Viktor, And Riot's "Let's Go Next" Problem
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- Опубликовано: 25 дек 2024
- Though Arcane's Viktor controversy is a recent development, long term League players will recognize this as yet another instance of what has been a long term pattern for Riot Games.
They don't understand that outside League, yes, Viktor was a generic Dr. Doom lookalike but inside League, he was the only character that had a fanatical obsession with machines and robots, making him unique inside the story. There was no other character like old Viktor in Runeterra but there are many characters like new Viktor in Runeterra. That's what hurts the most.
I think viktor was lame af and we didnt lose anything without him.
With that being said i wouldve heavily preffered if they tried to re adapt a new version of old viktor, share the body type of arcane viktor so you can make a cheap skin with its design, but wouldnt be too farfetched to imagine a different version from a different timeline where he progressed his plan solely with machine (and following the hextech logic of the main canon)
@@Cfdrifbloom your opinion. His old lore he wanted to help people his way, with cybernetics. Cold and dangerous shell with a heart of gold and not... this void nonsense. In some bits he actively fought against the void with the other mecha skins
even outside of league it's literally just him, the adeptus mechanicus and dr.doom, that's three things, if we're worrying about generic, there's hundreds of champions WAY more generic than viktor, garen?
The problem with Arcane is that it implied magic is rare, so in a vacuum, yes Arcane Viktor is unique but the more they continue to tell stories within that universe, Arcane is just going to look more dumber and dumber cause the world League of Legends is just filled with Magic.
The Arcame version of the world in future stories will not be filled with magic. That would go against the style of their stories. Besides, Arcane takes place in Oiltover and Zaun which are by themselves a steampunk sub-setting within the greater high fantasy setting.
@@Itisoverthere-rw If the arcaen future stories are not filled with magic because there are regions that rely heavy on magic to work, being those
- demacia
- targon
- shurima
- the shadow isles
- jonia
Also, piltover and zaun used to have magic conections, hextech used to be the fragments of dead magical scorpions, the shard that powers ekko´s Z-drive wasnt hextech in the original lore (it was implied to be hextech, but in hindsight it was obvious that what ekko used were one of zilean´s time crystals), zeri and seraphine wouldn exist as a whole because they are mages through and trough, the explorer guild is a guild in piltover that go from place to place scavenging magical things to put them in museums, im actually scared that they messed up the lore or retcon even more from what arcane did in the second season
Youre correct and it's kind of both a good and bad thing. One on hand, it makes characters like Jinx, Vi, Caitlyn, Jayce and Ambessa stand out. As they're not super powerful all omnipotent characters.
But nearly every league champ is linked to magic in some shape or form, and you just can't keep up that kind of mystique.
@mantraki Don't expect the future stories to be so magic focused. No good fantasy setting works if it's saturated with magic bullshit everywhere.
@TheVideolover45 Considering how they handled this wind spirit/goddess in Arcane I think many of the more exotic characters will be limited to legends status within universe or they will appear in very special situations.
So there's a kid playing with his favorite toy, having a good time, and all o'sudden his mom comes over and takes it away and throws it in the fireplace. Gives him a new, different toy. And she's proud of herself about it. Like she solved a problem.
That's what it feels like.
this sums it up so perfectly.
impresingly accurate
The thing I hate is how Riot will erase characters and then throw the "Most people are not complaining" argument like you said. At this point, I take every word they say with a grain of salt.
It was with Galio, Aaatrox, Skarner... they could have just adapted or at least maintain aspects of their LORE and personality, but no.
The problem is also that a doctrine for reworks is not established At Riot. It is either a faithful rework or said champion getting deleted (better or worse).
When it comes to Viktor, I do like his iteration in Arcane (not in-game). His character design rules. The problem is that Riot decided to say "Fuck it, everything is canon" instead of fixing its own mess with the LORE. Arcane could have been a spin-off and no one would be mad.
Now, we have a champion with old Viktor's kit.
Some of the reworked champions have a massive problem that makes them irredeemable to play and so the scrap the old one in favor of something new especially since the old ones arent as special to wider world
@@Rev1n05"irredeemable to play" meanwhile we have overloaded champs like Ksante and Ambessa. That argument falls down the window. AP Yi or Tris wouldn't even be that broken right now with how busted the newer champs are.
There are 169 champions in League. if you divide the community evenly, 1 in every 169 players would be a main of a certain champion (and this is not true, some don't have mains and some champions are more popular than others), this means only 1 in every 169 players would be mad. This is an easy "most people are not complaining". But it doesn't mean sh*t....
I dont care about Viktor, I don't even own him, but I understans the main's frustration... If they changed my main, Katarina (again again) I would be pissed.
"most people are not complaining"
Yeah, I'd expect so! Most people don't play, nor care about Viktor! Man's in a game with 160+ champions, why would this surprise anyone.
The logic that "only 1% of players were upset about a change" doesn't work if you do it every tuesday.
For them it was just a Tuesday
also doesn't work when the champion's pickrate is 1.3%
They were very close to having something super compelling that fit his archetype but screwed it by having Jace succeed in rescuing him. If they had slowed his arc down, and waited to finish it in season 3 we could have seen the crippled genius with pure intentions be gradually corrupted by the hexcore, to become the cyborg overlord we know in game. Honestly I thought that was where they were going with it until the end there, it would have worked fine.
I was waiting for Jayce to eventually show a middle finger to the council and become the arrogant superhero he is in LoL.
Always assumed whatever crisis they were about to face would create Viktor and Jayce into the men we know them as. Distorted, Estranged from their original goals into something they just managed to grasp at.
Taking away Viktor's whole identity in season 2 and then infecting the game with it might be top 3 worst creative decisions Riot has ever made
Not only that, all of his accomplishments were erased in the lore, something Old Viktor NEVER stood for.
@@blacktigerpaw1 Also blitzcrank is still in the game.
A robot made by viktor, who didn't make him...
@@mouhou9795his new lore says he did make him...off screen ...when the show never mentioned him at all...
@@mouhou9795 he could’ve been made off screen in season 1 during the (almost decade long) time skip
I think it’s reasonable that characters aren’t all active at the same time because the league is full of “legends” not necessarily people as they are right now (which is why Caitlyn isn’t missing an eye and Jinx seems unstable, it’s the legend of them that made it into the game)
@healgoth you're giving Riot too much credit with that one. Don't try to make sense of their shortcomings
What made viktor appeal to me was he was everything I loved:
A character with a sheen
A mage gameplay wise and build wise
But aesthetically not a mage
He was simple and practical and fun, but most importantly, unqiue.
