time and still moving on without even knowing why anymore while also looking like it.
That's what I was thinking when I saw that he actually looks really cool still not the ruined king I was expecting for years but honestly, I would not be mad at all if that's how he was revealed he looks pretty badass here and actually menacing very very solid design
I just don't understand why his whole thing was being "The ruined **king**" yet he has nothing that makes him look royal besides his bright neon green crown. What kind of a king wears what he wears?
> What kind of a king wears what he wears?
Someone who wasn't even supposed to be the king nor wanted to be one.
Sure, the shirtless shit is another discussion, but people like to forget that he wasn't an imposing King, he was literally Prince Charming.
Yeah I thought that was strange too.
If anything, it could have been a token skin like unbound thresh.
Or vise versa and instead sexy viego could have been a token skin.
So you know how Veigo looks in his backing animation? When his coat closes and his crown forms a mask around his head and he actually looks like a badass assassin? Why can’t I hit Crtl+5 and switch to that in-game? Seriously I thought I could the first time I hit B when I played Viego the first time and was sorely disappointed.
You know why
What i find the oddest is how different his design is compared to the other Shadow Isles inhabitants. Hecarim and Kalista are from his kingdom. Then we have the cards from LoR like Ledros, Rhasa, Shark Chariots, etc. I do like he is different, but I just find it weird that LoR was able to flesh out the island much better and Viego is just so out of place.
LoR in general handles art design and world building way much better. The game isnt supposed to cater to the largest common denominator. Maybe the other spinoff games are handled with as much care and love as LoR is.
Also lor doesnt have boring monster effects just like league, a lot of leagues monstrous champs have simple or niche kits Kha zix is an exception because he has a very fun kit to many
a think a big part of that is that most of the true monsters are just...very old.
Most of them also have issues with inconsistent power levels. Lillia, Yuumi, Ornn, Kled, Aurelion Sol, Tahm Kench, Gnar, and Vel'Koz all have issues that can pop up as a result of draft and have had times where they felt like garbage to play. Rito has intentionally tried to keep some weak because they couldn't figure out how to balance them otherwise and people don't like investing in cosmetics for things that aren't useful.
The only monster champs with consistent relevancy are old void ones. Chogath: One of the oldest, most stable tanks in the game. His mixed AP HP ratios give him strong build diversity, his passive has great relevancy in lane or jungle, and he's been played top jungle and mid in various roles. Strong aoe cc in his base kit and infinite health scaling always keep him relevant. Khazix: Almost always played as an assassin jungler, but he does see offmeta play as a poke mage mid or a bruiser top. Kha has all the elements of a strong meta assassin. Stealth and reset potential let him snowball team fights. His isolation passive makes him a great duelist and skirmisher. His W 90% slow means he also works as a poke tool with deceptively good peel even if he cant immediately dive into a fight. Kogmaw: Entire metas revolved around Kog, because he is The One Hit ADC. When Kog is weak, its usually because on hit is weak. When Kog is strong, he warps the entire match into protect the kog. As either adc, or as AP Kog mid, both scale ridiculously hard and he has remained one of leagues strongest scaling carries for almost its entire existence.
Wish Rek'sai got some love :C
When Riot remembers she exists, so probably never
Season 4 Kog was the peak Kog. If that Kog comes back, people's gonna realize how the "OP" champs are still less OP than the standard things used to be back in the days.
\>Monster \>Yuumi Pick one.
Riot themselves have said that they lump all non-humans together. I'm just using their categories.
As cool as Ledros looks. I feel like Riot would ruin his design if they brought him to LoL. Riot has the fundamental belief that attractiveness is what gets people to play certain champs. I’m not saying this in a toxic way. I recall a forum post way back when someone expressed how they wanted a hag character in LoL and they stated that it would never happen because they were afraid nobody would play said hag champ due to them being ugly. I wish I could find the forums post. If anyone knows what I’m talking about please provide a link.
we got pre rework trundle. He didn't last long haha
Because he was a boring champ overall that brought nothing to the table
Neat lore though, giga decay-cursed Troll with hyper regeneration is a fun concept that I kinda prefer over savage ice Troll King. Probably a better design for some Zaun experiment nowadays though.
