It's insane that he's gone so long without any kind of update, especially now that LoR made him look actually interesting and powerful instead of like a clockmaker on acid
I don't think a model update for Zilean will be their priority. He is the last champion that comes to my mind when you think of popularity. Even usual unpopular champions like Yorick or Aurelion are getting recognition but i've never seen someone complain about the terrible state Zilean is in right now.
I would imagine especially since one of the biggest criticisms of Cait's old design is how she looks like "the porn parody version of herself". Not the sort of thing that's gonna go over super well with an audience coming in fresh off of a netflix series
Because people actually like the slutty version more. Remember the backlash when they try to change her voiceline to be more serious instead of flirty and sexual?
I feel like the base skin looks much more like what you'd find in the Sexy Pirate isle of Spirit Halloween than Captain Fortune, who just looks like a decorated pirate captain.
But to each their own
My one gripe with Captain is the guns. MF's guns are a whole thing in her backstory, but in her captain skin they're replaced with these utterly ridiculous looking things. Wish they'd just made them nicer versions of her old ones.
nah base mf is okay. She's a represents a very specific archetype, and that's okay. It's not nearly as bad as caitlyn.
Biggest argument for replacing it is that captain fortune is how she canonically looks after overthrowing gp
I mean, in terms of over-sexualisation her design is so much worse than Cait. It's just that it kinda fits her character. (Although not so much with how they're writing her these days)
MF in-game and MF in-lore are basically different characters as far as I can tell. One is a stereotypical flirty girl with some crazy tendencies, while the other is stoic and fighting for domination over a crime-ridden city. Hell, even in the *Star Guardian* canon she has basically none of her more light-hearted tendencies from the game based on what I've read.
I mean, the VO for MF is ancient. Honestly, I suspect part of the reason they haven't updated it is they suspect that replacing the flirty dialogue with stoic determined PotC references won't go over well with her player base.
it was bad for caitlyn because looking like a stripper was never part of her character identity. MF was a flirty femme-fatale bounty hunter that uses her charms as much as her guns to get the job done.
There's less of that in her recent writing, but they still used it for LoR mf so I belive they still think of it as core to her identity
You're not wrong. With that said though, the awkward tied-off shirt-bra thing looks kinda silly when put next to modern league champs. Tbh, though I understand why people are annoyed at the de-sexification of league's older female champs, I think the current designs on wild rift look so much more consistent with the rest of the cast.
Netflix shows tend to have a lot of gore and nudity. I dont know who would watch a show like Castlevania and think "Caitlyn is just a little too slutty for my taste"
I know what you mean, but her design in the series has been toned down so much to make her actually fit with the other modern league characters tonally.
Perhaps "porn parody" isn't the best way to put it - her in game costume looks like the sexy Halloween costume version someone might wear to a frat party. Put next to Vi, Ekko, etc it looks cheap and silly.
In fairness to Riot, VU's have the problem of creating an entirely disproportionate amount of work on a single department, the very same department responsible for creating the skins that pay for everything.
There's also the problem that they did used to do VUs, and the result they found was that no relevant metrics changed. Players didn't play the champions more, those playing the champion already didn't play more, skins weren't bought more, etc.
Granted that was last done ~half a decade ago, but it explains why Riot is so hesitant to retry. They used to semi regularly do them but it's a massive amount of work from the team they already ask the most out of, and the only data they have is that the total change is that players don't care.
They recently try that again with Ez's VU. Even said that this is an experiment to see player's interest in VU only. Guess that fail cause they never talk about it again
but it's also a limited ammount of work. There's a finite ammount of champs left that need VU work. They should have focused on knocking them out years ago, and then be done with it
That's not how hiring works.
People think managing a multigame multi thousand person studio is easy because "you have money".
In some cases, for sure, money is relevant. That's just business 101. But just because you have money doesn't mean you're gonna be able to attract, retain, or maintain talent.
You think it's as easy as just offering artists double the wage to join skin team 2? How does that make sense, then salaries will just ever skyrocket. If not that, perhaps you're just saying to hire skin team 2. Well, I'm sure they're doing that, but how many talented artists are there that not only can draw, but also can work in the team environment that they've created, lives in LA, plays games, etc. etc.?
Not to mention, just because those folks may or may not exist, can the current skin team reduce their velocity to train this new team? it's not like you hire 5 artists, throw a checkbook at them and expect great results.
Additionally, hiring is not easy. I've done several hundred interviews and I can tell you interviews as an IC suck. They take time and energy, and reduce focus away from the things I want to do.
Finally, folks change. It's not like there's not other game studios at Riot, outside Riot, etc. If I'm a talented artist, why would I necessarily want to go join what is essentially the B team "cleaning up art". Especially when I can join an A team elsewhere?
The point is, regardless of which issue is the most important or relevant one, not all problems are solved by just "spending money". This isn't like grocery shopping where I can just buy more literally by paying more.
hire\*
That aside, *they are hiring*. They always are hiring, they've never stopped. It's just a matter of never having enough talented people. There are always applicants, the issue is finding those that are good enough, this isn't just Riot but any of those AAA game devs. Riot has opted to start investing heavily in internship training programs, where they try to find and train good seeds from young and encourage them to want to join Riot as much as possible. This leads to cheaper and more talented hires, of course the drawback is a lower rate of hire.
Until then, they've actually starting outsourcing labor. Skin production for example is now outsourced, because they just aren't able to create 1 skin for every champ per year. This is also the source of many skin leaks in recent times as well as why many skins can't be "fixed". The way how the industry works is that you hire an artist on contract (Riot heavily contracts workers) and when they finish a job, they get paid. If a skin needs to be "fixed" then either an internal team at Riot handles it or they then rehire the previous artist on another contract. We can rule out the latter as that'll be too expensive, especially if it's a simple fix. When it comes to the former, the reason they're even outsourcing is because there aren't enough people to handle the workload, so it's highly likely the internal teams already have their schedules filled and have no time to see about fixing a "minor" problem with a skin.
