Red Post Collection: Gnar Q&A

Earlier today, several Rioter's hopped on the boards to host a Q&A session on Gnar! From Creative and Gameplay to Art & Sound, the team answered a gnarly amount of questions regarding our upcoming champion!
Continue reading for more information!

The Q&A was separated into three categories, Creative, Gameplay, and Art & Sound, with Rioters from each discipline answering their groups questions!

While I've kept all the posts sorted into their respective threads, I did try to clump similar questions or topics together within each category.

Creative

"Hey everyone, 

I'm Riot Opeli, Narrative Designer on Gnar. He's a pretty neat guy.
If you’re curious to know how we went about creating Gnar’s character and story, ask us here! 

Rioters from our Narrative and Creative teams will be hanging out for a few hours to share stories and ~~secrets~~ on League’s prehistoric champion! 

Here are some other things you might want to check out:
Discovering the LinkGnar Reveal 

Check out the other Gnar Q&A sessions here:
Gnar Art & Sound Q&A
Gnar Gameplay Q&A"

Riot Opeli continued answering a big block of questions regarding Gnar's transformation and his personality":

"Who would be Gnar’s friends in a cold, unforgiving future? 

HMM. Poros, definitely, if they're still alive and well. Lulu and Pix, for sure. But, really, anyone who is kind and will play with him, even if it was your typical scary monster (assuming they don't try to kill him or piss him off). 

Does Gnar realize he transforms into a vicious beast, or is he unaware? Does that affect his actions? 

He's unaware, but that may change as he grows older. :) 

Does Gnar retain his personality in best form? 

YES! This is really important to us. When he transforms, he doesn't become a bloodlust-y beast. He's just really mad. He's the tantrum incarnate. You picked on him, so he's reacting. 

Speaking of which, Gnar is more of a defender? It looks like he was protecting his family. 

He was protecting his family, but I don't think he actively thinks about saving people, like Braum. He will do what's necessary, though. 

Does Gnar get sad when he remembers the past, or does he have something like amnesia? 

Yes, absolutely. While he's enjoying being free and doing whatever he pleases, he's still lacking a home and family. And that really sucks."

"Can I assume the Rage Gene was recessive? Only Gnar Hulked out and fought against the thing that presumably killed his family/tribe. 

It's unclear to scientists (read: Heimerdinger) whether it's a recessive trait or something Gnar acquired in that moment. More research is required. 

Who would be most likely to befriend Gnar? My guess is Annie. 

Lulu. Although Annie would probably be up there. She's a little demented but Gnar is still young enough to not judge her for burning things down. 

According to the reveal, Gnar was "born millennia ago." Does this make him the oldest living champion? 

Nah, Anivia is pretty frickin' old. 

On the Fields of Justice, Mega Gnar doesn't stop being mad unless he's tired (or dead). Off of the Fields of Justice, is it possible to calm down Mega Gnar before he tires himself out? Who (or what) is most likely to be able to do it? 

While it may be possible... it has yet to be seen."

"We always knew we wanted him to be trapped in ice since his conception. So, really, we didn't have to explore too many other options. The thing that came into question the most is how we show Gnar's personality in the story piece, without making him too knowable. Like, we didn't want to do a first-person perspective for him because it would give too many insights about his thinking and we liked the fact that he doesn't speak like all the other champions. Giving him a translatable inner monologue would've ruined that. 

Or it could've been: 

Gnar. Gnaaaaar. GNAR GNAR! 

The end!"

"Does Gnar consider himself a friend of Rengar, despite the lore? Rengar seemed happy to see the little Yordle, despite it's annoyance to him. When he went Mega-Gnar on Rengar, was he mad about Rengar trying to tell him to bugger off, or was throwing his boomerang the last straw? 

Once he's out of his mega state, yeah, I think he likes Rengar. For now. He was mad that Rengar threw his toy to a place he couldn't reach and felt pretty rejected by the lion cat assassin man. So, I think Gnar has a forgiving heart to an extent but if it ever happens again...

Really, we all want to know, why Gnar? Which brilliant mind envisioned the little Yordle? 

It came from a combination of people, including our CEO! The idea of a yordle growing mega came up and people just ran with it.

Well, he and Rengar are clearly not on the best of terms, does that mean Gnar doesn't like Kha'Zix? 