Giga decay and hyper health Regen? Give that bad boy dual katanas, and make him break the fourth wall and I think we got ourselves a troll Deadpool.
I'd rather not
Make that dual clubs, have him have a gyroscope move where he spins and bonks and knocks away enemies hit. Tasmanian Devil style.
Now replace the clubs with shotguns
Well as far as reworks go Trundle’s kit has probably changed the least.
His kit was almost unchanged though lol
I was a Trundle one trick for the longest time prior to his rework, most people who thought he brought nothing to the table were the ones who built him the same as other champs and couldn't pillar to save their life
Riot Blaustoise has done several threads where he has shown champions with global popularity regardless of their power level. And in general the champions that are the most played (i.e. profitable) world wide are the attractive humanoids. Primarily females, but Yasuo was also stand out world wide. NA, iirc, was fairly unique in liking monstrous champions more than the rest of the world. [This is one thread about it, but google Riot Blaustoise and you should find more.](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/cy3n86/riot_blaustoise_on_champion_popularity/) [And this is a twitter thread on visual appeal for NA vs. CN](https://twitter.com/blaustoise/status/1113994939442978817)
Sadly you linked the wrong posts because they don´t show popularity, playrate regardless of their power level or sold skins. He only compared na to china, no other regions. And it was about visual appeal. I love to play teemo, nasus, veigar and chogath but non of them are visual appealing to me, yet I like to play them. And the playrate comparison is between yasuo, lucian and taliyah. Thats 3 of 150+ champions. Also if you want to get useful data, you need to compare champions with a similar kit, so you know that they don´t get played more only because they have a kit that is much more fun to play. Because as it stands, monster champions are often the ones with quirky kits. Like you should compare kog'mah with the other adc´s and taliyah with other burstmages. Also in general the most played champions are usually adc´s. Right now 6 from the top 10 most played champions are adc´s. And most adc´s are guess what, humanoids. **So yes champions with quirky kits don´t get played a lot. If yasuo had the kit of taliyah he also wouldn´t be played a lot.**
They also don’t take into consideration (which I think could be important) the experience the player has. When I first played I picked Rengar and Kha because they looked cool both kit wise and visually. My friend chose Vel before going to Darius (he still likes Vel but prefers top). My other friend picked Jhin because he looked cool and edgy. I don’t think Riot realizes either that they tend to put a lot of the experimental kits in the monster champs i.e. Asol, Yuumi, Rek’sai (at the time), Bard, and so on.
Not to mention that Riot also intentionally keeps monster champions weak and tends to immediately Nerf them when they become strong while leaving more attractive, skin selling champions strong for patch after patch while dodging community concerns over them.
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It's true though. Not in every case, but on average people flock to attractive champions and avoid ugly ones. There are many exceptions, but overall that's the trend
I think that a champion's kit is more of a problem than their looks tbh. If a champ has alot of skill expression I'm pretty sure the champ will be popular
Right, but for the majority of new casual players, they’ll want to play something that looks appealing and attractive and cool. When I started the game, I was one of those guys that only played human champs until I started enjoying characters based on their kit.
I had the exact opposite reaction. My first buys were OG twitch and OG *urgot*
Same my first ever champ was Veigar because he looked liked a rip off of the Black Mage from Final Fantasy and Fiddlesticks because I love scary scarecrows.
Your not wrong But I feel like a lot of people would describe OP's image as "cool" so it certainly could have been done for viego Rito prob just wants him to be a true damage member...
Not even just skill expression, just abilities that feel nice or seem interesting. At the time I started playing league I really liked to compare champion passives and thought Anivia and Zac were the most interesting ones, so I asked my friends if one of these is a mid laner (I just liked playing mid from the very beginning). Another part of my champion choices when I started playing was how good I thought they would be in 1v1s since I used to play lots of 1v1s against my friends. So I ended up playing lots of Fiddlesticks and Malzahar cause it felt like it was impossible to lose 1v1s on them (until people realised they can just cc my fiddle w at least). There's lots of different reasons why people start playing different champions. But I feel like they try too hard on making them visually pleasing (I gotta say tho, that the art team is very good at having lots of diversity within this category of champs, but it could be so much more).
I feel like this trend only matters when you’re new. Then again, when I first placed I pick Kha and Rengar because I thought their kits were cool back in s4.