Now he is malzahar
I was praying so hard for Viktor to lob off his leg and arm and replacing it with a mechanical one. Welp, how disappointing. Also, riot could have just made the wild ruin(basically the void) into it own threat and let Viktor do his own thing and through mutual enermy help with the final battle. What a shame
Honestly the way Riot has handled Arcane's canon with the main one has soured my opinion heavily on the show.
The story and world were becoming so good back on the Azir release days and now they are retconning shit left and right
So glad to see others are talking about this as well. It is so sad seeing everyone jumping on the Arcane hype and accepting it as “the new canon,” when Riot has no idea what’s canon and are blatantly only pretending to care. If things don’t change, they WILL start retconning aspects of the show for the sake of some other project.
10 year long League player here. Volibear and Udyr have been staples in my champ pool since I began playing. While I enjoyed both of their old versions, I do like their reworks.
They were faithfully done, and Riot managed to double down on the aspects of both that were enjoyable to old mains, while still modernizing their kits. Volibear is still a tanky health stacking behemoth who flings lightning, bites squishies for big damage, and heals a ton at low hp. Udyr is still a speedy, low cooldown stance dancer. He still has a focus on auto attacks, and his built variety is as diverse as it's ever been. In my opinion, both are good reworks. I continue to spam both of them to this day.
In every other role I WAS effectively an Asol one trick. I played him top and crushed matchups that were supposedly unwinnable for him like Jax. I played him bot and permashoved ADCs into their tower while juking blitz hooks like the matrix. I ironically played him mid the least, but while I was there, I got real good at reading the enemy's body language and predicting their engages with my Q. It was a skill you had to learn on his initial version because his original Q had a minimum travel distance.
And I loved it. His playstyle was wierd, it was quirky, but it clicked with me right away. He was a champion with a gameplay pattern that no other champion could replicate.
And then Riot took him out behind the barn. Gave em' the ol caitlyn ult to the skull. I could have forgived it if they had attempted to preserve the feeling of playing the old one. Even if they got rid of the balls, if they had maintained his focus on kiting, controlling space, bobbing and weaving through combat like the slippery snake that he was, I probably would have come to enjoy the new version too.
Instead, they took a total 180 on his design. Turned him into an immobile statcheck machine. A total spit in the face to everyone who enjoyed him before.
But it's okay. The rework was a success because his playrate increased. "Vocal minority" or whatever.
My God, old ASol. My first ever Baron steal + pentakill. I'll never forget that moment in my life. The funniest thing about playing old ASol is that in normals, so many people didn't know how to play against him and it was just hilarious seeing enemies die with those unsuspecting little boops.
I also played old Urgot ADC back then and MY GOD nobody expects the Muramana-charged homing missiles coming at them every second.
Fun champs, fun times.
for me, they split viktor identity into two the machine and the herald. And they chose the wrong one, while being a herald is one of viktors key point his core is machine, a scientist that uses machine to be at the level of mages. He doesn't even use hextech or chemtech, he uses hexcore which to put it simply an infinite energy source. Thematic wise he also more in tune with zaun gritty and more realistic characters from mafias, anarchist, vigilante, crazies, businessman, and scientist. Turning him into a god, takes away the connection from zaun. Plus arcane herald only shows up for like 1 episode and that's it, i think only viktor's bio is in god damn past tense.
For warwick they can still save him (act 2 design not as bad, act 3 tho yeeesh). I cant write a story, but i already can make a scenario where after the explotion warwick "dies" taken away by singed to be revived, but he failed and when he throws the body the chemicals reacted and mutated warwick even further and the heat it generates melts the metal and regenerate more beastial appearance.
singed goes like "oh no warwick where did your face go! good thing i kept the Dog face here you go pal!"
The aartox rework was just really weird timing by riot. He was finally starting to find a place in the meta then a few months in he got reworked xD, like what?
Yeah they probably had it in the works for some time, it was just a coincidence that it became meta in proplay the weeks before the rework came out. Even tho I would say it was one of the best reworks Riot has done.
On your behalf, I am afraid of Draven in next show
You can see riot's "Let's Go Next" mentality as far back as Annie. If you actually read her past versions of her lore, she is this chaotic mess. Originally she was born on the shadow isles, because the isles was originally a prison colony with heretics and prisoners and mages, and dangerous wildlife, aka Australia. Its also why Tibbers is a shadow bear, because it came from the shadow isles. Also this isle was east of Noxus.
Then the convicts and heretics become mages and instead of the shadow isles, its the Voodoo Lands. A desert with petrified trees, it also doesn't exist anymore btw. The reason they live in this backwater desert is the mages are actually political dissidents and outcasts of Noxus after a failed coup against a self-proclaimed crown prince and now just want to practice their magic in peace. The Voodoo Lands was to the south of Noxus.
Then we get current lore, of living up in the Ironspike Mountains, of her parents dying and her step sister dying. Which the mountains is to the North of Noxus.
At least with Annie, while her lore was shifting around, at least her voicelines and gameplay and appearence stayed the same. Viktor is on a whole new level of being broken. Like his lore, his kit, his appearence, his voicelines is this confused and entangled fusion of clashing ideas.
They basically turned Viktor into Malzahar from wish.
Paying attention to riots lore is pretty much a bad idea. I remmeber once I started to read the character bios about a decade ago. And halfway through, they changed multiple of them, so I started again, and it happened again. And again, and again.
okay, look. I've NEVER liked Viktor as a champion, i practically had NO attachment to him whatsoever...BUT, i did like what his powerfantasy and status in the lore accomplished. After Riot undid Skarner's old lore i thought ''huh, well now there's no explanation as to how hextech even exists''. After doing this to Viktor i genuinely decided ''this is the straw the broke the cammels back. Im uninstalling''.
I've lost 3 of my old mains, Mordekaiser, Skarner, and Mundo. i fucking KNOW what its like for a champion you love to be gone forever in an instant. But despite me not carrying about Viktor, i can't say that i don't sympathise with Viktor mains or anyone that genuinely enjoyed him more for his story and power fantasy rather than meta viability.
