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At some point each and every one of us has looked at an upcoming or current champion and thought, "I would have done this differently" or "I could have done a better job". Maybe it was the concept or the numbers or the mechanics, but our inner armchair designer awoke and demanded our mental faculties be devoted to the near-pointless exercise of designing a champion.
This thread is an outlet for that creative impulse. To be clear, this thread is for:
- Discussing general champion design.
- Sharing our own designs for feedback and criticism.
- Pretending any of this is relevant.
This thread is not for:
- Complaining about actual champions.
- Complaining about Riot and any perceived inability to design good champions.
- Complaining about the current metagame and how all champions who match it are played by noobs.
I'll start the discussion with a champion I felt the impulse to design when I heard that Karma had originally been intended as an energy champion but it was dropped due to the balance issues surrounding a support champion with an infinite, fixed resource.
http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=505486
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i've always wanted to play a champ with interesting vision mechanics (originally for the blind monk champion)
my original idea was a champ with limited vision, but with a 'bloodseeker' sort of mechanic where he can 'see' nearby champs in a certain radius, as well as having a mechanic to automatically blink to the nearest champion.
the biggest problems with this are A) i'm fairly confident that many people will find it boring to have more fog of war than normal, which will also make last-hitting more of a pain, and B) to balance a champion who sort of defies fog of war and makes it nearly impossible to sneak up on him
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United States47024 Posts
Personally, I think some design space that needs to be explored is more non-traditional forms of CC, that are more interactive. Point-and-click stuns are extremely boring.
The two ideas I had were either break-on-damage CC (e.g. Bane Elemental's Nightmare), or leash effects that allow limited mobility within a certain space.
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I want a champion that's super pro at denying last hits by healing minions for free at low cooldown, and whose damage output is dependent on how many more cs he has over the enemy champion.
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I want a bash mechanic in the game
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United States47024 Posts
On February 12 2011 02:35 gtrsrs wrote: I want a bash mechanic in the game Technically the game does have on-hit stuns, it's just that none of them are random.
Seeing as I already don't really like crit/dodge, I can't say I'd support more random mechanics.
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On February 12 2011 02:21 TheYango wrote: Personally, I think some design space that needs to be explored is more non-traditional forms of CC, that are more interactive. Point-and-click stuns are extremely boring.
The two ideas I had were either break-on-damage CC (e.g. Bane Elemental's Nightmare), or leash effects that allow limited mobility within a certain space.
This. Getting tired of remaking similar skills into other champs that somewhat fills the same purpose.
I was thinking more in the lines of a tank champ having the ability to have an ignite-like-skill (AoE or not) that increases the damage over time on the enemy champ by other sources of damage.
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On February 12 2011 02:21 TheYango wrote: Personally, I think some design space that needs to be explored is more non-traditional forms of CC, that are more interactive. Point-and-click stuns are extremely boring.
The two ideas I had were either break-on-damage CC (e.g. Bane Elemental's Nightmare), or leash effects that allow limited mobility within a certain space.
I think it's unlikely that Riot will implement any CC that breaks on damage. It would work in the high end of competition, but in all other brackets the champion would be near useless due to thoughtless AoE from allies.
How would you define "limited mobility" in your second example? Are you talking about a circular Anivia wall or something?
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More a lá Warwick kind of stuns, with epic combo combinations, instead of just swipe-swipe-swipe.
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United States47024 Posts
On February 12 2011 02:42 Seuss wrote: How would you define "limited mobility" in your second example? Are you talking about a circular Anivia wall or something? That's sort of the idea, but that itself would be on the powerful side. More realistic would be something like a well that slows you more the further you are from the center.
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On February 12 2011 02:21 TheYango wrote: The two ideas I had were either break-on-damage CC (e.g. Bane Elemental's Nightmare), or leash effects that allow limited mobility within a certain space.
Veigar's Event Horizon is a very binary version of your 2nd one. Lazer bird from swain is like a leash.
They don't want the burden of knowledge to be too high so the particle effects must be able to convey the effect at hand. Having some kind of weird leash would be difficult (not impossible) to show.
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On February 12 2011 02:41 DragonSharp wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 02:21 TheYango wrote: Personally, I think some design space that needs to be explored is more non-traditional forms of CC, that are more interactive. Point-and-click stuns are extremely boring.