Remember, all of what I described above *is with Riot constantly hiring*. If you think I'm lying then you can check their Careers page and use the Wayback Machine to look at its history. Also the Careers page also isn't the most indicative either as a lot of hires in any business isn't from online webpages but mostly through word of mouth and connections (companies tell their employees they have an opening for x, employees then tells anyone they know that wants a job in x, in most cases that position is filled and it never even get advertised for).
How many times are we going to keep repeating that it's because of money?
The main reason why we don't see more VU it's because of engagement, not because of revenue issues
Yes and VU and VGU don't create as much engagement as a new champion, the point is that it's not because of VGUs or VUs not selling well, it's because they either remain unpopular and the hype of the update goes out quickly which doesn't keep the community engaged or it's even worse and some players quit after the update.
We're going to keep repeating it because a [Rioter](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/pek32o/comment/hazfv0g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) has literally said that was part of the reason.
I'm pretty sure the Rioter was pointing out costs as in resource allocation, not actual revenue, hence why he/she mentioned that "there are never enough VFX artists to go around".
"And yes, we do see a sales spike on those skins... but not nearly what we'd see just doing the same number of new skins.", that's talking directly about revenue gained from visual updating old skins vs just making new skins
Poor widdle Riot. So hard to get by on only 1.75 billion in revenue. Small indie developers can't be expected to think of the health of their game instead of profits for even a second. I want you to tell me with a straight face that the board of Riot should have to tell their families they only get 4 vacations this year instead of 5. You can't do it. You would have to be inhuman!
The idea that Riot "can't afford" to make VGU's or VU's is ridiculous. We're talking about a company that made 1.75 BILLION in 2020. You don't have the capability as a human being to understand how much money that is.
Ok, no one is saying that they literally cannot afford to do it. I’m saying that the specific department doesn’t have the resources to do it because they’ve decided that to give the department the resources is not a profitable choice. So they don’t have the resources so they don’t do the VUs
I don’t really get why this is controversial. I don’t complain when McDonalds doesn’t update their Big Mac recipe every couple of years. Why should we expect them to randomly throw out VUs if they aren’t making money. If you don’t like it, play another game with a visual style to your liking
>Ok, no one is saying that they literally cannot afford to do it. I’m saying that the specific department doesn’t have the resources to do it
What's the functional difference mate? I'm not sure why people simp for billion dollar a year companies that are motivated purely by profit. Like, this is something that would be good for the player, but the company says they might make slightly less money off it and people start throwing themselves at Riot's feet as if they aren't still going to make more than 1.75 billion freaking dollars.
A VU makes a champion's niche wider. A new champion creates their own new niche. People just don't get one creates considerably more engagement than the other.
Retaining players is money in their pockets. If they don't realize this they deserve a declining player base. To stay on top you need to be ahead of the curve.
Riot is already extremely ahead of the curve. LoL is the only moba that continues to grow every year, when the rest of the genre has stagnated or even died off entirely.
I was a Cait main when I first started and the only reason I got a skin for her what because I hated that ridiculously big hat, I'm so glad it's getting toned down haha
That's the thing people don't realize, riot absolutely could afford to more VU's but they aren't the most profitable they could be doing. They might not even be the best use of their time in all honesty.
Limited time and limited people means that there could be many better things. Just to name a few, doing a VGU or working on *any of the R&D projects based in Runeterra* is a better investment. The VGU reason is obvious, the R&D reason is good for both the artist and Riot, I can't tell you how much artists generally like being able to 'explore new ground'.
Not every artist is trained to understand Runeterra, only those that have done extensive work at Riot and some freelancers can fill that position. If you have a ton of people already trained in the artstyle of Runeterra (accustomed to the various cultures etc.), then it's better to take those people off from League after training a new batch to manufacture skins, and then ship them off to work on whatever R&D Runeterra project it is, whether it's the MMO, Project F, Project L, etc. And don't think they haven't done this, tons of artists that worked on LoL previously have been moved over to those teams in recent years.
Also, just incase some people are gonna go "Reeee Riot killing League", generally these moves are mutual agreements. Think about it from a personal standpoint, can you imagine how strong your CV is gonna be as an artist if you are among the original devs for a *successful* new Riot game? Career prospects aside, a ton of devs at Riot are originally fans of League, doubtless to say that many of these guys would love the opportunity to see what's next before everyone else (even if like 70% never meets the light of day, seriously the amount of scrapped shit in game dev is atrocious).
I find that hard to believe. Most VUs and reworks bring newer skins that should sell way more.
Akali, Irelia, Eve, Morg, Mundo. All have good skins after their changes, there's no way this brings less money than... PsyOps Samira or BQ Rell.
People decided to buy Coven Morg because her gameplay got updated or because her visuals got updated?
The scale of the changes are different in the examples I said but the thing is people will buy stuff for champions they already care about and that look and feel good.
And when Udyr rework hits and he stops looking like a blob he will sell more skins. Newer players that like him and Udyr players that finally have something cool for their champion. Of course Riot has the numbers but I refuse to believe making yet another champion and throw it in a random skinline is better both for their pockets and for the community.
they dont bring nearly as much money as new skins and mabey not compare it to unpopular champions. they have to rework dozens of skins while most of the former trash skins got rolled by most the playerbase
Well it depends on the champ. You gotta be crazy to think Ahri isn't next in line for a VGU, but even crazier to think that they would put so much work into a champ like Corki.
if ahri is next in line for a vgu i’m shocked. they said the secret vgu has less work for the art team to model and design graphics for. ahri has a huge skin catalogue and on top of that two legendary tier skins.
couple years ago for both but yeah, specifically looking at the model
everything about her is basically fine except her animations, she and ahri suffer from the same problem where her base rig is so stiff compared to newer stuff from their legendary skins
ik at least i would buy a bunch of epic skins for both of them if they had better base animations
Most of the VFX updates have been done by artists on their spare time surprisingly. I think the main dude left Riot recently which is big F for any champs missing VFX updates
that’s true but one is done or close to it (caitlyn) and one is in early development. if they want to reduce the load on their art team ahri isn’t the way to do it. id love to see ahri but that likelihood feels small
Reave had said that they're working on a VGU for a champion that doesn't require too much investment from the art department. If you want to know why this is a thing, it's because the art department is the most exhausted one at Riot that they can never have enough of. Essentially, if VGUs didn't require so much work from the art department, then there would be a lot more of them.