Riot should honestly be ashamed of themselves that they removed such an interesting character all for the purpose of making a quick buck. The game is dying and they know it. Fellow league players, if you are reading this, i think its time we all pull the plug on this whale abortion of a video game.
I'm a lot more negative on season 2, but even though I loved season 1, I hated their choice to do their "1 continuous canon" thing quickly after the season. Aside from obviously being because Arcane was popular, it was clearly a departure from the actual lore that even I was aware of. Even though I haven't at all been engaged in the lore for a while, I still remember my favorite story being Ekko's birthday, telling his parents he's not going to a Piltover university and kept rewinding time because he couldn't tell them. It was very sweet and entirely incompatible with the show.
It was a reminder to me that I can't imagine trying to engage with League's lore. Do we really trust that "this time it's the lore for sure!" and not just gonna be retconned in ten years anyway? It's lame and cringe. What makes it worse is the retconning is affecting the game itself, the part of League I actually engaged with. Mouse is kinda busted, so I never got a chance to play Viktor one more time, but I really liked him. Now he's completely unfamiliar in character, personality and design. It's very lame.
Imagine Lord of the Rings retconning their entire history everytime a new milk add got popular..
There would've been a very simple fix: Instead of Post-Arcane-Viktor replacing Game-Victor, Game-Victor could have been Post-Sequel-Viktor. Arcane ended with him touching the crystal and going "poof". There was _no need whatsoever_ for the story to just end there canonically.
My problem with Arcane Viktor is that the whole idea of his character now is being the Zaun version of Malzahar
so what they gonna do to malzahar delete him ?
@@fishman21-f5bmakes me wonder if they coulve like, changed viktor's name in its final form to malzahar and adapt its gameplay to rework malza completely.
Would stop being shuriman but who cares malza has nothing going for him.
Change the voidlings for those machines idk
I just dont like how they made everything revolve around the void. Cool idea in concept- i dont remember what caused the void to open up in icathia, and tho its cool that its some kind of random "wrong place wrong time" type of situation. Obviously the idea that we humans called the void by messing with the arcane is sick.
But it does come with side effects. Mainly making the steampunk, aristocatic, fascist land of piltover and zaun feel less unique. I liked that it was "the country of progress" and they attempt to seperate themselves from other regions by having these dinky gadgets, ultiemtly being an allegory for 3rd world slave labor as the old hex crystals were literally RIPPED OFF OF LIVING BEINGS. We have literal robots like Orianna and Blitzcrank from the region. Viktor legit wanted to "ship of theseus" himself as he saw his human emotions "inferior" and all his old lore gave us a more morally grey character similar to Dr.Doom (if u havent read comics u probs think im smoking crack- please read marvel comics. Doom is more morally grey than the shitty movies ever sell him as.)
And now he, ori, and i guess blitz are all void people? Idk it just kinda, took what i loved about the place and made the "secret sauce" another region. To me, the world feels flatter knowing that the real plite of Piltover isnt their insatiable greed, but "we messed with forces beyond our control 😢 we just wanted to help people."
he's completely separate from the void.
@@TYsdrawkcaB So why do all of his abilities sound like Kai'Sa and Vel'Koz now?
@@filipkyselica8041 doesn't matter? he's still unrelated to the void.
@@TYsdrawkcaB Can you explain where you're getting this certainty from?
Arcane Viktor isn't connected to the void
Karthus was actually downgraded in lore AND visual during his "upgrade" (he was nerfed into oblivion.) Karth was my main in the early years of LoL. The change was sudden, and unlike Morde, he suffered both in lore and in appearance.
I don't know if it was to appease the Easterners, but at one point his splash arts began to cover up his skeletal features. I'm talking WAY BACK mid 2010s. Then all of a sudden, he got a visual update, he stopped being a lich (no bones, no skull, just an objectively generic-looking wraith in a clerical garb), and now is in-lore a ghost because... reasons? I would undo that sh*t in an instant if I could. They robbed us of the lich archetype.
Yeah skeleton and liches will not go well in riot if they try to appease the eastern market (im from the east but im all for mosnter champion), karthus is changed thematic wise from lich to wraith (im not so fresh on his old lore so you can tell me!), we're lucky thresh is only got that unbound abomination (in wild rift it even is his base skin yuck)
I disagree on Karthus' lore. There is a very clear reason why he is a ghost and it is actually a lot more unique and compelling, while still being very close to the archetype he's known for. It's definetly not just...reasons, he has a pretty well realised backstory.
@@reno9821 It's the same as viktor some people like it some don't. But, karthus needs the change while viktor doesn't. I do agree a pope wraith is dope tho, imagine karthus singing the dirge of the dead when harrowing comes!
@@2pa42_ersennicholaas Indeed, many don't realise how cool current Karthus is simply because he does not get that much content.
@reno9821 true, pentakill karthus got more care than the original one. Riot mostly only does something when it creates profit since they are a big company now.
Season 2 was great, but turning Viktor into techy Malzahar was just a really lame decision
I miss old Akali.
The visual elements of new Akali I think are a strict improvement, but her old kit was great and scratched an itch that nobody else could. Super high risk, fuck up once and you're likely the cause of your team's downfall, while at the same time you're one of the game's most capable carries if you play your cards right.
There just isn't anything like her anymore, including her new version.
But the worst change was Trundle, by a country mile. Kit basically remained the same, but they absolutely murdered his character. It was so much more interesting when he was the rot troll.
i know people generally like the evelynn rework but as one of the few people who liked her original design i was so heartbroken man. Every skin they release with her u cant tell her apart from katarina or xayah or any other sexy femme fatale character they have on the roster
I think that is less a problem with eve, and moreso other champs doing the same
I don't like the new arcane Viktor in-game because it feels half-assed. They go to the work to give him all this other stuff visually and storytelling-wise, but they keep his kit mostly the same? Like one of the designers who was tweaking his kit was like "We wanted to represent his ultimate, the storm, growing in power with the more people died like that in the show" when that is not what happened in the show at all, he was enthralling others and robbing them of their free will. Riot is like a body where the left half doesn't know what the right half is doing.