The two ideas I had were either break-on-damage CC (e.g. Bane Elemental's Nightmare), or leash effects that allow limited mobility within a certain space. I was thinking more in the lines of a tank champ having the ability to have an ignite-like-skill (AoE or not) that increases the damage over time on the enemy champ by other sources of damage.
swain's torment was originally this but they decided it was too powerful (dumb)
On February 12 2011 02:21 TheYango wrote: The two ideas I had were either break-on-damage CC (e.g. Bane Elemental's Nightmare), or leash effects that allow limited mobility within a certain space.
puck's ult puck would be a great addition to LoL so would storm spirit fucking get on it riot
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On February 12 2011 03:13 Phrost wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 02:21 TheYango wrote: The two ideas I had were either break-on-damage CC (e.g. Bane Elemental's Nightmare), or leash effects that allow limited mobility within a certain space. Veigar's Event Horizon is a very binary version of your 2nd one. Lazer bird from swain is like a leash. They don't want the burden of knowledge to be too high so the particle effects must be able to convey the effect at hand. Having some kind of weird leash would be difficult (not impossible) to show.
Well they have leashes on stuff like morgana ult, the main thing they don't want to do is punish people for running away from perceived danger which is basically their whole argument about bloodseeker ult.
That said I think Riot's eventually going to have to racket up some complexity just to keep people from being bored of another female ranged dps.
On February 12 2011 03:38 gtrsrs wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 02:41 DragonSharp wrote:On February 12 2011 02:21 TheYango wrote: Personally, I think some design space that needs to be explored is more non-traditional forms of CC, that are more interactive. Point-and-click stuns are extremely boring.
The two ideas I had were either break-on-damage CC (e.g. Bane Elemental's Nightmare), or leash effects that allow limited mobility within a certain space. I was thinking more in the lines of a tank champ having the ability to have an ignite-like-skill (AoE or not) that increases the damage over time on the enemy champ by other sources of damage. swain's torment was originally this but they decided it was too powerful (dumb)
My understanding is that they changed it from a version of Maladict to just a flat damage increase for complexity reasons. It had nothing to do with power whatsoever (both versions did the same amount of damage) and mainly had to do with being newbies to newbies since the maladict version didn't really change how you played Swain anyways.
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On February 12 2011 03:41 phyvo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 03:13 Phrost wrote:On February 12 2011 02:21 TheYango wrote: The two ideas I had were either break-on-damage CC (e.g. Bane Elemental's Nightmare), or leash effects that allow limited mobility within a certain space. Veigar's Event Horizon is a very binary version of your 2nd one. Lazer bird from swain is like a leash. They don't want the burden of knowledge to be too high so the particle effects must be able to convey the effect at hand. Having some kind of weird leash would be difficult (not impossible) to show. Well they have leashes on stuff like morgana ult, the main thing they don't want to do is punish people for running away from perceived danger which is basically their whole argument about bloodseeker ult. That said I think Riot's eventually going to have to racket up some complexity just to keep people from being bored of another female ranged dps.
They don't want the burden of knowledge or the false choice to be factors in how a champion plays because it will play too widely different at different skill levels.
The think about bloodseeker's rupture is how extremely differently it has to be balanced if one assumes it always does damage (if you don't know how it works) or almost never does damage (if you do know how it works).
The false choice factor is that general survival instincts should apply whenever in a bad situation. Running from danger should be a valid decision and taric's dazzle is balanced such that it is but it isnt at the same time. Running from his E increases stun duration but decreases damage done.
Nidalee's spear isnt the same thing. If you run from it you will take less damage (ie none) if it misses but if you run and still get hurt then you will suffer more than not running at all.
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United States47024 Posts
On February 12 2011 03:13 Phrost wrote: They don't want the burden of knowledge to be too high so the particle effects must be able to convey the effect at hand. Having some kind of weird leash would be difficult (not impossible) to show. I'm aware of this, but I'm personally of the opinion that this, plus the generally low power level, limit the available design space more than the gain is worth.
On February 12 2011 03:38 gtrsrs wrote: puck's ult puck would be a great addition to LoL so would storm spirit fucking get on it riot I think Kennen was Riot's attempt at a Storm Spirit-like champion.