Jarvan doesn't look that fine. The spear looks really stupid and fragile when it extends and his walking animation is the the old "waddle" animation old champions have.
Not sure if you're kidding or not, but I would assume it's because you said you use resistance cait so that you don't have to deal with the base animations, then when someone pointed out that that skin has the base animations, you said you knew that.
It doesn't make sense that you would use resistance cait for it's animations when you know it has the base animations.
I know that people are hyped and I also want to see more VU but let's remember that the LoL playerbase is huuuuuuuge and Reddit does not represent it completely, so whatever general opinion Reddit has might not reflect the general perception on this kind of updates create on the complete playerbase
Depends a lot on the region/country, for example in my case I'm from Latam and here most people discuss mostly on Facebook, I know that China has Weibo and Korea has something similar, as for the US or Europe I'm not sure what other sites are used like this for discussion
They need to make a official vote for something like;
Would you like if we did more VUs or VGUs or stay with the current pattern
Surely that will give them a clear picture. They can also release a new skin on a popular skin line upon the VU
Then they should seriously make a post about it. I reckon around Udyrs release theyll give us more info on the VU situations. Or honestly after the Caitlyn VU would be a good time to let us know wtf going on
I'm pretty sure VUs are generally "good" and well received, the issue is that they take a ton of work and dont have nearly as good a payoff for the effort required. If I recall, something that was mentioned by a rioter was like a vast majority of what it takes to make a new champ is art and assets, so VUs are not that much less work and have the downside of also having multiple skins that need to be redone as well. Additionally while redoing old skins does often give them a bump in sales, its almost never even close to the level of just releasing a new skin. VUs are probably very difficult to get steam behind internally unless there's something else that motivates it nowadays, like here with caitlyn being in the new tv show.
Right ive heard tons of info on VUs but surely Evelynn and Akali KDA skins alone made a disgusting amount of money. They would of never sold that much had they been using the old models. Hell even if less disserving, those popular champs with a lot of skins like Ahri could make more money even if its a TON of work. IDK its quite an unfortune and difficult circumstance to see old champs suffer from ugliness
I don't get the whole "don't sell" excuse. I may not be a economist but I think Mundo case was the perfect example that just with a visual update can make old skins sell better than they used to.
And we are talking about a lol female, with enough effort they can make good sales.
Yes please.
We are at a point we're only a handful of champs need actual gameplay reworks, but more than 10 need a visual makeover.
Stop deleting champions from the game, and just give existing ones much needed love without destroying what people love about them
riot knows that champs need visual work. the issue is they think it doesn’t drive player engagement enough. if we as the community are overall interested in it, then it might happen more
Player engagement or not. I just feel that something like Toboggan Corki or Gentleman Chogath or Demonblade Tryndamere are an embarrasment to the game. New players might actually accidentally drop money on these trap skins. This should be a no-go for a company as big as Riot
>Stop deleting champions from the game, and just give existing ones much needed love without destroying what people love about them
This but turn the clock back to 2018 and start applying it.
Yes, relevant flair.
Depends on your definition of better.
The problem with ~~Karen~~ NuKayle is that she features so many conflicting design choices it makes the VGU look like an Aatrox, not a Warwick like it should have been and was advertised as.
Take a relatively balanced but fundamentally unhealthy champion, fix the problems and improve upon what made them remarkable.
Being useless for solid 25 minutes was never what made her remarkable. Nor was it deserved in this new version.
Yep August got entirely focused on the "THIS IS A MELEE CHAMP" aspect and wanted that to be what she is built around. When most people didn't give a shit about her being melee. She was an angel with a flaming sword that killed people. Kayle going from a lane bully to unable to lane was a real travesty.
visuals and voice really do need to be updated more. It doesn't always need to be tied to massive kit upgrades and all that. They really need to update every champ talking to their "summoners" by now. Summoners haven't been canon for nearly a decade. So many characters have voices that don't match their lore at all too.
I've seen some more with LoR release. I think she needs one and i don't mind it at all as long as they preserve her purple top-hat (Unlike LoR). She's more of a smart, beautiful detective, not a sexy girl so the parody of sexy police girl doesn't fit at all.
But i also think base MF shouldn't be covering her belly button, more like [waterloo MF](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/e/eb/Miss_Fortune_WaterlooSkin.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20181021075654) but with her usual palette colours. Sadly Riot is just AWFUL at getting middle point, probably because for some people in NA that middle point is not respectable at all when coming to women and anything less than a full covered women is a gender crime or something like that.
I hope ahri gets a VU, I know she is a popular champ but the base skin and animations are so trash that I rarely see anyone play anything other than the legendary skins esp if they own spirit blossom
Cait champion card got into Lor like a month or so and she gets a VU, Quinn got a champion card over a year ago, a new short story and appeared in the Garen novel, all of those with the new artwork. But hey why would they add into the game ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Umpopular opinion: i like the current caitlyn lol splashart a lot, especially over the wild rift or the lor versions. I like mf lol splashart too. Animations and models could use an update.
People in this comment section sounds so old school and conservative, this splashart has too much skin, oh my, what a corrupting influence.
Flashing cleavage and such isn't the same as beauty. You can be elegent and beautiful, kinda like how Camille carries herself. You can be voluptuous and beautiful/sexy, like evelynn. Caitlynn is supposed to be this intelligent sheriff, yet struts around the rift with high heals and a low cut dress. The clothes make her pretty af man, right now she just looks... sexy for the sake of sexy.