Season 2, while it has its highlights, it feels like its gone off the rails. This isn't what I wanted at all. When I thought Viktor was talking with with Corin (aka Singed) in season 1, it was because he was going to find his own way on how to fix people in his own way through what he knows and trusts best, machines. That we would've seen a Viktor who is more like his prototype skin self and now has the third arm to help him with his daily tasks but still largely looks like Viktor. I thought with Season 2 we would have seen more of the established piltover and zaun characters. Like where is Ziggs? Camille? Blitzcrank? Ezreal? Zac? Seraphine? Dr Mundo? Renata? Twitch? Urgot? Zeri?
Like, in retrospect, what was thought to be the beginning of Twitch in season 1, of the rat drinking shimmer and killing the cat, was just a shock value scene to demonstrate that Singed is willing to do terrible things in order for their goal to progress which I feel was better handled with Rio the salamander and is a connecting thread with Viktor. Although even Singed is kind of an oddity. His plan to revive Orianna literally can't work unless Viktor became arcane jesus which Singed wasn't accounting for. That Singed was just making a drug that caused the subject to enter a state of blind rage and superhuman strength.
Bruh I'm not reading all that.
Amazingly said, good job
The shame of it too is that I'm not that excited for more movies/tv shows in the runeterra universe because it could just lead to some of my other favourite characters being deleted from the lore, let alone the game.
My League journey:
Become Aatrox Main > Riot removes Aatrox (multiple times) > Lose entire champion
Become Ryze Main > Riot removes him 9999 times > bro is unrecognizable
Become Poppy Main > Riot removes Poppy > Lose entire champion
Become Galio Main > Riot removes Galio > Lose entire champion
safe to say any champion I start liking is going to be removed
please main yone
I feel that, buddy. I started by maining Karma, Urgot and Heimerdinger 🥲
bro is unironically liking old poppy
Please main Tryndamere, Yone, Gwen, and Zeri.
This doesn't make any sense. The timeline of reworks is Poppy (2016), then Galio (2017), then Aatrox (2018), then Ryze became unplayable in 2019. So how was that your league journey?
Great video, glad to see you back
The craziest thing about this for me and the reason I stopped playing league entirely after almost a decade, is that these can be paid things that riot can just change on a whim. Bot nunu used to be a really expensive skin for the time and the people who bought it had the skin changed to something completely different after the rework, which kinda begs the question of what are you really paying for when you buy a champion or a skin with money.
I hate the new design ngl. I'm cool with him being thin, but his weird split faced mask thing looks ugly to me. The idea behind it is cool, visually representing his humanity being gone or whatever, but in execution it just looks like he has a ridiculously wide nose and mouth and Sid the sloth eyes. I also wish they'd at least made him more metallic like in that one concept art from the artbook. In-game he just looks like he's wearing a bodysuit with a few armor pieces like Kayle, especially in his Wild Rift design. His wild rift design is pretty inconsistent with how he looks in Arcane and League.
It's also weird how they made his thighs look thick and his hips look wide in League and on his Wild Rift 3D model, but in Arcane he has stick thin legs and no hips. It almost feels like they were trying to gooner bait or something, especially with the abs and cloak thing conveniently covering his crotch in the splashart.
the decision to make arcane "cannon" was disastrous for league lore as a whole. I stopped playing league a while ago but I still watch some content about it and I watched arcane. It's not a bad show but they shouldn't have replaced the older league lore.
to be fair i understand the idea of needing something "more solid" to build upon
While i'm not particularly upset about Viktor himself (i actually really enjoy his new character and design) i was very pleased to finally hear someone talk about the way riot just kind of does things and almost never goes back on those decisions. They made new viktor, and you can send some easily fixable feedback in the reddit thread. But for broad, sweeping changes it just is not possible.
The thing is, it IS possible. but it's not PROFITABLE. They can absolutely go back and change viktor to resemble his old self. But it would also be flushing money down the drain to discard and change the work they spent many hours working on. I feel like this also represents a flaw in the general culture behind releases of game content in league. everything has to be a "release". A burst of new content to get engagement on the game going.
Another way to do reworks is to broadly address concerns people have for the characters in terms of design. While still having the creatives taking Executive decisions. And nobody reading this should take this the wrong way, but it should remains at looking ag general fan feedback. There's a reason the fans aren't usually involved in the creative process.
In the end. None of this will matter, because Viktors playrate has skyrocketed and skin sales are good. This is all the higher ups need to see to push more stuff like this, regardless of the opinions of creatives
wow, i had no idea how much i shouldve hated all this stuff until you put it out plainly like that to read
thanks, now i have even less faith in League as a whole than ever, that even their "good" decisions can lead to disastrous results
The rework of Skarner made me quit League. He was the only champion I have played for years and they removed him just before the new arena mode, whick I was super salty about
lmao I feel you about old a sol. reason why I started wild rift
question. did you vote for him in the vgu poll back then
@@chakradarrat8832 I did not, I missed the vote and didn't play at that time. I was excited that he won but I didn't truly want Riot to touch him at all, except his passive
They also changed the new Mordekaiser personality when they added him to Legends of Runeterra
Also Ruination Pyke...
I miss old Volibear. I miss him quite a lot. I want him back, with his throwing enemies into turret range and chain lightning auto-attack ultimate.
Finally someone mentions that Viktor is basicaly League's version of Doom, wich is something the rework removes completely
Briar is my main. Because she is new and going to Noxus next, I think I'm safe, but it's BS what they've done to vicktor and legends of runeterra
Fiddlesticks was reworked in 2020, almost 5 five years ago now, to this day when i log in my account my metrics tell me that he's my most played champ, i don't think i have played it more than 10 times since the rework, that's how much i used to play fiddle back then. Even now my fiddle game eclipse every other champ. People tell me that he's stronger now, that he much more useful and so on and so fort, but i was one of the few rare people that actually put in the work to learn how to deal with his randomness back then and i swear to you, there was no funnier champ to play than fiddle, possibly the most entertaining champ riot ever made simply because of the score of weird interactions his skills had with the rest of the game, his old E alone made some absurd team compositions possible and viable.
If you put in the time to learn the patterns of his E you could start predicting how it would jump from target to target, and you could start abusing it, my fondest memories of this game are of me playing fiddle support to a sion adc, it was a stupid, stupid composition but if you got good at him fiddle made it not only possible but quite dangerous too.