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On February 12 2011 03:48 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 03:13 Phrost wrote: They don't want the burden of knowledge to be too high so the particle effects must be able to convey the effect at hand. Having some kind of weird leash would be difficult (not impossible) to show. I'm aware of this, but I'm personally of the opinion that this, plus the generally low power level, limit the available design space more than the gain is worth. Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 03:38 gtrsrs wrote: puck's ult puck would be a great addition to LoL so would storm spirit fucking get on it riot I think Kennen was Riot's attempt at a Storm Spirit-like champion.
I think there are more things that they can explore and they will continue to push the envelope as far as complexity is concerned.
Personally I would like to see more conditional skills more like Irelia's E to increase skill based usage.
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I think there should be a "night and day" phase in the game. Making some champs have +/-% dmg based on time of day.
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On February 12 2011 03:41 phyvo wrote: My understanding is that they changed it from a version of Maladict to just a flat damage increase for complexity reasons. It had nothing to do with power whatsoever (both versions did the same amount of damage) and mainly had to do with being newbies to newbies since the maladict version didn't really change how you played Swain anyways.
swain's torment originally amplified damage from all sources they changed it to just amplifying swain's power because obv it was too powerful as is that's one of the problems of LoL imo. you can't give support heroes *too good* of support skills because they all scale with AP and even a support hero can output massive damage in LoL like can you imagine if any support champ in this game had witch doctor's stun? and it scaled with AP? it'd be the most broken thing ever, you could lock down a whole team from a distance and do massive damage by just building AP so this is why we can't have nice things
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Would it be crazy, therefore, to suggest that perhaps Riot could design a champion with either terrible or non-existent AP ratios and perhaps provide some semblance of the nice things we are missing out upon?
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On February 12 2011 04:56 gtrsrs wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 03:41 phyvo wrote: My understanding is that they changed it from a version of Maladict to just a flat damage increase for complexity reasons. It had nothing to do with power whatsoever (both versions did the same amount of damage) and mainly had to do with being newbies to newbies since the maladict version didn't really change how you played Swain anyways. swain's torment originally amplified damage from all sources they changed it to just amplifying swain's power because obv it was too powerful as is that's one of the problems of LoL imo. you can't give support heroes *too good* of support skills because they all scale with AP and even a support hero can output massive damage in LoL like can you imagine if any support champ in this game had witch doctor's stun? and it scaled with AP? it'd be the most broken thing ever, you could lock down a whole team from a distance and do massive damage by just building AP so this is why we can't have nice things
IIRC it was always just his damage or they would have just changed it to only his damage. Either way the more important reason why they changed it was specifically so that it wasn't difficult to understand and do quick math for.
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Somehow make it scale with AD. It pisses people off to have a damage scaling spell on a character with 3 other AP spells.
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United States47024 Posts
The general power level of things in LoL is just lower than in DotA (particularly at low/mid levels, when the fact that DotA champs have higher base damage on abilities is more relevant)--in DotA, things do lots of damage, AoEs are huge, CC lasts a LONG time (even 7-second soft CCs are unheard of in LoL while they are commonplace in DotA).
As a Starcraft site, most of us are familiar with this "balance by ridiculousness"--even beefier units in Starcraft are fragile, and to the newcomer things may seem overpowered (Dark Swarm, Psionic Storm, Spider Mines, and Dark Templar are all commonly complained about), when in fact they are balanced but simply punish players harshly for playing incorrectly against them.
I will not attempt to criticize Riot for their lower power-level approach (which has its own merits), but it is worth noting that by eschewing a higher power level, they give up the associated design space (many binary mechanics are simply high-power by nature and cannot appropriately be "toned down" for a lower power-level game--stealth is one mechanic that Riot has had problems with to date), strong skill differentiation (the difference between strong players and weak ones are very clear when misplays are game-losing), and spectator value (powerful overblown abilities like Dark Swarm and Psionic Storm make for exciting games).
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On February 12 2011 05:02 Seuss wrote: Would it be crazy, therefore, to suggest that perhaps Riot could design a champion with either terrible or non-existent AP ratios and perhaps provide some semblance of the nice things we are missing out upon?