Gnar would approach Kha'Zix the same way he approached Rengar. It all depends on how Kha'Zix would react to him (which wouldn't be well)."

"Yep, it's Rengar!"

"1) Does Gnar know that he transforms? 

Nope. Not now, anyways. That may change as he grows older. 

3) Most people assume that Gnar's lore is told from the point of view of Rengar. Does this mean that Gnar and Rengar and "enemies" or is the person from Gnar's lore someone else? (possibly Rengar's master?) 

It's Rengar. They aren't enemies, but that last encounter definitely strained their relationship. I think Rengar now knows how to handle Gnar and will be sure to not tick him off again, and Gnar is forgiving to a point. 

4) What do you like most about Gnar? 

His big, wonderful eyes! LOOK AT THEM!"

Opeli also commented on the team's thoughts about prehistoric Runterra and what it would look like:

"Yeah, we talked about it a bit. Mainly what Gnar's life would be like, what was going on thousands of years ago, what the world looked like, stuff like that. 

Let's just say that modern Runeterra looks quite a bit different than when Gnar was originally alive."

she continued, commenting on if Gnar realizes his relation to other yordles:

"He has an idea about their connection, like how dogs recognize other dogs without having to say, "HELLO. I AM A DOG. ARE YOU A DOG, TOO?" 

I'm not trying to compare him to a dog, though. 

But, for the record, I love dogs. So if he was one, I wouldn't be upset. 

Anyways..."

"That was precisely it! The child in a costume thing. Gnar wants to live out a particular fantasy of being a dinosaur, but he actually has the ability to live out that fantasy in mega Gnar form, which is awesome."

Gameplay

"Greetings Summoners, 

Gypsylord here. Transform champions have traditionally been some of the hardest to balance in League, but with Gnar we set about tackling the issue with some unique solutions. Meddler and I are here to answer your design questions and give some insight into his creation! 

Here are some other things you might want to check out:
Discovering the LinkGnar Reveal 

Check out the other Gnar Q&A sessions here:
Gnar Art & Sound Q&AGnar Creative Q&A"

"Gnar was indeed always a Yordle right from the start. What we did spend a while exploring though was what sort of creature he should transform into, with various big forms inspired by dinosaurs, bears, oxen, etc. We eventually chose to go with a version inspired by the proportions of a gorilla - really front loaded body with enormous muscle mass, huge hands and so on. 

The rage mechanic was on the kit right from the start, with the back and forth only somewhat controllable transformation the core of what we wanted to capture with Gnar's gameplay. It did go through an enormous amount of tuning in terms of how fast in should generate, what should generate it etc - getting the feel right on that, both in lane and in teamfights, was critical to Gnar feeling good to play."

He continued, sharing how the team arrived at a transforming yordle:

"Gnar started off with some exploration into the ways that a young yordle, all alone, might be able to survive in a dangerous, ancient world. One of the ideas hit upon was the classic man and monster style of transformation (Jekkyl and Hyde, Mogwai and Gremlins, Bruce Banner and the Hulk etc). That combined well with a fish out of water tale (Gnar, frozen in ice for thousands of years, awakens to a very different world) and from there we started exploring a bunch of different concepts for what Gnar might look like, how he'd act etc. 

We'll definitely keep looking for more good Yordle opportunities, won't be another in the near future though."

Meddler also commented on the several lessons the team took away from Gnar's development:

"Developing Gnar did have a number of good lessons. Some of those we'll be looking to apply to other form/stance swapping champions where possible, though in a number of cases they're lessons more applicable to newly developed champions than modifcations to existing ones.