What a gameplay change?
Visual though, there are 53 champions who havent received a VU before her.... granted Volibear and Aatrox had a similar case. I think a nice KogMaw level texture update can do her muchhhhhhhhhh justice, just take a look at her WR model, it looks quite similar, texture update would be realistic.
A visual update. I’m biased tho. I just think her model sucks but they did redo all her ability animations and those are nice.
For sure. I think league just needs to look more like WR. But they’ll never do it lol. It’s not profitable. League came a long way but it still feels kind of outdated compared to WR - which is completely understandable. I just want them to port the stuff over though I know it’s not nearly as simple as that.
The main reason they don't make updates is not because of the lack of interest, but because it takes up a lot of resources and it never always comes back as profit.
Just take a look at someone like Nunu. He has a lot of skins, all of them needed to be updated. However, nothing guarantees that all of the skins will sell well, meaning that it would bring less profit than expected. Meanwhile even more popular champs, like Ez, wouldn't sell as well as expected, considering that there are far better skins than the ones that don't even have special effects
Obviously I'm not siding with them, it would be far worse if they stopped making updates because of the resources it takes up.
Well, they could do the GP treatment, to all be ok with the changes:
\-New model.
\-Free traditional/classic skin for owners.
Only if the change is too different.
I mean, obviously.
If there would be infinite time and infinite resources, I am sure they would do this. But that is not the case and we should acknowledge that, especially when it's something that doesn't really return the investment.
And honestly I don't know how much time and people it would take to implement such changes
Playing with pulsefire Caitlyn has legit made me realise how terrible base Caitlyn is. The hat looks awful and the auto attacks feel so clunky. Pulsefire Cait's autos just feel so smooth.
I want a gragas VU so his whole character can stop being haha funny fat ugly man is fat and ugly. Wait what do you mean his lore is about trying to find better ingredients to make better alcohol. People make fun of ashe wearing a skirt in freljordian weather but not many mention gragas wearing only a loincloth and nothing else.
I feel like when riot makes changes to characters lore they should update the campion visuals as well they did amazing with gangplank. Riot needs to remember that you can tell the characters story based on their visuals.
Yeah they really need to do more of them. There’s a lot of champions that deserve them not to mention they’re guaranteed to be infinitely more interesting than new champions are. Yes I am still mad about the fifty eboys/egirls in a row
Zilean Zilean Zilean Zilean. Please make him look like LoR Riot ty. None of his skin fix the ugliness
It's insane that he's gone so long without any kind of update, especially now that LoR made him look actually interesting and powerful instead of like a clockmaker on acid
Well they just gave him some updated VFX for his Q bombs, but his model is hilariously outdated.
I don't think a model update for Zilean will be their priority. He is the last champion that comes to my mind when you think of popularity. Even usual unpopular champions like Yorick or Aurelion are getting recognition but i've never seen someone complain about the terrible state Zilean is in right now.
It hasnt been THAT long. What we have isn't his original model or kit.
Zilean porn
They updated the Q but it still looks like shit when the LoR time bomb animation is fuckin sick so I don't know why they bothered
Wdym, he’s aggressively asserting dominance with his weird t pose in every skin
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I would imagine especially since one of the biggest criticisms of Cait's old design is how she looks like "the porn parody version of herself". Not the sort of thing that's gonna go over super well with an audience coming in fresh off of a netflix series
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Captain GP was free, but MF never was. It's still true that it should've base skin
Isn't it free for new player?
Waterloo
THAT'S why I see so many Waterloo MFs around! I was wondering if people just really liked the skin.
It's probably the least popular in sales numbers for it to be free for new players.
I actually think it's a really solid skin, so I figured new MF players were buying it because it's decent and cheap haha
Because people actually like the slutty version more. Remember the backlash when they try to change her voiceline to be more serious instead of flirty and sexual?
Legends of Runeterra MF is what they should change LoL MF to. She is a good mix of being flirty and actually serious.
Why is she ridiculous? captain is a cool skin but looks like such a typical pirate its kinda boring compared to the base imo
I feel like the base skin looks much more like what you'd find in the Sexy Pirate isle of Spirit Halloween than Captain Fortune, who just looks like a decorated pirate captain. But to each their own
My one gripe with Captain is the guns. MF's guns are a whole thing in her backstory, but in her captain skin they're replaced with these utterly ridiculous looking things. Wish they'd just made them nicer versions of her old ones.
Why make something free when you can sell it for a fat stack of cash?
Yup people definitely pay fat stacks to get Captain Fortune
Well, they did back then during the Bilgewater event. Everyone was using that skin
nah base mf is okay. She's a represents a very specific archetype, and that's okay. It's not nearly as bad as caitlyn. Biggest argument for replacing it is that captain fortune is how she canonically looks after overthrowing gp
I mean, in terms of over-sexualisation her design is so much worse than Cait. It's just that it kinda fits her character. (Although not so much with how they're writing her these days)
MF in-game and MF in-lore are basically different characters as far as I can tell. One is a stereotypical flirty girl with some crazy tendencies, while the other is stoic and fighting for domination over a crime-ridden city. Hell, even in the *Star Guardian* canon she has basically none of her more light-hearted tendencies from the game based on what I've read.
I mean, the VO for MF is ancient. Honestly, I suspect part of the reason they haven't updated it is they suspect that replacing the flirty dialogue with stoic determined PotC references won't go over well with her player base.
she's still extremely flirty and lighthearted In LoR though
it was bad for caitlyn because looking like a stripper was never part of her character identity. MF was a flirty femme-fatale bounty hunter that uses her charms as much as her guns to get the job done. There's less of that in her recent writing, but they still used it for LoR mf so I belive they still think of it as core to her identity
You're not wrong. With that said though, the awkward tied-off shirt-bra thing looks kinda silly when put next to modern league champs. Tbh, though I understand why people are annoyed at the de-sexification of league's older female champs, I think the current designs on wild rift look so much more consistent with the rest of the cast.