Garen and Xin Zhao (Xin gains it, but at a .4 ratio on his E) are two such champions, and Ashe and Renekton both have no AP damage sources outside of their ults, which aren't anywhere near enough to build a character around. The game could use more champions that gain no significant benefit from AP, since it's really surprising how many of the so-called 'AD champions' have good ratios.
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United States47024 Posts
On February 12 2011 05:22 Niton wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 05:02 Seuss wrote: Would it be crazy, therefore, to suggest that perhaps Riot could design a champion with either terrible or non-existent AP ratios and perhaps provide some semblance of the nice things we are missing out upon? Garen and Xin Zhao (Xin gains it, but at a .4 ratio on his E) are two such champions, and Ashe and Renekton both have no AP damage sources outside of their ults, which aren't anywhere near enough to build a character around. The game could use more champions that gain no significant benefit from AP, since it's really surprising how many of the so-called 'AD champions' have good ratios. I mean, in those cases, the champions very clearly are AD champions (Garen's Q and E are AD scaling, Xin has his obvious AS synergy, and Ashe has a persistent on-hit effect and 1:1 AD scaling on Volley).
In the case of Witch Doctor, he is played as a babysitter/roamer support champion in DotA. The lack of AP/AD scaling for an equivalent champion in LoL would have to be in place to push him toward a support role rather than an AP carry.
Riot very clearly wants its supports to scale off of itemization into lategame though, and they seem somewhat averse to the level/gold-deprived supports prevalent in DotA. Karma's a prime example of this--her only CC is the stupidly weak slow on W--everything else scales off AP and has its utility directly related to that AP--she's clearly designed to need AP sources to scale well.
This isn't to say that those roamers/babysitters don't exist, but they seem purely incidental, given the design of those champions (e.g. Janna fits the same mold as all the other early female AP casters--1 AoE nuke, 1 single-target nuke, 1 shield and has fairly good ratios on all of them--at face value, she doesn't seem intentionally more support-y than Morgana, Annie, or Anivia).
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On February 12 2011 05:13 TheYango wrote: The general power level of things in LoL is just lower than in DotA (particularly at low/mid levels, when the fact that DotA champs have higher base damage on abilities is more relevant)--in DotA, things do lots of damage, AoEs are huge, CC lasts a LONG time (even 7-second soft CCs are unheard of in LoL while they are commonplace in DotA).
As a Starcraft site, most of us are familiar with this "balance by ridiculousness"--even beefier units in Starcraft are fragile, and to the newcomer things may seem overpowered (Dark Swarm, Psionic Storm, Spider Mines, and Dark Templar are all commonly complained about), when in fact they are balanced but simply punish players harshly for playing incorrectly against them.
I will not attempt to criticize Riot for their lower power-level approach (which has its own merits), but it is worth noting that by eschewing a higher power level, they give up the associated design space (many binary mechanics are simply high-power by nature and cannot appropriately be "toned down" for a lower power-level game--stealth is one mechanic that Riot has had problems with to date), strong skill differentiation (the difference between strong players and weak ones are very clear when misplays are game-losing), and spectator value (powerful overblown abilities like Dark Swarm and Psionic Storm make for exciting games).
You still have that just to a lesser extend. Cross map ashe arrows and ezreal ults definitely make the game a lot more interesting but I don't think they're ready to jump into higher risk/reward spells just yet. I'm not saying it won't happen but the game isnt at that point just yet.
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On February 12 2011 05:30 TheYango wrote: In the case of Witch Doctor, he is played as a babysitter/roamer support champion in DotA. The lack of AP/AD scaling for an equivalent champion in LoL would have to be in place to push him toward a support role rather than an AP carry.
I think I misunderstood - you want an ability-focused champion with poor AP ratios so they can have more interesting skills? I think that could be pretty cool, like a Support Ezreal or something. All skillshots or non-focus target abilities with higher than average risk-reward ratios.