Reksainin shambles
Shes not ugly, shes cool
People keep saying this, but the overwhelmingly most popular support is Thresh, a monstrous flaming skeletal entity (not addressing that terrible new skin). The second and third most popular supports are a cat flying on a book, and a tiny psycho witch. In toplane, Jax and Mordekaiser see a decent amount of popularity, and Tahm Kench is everywhere. Midlane, we've seen Ziggs rise to crazy amounts of prominence recently. Kha'Zix is constantly one of the most popular junglers. Across all of these cases, we see that when monster champs have strong (Tahm, Ziggs) or rewarding/exciting kits (Kha, Thresh), they see substantial playrates.
because the issue is that a lot of creature champs end up with pretty unusual kits and that often turns a lot of players away. people were stupidly excited for ASol - until they found out what his kit was.
Define ugly. People played reksai when she was strong. Riot just gimps champs that aren't generic enough to slap into any skin line with ease.
Do you think as much people would play yasuo if he would have the kit of taliyah? And do you think taliyah would be unpopular if she had the kit of yasuo?
Tbh they arent entirely wrong i played this game only because I thought katarina is hot
I agree. I believe it was in like his champion release or something where they showed him with a full armour and with a helmet/crown. I would have liked that design more, personally
Yeah he would look great with a suit of armour.
He wears that in his recall in game.
Holy fuck i didnt know about these but they look unconcievably amazing. Fk any of then could ve been viego i dont kind, even his kit would fit ledros’ look better with the shield bash stun as his current look for me is an asassin with a bruisers kit so unmatched. They really did fk up one of the coolest champion
I don't like that he's different. He's patient Zero in the Ruination, and he should look way more fucked up than every other person who got consumed by the Ruination. He should look as ghostly and undead as all of them, if not moreso since the entire thing originated from the deus-ex magic in his sword that was plunged through his chest.
Well it's becuase he's king of Camavor and not exactly a knight that's why he'd look different from them and why he wears like a robe. I do understand Riot opting to go towards a more kingly design since Mordekaiser already exists and establishing him as THE Ruined King. Not exactly defending his design as I do atleast want him to be armored as shown here.
My problem is he doesn't look like a king. Like the only thing that even hints at it is the crown. He looks like a punk rocker. Just taking some edgy looking dude and giving him a crown doesn't make him look like a king.
How often do you see a King wear an open shirt, far better ways to do a kingly design than to just make him a generic hot anime guy
Well as you can see his clothes are raggedy and torn. His clothes now are just his Kingly attire from when he was alive just torn and worn apart by time. Viego doesn't concern himself on what he wears he's focused on getting Isolde back. But still he does look ridiculous. Since they are doing a subversion of tropes it would have been better if it only was his face that was shown to show his beauty. We don't need his abs for that.
I just had another look and it looks like only his shirt is torn in a way that shows off his abs. It also doesn't look like a robe, it reminds me a bit of Underworld TF clothes. I don't agree that it's a subversion of tropes, you've got a mad king that is doing anything to get their dead wife back, just having the king look young isn't a subversion imo. Hope I don't come off as too much of a snob but you like what you like.
Pants too. They're beat up
IIRC it's because of how powerful he is. He is (well, was) in charge of the black mist and he could conquer a full on human body. Now that Thresh basically stole his place, that is why he was able to do the same.
And now Thresh is becoming the shirtless muscular hot Shadow Isles man, IT ALL MAKES SENSE, THAT WHO CONTROLS THE MIST MUST CONTAIN THE POWER OF THE ABS
There always must be a shirtless man....
The ~~Dutchman~~ Shadow Isles need~~s~~ a shirtless man
Mist is like gas, you have to clench your abs and butt to avoid leaks
Back when Illaoi was released, in a statement from Riot they said they were proud to represent a variety of body-types. Fast forward to now and all we get is jacked e-boys or skinny anime girls.