1. Keeping the same targeting type on a button in both forms makes it a lot easier to learn a form swapping champion and offers a smooth flow back and forth between forms. In Gnar's case this means Q is always a line skillshot and E is always a ground targeted leap. Not every champion's going to be a good fit for that approach (we've got another character that swaps stances basically, rather than forms, under development that doesn't for example) but where possible it's valuable to offer.
2. Clarity of form purpose is important, both for the player and when looking at how best to balance a champion. Mini Gnar early in development didn't have a ranged basic attack for example or particularly high auto attack damage and so struggled outside of poke situations. Identifying that Mini-Gnar should therefore be the sustained damage, kiting form, in contrast to Megar-Gnar's immediate impact, high CC, slow form, really helped give clear reasons for each form to exist and distinct strengths and weaknesses. Some of our other form swapping champions accomplish that well already (Nidalee in particular has clear reasons to be in Cougar or Human form), others less so (it's often unclear to Quinn whether she should be using her ult mid team fight for example).
3. Limited access to a form swap allows you to give each form really distinct strengths and weaknesses, since the player can't just swap back a few seconds later, thereby nullifying the problem. In Gnar's case that meant we could give him two powerful skillsets that don't overlap, given he shares CDs between forms too.
4. Itemization for two different roles is tough. Building different forms so that they can bring some item indepedent contribution (CC/toughenss for Mega-Gnar, some guaranteed damage via his W proc for little Gnar) helps with that, there's still conflict between what each form really needs though. Ultimately we've ended up with Gnar being able to use a wide variety of items depending on how tanky or damage focused he wants to be. That allows for some cool choices on the Gnar player's part, there's still a bit of conflict between form needs there though unfortunately."

 As for if any of Gnar's abilities came from other or scrapped champions, Meddler noted:

"None of Gnar's abilities are ones we've tried before but hadn't previously found a good match for. We did try a couple of things on Gnar that didn't work for him that we'll probably try on other champs someday though (an ultimate that devoured an enemy champ, temporarily removing them from the map, in particular). 

The feeling, though not the details, of Gnar's ult is also something we'd talked about for Vi's ult (physically throwing other champions around)."

Meddler also commented on the sheer amount of tools Gnar has access to, saying:

"Gnar's got access to a lot of stuff, no argument, the thing is though that he doesn't get it all at once and doesn't get to choose which skillset he wants on demand. You could describe him as having two line skillshots that hit multiple targets and slow for example, but that's not a realistic desciption - he's getting one or the other, never both (especially given his CDs are shared between forms). His passive gives him a lot of stats, but that's because it's a way of expressing how his base stats are radically different in each form (and his 'actual' base stats apart from those listed on the passive are very low as a result). 

To answer your specific questions: 

Mini Gnar's quite squishy and has a very short ranged auto attack for a ranged champion. In order to survive at all he therefore needs to be able to kite enemies. We wanted to ensure the tools he had to do that were in combat mobility though, hence he's got a slow on his Q and a movement speed boost accessed via auto attacking rather than just a large haste buff to use whenever. 

The attack speed on the mini E is there so that Gnar has a reason to use it offensively in lane. If he wants to put out as much damage as possible he can't just sit on his E and only use it to disengage and, as a result, has to make a trade off between offensive power and being more vulnerable to getting engaged on (jungle ganks especially)."

When asked about the limited control over Gnar's transformation, Meddler explained :

"Gnar's limited control over his transformation's core to both his kit and his personality/background. As a result it's not something we'd want to change to balance him - there are other ways to achieve that if needed that don't trim away what makes him distinct."

Gypsylord dove deeper into the Transformation mechanic, explaining:

"Yeah sure. Gnar's unreliability was put in place for two reasons:

1) We wanted to provide a new gameplay experience. Similar to how Draven mains feel amazing for being AXE CATCHING GODS, we want the people who master Gnar to feel like they're CRAZY RAGE BEASTS who've learned to master their anger and transformations and bend them to their will. Honestly, some players won't like Rage Gene's uncontrollable nature. 

--------You're going to be running Kog'Maw down in Mini form, have him one hit from death, and then transform into Mega Gnar, miss your boulder, and helplessly try to trundle away as he kills you from 700 range. Some of you will come out of that game not wanting to play Gnar again because WTF I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN A KILL BUT MY TRANSFORM KILLED ME. That's okay. 

---------Hopefully if you stick with him you'll then run into the game where you bounce off the enemy tank into the fight as Mini Gnar, assassinate the ADC, get brought down to 5 HP, TRANSFORM JUST IN TIME, hurl the rest of the enemy team into a wall, and watch in satisfaction as your team collapses on and eliminates them (try /dancing). It's all about those high intensity transform moments and the feeling of trying to wrest control of this epic transition out of the hands of the game. Sometimes it screws you, sometimes it wins you the game. The uncontrollable mechanic is not going to be for everyone, but I feel that it will FEEL GREAT for those who do want to engage with it.