New fiddle is easier, possibly stronger (i don't believe so) and certainly more widely played, his skills almost looks the same, but that thing has no soul. Riot removed every ounce of fun out of my little guy and i will never forgive them.
There is no point in getting invested in anything riot does, because they'll change it later anyway, look at Skarner, how many times did he have his backstory changed, 10, 20? Every single time riot touches anything it doesn't even resemble it's previous iteration, and they never, never stop touching stuff, even when it was completely fine to begin with.
Of course, i might be wrong, i don't have 200+ years of experience in game design.
I personally think his new body shape isnt an issue at all, in fact I think it suits his thematic as the machine herald MUCH better than the old body shape, and if it was just that alongside his old theme being kept, I would've preferred that idea MUCH more than both his current AND old design.
and as someone who has his body type irl it hurts to hear so many people have such vitriolic disgust at how thin he is, i already have body image issues causing the anorexia, i dont need more from my own communities where im supposed to feel safe and at home
Yeah i think its very cool, like the fact that he is "malnourished" feels like a refference to how he doesnt need phisical strenght, and purified his body from "unnecesary mass" sort of speak, it really is a good decision.
Now yeah, i dont see why we couldnt have the machine herald (A NEW AND IMPROVED ONE CAUSE THE OLD ONE WAS ASSS)
@@catmaster667 If this helps you in any way, this video is the first time I've heard someone complain about new Viktor's body shape. I have no idea how popular of a take it is, might be just a loud minority. I actually think most people do actually like/not mind the thinness of this design, it's a smart detail to communicate his character.
I think the "Just go next" mentality works in business, where sunk cost falacy can cost money. The related concept "fail fast", where plug is pulled for ideas that don't work, but the thing is that one also needs to learn fast from that failure. Thus "fail fast" has three elements: Trying, failure and learning. "Go next" seems to be just trying and failing with no learning.
It is sad however that mindset has been able to seep into the game. People just giving up way too easily, because they don't understand the game. I think we can call these people losers.
Every rework until now has been done with the purpose of modernizing the lore and game.
Viktor was already modernized by LoR, but Arcane took a different direction at the last minute, and so it has been the first visual rework that deleted a perfectly respectable character in the modern lore while also breaking the promise of a unified universe without multi-canon.
leblanc is next
This could have worked out fine for them. IF they didn't made Arcane canon, which it never was intended to be. Or they could have kept the old machine herald and shown Viktor replace his Arcane corrupted parts with machines. Thus translating him to someone who would see magic not as salvation, but his machine innovations.
Its a thing as simple as having a Dr Doom in the game, now we dont.
I haven't played LoL for a decade, but I feel basically the same. I really liked Victor in season 1 and was excited to see his transformation in season 2. Not only was I disappointed that it didn't match his character in the game, I feel like it took away all of his agency.
The video ending is so true. I remember riot taking wild rift teemo to league, and thankfully never left pbe
I used to play old aatrox and i loved him he was just a fun stat stick to swing. I also recently tried getting back into league and a lot of my champs are just different except sion and Teemo. Aatrox, mundo, garen, udyr, pantheon, warwick, Evelynn, nunu (now nunu and willump). It's super wild how Many have changed and like feel entirely different. Kayle and pantheon feel the same but did get an update.
Been playing League for 11 years and I quit after I finished Arcane. Riot does not give half a flying rat shit about ANYTHING that made me love this game in the first place, they've shown time and time again that they can and will just throw those things away on a whim.
It doesn't matter to them that people have spent a literal decade of their lives maining Viktor, because they have this new idea that is like, totally so cool, and they like, reaaallly wanna do it, so let's just remove Viktor from the game and put a completely different guy in his place. They will never address this btw. Christian Linke was on twitter and reddit basically telling people "I'm sorry you feel that way but I like the new Viktor more soooo"...
3:48 crazy that people still believe this shit. 2018 was (nearly) 7 years ago and some people are still stuck in the past.
while i get and appreciate the parallel you're trying to make between players who immediately throw in the towel upon a single misplay and riot choosing to sometimes remake champs entirely, i feel like it doesn't really work that well here.
sometimes it is best to move on from a lost cause and start from scratch, like with the more unpopular champs such as the likes of Old Aatrox and Old Mordekaiser (the latter of which I enjoyed playing a lot, but I also understood why he was intentionally kept weak and not picked by many others so I saw a full redesign coming from a mile away). if anything, i think riot learned the wrong lessons from the backlash the more major VGUs like those two got.
also, remember that riot did try giving Old Aatrox a second chance with the mini-rework he got, only for him to become an absolute terror the moment a good build for him surfaced.
now they're too afraid to make big changes to anything at this point, and that lack of confidence is exactly what led to the VIktor VGU getting the mediocre at best reception that it did. they wanted to focus on the herald while mostly discarding the machine, and yet they were too scared to actually commit to the idea and we ended up with the halfway iteration that is in the game today, with new looks that don't exactly match his entire kit anymore.
sometimes a major change is necessary, or you end up wasting resources and time on something that doesn't actually fix the problem in the long run (looking at you Udyr). i sympathize with people who've had their champs changed, but being so against major changes to champions' kits has been just as harmful to the playerbase imo.
EDIT: all this being said though, the murder of LoR genuinely just fucking sucks and there is 0 excuse for that
Well thats just a flawed argument. It disregards that riot made the bad choices that lead to bad results that requred them to make changes and they again made bad choices. Its not stucking in the past. Its just common sense. the way Riot works, League of legends will never have a competent lore, it will never be a balanced game, and Runeterra will never be a proper fantasy world.
Pretty good comprehensive video I can point to in regards why the Viktor rework is an issue in the long run. I'm actually pretty damn fine with him being the way he was in Arcane, I just take huge issue with it being made the default for the game and all future iterations. For the isolated purpose of the show's story? it's pretty cool. For the purpose of a massive game IP where every character should stand out and fill a particular niche? It's a total downgrade
Real quick before the real comment: Just found your channel through this video and wanted to say I really enjoy your content so far - I binged all the way back to your Balatro vid.