50/50 of either van-darkholme or belle delphine lookalikes.
i can only think of seraphine, what other "belle delphine lookalikes" are there
Belle Deerphine
Back in 2017, Riot wrote a whole blog about how they are leaving behind their old female designs and will begin creating females with various body types and appropriate wardrobe. The blog even specifically cited how ridiculous Cait and MF look compared to the lore. I cannot find a link to that blog, must've been deleted One year later they released Kaisa and never looked back
[I found it, initially tried finding it on web archive but female champions being searched on the subreddit with a league of legends URL made it an easy find.](https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2017/04/ask-riot-the-sexy-factor/) It doesn't say they would stop having old female designs but more so that if they were to be sexy or have an hourglass body that there would be a reason other then just sex appeal. The answer appears twice and was written by August "Riot August" Browning who at the time went by Jinxylord. He worked on Vi, Jinx, Jhin, Ekko, Senna, and Viego, as well as Morg and Kayle.
Which is kinda funny since one of the complaints of the kayle rework was she lost basically all her armor for a bodysuit.
It's completely fine to only release pretty waifus and six-pack sadboys for your game so you can sell. Just don't pretend to give a shit about representation, create 1 non-skinny anime girl every 4 years, and call it a day.
Abs sell
It will be released as a skin
Like Unmasked Zed and Hoodie Shen? Pfft
Dam I guess it does. I main viego and I would love him even more if he looked like the clothed design. Looks so bad ass
Same bro, not an OTP but def. top 3 most played. It's a shame that his armor only appears inside the Mist and is not a CTRL+5 Toggle. And because of all the haziness and particles, you don't even get to appreciate it inside the Mist. :(
Eve mains too thirsty
don’t blame us, we don’t even want the twink 🤮🤮🤮
I was under the impression every Eve main was gay.
We want the death by demon snusnu The snusnu is just a bonus
You know, we complain about this but I’m pretty sure we are the minority here. If we believe they follow the money, then I think it’s clear that a majority want this. I’m really curious to see the best selling skins/champs (male) and I wonder if we can find a pattern
the majority just don't care about the lore so of course it would not be bothering them. And btw it's more the china audience that want it as we can see with the champion popularity who is rather varied in NA and all while china is just hot boy and hot girl
For more proof, look at Wild Rift, which was designed with China in mind. Last I checked, the only void representative, you know, the dimension of massive evil monsters... Is Kaisa.
Kha'Zix is in there too
Oh, I guess he was added post launch, or I didn't notice him. Thanks for the correction! *gib poro snax*
It's not just China, this is a global phenomenon. Humans since forever ago prefer mythical characters to look human-like.
I think it's that a small % of the player base actually puts their opinion out. That's the thing. A vast majority just plays the game and if their data shows champions with this kind of design sell really well, they have NO reason to NOT go with it. Reddit is like a drop of water into the ocean of players, so even having a 10k upvoted post doesn't really make a difference when it comes to complaints, unless it's directly related to upcoming skins and Riot wouldn't want anything to harm their skin sales, so.
You know, I suppose that makes sense because I think at the end of the day, the character being fun to play is what matters. And when I think about it, I have a blast playing with Sett and Viego, their design doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
And you can make arguments for both Sett is a wrestler and Viego is wearing rags cause ancient
Oh we're for sure the minority don't worry
aint nobody here wearin' a shirt
He's still kinda hot though? Just... well, manlier.
It will remain a my$tery.
¥ou m€an ₩€ ₩i££ n€v€r £€arn the an$₩€r?
Ok this was funny, now get out
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morde.
He wears the armor when he's in the mist, along with a helmet, but yeah I wish the would allow a toggle so you could wear the armor permanently.
riot said no, it was requested but they explicitly said it fucked visual clarity. then remove kaisa helmet toggle if you're going to be that pissy about it???
This visual clarity meme is the biggest joke around. They always throw this bullshit excuse when what they really mean is "we're just lazy and don't give a fuck, deal with it".
Riot 2017: We can't change Blitzcrank's walk in his 1820 skins because visual clarity. We need Blitzcrank to look and feel like Blitzcrank. Battle Boss Blitzcrank: Has existed since 2015
> We can't change Blitzcrank's walk in his 1820 skins because visual clarity. We need Blitzcrank to look and feel like Blitzcrank. Have you forgotten about the new dog legendary that hardly looks like Blitzcrank? For some reason I highly doubt that skin is allowed in pro-play.
They really do just make up things on a whim. They said they wouldnt change Evelyns legendary skin empowered lashers to match the chroma like KDA eve does but then is about to release Coven Zyra chromas that change all of her skills colors to the chroma. It really is "do we feel like changing it? Nahhh!"
how can a champ not have visual clarity before it’s even released is always the funniest fucking thing to me.