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On February 12 2011 03:38 gtrsrs wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 02:21 TheYango wrote: The two ideas I had were either break-on-damage CC (e.g. Bane Elemental's Nightmare), or leash effects that allow limited mobility within a certain space. puck's ult puck would be a great addition to LoL so would storm spirit fucking get on it riot +1. Storm spirit with blue buff, opppp
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On February 12 2011 05:58 Niton wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 05:30 TheYango wrote: In the case of Witch Doctor, he is played as a babysitter/roamer support champion in DotA. The lack of AP/AD scaling for an equivalent champion in LoL would have to be in place to push him toward a support role rather than an AP carry. I think I misunderstood - you want an ability-focused champion with poor AP ratios so they can have more interesting skills? I think that could be pretty cool, like a Support Ezreal or something. All skillshots or non-focus target abilities with higher than average risk-reward ratios. Hey, I'm all for having another janna. Super utility without the need to build ap.
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What happened to the blind monk from beta anyways?
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You know what we need? Scaling on utility.
The only utility scaling I can think of right now is Randuin's Omen. But how about a slow, like 20% + 1% per 20 AP, capped at +30%. Basically any CC could have its duration scaling with AP or even AD (for example on Alistar). And I bet there are much more awesome ideas out there for this.
Then again this would make it so that even more champs want lots of farm. The selection of champs who can give all farm to their allies is already very small. Janna can do it pretty easily, everyone else will regret it sooner or later.
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On February 12 2011 07:25 Ryuu314 wrote: What happened to the blind monk from beta anyways?
some ppl think he became udyr, riot's official stance is that the hero got scrapped.
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United States47024 Posts
On February 12 2011 09:12 barbsq wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 07:25 Ryuu314 wrote: What happened to the blind monk from beta anyways? some ppl think he became udyr, riot's official stance is that the hero got scrapped. Some sharp eye noticed that there was an art piece with "Blind Monk" in the name on Maokai art spotlight.
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On February 12 2011 09:12 barbsq wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 07:25 Ryuu314 wrote: What happened to the blind monk from beta anyways? some ppl think he became udyr, riot's official stance is that the hero got scrapped.
he was scrapped like many other champions but they may bring back his concept but not his initial skillset.
In reality most of the champions that get scrapped are because their skillsets dont mesh well and the skills end up going to other champions which is why people thing he became udyr. It is very likely udyr inherited some of his skills (especially given how physically oriented bear and tiger stance attacks are)
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I think there should be a champion called Rick Astley. His 4 abilities are Give you up, Let you down, Run around, and Desert you. His passive ability does not enable Rick Astley to use any of his abilities.
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For some reason, I really want a Jin Kisaragi to appear in LoL. Something about a anime like samurai who can cast magic is pretty badass. The closest character seems to be Kayle though.
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Champion Name - The Fox
spells - Lower IQ - Summons a news host, that makes targetted champion have a 80% chance to stand around and repeat "WTF" for 3 seconds, if it fails effect is switched to any champion around targetted one
Make things up - Champion can make a new spell and everyone will belive its a true spell
Nerd Rage - Makes all champions rage and mass attack this champion
(Ultimete) Bill O'Reilly - Cause the effects of all 3 of the effects above at the same time
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I'd like to see some cool abilities on a champ similar to dota abilities but with a LoL feel to it, hereby mainly focussing on Lion. Such as:
Passive: ? Q: Skillshot/Inline stun similar to Lion's stun with minimal damage but stun increase/level (maybe range increase/level aswell) W: Swap skill that can only target friendly units, range increase/level. Can be used to get in range quickly by swapping a friendly minion or to save more important heroes in fights. E: ? R: High damage + mini stun. Increases AP for a short time, this so that players are sorta forced to use it early in fights to get maximum effect from it rather than use it to killsteal. The mini stun is to be used to interrupt ults such as galio and fiddle.
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On February 12 2011 17:56 puckstop101 wrote: Champion Name - The Fox
spells - Upsmash - Clears all CC effects and does massive AoE dmg to everyone around him
Shine - Creates a blue shield which reflects all tower damage taken by Fox onto nearby enemies
Laser - Infinite range single shot, low damage, no cooldown, no mana cost
Come on! - All players rage quit
First thing that came to mind after reading champ name..
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I'd like if they made an idealized version of Udyr. That would mean 2 things: The forms are even more different, and instead of capping at 6, they would cap at like 10 so you could become a very-phoenix or very-tiger, etc Udyr. Possibly that would have an additional unique effect at a high level, like an egg-reincarnation on Phoenix.
Also experiment with a classic Fire-Ice-Lightning-Arcane mage that somehow could spec into one at lvl 6.
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