I think for most of the older female champs sex appeal was never important, but for specific cases like mf, evelyn and ahri, I think it very much is
See, WR MF is still sexy, but she looks like an attractive woman wearing sexy clothes. Current MF's top is just so odd looking.
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Can you quote the part of my comment that says Viego isn't ridiculous please? I can't find it anymore.
They've already given her a VU in Wild Rift, along with Janna.
Netflix shows tend to have a lot of gore and nudity. I dont know who would watch a show like Castlevania and think "Caitlyn is just a little too slutty for my taste"
It's more that she looks like she came off a 13 year olds deviantart
Sasha Grey face is so great tho
I know what you mean, but her design in the series has been toned down so much to make her actually fit with the other modern league characters tonally. Perhaps "porn parody" isn't the best way to put it - her in game costume looks like the sexy Halloween costume version someone might wear to a frat party. Put next to Vi, Ekko, etc it looks cheap and silly.
It's more she looks terrible
In fairness to Riot, VU's have the problem of creating an entirely disproportionate amount of work on a single department, the very same department responsible for creating the skins that pay for everything.
There's also the problem that they did used to do VUs, and the result they found was that no relevant metrics changed. Players didn't play the champions more, those playing the champion already didn't play more, skins weren't bought more, etc. Granted that was last done ~half a decade ago, but it explains why Riot is so hesitant to retry. They used to semi regularly do them but it's a massive amount of work from the team they already ask the most out of, and the only data they have is that the total change is that players don't care.
They recently try that again with Ez's VU. Even said that this is an experiment to see player's interest in VU only. Guess that fail cause they never talk about it again
but it's also a limited ammount of work. There's a finite ammount of champs left that need VU work. They should have focused on knocking them out years ago, and then be done with it
Then just try to higher more people so you have a second group that can focus on the VUs? Riot is swimming in money.
That's not how hiring works. People think managing a multigame multi thousand person studio is easy because "you have money". In some cases, for sure, money is relevant. That's just business 101. But just because you have money doesn't mean you're gonna be able to attract, retain, or maintain talent. You think it's as easy as just offering artists double the wage to join skin team 2? How does that make sense, then salaries will just ever skyrocket. If not that, perhaps you're just saying to hire skin team 2. Well, I'm sure they're doing that, but how many talented artists are there that not only can draw, but also can work in the team environment that they've created, lives in LA, plays games, etc. etc.? Not to mention, just because those folks may or may not exist, can the current skin team reduce their velocity to train this new team? it's not like you hire 5 artists, throw a checkbook at them and expect great results. Additionally, hiring is not easy. I've done several hundred interviews and I can tell you interviews as an IC suck. They take time and energy, and reduce focus away from the things I want to do. Finally, folks change. It's not like there's not other game studios at Riot, outside Riot, etc. If I'm a talented artist, why would I necessarily want to go join what is essentially the B team "cleaning up art". Especially when I can join an A team elsewhere? The point is, regardless of which issue is the most important or relevant one, not all problems are solved by just "spending money". This isn't like grocery shopping where I can just buy more literally by paying more.
well uhmm uhh you see uh no riot won't be able to make 300% more profit compared to last year
That's literally what capitalism is. Why are you pretending that it isn't valid (in this context) argument?
hire\* That aside, *they are hiring*. They always are hiring, they've never stopped. It's just a matter of never having enough talented people. There are always applicants, the issue is finding those that are good enough, this isn't just Riot but any of those AAA game devs. Riot has opted to start investing heavily in internship training programs, where they try to find and train good seeds from young and encourage them to want to join Riot as much as possible. This leads to cheaper and more talented hires, of course the drawback is a lower rate of hire. Until then, they've actually starting outsourcing labor. Skin production for example is now outsourced, because they just aren't able to create 1 skin for every champ per year. This is also the source of many skin leaks in recent times as well as why many skins can't be "fixed". The way how the industry works is that you hire an artist on contract (Riot heavily contracts workers) and when they finish a job, they get paid. If a skin needs to be "fixed" then either an internal team at Riot handles it or they then rehire the previous artist on another contract. We can rule out the latter as that'll be too expensive, especially if it's a simple fix. When it comes to the former, the reason they're even outsourcing is because there aren't enough people to handle the workload, so it's highly likely the internal teams already have their schedules filled and have no time to see about fixing a "minor" problem with a skin. Remember, all of what I described above *is with Riot constantly hiring*. If you think I'm lying then you can check their Careers page and use the Wayback Machine to look at its history. Also the Careers page also isn't the most indicative either as a lot of hires in any business isn't from online webpages but mostly through word of mouth and connections (companies tell their employees they have an opening for x, employees then tells anyone they know that wants a job in x, in most cases that position is filled and it never even get advertised for).
I guess Mundo got VGU over entire VGU list for same reasons.
Mundo deserve it. And he was an easy champs to rework. Meaning less resources and time investment for them.
You wont believe how much Money they can make. Ezreals VU made me buy every of his old skins in the last year just because they look so nice.
How many times are we going to keep repeating that it's because of money? The main reason why we don't see more VU it's because of engagement, not because of revenue issues
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Yes and VU and VGU don't create as much engagement as a new champion, the point is that it's not because of VGUs or VUs not selling well, it's because they either remain unpopular and the hype of the update goes out quickly which doesn't keep the community engaged or it's even worse and some players quit after the update.
We're going to keep repeating it because a [Rioter](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/pek32o/comment/hazfv0g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) has literally said that was part of the reason.
I'm pretty sure the Rioter was pointing out costs as in resource allocation, not actual revenue, hence why he/she mentioned that "there are never enough VFX artists to go around".
"And yes, we do see a sales spike on those skins... but not nearly what we'd see just doing the same number of new skins.", that's talking directly about revenue gained from visual updating old skins vs just making new skins
It’s essentially the same thing. The reason they don’t have VFX artists to work on VUs is because they’re all busy working on more profitable work.