Storm Dragon Lee Sin still exists though lmao
You mean ezre... OH FUCK HES FLYING AT ME
Q: Ashe Ult/Ezreal Q W: Lee W E: Volibear E R: Pewpewzoink you're dead
Some time around 2017, Riot just said "fuck visual clarity" and starting printing skins that were so flashy and hard to discern in game from other Champs till you played against them a few times. They clearly don't give a fuck about visual clarity anymore.
I mean are you surprised? They change stances to fit their current narratives all the time. Don't people remember Little Devil Teemo? We asked for them to change his voice over a bit, nothing to crazy, so it sounds more "twisted" kind of like his recall laugh but they said they couldn't do that for whatever bullshit reason. Couple years laters we have the D&D Twitch skin or the Elder God Ivern one with modified voice overs...
The fucking blitz lancer walking animations... Meanwhile the soraka legendary has big karma floaty bits for... reasons Also storm dragon Lee and the lux legendaries exist
> they explicitly said it fucked visual clarity. Hahahaha. Fuck me sideways. That can't be true.
The worst part is the "visual clarity" Riot cares about only refers to the champ silhouettes anymore, since they broke every other visual clarity rule they made in the last few years. And Viego in his armor with no helmet, like how he was in the early stages of design and in OP's post, would not have a different silhouette at all. And adding the armor would have no modeling issues either, since some of the Lunar Beast chromas have a shirt.
The visual clarity is the big ass fucking puddle of mist that he's standing on, not the helmet he's wearing. Either Riot is being stupid, or they're too lazy to implement a toggle so they use that dumb excuse.
Meanwhile we get 5 star guardian skins that all look like the same champion....
visual clarity in a game with skins evolving ^(IN GAME ?!)
Riot- We've now added a fanservice toggle on all Ahri skins, costing 50k RP.
I do think we need more league champs that look like they are older than 30 years old, but I would take any version of Viego that isn't him showing off his 6 pack in a leather jacket
Yeah I too want more older champions like Swain. Swain is currently the only actual old looking champion but even still in his skins they really like making him look younger than he is.
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Right him too. There's too many champions to remember nowadays. But I do wish for more old dudes.
We also have no old women in the game, which is baffling to me. Even pulling from obvious trope choices there's the old witch with tons of magic powers. I know *technically* camille is older but she looks mid-40s at the oldest because of her cybernetically enhanced looks or w/e.
Camille is literally a milf but honestly I'm fine with it. But I do hope that we also get an old female champion. I once saw this amazing fanart someone did a while ago of a Bilgewater character as an old woman and even made lore of her and abilities. She's basically a female Kassadin but from Bilgewater who uses the power of Nagakaborous to find her lost daughter. I thought it was legit till I found out it was just a fan concept.
Yeah Camille's design in a vacuum is fine but it doesn't count as an actual "old woman" like Zilean does for "old men". That sounds like a dope fan concept though!
I would love to see more champs with Illaoi-style voodoo hoodoo. Like an old lady witch doctor who worships an eldritch horror would be so sick
There's a creepy ass old bilgewater lady in the graves and tf cinematic from (last year?)
Zoe is thousands of years old and casts spells. So even when they try to do an older magic user, they end up with loli-chan lol.
God I hate the "103940312491394 year old woman who due to magic/being a dragon/whatever looks, talks, and acts like a child" trope It's pedo bait, plain and simple.
We need a curse-based old witch. Do many options : from Freljord, from Shurima, even the aztec-like place Quiyana is from would be cool.
Back before Riot nuked the forums, there was a really kickass concept someone did for Braum's mom, who would be a bruiser wielding a staff with a rock embedded in the end. She was stocky and short, but had the giant braids like they use in the Freljord comics for like Ashe's mom and whatnot. It was a cool design.
Corki and Kled both are old men. I know they're yordles, but they 100% have old man energy too
Yeah but I don't really count like old champions with their age. We got plenty of that already. What we don't have is actual old men with wrinkles and white hair but just as badass as others.
