League Of Legends Has An Identity Crisis

The title of this article is ironic, as League of Legends itself takes heavy inspiration from DotA: Allstars(to say the least). Granted some of the devs that worked on DotA: Allstars switched over to League’s development.

Keeping that aside, this article’s objective isn’t to re-open old wounds but rather to compare the current League of Legends with what it used to represent, nearly a decade ago.

All The Champions Are Starting To Look The Same

Skins are starting to look alike more and more
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An underlying issue has been going on with many of League of Legend’s skins, champion designs, and champion kits. It’s that a lot of them have started to look similar. Granted there are as of now 168 champions a lot of whom have many skins, so an issue on mass similarity was inevitable. However, it is Riot Games’  lack of attention to this issue that is concerning many League players.

Here’s a recent example:

The character to the right is Irelia, and the character to the left is “Porcelain Irelia,” a skin of the character on the right. Notice how the face of the skin doesn’t match that of the original Irelia. This is an underlying issue with many recent skins and even champions.

A good League skin reinvents the character and doesn’t alter it (i.e. the character is immediately recognizable despite having a different setting).

An example of a good skin is, “Dunkmaster Darius”. A Darius skin that turns the cold-hearted warlord of Noxus into a high school star basketball player. Notice how Darius still looks the same despite having a different setting, and all of the abilities in the skin are simple yet effectively clear.

Skins like Porcelain Irelia and others either create confusion on champion identification or visual obscurity.

Also, many spells/abilities look similar in some skins, an example of this is; Faerie Court Lux’s Light Binding (Q) and Faerie Court Ezreal’s Mystic Shot (Q) look similar.

On its own, it could mean that Riot Games is reusing old assets or just being plain lazy. However, the issue arises due to Lux’s Q being a Root spell that binds an enemy to one place, while Ezreal’s Q is a simple damaging spell. This is a potential game-losing confusion in a hyper-competitive game such as League.

Is It Just Me Or Does Someone Else “Feel” Deja Vu?

This skin philosophy has been seeping into champions’ designs and their kits. Back in my day, most mages weren’t mobile and were only expected to dish out crowd control and damage.

Now Riot casually creates a mage with; an increased move speed, invisibility, a 3-hit passive(They love this for some reason), and a better team fight ultimate than most tanks and other initiators.

Can’t satisfy everyone, but why do so many people hate new champs?
byu/GoatedGoat32 inleagueoflegends

She isn’t the first offender, nor the last. Champions like; K’Sante, the new Skarner, Smolder, and most other recent champions, commit the sin of having kits that “feel” too similar to other champions while the rest of their kit is generally uninspired at best and borderline broken at worst.

These range from stat increases that make no sense on a champion, 2 to 3 dashes, true damage(you cannot build any armor to negate true damage), or some other(forgive my French) bullsh*t. The word overloaded comes to mind when discussing these champions.

Where Did All The Inspiration Go?

Jhin was the best realised champion
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It wasn’t all like this, as in another time Riot Games was genuinely gifted when it came to champion design. Back in the day, a new champion was a hyped moment but now all it does is create animosity amongst the playerbase.

Jhin is a perfect example of Riot Games at its peak performance. His gameplay, lore, and his skins, everything oozes of originality. Jhin is a masterpiece and Riot Games magnum opus.

However, if this rushed and uninspired philosophy of game balance and cosmetic production continues, Riot Games can seriously be in trouble of failing their game…who am I kidding? This is League.

You’re honestly better off playing Dota 2, or quitting MOBAs overall(believe me it helps) because, despite once being a founding father for the MOBA genre, League of Legends’s lack of originality is becoming more apparent with each new champion and skin release.