Bug Fixes, Sion's Mismatched Theme, and "Lower Tier" skins

Posted on at 12:24 AM by Moobeat
It's been a quiet few days, what with the holidays and all, but we're back with a delicious red post collection!
Continue reading for a set of red posts pertaining to a fix for getting stuck on creeps, problems with Sion's look vs his kit, and Ironstylus fishing for feedback on "lower tier" skins.

Stuck on Creeps Fixed!?
CertainlyT had some good news about the bug that causes champions to juggle back and forth when trying to path around minions. Reminder, this is not walking through minions ( which only ghost, phantom dancer, and select champion passives can provide ) but rather when champions try to walk through minions and get stuck on them instead of going around.
"I believe our engineers have found the cause of the "stuck on creeps" bug and are fixing it. It's a Christmas miracle!"
Discussion on Sion's mismatched theme.
IronStylus talking about Sion and the problem of his range of abilities not exactly matching his theme.
"Sion is an interesting case. Absolutely, the dude needs a visual update BADLY. Grumpy Monkey has some ideas here, some very good ideas. I agree that he fits into that weird area that some older champions fall into, where the visual theme doesn't really match the look. Scion wields a giant axe, one which, by today's standards, you'd expect to be chopped in half with. But, as has been mentioned, he's more of a Mage. Same thing goes for Mordakieser, big mace dude you'd expect to be bonked on the head by, instead he casts a lot of spell and.. nabs your ghost?

Meanwhile, these days, we want to create a fantasy that people can easily buy into. Darius is a proper axe dude, he wants to chop you with said axe, and as him you want to chop people down with said axe. Diana almost fell into the aforementioned problem with Scion and Mord. She's an AP champion with a melee weapon. That can be tough. But we needed to figure out what you would want to do with Diana. Big weapon, you probably want to slash people with said weapon. How do you do so? Give her moon magic, which needed to be part of her theme, which helps her with gap closes rather than poke. Fulfills that fantasy of self-immolation. Dive in, slash, burst, don't expect to survive. Expect to be the heretic martyr.

Darius and Diana I think fall into these new successful attempts to satisfy the fantasy in art, theme and mechanics. We have to take a close and careful look at older champions and find out how to address this. We can do a great looking visual design rework on Scion, but do we want to play with his kit or theme to make him more cohesive? That remains to be seen, but my personal opinion is to try as best we can to match the theme to the mechanics and visuals while trying to maintain what people love about the character. It's tricky, but I think we can do it. We shall see!"
As Ironstylus reminds us, this doesn't necessarily mean his kit will get changed:
"...The only thing I've heard is that his mechanics theme doesn't quite match his look. I don't know whether that will be acted upon though."
 Although, as we've known, Sion is on the list for a visual update. Ironstylus commented on this, saying:
"All I know is that from the art side of things we might try to match his looks a bit more with his theme"
IronStylus seeking feedback on lower tier skins.
IronStylus has been poking his head around on the forums asking for summoners to give him feedback on what he refers to as "lower tier skins"; that is skins that don't necessarily have all the bells and whistles that most new skins do and are more akin to costume changes ( think something like Aviator Irelia ) or more complex recolors.
"Hey, I didnt see anything about skins on here so I have an odd question.. It's something that's been on my brain for a while.. Recently, as a lot of people have noticed, our quality of skins has gone up, including sometimes near reworks of entire champions when we produce skins. We do custom animations, particles, and a lot of other features. It's a big improvement from what we refer to now as "color swaps", when sometimes skins were just palette changes, or maybe small geometry tweaks on the model at most.

Oh yeah, my question! How do you guys feel about "costume change" skins. Maybe not so much entire sweeping thematic shifts, but maybe just s different treatment of basic look, outfit or armor. Being on the skins team off and on, I really love taking our characters to the nines. One things I've noticed is that sometimes, depending on the champion, some champions can accommodate really incredible and compelling themes, or have real estate for a lot of visual change, and have huge opportunities for particle changes or custom animations, etc, However, sometimes i feel some can't, that's opinion though. Also, sometimes I feel as though champions might just need what basically comes down to a "costume change" to give some new flavor, or something simple and novel. It's a not the greatest term, but I can't really think of something better to use to refer to something that sort of, at most, geometry changes and maybe minor tweaks in other areas.

What are some thoughts on this? This is entirely a curiosity of mine, and this is no promise of any such content, but I'm always looking for opportunities to bring interesting content to players, and I'm wondering if maybe a "lower" tier of what I've described above is of interest.

AGAIN! This is no commitment to features, I just genuinely am interested in feelings about this stuff. I have no idea nor any opinion on pricing or any of that, I'm interested in what sort of themes are appropriate, what scope such skins might encompass, and what players feel about what equates to possibly a less packed piece of content than the current lot of skins in terms of VFX, animation and other features.

So, whaddaya think?"
In terms of just making a champion with a "better" version of their base model, he mentioned the negative possibility of player's reacting to this sort of simple skin by saying "why isn't this just the new base model??":
"That's another thing that interests me, the x2 or x10 scenario for skins. Is taking a champion's base theme and bumping it up a level or two cool? Artistically, it's pretty easy to do, but I can see how players might be like.. "Uh, that's just a fancy base, I feel cheated" or "Shouldn't this just be the new base?" I'm wondering if that'd be the case.

Yes, personally I'm also cool with "upgraded" versions of champions, it's something that I'm not sure we know how to do just right whilst managing expectations. "
 On the topic of these costume changes, he elaborated in another thread, saying:
"I'm particularly interested in ideas as to how or what sort of "simple" skins could be created. As I've mentioned, some skin themes can be brought to the nines. Do all skins need those treatments? For themes or skins that dont have as much opportunity for sweeping custom changes, what would constitute such a tier and what examples can be suggested for use in such a case on? What skin ideas or champions might benefit from such a treatment?"
Have an opinion? Be sure to contribute your ideas over on his "Lower Tier Skins" thread.