Real comment:
So, I think the thing that just gets to me is that Arcane was never designed to be the new canon. The creative or group of creators behind Arcane's Viktor were imagining how League Viktor would be in this Alternate Universe take on magic and hextech - not how League Viktor would be in the modern day. It's just so apparent that making Arcane Viktor canon was never the goal of Arcane when you look at his design. What is the point of the 3rd arm? In Arcane, Viktor has no attachment to it at all. We see in one little scene that he and Jayce have created a hexclaw and he demonstrates it, but he never uses it again after that NOR is it even shown again, unlike the gauntlets. In the game lore before he was reworked tho? The reason Viktor has a 3rd arm with a laser is so that he can augment himself with ease, something he can't do with only 2 hands, and to protect himself from Chembarons. In Arcane, he does not augment himself, he is not constantly improving, he has already reached the pinnacle, and Chembarons now do not exist - Caitlyn killed them all. For what purpose does Viktor need a 3rd arm? For what purpose did the Arcane people design him like that?
Well, they didn't. There isn't a single doubt in my mind that, originally, Viktor did not have that arm in the initial concept for his final form and that it was MANDATED once the higher ups went "so your little project did gangbusters and we can profit from this so now it's the new canon! We are making Leauge Viktor canonically Arcane Viktor because that's the one that has all the fanboys and girls but he's not Viktor without that third arm and the mains will definitely rebel against that so put that in, okay?" The real problem isn't that they decided to update Viktor or even that they wanted to use Arcane as a basis to design it - the problem is that they aren't fucking committing to it. Either it's canon or it's not. Either you need to update all the Piltovian and Zaunite champs to fit with Arcane or not. Either you want to preserve what makes a champ special and keep it's old fanbase or not. You can't just update a champion and change everything about them but then keep parts of them like their kit in hopes that the old fans will still play them.
Riot is alienating it's old players but not gaining any new ones. Eventually, that's going to come back and bite them.
Suits and ties made Arcane the main canon, and that's the worst possible decision they could have ever made.
I miss Skarner, but then again I didn’t fall in love with him till after his first rework.
One thing that I also really dislike about new Viktor in LoL is that he doesn't even look like his Arcane self, his head is too big, his hair is spiky rather than straight down his face is more like a mask rather than his triangular flat shape in Arcane which clearly splits his face in half, his gold details are all wrong even his third arm has more of a mechanical look and is much bigger than bio mechanical one in Arcane and he isn't as tall as he should be. like they didn't even a do a good job at implementing his Arcane feel into LoL lmao.
They bluntly just show that at the end of the day, its all just marketing for a product, which always comes first with "new shiny thing". The story or themes are meaningless. We started with a bunch of over the top cosplay friendly champions that covered the widest possible set of archetypes. Then we got a little of order after gangplanks rework but it all just went blended and distorted like World of Warcraft after Ruination, continuing until now. In terms of league Lore, there we will just see continuus retcons every couple of years until the IP dies. Nobody can run a story that is built from just cliffhangers for decades.
udyr was not a delete update. it was a good rework. it is litteraly a push forward both in lord and in gameplay
Unfortunately.. riot might not respond about it and do anything to fix it.. as it's already been made a lot work. Instead of reworking him again.. all they can do is minor changes and leave it alone .
Call me Bronze but I miss pre-S3 Soraka, when she was more point-and-click. I know they wanted to make her more complex with more skill expression, but I have bad reflexes, so it was nice having a simple champion. Now we have Yuumi, but it's just not the same; I don't do well with gap closers moving my screen all the time, either. I know I'm a mega-casual player, but still, that positioning and timing-based playstyle is super gone.
I miss s3 & s4 in general before riot sold out to a corrupt corporation in China that allows artists to be treated like shit
Same. I like new Soraka, but sometimes I really miss the old kit. Not every ability needs to be a skillshot :(
When they reworked my main I did not play for a half a decade
Honestly, this has been my problem since S7 when I started playing the game. As someone who used to play a lot of the "reworked" champions, I was always feeling so betrayed when the champion I loved was replaced with a new one of the same name. The more time passes, less stuff I used to love stay in the game. And gameplay is one thing but changing a champions appearance and personality is another, more often way more of a deal breaker than a gameplay update. Aurelion used to be one of my favorite champs, he stayed that way after rework because the appearance, style and all was still there, I couldn't flex that I'm playing the hardest champ in the game anymore but it was fine because Riot had already nerfed to death the old one. Unlike Skarner for example who his new kit, although fun, the champion as a design isn't what I used to love anymore and feels strange. Anyway, I doubt I'll be going back to league soon since I've migrated to other MOBAs who seem to respect their characters more, but I just want to say that most changes that have been done to champions imo feel like replacements other than fixes.
To your point at around 3:30, I was an Evelynn player before she was deleted, I also mained Irelia and she was deleted, and I also played Aatrox and loved him and he was obliterated. Three of my favorite characters have just been entirely deleted from the game. Viktor was my favorite character from Zaun (overall) and my favorite character in the entirety of the league of legends short stories and they just, deleted him... :)
Evelynn still has the same general idea at least
All the support i see for the vik rework is "erm he's hot now"
but why they make viktor like op being when you already have darkin,demon,god and mage like xerath and ryze
1:54 uh most would very much agree with you
sure many fans don't like it when their champ gets a rework that makes a lot of changes
but most would agree Viktor is LARGELY the one they changed the most for the LEAST reason
the scientist self made pure engineer cyborg fantasy...is straight up erased. gone. u cant really say that for any other champ
whats even more frustrating is that out of ALL the champs who NEEDED time to be developed Viktor arguably needed the most to explain his final state, yet got the least...At the pace the show was moving they really needed the adjust the trajectory and decrease the scope of the story to make it land, and to have the bandwidth to give Viktor attention. As much/little time Warwick got to evolve it worked..more or less. Viktor needed the same kind of build up if not more, yet it was basically all hand waved and scrunched up into a corner at the back end of the show. It makes one go back to all the other sections of the show and go...man did we really need them to spend that much time HERE, when it could have been dedicated to Viktor's evolution?
lets not act like most reworks aren't an improvement in some way, especially if we are talking about lore/visuals...since Viktor's update really only buffs his existing kit, its not really fair to compare others on the same lv of "gameplay"
ill lv with u tho, ADC graves was a lost.
Galio could have kept more of his old personality and lore, but his gameplay needed updates
and i don't understand whats wrong with Udyr since his lore is the same and he still has his stances?
