Today I would like to address an issue in mm and me and the staff team would love to hear your opinions on it!
The champion names right now are all fairly old and they don't have a real identity and they all still have a connotation with league. Because we are our own game we have proposed to change these champion names to more abstract names to give our champions their own identity and give them their own life instead of copying others.
The downside of this is that newer players might be more confused if they come from league where as normally they'd have a better understanding of the champions.
We would love to hear your feedback on this, Cast your vote by upvoting/downvoting this post! If we see that it has a lot of upvotes we will implement this in the near future :)
Kind regards, Weedfish
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If you update names, might be worth leaving some kind of epithet (or making the current names the epithet) so they can still be identified
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Yeah that was one of the things i did want to add so dont worry fam
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Nice
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Nice
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100% they should get their own names and identities. Question is what should they be named. and who names them. You could have the top few players in the spring tournament name a champion each? That'd be a great prize. Or allow prominent members of the community to name one. Or even monetize it and sell naming rights to a champion. Could get drunk and get Henri to text one of those ex girlfriends, name the champions after whatever autocorrect turns the terrible attempt at words into.
2
I wouldn't worry about confusion. the current meta reflects nothing remotely similar to league. When I first started, the champion similarities lead me to make poor decision on strategy rather than do testing (I know hos to league, I got this! Oh. Vision is worthless...)
I think the real downside is that you will probably need to redo the art and stuff. Means any story suggestion is probably gone, and overall means dedicating to resources other than "how can we make the game more fun"
1
does this also mean new icons?
and yes, please let their current names added as some kind of epithet/title
btw are more champs planned?
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@datJeester
I am not sure more champions would add much to the game. Unlike league, Mobamanager champions don't have abilities, just stat combinations. Most the beneficial combination are fulfilled with the current selection, adding more may just dilute it without bringing anything new. If each champion had some sort of unique ability, then more champions and abilities could diversify it more, but currently, I am not sure it'd be worth it.
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Nice
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Nice
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New champions are something we are looking at @Zantonny & @datJester
What we do preferably want to do is create more champions with definitive strengths/weaknesses where you can design a playstyle around those champions. Creating more strategic diversity.
The how/what/when is still unkown. But we are looking at our options and i can promise you that you will get an update from me somewhere in the future.
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@Zantonny Indeed would probably not be worth in pure gameplay view, but the champ pool per position is currently quite small and it would add some diversity to the game even if two champs are like 90% the same. It would also make buffs/nerfs more interesting with more champs involved.
for clarity: im not talking about 100+ champs, just some more compared with what we have
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Yes that would be great
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This would be nice, this way it's easier to see if the champ is AD or AP, because we know the champions.
Also something that would be nice is that u remove the balance from the profile. This way bidding gets more interesting. Know i know when bidding i have to bid more than their current balance to get the player.
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I'd argue against.
The learning curve is a bit steep for the game, tutorial doesn't run you through the champs or proposes a beginner tactic (from what I remember), so having a vague idea that, ok, Frost Archer is a damage-dealing glass cannon and Rock is a big bulky tank dude, I can make a quick assumption of what their roles are in the game.
Besides, the portrait art is different, just the names have some connection to league's champs, without being too obvious (e.g. Mana instead of Rayze). Why bother changing them? Seems like a purely aesthetic choice instead of offering an easy integration for new players.
Not to mention the potential confusion for already existing players. What if my visual memory is crap but I can remember champ names? How many of you can instantly tell the difference between Evil Master and Death Reaper's portraits, or Time Bomber vs Dark Angel? Maybe you can, since you're a forum poster and thus active, but the other majority of players who log in once a day or two?
The association with league is a strength you can rely on right now for marketing and user experience purposes. Why throw this away?
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i dont really like the idea, this game is league.. even if u cant call it that (copyright ) i believe more abstract names will just make this game look like a cheap knock off. no offence just my opinion
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I believe it's a good decision, I would like to suggest in the players view, that it would have table form(rather than switching in tabs) of which champions my players do excel in their ranked game and solo queue so that I may have good understanding of what's happening to my players. I believe with this it will do a lot of good things specially in the strategy sector of this game.
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Having the champions current names used as some sort of title would work well I think... ____, the Dark Angel ____, the Archangel ____, the Barbarian King
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Nice
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Yeah herth thats what cosmic meant. Which i do want us to implement as well
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I feel like the developers dont have anything to do with this, its just weed who wants a higher forum upvote score
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stop exposing me tim ffs
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If you change the names and/or playstyles of the champions it would be best to update/clarify their expected role/playstyle. While there is a connection to league people can understand that Sad Mummy will work the same way as Amumu in the jungle and team fights... and whether or not that actually has an impact in the current setup of the game.
1
Nice idea, would love to see that :)
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I come from league and it help a lot like this
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I think changing everything up might just cause extra confusion for the existing player base. Plus, it'd be a waste of the art and lore already put forth. Maybe a better way to give the MM champion pool its own identity would be to focus on creating new champions? Imo, it's a better use of energy/resources, since it can give the game greater strategic depth through greater champion diversity.
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Good idea!
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Great idea!
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I think this can be good. But, I'm afraid newcomers and those who don't play a lot will have hard time to understand what's going on in this game. So, it would need champion presentations.
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I feel like inSec should name every single champion. There should be inSec 1, inSec 2 and so on. They would have a special ability called sucking at the game.
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@Sol
It wouldn't be a waste of art as the art was designed around a future name change, the champions are the same, they do the same, it's just proper names.
