Traditional Skin
It’s going to come up so: Can you explain the choice to not do a Traditional Sion skin?
Like I mentioned in other posts, we’re not doing a Traditional skin for Sion, because ultimately we don’t believe that we can faithfully and fully deliver on an “Old Sion experience” with the Sion update within scope. For this particular post I’ll focus on the VO aspect:
Some players are really attached to the Arnie quotes, but that’s only really describing the English voice-over experience, for a reference most meaningful to only specific players around the world. I’m not saying that delivering on that isn’t valuable, but rather that we decided it was more valuable to focus on the more advanced and full VO experience for all Sions and skins that would be meaningful regardless of region or language.
Sion’s updated VO is more cohesive with his identity, and for the first time in League of Legends, he is able to ramp up and down in overall intensity as the battlefield conditions change. Retrofitting his existing Arnie VO into this new system and supporting it long-term so that the few players that currently own Sion are able to have what we believe to be a low-quality (non-cohesive and extremely short-script) experience, was not worth it, especially when taking into account how little the existing Traditional skins are owned or used in-game.
Did you run into any bugs/problems with Sion that were just so ridiculous they made you laugh?
My favorite was when Azir and Sion were both in testing, and when Sion would ult the Azir wall, he’d get knocked back– but he’d still be in the charge. So he’d bounce off the wall over and over, trying to get through faster and faster. It looked like an enormous Noxian fireball jumping on a Shuriman trampoline!
Does Sion kills helmetbro (login/splash art reference; Sion can be seen crushing him)?
Hmm.. honestly not sure helmet bro CAN be killed..
Sion’s Ult & Enemy-Made Terrain
Since you guys did the same type of thing with the Naut anchor and the various terrain stuns, will sion become stunned if he ults into player made terrain?
Yes, he’ll stun himself on Anivia walls and such. If you have the reactions to to put a Cataclysm around him, then more power to you!
Related note: being stuck inside a Cataclysm with a Glory in Death Sion is not a positive experience.
Sion & Galio’s Relationship
Since Sion have alot of quotes against Galio (4 of them), what’s the relationship between Sion and Galio?
There’s a natural opposition between the two that I wanted to lay the groundwork for. The dichotomy between the eternal guardian and the undying destroyer felt really compelling for a rivalry that would endure ages. Plus there’s a certain irony to the fact that Galio is an artificial being who’s gained a sense of humanity and Sion is a man who’s become more of a warmachine than anything.
“Time to cut your strings, puppet.” If only he knew.
Sion’s Q
If Sion begins to cast his Q inside a bush will it show the area it will hit to enemies outside the bush? like Nunu’s R does not show to enemies outside the bush.
Currently it will act in the same way as Nunu’s ult. If the enemy can’t see Sion they wont see the Q charge. Brushes OP
Sion’s E
I love the rework whenever I play it on pbe! what was the initial thought behind the e fitting into the kit? the rest seems pretty common for the zombie juggernaut feel especially the ult, but his e isn’t exactly it, and honestly it’s my favorite part of the rework too. hitting the minions back into opponents for extra damage along with slow and armor reduction is amazing.
The E was originally more of a melee range “backhand” that he used to knock minions into his opponents. When we realized that it was cool in lane but didn’t provide him the tools that he needed for mid/late game when no minions are present it became a short range skillshot.
Sion’s Ult
What inspired his new ultimate? It’s pretty hilarious, is there a story behind it? Thanks!
We tried a few different ultimates before we eventually found the one you see now. The first few focused on him smashing the ground and creating massive areas of new terrain (think of a giant trundle pillar). As you have likely inferred, those didn’t work out because they blocked off too much of the map space creating some awkward gameplay spaces.
We then decided to try the slowly accelerating charge that gave him CC immunity. Then we added the steering, then we made it go a huge distance etc. These things usually start in one place and over days of iteration we end up with something awesome.
As for inspiration, I think many of us remember the xmen cartoons from the 90s…
Just a quick question on Sion’s Ultimate. From what it looks like the Camera follows him when he ults, where the focus is more on where Sion is charging. Is this true, or are we just seeing someone using the ultimate with the cursor at the edge of the screen? The Camera Lock keeps champs in the middle of the screen, which I would imagine would be rough with his ult (limited vision for how fast you are moving).
The game camera indeed follows Sion as he ults, but it is more involved than just locked camera. During the ult, the camera leads Sion so he can see better the area in front of him, and doesn’t pay attention to the area behind him. Sion is locked but off-center so you can drive better.
This is a new camera feature we made for Sion and we’re still working on it, but we’re very happy with how it’s working out!
Future Skins
Will you be making a Pre-Death Sion skin?? Something like this perhaps? http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/va9wX1rL-sions-pre-death-skin-yeah
I think a lot of us would love a skin of him depicting his former glory as a living general. Hell, you could name it General Sion! Hope you at east consider it. Anyways, thanks for doing this AMA and all the hard work you’ve done!
Sion from the Glory Days would indeed be really cool. For this project we focused entirely on the existing skins to make sure the funny ones were as funny as possible and the badass ones were as badass as possible, but who knows what’s in store for future skins.
So if I am understanding this correctly, the old Sion does not fit anywhere into the teams vision of League, due to that you are choosing to remove it entirely.
Personally, my feeling is no. It’s the reason we didn’t just upgrade him in terms of fidelity. We broke him down and rebuilt him in probably the most intense of champion updates ever, and most likely ever to happen. While we have love for old Sion’s charm, I feel in my heart of hearts that the new Sion adds significantly more value than the old charm possessed.