Aatrox lore was almost non-existant and ANY part of his old lore neatly fits into his new lore...his fantasy is still well an alive (gameplay arguably doesn't matter in this context but from a game health standpoint he IS better)
Saying there's NO old Aatrox in the new one is just wrong, he still has his dive knock up when you combine his dash and Q3, and Q1 is basically the same as his old projectile, and he still has his steroid ult...the only thing gone besides the revive is the focus on right clicks, but nothing is stopping u from building Bloodthirster.
Its the complete OPPOSITE for viktor since Vik's fantasy is a 180
At the very least they HAD a reason to change Aatrox even if people don't like it, he wasn't healthy for the game, a melee dps focused draintank that relies entirely on AA to sustain isn't healthy.
My number one most sad rework gotta be Fiddlesticks. I loved his goofy appearance. Making him into a horror creature entirely deleted his vibe. The new voice actor is really talented, but I just hate that voice :( that's not my Fiddlesticks
A few times I’m happy to be a Vel’koz and Gnar main. 😅
what i think would have worked is, if victor was sent to the alternate world jayce was sent to, and he slowly turns parts of his body into meachine seeing the horrors or arcane victor sees meachine is the future and as he himself turned himself into meachine he wants to spread the glory to others, and when he returns he meets amessa, and she is interested in augmented soilders and victor is interested in zaun artificial limbs and singed who can help him
And to make it worse the show runners went on record to say that Jayce and Victor died in the end too….oh umm spoilers?! Sorrry bout that
Man it sure would be a shame if these now dead characters had lore threads to various characters that were either not in the show or they didn't interact with and this now causes the world of Runeterra to unravel at the seams.
Oh hey Ezreal, are you looking for Jayce so he can help you research the Daarkin? Sorry, hes dead now.
These cowards gave Viktor the most trash look ever as a Visual Update and didn't dare to make all other standard champions like Jinx, Vi, Heimerdinger, Jayce and Ekko look like their last season Arcane counterparts and instead made those of course as buyable RP skins. They simply knew that Viktor's is trash and nobody who seriously understands and plays this champ would like it.
I can't stand Riot's incessant need to scrap everything and start over. This is the kind of stuff you do when you're writing the story outline of a book, not an online game played by millions.
They should de-canonize arcane 2, the fall in quality from arcane 1 to 2 is very noticiable, like, there is simply no way you can go back to the status quo of league after arcane's ending, how can vi be her happy go lucky self punching criminals and trying to catch jinx when she has this much trauma? How can cait be this steampunk parody when she was a literal fascist dictator for months? How do you reconcile warwick's design? And let's forget about viktor and jayce, how do you make them "the hero" and "the villain" after the ending? Too much stuff happened and that previous status quo needed a level of simplicity that has been lost
Old Aatrox players like myself thank you for your service. Justice for orignal Aatrox, lest we forget. I will not drop my passion for him until he is returned in another form or backported completely. The line in the sand remains to be Tryndamere for me, would absolutely be the end for me if they "reworked" him. I legitimately only enjoy him out of all 169 champions since Aatrox was REMOVED from the game.
Trynd is also 15+ years old design (almost) coincidence?
Also they fucking turned Aatrox into some absolute tweaker with crazed and angry voice lines, he just exudes this 'soy' energy, I cannot even begin to care. He used to feel as if he transcended the very definition of confidence. "Surpass the frailty of your form." type shit.
Started playing since preseason 7 for reference.
I'm someone who always loved to casually play this game and didn't care about meta, so Aatrox was my favorite top laner (I wouldn't say I was an Aatrox was my main because top is not my main, but still). When they reworked him I was gutted because nothing I liked about him stayed. I still gave it a try, played a few matches and couldn't get into it, it felt like so many others top laners in a bad way. I'm never touching Aatrox again and I still miss playing the old one. I understand why people stopped talking about it, but it hurts when I hear people praising his rework. There's a big difference between the new design being good on its own and the rework actually being good overall, for that last part you need to respect and preserve the best parts of that character, which Riot rarely does.
wasn't trynda in the poll a few time?
1 thing. Viktor was not balanced, he was, in fact, pretty weak and unplayed, so I get the WHY of the rework, I just disagree with how it went. New Viktor isnt Viktor and could have had a much cooler kit given they were to rework him.
WW and Ezreal are the only two reworks that stuck the landing. And arcane was great until the end. It strayed to far away from season 1.
Well thought out think piece until I saw you flash twitch on the screen and hope he doesn't get touched. That mfer needs more than one ability.
U really like old udyr more than new udyr?? Why??
I main Katarina since I started playting league. It's been 2 reworks on that champ.
Last time i lost my full roster...
I played Katarina (main), Akali and Talon.
All 3 were reworked in the "assassin update"....
I no longer play the other 2. I just dont like part of their kits.
They removed old Talon's E, the teleport, and I dislike the new Akali complicated Gameplay.
I only relearned Katarina, because I love the character.
I deny 95% of ff votes. The second it gets denied i say winnable.
You did cook
4:52 idk dude udyr seems pretty similar to me
It is similar. QWER is still AD, shield, speed, and AP, but the particulars are notably different. Plus, you really need Awaken, his passive meter, to get the lead out with Udyr now. His old kit was more accessible.
I used to play Shen until he was deleted from the game.
You don’t want to rework a champion an jsut copy paste it entire kit like mundo. Terrible rework.
mundo had adjustments to it
revert asol rework. this smolder abomination makes me really sad
Way back when i remember... I went to diamond 2 playing nothing but yorick and the eventual veigar game. Yorick was my favorite champion. His minion summoner play style his swampy appearance i loved everything. One day he became the generic thing he is today. My main was gutted out because some schmuck at riot didnt want to make a new champ. They had to diddle my main. I stopped playing shortly after
5:00 boooooooooo Udyrs rework is just as good as Warwick if not slightly worst terrible,horrendous take putting him on that list
yeah, i also played udyr before the rework (didn't main him) and i just find that now he's udyr+ where no matter what build you go for (tank, ap or ad) you can be more impactful than old udyr
I just don't play league or touch anything Riot anymore, tbh
They butchered Kayle i used to love her so much
They showed how much they hate masculine women
I agree, and hate the new model
RiP Viktor
people ask themselves why nobody cares.... but if Riot themselves don't care, why should we?