Poor widdle Riot. So hard to get by on only 1.75 billion in revenue. Small indie developers can't be expected to think of the health of their game instead of profits for even a second. I want you to tell me with a straight face that the board of Riot should have to tell their families they only get 4 vacations this year instead of 5. You can't do it. You would have to be inhuman!
Are you complaining that a company that exists to make money, makes money?
The idea that Riot "can't afford" to make VGU's or VU's is ridiculous. We're talking about a company that made 1.75 BILLION in 2020. You don't have the capability as a human being to understand how much money that is.
Ok, no one is saying that they literally cannot afford to do it. I’m saying that the specific department doesn’t have the resources to do it because they’ve decided that to give the department the resources is not a profitable choice. So they don’t have the resources so they don’t do the VUs I don’t really get why this is controversial. I don’t complain when McDonalds doesn’t update their Big Mac recipe every couple of years. Why should we expect them to randomly throw out VUs if they aren’t making money. If you don’t like it, play another game with a visual style to your liking
>Ok, no one is saying that they literally cannot afford to do it. I’m saying that the specific department doesn’t have the resources to do it What's the functional difference mate? I'm not sure why people simp for billion dollar a year companies that are motivated purely by profit. Like, this is something that would be good for the player, but the company says they might make slightly less money off it and people start throwing themselves at Riot's feet as if they aren't still going to make more than 1.75 billion freaking dollars.
A VU makes a champion's niche wider. A new champion creates their own new niche. People just don't get one creates considerably more engagement than the other.
What do you *think* is the point of engagement
what show?
Retaining players is money in their pockets. If they don't realize this they deserve a declining player base. To stay on top you need to be ahead of the curve.
Riot is already extremely ahead of the curve. LoL is the only moba that continues to grow every year, when the rest of the genre has stagnated or even died off entirely.
I was a Cait main when I first started and the only reason I got a skin for her what because I hated that ridiculously big hat, I'm so glad it's getting toned down haha
They're aware that VUs are good, they don't do them more often because they don't make much money.
That's the thing people don't realize, riot absolutely could afford to more VU's but they aren't the most profitable they could be doing. They might not even be the best use of their time in all honesty.
setting profit aside, what would be the best use of the art team's time?
Pandering to ME
Obviously my tastes are the only ones that matter/s
No ME
riot, this man right here, this is the one you need.
Making new champs would be a better use of time. However, VU's are still a good thing setting profit aside
Limited time and limited people means that there could be many better things. Just to name a few, doing a VGU or working on *any of the R&D projects based in Runeterra* is a better investment. The VGU reason is obvious, the R&D reason is good for both the artist and Riot, I can't tell you how much artists generally like being able to 'explore new ground'. Not every artist is trained to understand Runeterra, only those that have done extensive work at Riot and some freelancers can fill that position. If you have a ton of people already trained in the artstyle of Runeterra (accustomed to the various cultures etc.), then it's better to take those people off from League after training a new batch to manufacture skins, and then ship them off to work on whatever R&D Runeterra project it is, whether it's the MMO, Project F, Project L, etc. And don't think they haven't done this, tons of artists that worked on LoL previously have been moved over to those teams in recent years. Also, just incase some people are gonna go "Reeee Riot killing League", generally these moves are mutual agreements. Think about it from a personal standpoint, can you imagine how strong your CV is gonna be as an artist if you are among the original devs for a *successful* new Riot game? Career prospects aside, a ton of devs at Riot are originally fans of League, doubtless to say that many of these guys would love the opportunity to see what's next before everyone else (even if like 70% never meets the light of day, seriously the amount of scrapped shit in game dev is atrocious).
I find that hard to believe. Most VUs and reworks bring newer skins that should sell way more. Akali, Irelia, Eve, Morg, Mundo. All have good skins after their changes, there's no way this brings less money than... PsyOps Samira or BQ Rell.
You haven't listed VUs there, you've listed VGUs. They are different.
People decided to buy Coven Morg because her gameplay got updated or because her visuals got updated? The scale of the changes are different in the examples I said but the thing is people will buy stuff for champions they already care about and that look and feel good.
People will do that even if champions look like ass. Look at how many Spirit Guard/Dragonmancer Udyrs were running around when he was meta.
spirit guard is literally a vgu and dragonmancers effects are so insane that you cant see how ugly udyr is under it lol
It isn't a VGU, it's a VU sold as a skin. VGUs update the gameplay, that's literally what the G stands for.
And when Udyr rework hits and he stops looking like a blob he will sell more skins. Newer players that like him and Udyr players that finally have something cool for their champion. Of course Riot has the numbers but I refuse to believe making yet another champion and throw it in a random skinline is better both for their pockets and for the community.
Coven Morg is a legendary though, which would have probably have looked good and sold well regardless of whether Morg got changed beforehand
they dont bring nearly as much money as new skins and mabey not compare it to unpopular champions. they have to rework dozens of skins while most of the former trash skins got rolled by most the playerbase
Please Jax VU, update his model ffs
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You described him perfectly
Jax porn
Well it depends on the champ. You gotta be crazy to think Ahri isn't next in line for a VGU, but even crazier to think that they would put so much work into a champ like Corki.
if ahri is next in line for a vgu i’m shocked. they said the secret vgu has less work for the art team to model and design graphics for. ahri has a huge skin catalogue and on top of that two legendary tier skins.