2) We wanted to finally make a transformation character who felt good in both forms. Historically we've had problems with achieving this as our other transform chars (Elise, Old Nid, Jayce) can transform at will. Because of this we can't give the forms meaningful weaknesses (you can just swap out) and instead have to balance the character around whatever form is their best case. When Old Nid's cougar form was strong human form was a glorified heal and scouting tool and when Old Nid's spear throwing form was strong Cougar form was a 3 second CD dash. She never got to feel great about both forms at the same time and building to the strengths of one made the other suffer immensely. We hope that by not allowing Gnar to swap when he wants to we can truly give both forms meaningful weaknesses that players can exploit in the moment. This means we can also make their strengths REALLY strong. Human form Nidalee isn't a problem in isolation. You jump on her and kill her. It's when she gets to turn into a cat for free and pounce away that she becomes an evil spear monster that can't be dealt with."

Meddler tagged back in to comment on balancing this mechanic, saying:

"The goal is to have both forms be equally useful but in different ways, with each form being stronger under certain circumstances. 

Balancing Gnar's probably going to have its fair share of challenges, we do have a couple of useful advantages from the way his transformation works to draw on though. Since Gnar shares CDs between forms he can't throw out as many different abilities in a short period as some of our other form swappers. Additionally since he can't shift/deshift at will constantly he's locked into dealing with each form's weakness for a period of time, which gives his opponents opportunities to take advantage of said weaknesses."

He continued, sharing his thoughts on if this uncontrollable transformation will make Gnar more susceptible to ganks:

"There's a tradeoff to be made there. As the enemy are you more concerned about Mini Gnar's mobility or Mega Gnar's CC/tankiness? On top of that, how long are you prepared to wait for that transform to occur? There are definitely ways to take advantage of Gnar's transformations back and forth, it's not a simple 'Wait until he swaps and then kill him' scenario though."

Gypsylord also popped back in to explain the uncontrollable transformation was intended to combat the balancing problems with other shifters like Jayce or Elise:

"To answer your main question: Yes, the uncontrollable transformation was to combat the Nidalee, Elise, and Jayce problem. We're hoping that by taking away control of the transform it will give the weaknesses we've built into Gnar's kit a chance to actually express themselves and be exploited by opponents. Little Gnar is a slippery assassin/ADC but he has to put himself in danger to deal damage and he's the squishiest guy in league (take a look at his base stats). Big Gnar is an uber tank but he's slow and easily kited. There's also the fact that if you itemize too much towards one form (straight damage for little or straight tank for big) you're going to have periods of the game where you're significantly weaker. Jayce can build straight damage and sit in cannon form all game. A Gnar building all damage will eventually transform in a fight and have to deal with being a slow and squishy melee. 

If we need to balance the guy I'd want to trend towards playing up each form's strengths (for buffs) and weaknesses (for nerfs). For example, Mega Gnar is supposed to have low comparative sustained DPS so the first place I'd look to nerf him is things like AS and base damages/ratios on lower CD spells. Irelia (if on even footing) should be able to survive Mega Gnar's burst and then run him down and kill him with True Damage AA's."

Meddler added on to this, saying:

"One of our original goals for Gnar was to make a more accessible form swapper that both new players and experienced ones could get a lot out of (Jayce, Nid and Elise are all pretty tough for new LoL players to pick up). That goal was one of the starting points for keeping targeting types the same between forms. As Gnar developed 'accessible form swapper' became more of a secondary goal, with 'Hard to control rage transformation to manage' taking more prominence, and as part of that we accepted that Gnar would be a more advanced champ than we'd initially thought. Very glad some of that accessibility's still there though. 

Mini Gnar's auto attack range scales by level in large part to keep his laning under control whilst also giving him the range he needs for later team fights. His alternation between forms also means opponents have windows to engage/disengage in, depending on which form they feel best able to tackle (and since he can't shift back on demand those windows are a lot longer than other shape shifting champions). Having said that watching how he performs against melee champs, and whether he's doing too well or too poorly in some matchups, is going to be one of our big balance focuses after he goes out. 

The goal is to have both forms feel equally useful, with each more powerful in certain circumstances and powerful in different ways. Great to hear the mirror match up's good fun, haven't actually had a chance to play that myself (it's not a regular part of our testing process internally)."

"Regarding the dance animation, we wanted to support his hyperactive sort of personality. It actually felt kind of tame before the VO came in, then it became like a super-taunt haha."