I'm a viktor player that is mostly ok with the rework. People like to harp on the machine thing, but if you follow his lore from his release to now, the machine thing was a means to an end. His goals were he was screwed over repeatedly and had a terrible life when he just wanted to help. The machine bit was just him realizing that humanity was the problem, that no matter what someone does, they will always be limited by the fact of being mortal and being controlled by emotions.
The robot evolution was transhumanism. It was not "i want to make everyone robots cause robots are cool" or something, he wanted to allow humanity to be free from its limitations. The Arcane is literally just the exact same thing but magic, he was a damaged person who longed to be helpful but was screwed over by his limitations, when he gained his arcane form, he wanted to use those powers to help the ones in pain overcome their limitations while he because less and less human cause the humanity was what he saw as the problem. Imo the rework is just a different take on the same concept, like a Viktor from a different part of the runeterra multiverse.
I compare to say Skarner. In this case we have a character who was built on the tragedy of his race being hunted to extinction and their souls being used as a power source and him having to deal with waking after years of dlumber to find he had nothing left........ now he is an isolationist who is worshipped as a god and does everything he does cause he knows whats right and has the power to back it up.
Trundle was a chief of a tribe that was suffering from a horrible plague. Trundle, being the stand up leader, took on the plague himself, baring the pain so his people could live free...... now he is "Rawr i am troll i smash things hahaha" but ice now because Lissandra needed someone on her side for her release event.
I have love viktor since release, but imho he is the absolute least egregious example of riots poor reworks.
The thing is, people like niches, thematics and tropes for champions unique to them, something that's not been done before. You say Viktor's goals supercede the machine robotic theme, that's fine. Personally though, I disagree; in a game like league the theme is king and the lore was made specifically to fit the machine augmented human theme and have it be compelling. It may seem shallow but tropes and thematic absolutely matter here.
I do agree people are a bit too reactionary and that yes, Viktor's general story direction remained the same, but it goes to show how important keeping the thematic is because Viktor now feels far *less* unique in the roster because we already have a bunch of magical villain champions that function very similarly. I had a lot of issues with old Viktor and did think he needed some kind of rework to clarify his direction, but I can't say this at all satisfied me. It was a really cool interpretation in the show, but to make it the default dominant version is really really bad.
I agree with Skarner. Even though in his case I really like the new character, because it is filling a perspective the lore has yet to fill, they absolutely deleted old Skarner which is massively dissapointing. I don't really agree with Trundle because his lore is really good now which makes him feel more involved in the world, presents an interesting niche and does a unique thing with it , I think the assessment of it is a little dumbed down.
@reno9821 I'm not disagreeing that he feel less unique, but I could make the argument that you just made for trundle for viktor, in a vacuum his old lore was very him centric, he fit piltover/zaun, but not the world of runeterra as a whole, now he has more connections to noxus, hints of the void, while still being part of the piltovet zaun conflict and in and of itself is interesting if you divorce it from the old lore. Trundle was already a unique niche doing something unique with it, but also with a unique theme that made him less like a generic wow troll.
My point it that trundle took an already interesting idea and threw it out completely for something different, with Viktor, for me, it feels like they did a find replace function on the word machine and replaced it with magic, making less unique sure, but at its core still feels like the same idea.
My point was never Viktor vgu is amazing and perfect and everyone whining for nothing, just that I feel Riot has done and will do far worse that holding Viktor up as a prime example of their mishandling of reworks feels a little misguided
This man gets it. The machine and super science is all just magic. The rework Viktor had codified magic into a binary that he could use to augment and change like super science.
@@theonetrueskullkid3474 I think old Viktor was much better off than old Trundle in terms of connection to the lore. The jayce rivlarly was present, he made Blitz, created an arm for Renata and so on. The connections Arcane added don't seem that beneficial to me overall, though stuff like his past with Singed was a great addition.
@@theonetrueskullkid3474 What make him connect to the world more? He barely has a story now that makes sense, so that inherently makes him less connected to anyhting.
i respect your opinion, but for me old viktor was a joke lore wise
That's fine. There was plenty of lore and aesthetic already that took itself seriously. Not everything has to be deep or important. It's okay to be goofy.
@ Sorry, i meant that it was bad. I agree that goofiness is good.
Elaborate
@ I refuse to
They deleted urgot, game us a completely different champ with the same name, so i stopped playing. simple as.
while i agree... new urgot is still one of the best characters
@@chakradarrat8832 Maybe, but i don't see why they had to delete my main to add him in.
@@TourFaint og urgot was a failure of game design, i'm sorry but in objective terms it is true.
@@chakradarrat8832 skill issue sadly.
wow, algorithm sure works well today
That aside. I don't really mind the change. It's just inevitable that you lose things along the way in a game that is afloat for as long as league is. I'am kinda salty about asol rework, i don't like that they removed "capt teemo on duty" voiceline. But the fact stands. LoL is alive, and will be for some time.
I mean, on of the messages of arcane is about letting go of the past; so I'm pretty sure Riot is proud of that approach
So there's a kid playing with his favorite toy, having a good time, and all o'sudden his mom comes over and takes it away and throws it in the fireplace. Gives him a new, different toy. And she's proud of herself about it. Like she solved a problem.
That's what it feels like. I bet if someone came and replaced your beloved thing with what they thought you'd want, you'd be less-than-grateful.
@Jim-of-Rohan this though
I have a lot of complaints but my main one is you talked about how they changed the visuals of viktor to make him quite skinny. You did not mention that RIOT has recently been putting a lot of focus on character outline and the new outline is significantly more unique and adds visual clarity. Not mentioning this comes off as extremely dishonest to me.
What you seem to gloss over is that riot is a company. They won't invest into something that doesn't give them returns (specially considering how high the returns are in League). New Viktor appeals to the Arcane crowd, which are larger than the old Viktor crowd: therefore, it makes more money. One thing that we can take out of observing Riot Games through the ages is that they seem to be heading in the "we make things better" direction, so I don't think this is a problem. Their lack of creative cohesion might become a twisted issue now that they're delving into the more artistic side of their IP with the shows and the lore games and all, so they should indeed rein that in closely, but with how fast the "creative writing" scene is changing due to AI introduction, God only knows what the future holds.
I do not like the new Viktor either. He making a whole bunch of robots would've been better.
Waaah the character no one played is different :(