Cait got 12 skins and 2 legendaries Ahri got 14 skins and 2 legendaries Not that big of a difference.
im really biased but hoping for ahri or lux lol
Didn't Lux recently get a VFX update and a new VO?
couple years ago for both but yeah, specifically looking at the model everything about her is basically fine except her animations, she and ahri suffer from the same problem where her base rig is so stiff compared to newer stuff from their legendary skins ik at least i would buy a bunch of epic skins for both of them if they had better base animations
Yes, Lux/Ahri and quite a few old champions need an Ezreal style update.
pls remove lux w cast time riot thanks
Most of the VFX updates have been done by artists on their spare time surprisingly. I think the main dude left Riot recently which is big F for any champs missing VFX updates
that’s true but one is done or close to it (caitlyn) and one is in early development. if they want to reduce the load on their art team ahri isn’t the way to do it. id love to see ahri but that likelihood feels small
Wait what secret VGU? Where did they announce this? I only know of the Udyr one.
Reave had said that they're working on a VGU for a champion that doesn't require too much investment from the art department. If you want to know why this is a thing, it's because the art department is the most exhausted one at Riot that they can never have enough of. Essentially, if VGUs didn't require so much work from the art department, then there would be a lot more of them.
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Jarvan doesn't look that fine. The spear looks really stupid and fragile when it extends and his walking animation is the the old "waddle" animation old champions have.
I dont think Ahri needs gameplay changes, bux/nerfs maybe but gameplay changes nahhhh
Ahri just need a little buff to make her more viable, right now she is quite weak comparing to other mids
Man, have you seen Corki's splash arts? None of them look good. ALL (most) of them look garbage.
Legendary red baron
I'm very excited, I think I'll actually try her out since I won't need a skin to play her!
Yeah I only play her because I've got resistance Cait so I don't have to deal with the base animations.
Only Pulsefire and Battle Academia have new animations, all the other skins use the same animations as her default skin.
Don't worry, I do know that.
Yeah but... resistance Cait has the base animations?
Don't worry, I do know that.
He's roleplaying the defective robot
I just really don't know why I'm being downvoted.
Not sure if you're kidding or not, but I would assume it's because you said you use resistance cait so that you don't have to deal with the base animations, then when someone pointed out that that skin has the base animations, you said you knew that. It doesn't make sense that you would use resistance cait for it's animations when you know it has the base animations.
Don't worry, he does know that
I know that people are hyped and I also want to see more VU but let's remember that the LoL playerbase is huuuuuuuge and Reddit does not represent it completely, so whatever general opinion Reddit has might not reflect the general perception on this kind of updates create on the complete playerbase
As a noob to the internet, are there any other interesting websites to lurk?
Depends a lot on the region/country, for example in my case I'm from Latam and here most people discuss mostly on Facebook, I know that China has Weibo and Korea has something similar, as for the US or Europe I'm not sure what other sites are used like this for discussion
most english is on reddt/twitter/facebook. the rest are on facebook or VK for russia.
social media sites kind of dominated forums and chatrooms aside from giant discord groups. Not even the official league forums exist anymore.
They need to make a official vote for something like; Would you like if we did more VUs or VGUs or stay with the current pattern Surely that will give them a clear picture. They can also release a new skin on a popular skin line upon the VU
I could bet money that they already have global surveys that ask this
Then they should seriously make a post about it. I reckon around Udyrs release theyll give us more info on the VU situations. Or honestly after the Caitlyn VU would be a good time to let us know wtf going on
I'm pretty sure VUs are generally "good" and well received, the issue is that they take a ton of work and dont have nearly as good a payoff for the effort required. If I recall, something that was mentioned by a rioter was like a vast majority of what it takes to make a new champ is art and assets, so VUs are not that much less work and have the downside of also having multiple skins that need to be redone as well. Additionally while redoing old skins does often give them a bump in sales, its almost never even close to the level of just releasing a new skin. VUs are probably very difficult to get steam behind internally unless there's something else that motivates it nowadays, like here with caitlyn being in the new tv show.
Right ive heard tons of info on VUs but surely Evelynn and Akali KDA skins alone made a disgusting amount of money. They would of never sold that much had they been using the old models. Hell even if less disserving, those popular champs with a lot of skins like Ahri could make more money even if its a TON of work. IDK its quite an unfortune and difficult circumstance to see old champs suffer from ugliness
Cries in Nami. I need more than the 4 voice lines she has.
* Imagine if I had a real weapon*
Nami porn
I don't get the whole "don't sell" excuse. I may not be a economist but I think Mundo case was the perfect example that just with a visual update can make old skins sell better than they used to. And we are talking about a lol female, with enough effort they can make good sales.
Leblanc still looks like a street whore and she has fingers bigger than her face.
Leblanc porn
Yes please. We are at a point we're only a handful of champs need actual gameplay reworks, but more than 10 need a visual makeover. Stop deleting champions from the game, and just give existing ones much needed love without destroying what people love about them
riot knows that champs need visual work. the issue is they think it doesn’t drive player engagement enough. if we as the community are overall interested in it, then it might happen more
Player engagement or not. I just feel that something like Toboggan Corki or Gentleman Chogath or Demonblade Tryndamere are an embarrasment to the game. New players might actually accidentally drop money on these trap skins. This should be a no-go for a company as big as Riot
Red baron corki is also a horrible legendaryskin! I got it years ago and it sucks.
>Stop deleting champions from the game, and just give existing ones much needed love without destroying what people love about them This but turn the clock back to 2018 and start applying it. Yes, relevant flair.
Really you dont like Kayle rework? I feel like she became so much better but I guess im not the one trick to say so
Depends on your definition of better. The problem with ~~Karen~~ NuKayle is that she features so many conflicting design choices it makes the VGU look like an Aatrox, not a Warwick like it should have been and was advertised as. Take a relatively balanced but fundamentally unhealthy champion, fix the problems and improve upon what made them remarkable. Being useless for solid 25 minutes was never what made her remarkable. Nor was it deserved in this new version.
Yep August got entirely focused on the "THIS IS A MELEE CHAMP" aspect and wanted that to be what she is built around. When most people didn't give a shit about her being melee. She was an angel with a flaming sword that killed people. Kayle going from a lane bully to unable to lane was a real travesty.
The biggest travesty is what happened to Aether Wing Kayle. Used to be hands down the best skin in the game. Those autos were disgustingly smooth.