Trundle & Sion’s Charm Removed
hey! i personally feel that this update is REALLY cool; i’m definetly going to be playing him now where i wasn’t before. However, my brother, who played him a lot, is upset that all of these updates remove any and all charm from the older champions. Even i agree that this is true for Trundle; where he used to be funny and charming, now he’s not really funny, intimidating, or interesting. This isn’t as egregious as it is with sion, but is it a goal now to remove ALL charm or goofiness (gnar silliness aside) from the game going forward?
Hell no. Charm is something that champions need, on an appropriate basis. You’ve cited an excellent point in Gnar where he hits this “cute” charm. I think each champion hits charm in a different way. You can’t tell me Braum doesn’t have charm of his own ;D
We’re not trying to ‘badassify’ unless there’s a good reason. And let’s be honest, what better reason for some badassness than a huge, undead, axe-wielding, Noxian juggernaut!
Sion’s VO
I’ll chime in here on the VO decision.
Sion before the champion update, while charming, was thematically thin. The “ambiguous” nature of the old Sion lent itself to a very flexible understanding of what the champion should sound like… Ending up with somewhat of a comical decision in making him sound the way he did. What the Champion Update team strives to do is not only up the quality bar of these champions in all aspects, but to deliver what we believed to be the original intention of the champion. The original intention, aside from the comical VO lines, was never for Sion to become less-than-serious champion.
Artistic Reason:
Old Sion VO is different in quality and content than the other old traditional skin VO. Mainly, because the old VO is so drastically different than the new that we couldn’t retain the feel of new Sion if we used it. Even from today’s skins standards, if old Sion’s voice never existed and we were to make a skin – the VO choice that old Sion has wouldn’t even be considered unless it was thematically appropriate. Making a skin that would look like old Sion does not thematically connect with the old Voice.
Tech Reason:
We developed a very special type of VO tech to use with Sion. It allows the expanded script, what was few lines now over 200, to take advantage of the tech. Unfortunately, the old VO wouldn’t work with this tech.
We made the decisions on the back of an artistic and technical foundation. (IMO) I think it would be cool if this opened up an ideation for a Body Builder Sion and explore it with a more relevant VO set!
Old Sion VO will live on in our hearts, memories, and YouTube videos. And, in my opinion, is something that old Sion players will all remember as “Back in the day when Sion sounded ~insert heartwarming memory adjective here.~”
Focus On New Champs VS Current Ones
Are you guys planning on slowing down with the addition of new champs and instead just shift focus to recreating older champs? Like Soraka and this new Sion change?
We are definitely focusing more resources and effort to updating the existing champions in the game, as you have seen over the last few patches. This becomes increasingly more important as the game gets older and we have more champions to maintain.
That said, this doesn’t affect the rate that we want to put out new champions. Those won’t be slowing down.
Regarding Mordekaiser
When are you going to do something about mordekaiser? Nobody is even talking about him, not heard a single word about a change ever.
He’s on “The List”
Inspiration Behind His Appearance
How did you get the ideas for:
A) The knife on his head?
B) The soul furnace in his stomach area?
C) His peg leg?
D) His shoulder pad?
Glad you like it!
Most of the ideas arise through conversation within the team, particularly when discussing his lore and gameplay. The knife felt very appropriate with his new personality and story. It was a key part of his resurrection. The soul furnace is where he absorbs and processes the souls of his slain enemies and ended up being a cool way to describe how his W functions. His false leg, as I mentioned in another post, was a way to suggest that he has participated in hundreds of battles, as well as a way to enhance his “zombie-ness.”
Check out the dev blog, we get into some of this stuff.
I REALLY LOVE HIS DESIGN. I was curious to know how you came up with such cool ideas!
Sion’s Role In Game
1.) What build paths do you envision will fit Sion the best?
2.) Do you predict he will be viable as a jungler?
- Pretty heavy tank (4-6 tank items) with some AD on the side feels optimal.
- Definitely, his clear is very fast and safe, he also stacks HP pretty well in the jungle.
Sion’s Passive (w/ Zilean/Yorick’s Ults)
So how would it work if Sion was on a team with Zilean and Yorick?
Similar to Karthus and Kog’Maw, Sion will first revive with Zilean or Yorick’s ult. After those have expired (or he dies again) he will go into his passive.
Sion’s Ult & Collision With Walls
Since Sion’s new ultimate is like a Rammus q that needs to avoid walls rather than minions, how does the hitbox of the ult match up to the visual of Sion’s character model.
There is a little bit of forgiveness if you “shave” the edge of a wall, but you’re right Sion is a big dude now. Threading the needle between walls and turrets for example is not recommended, though technically possible for the most elite Sion pilots.
Invisible corners on the map can be more annoying to Sion than to most other champions. Thankfully the Summoner’s Rift Update will help this quite a bit by cleaning up some of collision zones and better matching the map visuals to the gameplay space.
If i am running close to a wall, not touching it (visually), will my ult be wasted and cause me to fail my gank or roam by clipping some invisible part of the map?
And the Most Important Question
Does Sion like ponies .3.?
I just got a beautiful image of Sion and Hecarim running around together :*) Of course Sion likes ponies, UNDEAD ARMORED BATTLE PONIES! :D
For the complete discussion, head on over HERE.