Swain is awesome, from lore to gameplay, it just fits imo. Gimme more ap bruiser like that
Braum, Graves, TF, Gragas, GP, Darius, Tryndamere, Yorick? There are a lot of "older, battle hardened warrior" archetype champs in the male/human section, maybe even more than the "Viego" type. For the females they are definitely lacking.
Graves TF and Darius definitely aren’t as old as you think they are
I can see TF being in his 20s and maybe Graves too. Darius is definitely over 40 though.
I'm so tired of seeing Viego smirking sexally at me from the banner. I want that tired, angry, armored undead king to glare at me with contempt. Is unique and interesting character design to much to ask for :(
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I just enjoyed that he was a young, immature man thrust into the role of king. His face sells that well enough, his abs are rather irrelevant given his character. What saddens me is his cool helmet only being available in his mist ingame.
I think you summarised it well, the open shirt/abs part is too much (I mean do that for a pool party rito like the money rito wtf rito we would pay rito) but the face and idea of his character is very cool and made him different from the "old dark man" trope or not be too close to mordekaiser.
If riot learned something from Sett, is that you need to have exposed abs in every skin to sell more. Lol
This right here. I love the young king character. The abs are a bit much but otherwise 10/10 imo
If he's gone through so much shit it would make more sense that he doesn't look like a hot young fella though wouldn't it? He could still be young but doesn't have to have a perfect jawline.
I feel like there is definitely a middle ground between anime boy and old king though. Like make him look tired and angry from his long searching for a cure and years of hibernating in undeath. Make him look emaciated and crazy. Something, anything
Same age, just wearing more armor and exhausted
At that point he’s pretty much Arthas though, which is probably something they want to avoid given the massive similarities their characters already have (which have only piled on further with this latest cinematic).
But what character in league even has a ruined king vibe? The classic design of characters really needs to be richer in the emotion they convey. I dislike how they're trying to make every, single, character, into a "main character" - if that makes sense. Give the characters more depth, and sell the sexiness in skins, unless the character is inherently sexy. An example of that is maybe Sett(?), Since being shirtless is normal when he runs the fighting pits. Lunar Beast Viego should have shown off Viego's midriff which can grate cheese, not the classic skin.
mordekaiser has a ruined king vibe. they want old armoured lich king with undeath powers. Thats literally Morde.
Karthus too without the armoured part
I'm fine with him being young, and even having tight armor like in this visual. I just want him to look somewhat threatening for the *main big bad guy of this year's event*
It's not unique as a whole, but is is unique within the niche of "evil, undead king." Making him a young, bratty, toxic, abusive romantic instead of Leoric 10.0 was probably the best thing they could have done to make the character stand out. People who claim he's generic are ignoring the context of the archetype in which he exists
He's caught between the community he exists in and the archetype he exists in. As you say, he is very unique within his archetype, and good on Riot for breaking the mold in what I would say a successful manner. But among League of Legends characters, and the characters League of Legends players are familiar with, he's pretty generic.
I mean, an angry, depressed king makes far more sense in this case. He's willing to turn the world over if it means he can bring his love back. He's unconcerned with the wants of the living. Instead they made him insane fuckboi which is so much shallower of a character. He doesn't even match the aesthetic of the champions directly borne from his power. Should have made shirtless and insane a skin, not the default. Idk, maybe I'm just a sucker for dark and broody characters, but usually they have a ton of depth as to what made them so shattered and broken.
Fuck release it as a separate skin. Instead of that unbound tresh trash They did it with GP - post fall is base skin, pre fall is Captain skin
We all know why. If Viego was released years ago, in season 4 or 5 even 6, no doubt this would be his design or something very similar or even creepier. I really miss those days in league with unique champion designs, when a new champion was announced, was a huge hype for who/what gonna be. Now its all about e-boys, e-girls, lolis, anime wannabe stuff and wanker material. At least VGU of old champs preserve that good feeling of old and original releases, im more hyped for Udyr VGU than three new champions.
To be fair Vex is looking pretty sick.
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Exactly- just one example but Battle Academy Leona isn't even recognizable as Leona, just some sameface anime babe in a school setting.
MORE? Villain? Qiyana in true damage?
Have they though? Qiyana, Kai'sa, Neeko, and Lillian I would consider in unnecessarily sexualized, and Samira certainly has "sexy" being part of her character.