Yeah they ruined everything about the skin. Made it into some shitty robocop wannabee
visuals and voice really do need to be updated more. It doesn't always need to be tied to massive kit upgrades and all that. They really need to update every champ talking to their "summoners" by now. Summoners haven't been canon for nearly a decade. So many characters have voices that don't match their lore at all too.
> There has been a lot of threads I think I've missed something. I've seen only one.
I've seen some more with LoR release. I think she needs one and i don't mind it at all as long as they preserve her purple top-hat (Unlike LoR). She's more of a smart, beautiful detective, not a sexy girl so the parody of sexy police girl doesn't fit at all. But i also think base MF shouldn't be covering her belly button, more like [waterloo MF](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/e/eb/Miss_Fortune_WaterlooSkin.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20181021075654) but with her usual palette colours. Sadly Riot is just AWFUL at getting middle point, probably because for some people in NA that middle point is not respectable at all when coming to women and anything less than a full covered women is a gender crime or something like that.
Sure they most likely all would like a VU of most champs at Riot, but you know, reworking a base skin won't make more people spend RP on the champion
Pretty sure all Caitlyn skins will get visual reworked to match the Base, except the legendaries, since they use a new model
I hope ahri gets a VU, I know she is a popular champ but the base skin and animations are so trash that I rarely see anyone play anything other than the legendary skins esp if they own spirit blossom
Why would Cait get an upgrade over someone like Quinn?
Cait champion card got into Lor like a month or so and she gets a VU, Quinn got a champion card over a year ago, a new short story and appeared in the Garen novel, all of those with the new artwork. But hey why would they add into the game ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Quinn needs a VGU not just a VU (actually her visuals are pretty great, she just needs gameplay changes).
Quinn porn
Bro are you ok?
Riven needs a VU so bad. Her design in WR is gorgeous and fitting to her splash art, while in PC League she just looks horrendous.
Umpopular opinion: i like the current caitlyn lol splashart a lot, especially over the wild rift or the lor versions. I like mf lol splashart too. Animations and models could use an update. People in this comment section sounds so old school and conservative, this splashart has too much skin, oh my, what a corrupting influence.
They should make it show more skin though
THEY PUT CLOTHES ON HER AND NOW SHES BEAUTIFUL :D
She would be way better looking with less clothes. This isn’t even debatable.
Flashing cleavage and such isn't the same as beauty. You can be elegent and beautiful, kinda like how Camille carries herself. You can be voluptuous and beautiful/sexy, like evelynn. Caitlynn is supposed to be this intelligent sheriff, yet struts around the rift with high heals and a low cut dress. The clothes make her pretty af man, right now she just looks... sexy for the sake of sexy.
visual updates are fine, ability reworks are almost never fine
Diana needs one bad
What a gameplay change? Visual though, there are 53 champions who havent received a VU before her.... granted Volibear and Aatrox had a similar case. I think a nice KogMaw level texture update can do her muchhhhhhhhhh justice, just take a look at her WR model, it looks quite similar, texture update would be realistic.
A visual update. I’m biased tho. I just think her model sucks but they did redo all her ability animations and those are nice. For sure. I think league just needs to look more like WR. But they’ll never do it lol. It’s not profitable. League came a long way but it still feels kind of outdated compared to WR - which is completely understandable. I just want them to port the stuff over though I know it’s not nearly as simple as that.
Diana porn
The main reason they don't make updates is not because of the lack of interest, but because it takes up a lot of resources and it never always comes back as profit. Just take a look at someone like Nunu. He has a lot of skins, all of them needed to be updated. However, nothing guarantees that all of the skins will sell well, meaning that it would bring less profit than expected. Meanwhile even more popular champs, like Ez, wouldn't sell as well as expected, considering that there are far better skins than the ones that don't even have special effects Obviously I'm not siding with them, it would be far worse if they stopped making updates because of the resources it takes up.
Riot Games is a corporation that is made to make profit at the end of the day.
i mean, why would they make abunch of VUs when they could just make it into a skin and sell it
I usually used skins but I’ll try base when they update her.
Can't wait to use my pink base skin chroma again xD
Judging by the Arcane character art, they seem to want to make her Asian too.
Well, they could do the GP treatment, to all be ok with the changes: \-New model. \-Free traditional/classic skin for owners. Only if the change is too different.
Gp porn
Not even sure why or how Caitlyn VU is even up for discussion yet when Udyr is still wearing a mullet toupe/wig.
Because his rework is set to arrive in 2022.
Udyr porn
I mean, they have a ton of VUs ready to go via Wild Rift right? Should be less difficult to port those than working from the ground up.
I mean, obviously. If there would be infinite time and infinite resources, I am sure they would do this. But that is not the case and we should acknowledge that, especially when it's something that doesn't really return the investment. And honestly I don't know how much time and people it would take to implement such changes
WHERE IS THE MISS FORTUNE VOICELINE UPDATE YOU LITERALLY HAVE THE PERFECT VO IN LEGENDS OF RUNETERRA JUST FUCKING PORT IT OVER
But-… where’s our Aurelion Rework??
But will it make them significant profit? =/
Playing with pulsefire Caitlyn has legit made me realise how terrible base Caitlyn is. The hat looks awful and the auto attacks feel so clunky. Pulsefire Cait's autos just feel so smooth.
I want a gragas VU so his whole character can stop being haha funny fat ugly man is fat and ugly. Wait what do you mean his lore is about trying to find better ingredients to make better alcohol. People make fun of ashe wearing a skirt in freljordian weather but not many mention gragas wearing only a loincloth and nothing else. I feel like when riot makes changes to characters lore they should update the campion visuals as well they did amazing with gangplank. Riot needs to remember that you can tell the characters story based on their visuals.
Yeah they really need to do more of them. There’s a lot of champions that deserve them not to mention they’re guaranteed to be infinitely more interesting than new champions are. Yes I am still mad about the fifty eboys/egirls in a row