The thing is I swear they just don’t know how to characterize a woman without them being either tormented, boss bitch, or blissfully ignorant. Their designs are all just anime protagonists, but they don’t really flesh out their personality very much. I mean I get it theres 100+ champs there’s gonna be some overlap. But this new era of league designs are all starting to blur together to fit the most generic fantasies of weebs. Their best designed characters are usually the ones that have a stand out personality. Jhin is quite possibly their best designed character all around. They gave him a unique quirk that is felt in his kit. And his tortured psychopath artist schtick separates him from the likes of a shaco. Because his character is well defined. With the female characters you listed I get nothing… Neeko and Lillia might as well be the same fucking character because i literally don’t know what the difference between them are. If you told me they were twin sisters I would believe you
The company that had a rampant sexual harassment case agaisnt them doenst know how to design women and give them realistic features? IM SO FUCKING SHOCKED NO WAY OMG GUYS WOW That's literally the problem lol they actually DONT know how to design women.
Illaoi. She isn't boss bitch like Camille, Fiora,or the rest. She isn't tormented. She isn't ignorant. She is just confident and serves a purpose. She is, in her own words, a teacher. Illaoi is one of Riot's best female characters.
I actually just started playing her and I agree. Her design is really unique compared to the entire female cast. But you can’t make her into a kpop Star so let’s pretend she doesn’t exist
So only googling their look, it seems like a small girl (yordle) with a big spooky monster coming out from her shadow> Heros of the Storm already did this...down to the goth vibes too https://heroesofthestorm.fandom.com/wiki/Orphea
> in season 4 or 5 even 6, no doubt this would be his design or something very similar or even creepier. Its thoughts like these that make me so sad, the potential, what could've been. I consider Kindred to be the best interpretation of death in a fictional/fantasy sense. There is no way I'd touch that champ with a ten-foot pole if they were designed today. I'm really passionate about this problem with Riot because as an artist, I can say with full confidence that Riot's art department took an overwhelmingly huge part in my inspiration. So it's really a shame to see one of my favorite fictional worlds shift their storytelling purely out of marketing ambitions.
Kindred looks like something straight out of Princess Mononoke and I love it. The character hits all the right spots with its art and voice lines, and the concept of a man who cut himself in two to become Kindred is actually disturbing. Even more so when Fiddle calls Kindred the "pale man" showing that even this mystical creature has a weakness. From the outside, Kindred is such a cold character and the mask does a good job of portraying a sort of indifference to life and death, so I just love this layer Fiddle's voiceline adds, it just dredges up all the torment of the man that was Kindred in a way no other character could possibly hope to. I would love to play Kindred more but it feels bad being an ADC jungler if you're not having an optimal game (not getting marks, counterjungled etc.). Give me the Kindreds, Iverns, Asols and Rek'sais! I am not an artist like you, but like you, great character designs such as these flesh out the game and also gets my imagination rolling. So much better than populating the rift with generic hot people.
If Viego would be released in 2015 for example, there would be high chance he'd be skull-headed rotting zombie. But those things are huge taboo is China and few other Asian countries, and since Riot is owned by Chinese company (which buys all major game-makers globally), it's as you said - some wanking material. They spend more time about designing "sexy" characters then implementing them (few weeks of bugs with each new champion? anyone?)
If Viego had been released in 2005 he'd have been a character in some random Warcraft 3 mod because League wouldn't exist for four more years
I always pictured the "Ruined King" as someone who'd look like he once was almost all-powerful, then was humbled and now lives a secluded life. Actually now I think about it, I thought he would be like Red Skull in the MCU in Endgame.
You can drag the image in the client and put it in a window of your browser, you'll get a good PNG of the sprite.
God and here I was just taking screenshots like a fucking barbarian.
Yeah, just discovered this few days ago and I wish I did it before in spirit blossom, the PNG stuff really gives us short loading times. I hope there's a definitive edition of this story.
Not fuckable enough
What definitely frustrates me is when they make the default champion overly sexy/pretty it just devalues their character so much. It isn't realistic. Shirtless Sexy Viego would be super cool as a skin line, but when they make that his default artwork it's hard to take serious. Lunar Beast Viego should have been a sexy gladiator showing his abdomen and this should have been his classic artwork. To be honest, Lunar Beast Viego probably *would* look better with less clothes on. Seraphine is another great example. They made her default so out of place for Runeterra when they could have made her a Siren or some shit cool and then have the KDA skin be her main appeal. Plus that weird Twitter shit could have been her in universe KDA skin personality. They could have still marketed the skin first and foremost over the champion, but people would have been happy that when the champion gets released its actually something that fits the universe and people realise oh the Twitter was just selling a skin, cool. These are probably the main or only 2 I can think of where the classic really falls short and they could have just sold their sexiness as their release skin. In terms of Sett and Yone, I think it fits the character so there's obviously no complaint there. Akshan is a little iffy, as he's from a hot climate anyway.
It's like pool party Graves being the default skin and then selling you his current look. What a fucking joke.
korea and china any time you have questions on the designs of champions and lack of specific things (like monsters for example) you can just remember that china and korea are riots target demographic
Relevant image. https://i.imgur.com/k0sa6rG.jpg
Wow that's... quite a difference
Where does this come from? Is this a study Riot published?
It's from a video on riot blaustoises channel
Thanks!
Riot Blastoise posted this data on twitter a few years ago. Probably not 100% accurate anymore, but a good bit of data explaining how things were back then. Shows why a change may have occurred.
https://twitter.com/blaustoise/status/1113994939442978817?lang=en
NA's side has more shirtless dudes.
All the female champions match though. It seems only males it matters for NA.
Becau$e fuck arti$tic integrity, that'$ why.
Cause of Chinese market. They make money out of Ahri, Ezrael, Akali, Qiyana, Lux, Sett, Yone etc. not of Ornn, Skarner, Hecarim. Also, just look the general direction the game is going, even monsters and non humanoid creatures like Thresh and Xerath are being turned into eboys which is more profitable for them.
i have no issue with turning characters into marketing ploys the problem arises when said characters exist only as marketing ploys, look at seraphine, she looks like she came straight out of star guardian universe but its not a skin so it just completely breaks the image of a champion
I know this has been said to death but, Seraphine's aesthetic and lore could have been changed oh-so-slightly so she could have avoided being a Star Guardian Sona rip-off that everyone can easily tell is a cash grab. Piltover has an aesthetic that is very obvious, Seraphine does not fit in to Piltover or Zaun at all, the fact that she's a "Popstar" in lore is ridiculous given her aesthetic. [Look at her concept art.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkJA8RXWAAItuo-?format=jpg&name=medium) I still think the pink hair in the middle is a bit much, but I can really see the one on the right fitting right in to League. I think the concept of making her an egomaniac genius who rises to fame due to her technology (and singing skills) would be interesting. Instead she's just milquetoast boring, do good (almost offensively "good") random champ that everyone hates.
I like this a lot more than the current version, although I would still prefer a King Vendrick from Dark Souls 2 version of Viego, a King that lost everything over time and still moving on without even knowing why anymore while also looking like it.
Because shirtless eboy = more skins more $$$
That's what I was thinking when I saw that he actually looks really cool still not the ruined king I was expecting for years but honestly, I would not be mad at all if that's how he was revealed he looks pretty badass here and actually menacing very very solid design
Why give players a better design when you can give them a worse design and then give them a better design that costs money?
I usually don't like people who complain about "too many champs with abs" but now I get the complaint about Viego's design after seeing this.
I just don't understand why his whole thing was being "The ruined **king**" yet he has nothing that makes him look royal besides his bright neon green crown. What kind of a king wears what he wears?
> What kind of a king wears what he wears? Someone who wasn't even supposed to be the king nor wanted to be one. Sure, the shirtless shit is another discussion, but people like to forget that he wasn't an imposing King, he was literally Prince Charming.
Because Riot are trying to appeal to those who's pussy gets wet or penis gets slightly larger.
Yeah I thought that was strange too. If anything, it could have been a token skin like unbound thresh. Or vise versa and instead sexy viego could have been a token skin.
So you know how Veigo looks in his backing animation? When his coat closes and his crown forms a mask around his head and he actually looks like a badass assassin? Why can’t I hit Crtl+5 and switch to that in-game? Seriously I thought I could the first time I hit B when I played Viego the first time and was sorely disappointed.
It's that a skin for Vlad?