0
I really understand the "Might cause confusion" argument, but it really isn't valid in this case in my opinion. Champions having names that are "close to" their "counterpart" in League of Legends (despite us being MobaManager and wanting to move away from a 100% LoL based game) isn't needed or won't help in clearing up any confusion as none, or a low amount of the champions in the game actually do what their counterpart in League of Legends do. We can take Frost Archer and Card Master as an example where CM has a higher CC stat than FA in the game, but not in League of Legends (Ashe, Twisted Fate). As the champions do not have abilities and their only "ingame identity" are their stats.
Main reason we want to rename the champions is that they have been placeholders since beta, we want to introduce new champions and give them proper names meaning that the currently existing ones will also need to be renamed. As with League of Legends or any other Moba that doesn't follow the Dota 2 style of champions (Axe, Witch Doctor etc. but Yasuo, Leona, (league) Sparrow, Murdock, (Paragon) and Anhur, Artemis (Smite, althought Gods they are still names and not a description of hero/champion/god).
So coming from this the new champion names will most likely be fantasy based names depending on the type of champion it is (race, gender), this is the main reason that the art in place will still be relevant as wether the name is Pyro Girl or Lydia doesn't matter at all to the art in place.
I will now go back to a little bit about this particular comment by dannieboyx
"The learning curve is a bit steep for the game, tutorial doesn't run you through the champs or proposes a beginner tactic (from what I remember), so having a vague idea that, ok, Frost Archer is a damage-dealing glass cannon and Rock is a big bulky tank dude, I can make a quick assumption of what their roles are in the game."
Alright, so, the learning curve is indeed a bit steep, but knowing that Frost Archer is damage dealing and Rock is a tank won't help you much as knowing wether a champion is a tank or a damage dealer will only make you run the traditional League style of Tank-ADJungle-APMid-ADMarksman-UtilitySupport, "Frost Archer" does tell you that she does damage, yes, but if we use another example that doesn't tell you it's an ADC then what? Let's take Plague Rat as an example, the counter part to Twitch. Plague Rat doesn't look or sound like an ADC, the only relationship you will have to him being ADC is if you come from League of Legends (we have Dota players, etc. it IS MobaManager) meaning this will create confusion for someone either way. For Rock you will know he is a tank, but does he go jungle or top? Tanks can be played both places right? Every traditional toplaner won't work as a jungler just like every jungler won't work as a tank, meaning you will have an advantage to the names if you play League of Legends. Think about the renames as a fresh start to the game, creating our own identity as we don't want to reflect League of Legends, but every Moba.
"Why bother changing them? Seems like a purely aesthetic choice instead of offering an easy integration for new players."
Champion identity, lore, game identity and our own world in a sense.
"Not to mention the potential confusion for already existing players. What if my visual memory is crap but I can remember champ names?"
In my opinion, just like League of Legends or any other game you enjoy playing (I hope you play for enjoyment o.o) you will learn to remember either the art or the new names. Noone could remember every League champ on the top off their head the first weeks they played either, unless they practiced.
"The association with league is a strength you can rely on right now for marketing and user experience purposes. Why throw this away?"
Now this is hard to answer, I can't answer from current thoughtprocess, but I can answer from what was going on when we threw it away back when we renamed from LoLManager to MobaManager. Main reason for this was to indeed market through all Mobas, main reason why we have majority League of Legends players is obviously because our first marketing marketed us as LoLManager and that LoL is the biggest Moba obviously. I do agree that the marketing there is strong, but when we already changed from LoLManager to be a manager game based on ALL Mobas I do believe we already threw the "only LoL association" out the window.
Hope this cleared up some people being confused, especially the ones being scared that you wouldn't be able to associate the champions with what they do aymore. Sorry if I repeated myself, a bit tired, but decided to write this up because of some of the comments here.
Note that this is solely my opinion and what I have gathered from looking at art, names and champion stats.
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You didn't even read my post smh
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Hey inSec, thanks for the in-depth answer!
I completely understand crafting your own identity, and that's a valid motivation; the rename from LoLManager to MobaManager was a great decision.
However, I believe that the current champion names, while taken from LoL's champion titles, can function well enough under a sub-identity while still maintaining the advantage of being recognisable by League players; those who will come from other MOBAs will likely believe they're unique and not necessarily connected to League. My concern here is that you're discarding a point of recognition and, thus, an attraction for a segment of your demographic, on the bid that you're going to craft a more attractive long-term identity for yourselves. As it stands, I'd argue the uncomfortable truth is that you benefit more in terms of player acquisition and retention due to this ease of recognition, than you would gain from a different set of names.
The range of champions is one of the most intimidating parts of the early learning curve – going through 50 characters, figuring out what they do, and then going through the trial and error process of seeing which works and which doesn't – it's a pain point that can be eased for part of your incoming user base, allowing you to focus on other aspects of the onboarding process. For example, I believe @Zantonny suggested a short description for each champion, such as preferred positions, underneath their names. You already have something in this direction with suggested positions in Pick Order when first developing a strategy, but as we all know, there's a lot of flex going on for quite a few champions.
Going a bit further, I sympathise with the "we've had these names since beta and they've grown dull". It's something I see a lot within start-up product teams; you spend all day looking at the same names and they start to grate on you. However, I'd really advocate the benefits of consistency. If you decide to change the names, make sure you give it proper attention and formulate a proper awareness campaign for the transition.
What I would suggest is looking at interaction patterns with the 35th to 75th percentile of the userbase. How are the average players adapting? How do their first days go? Where's the fall-off? Do they struggle with their first ranked games? Their strategy development? How do you get them to commit more to coming back daily? It's this kind of data that you should look at before making any emotionally-invested decisions.
Another suggestion would be to A/B test this. Can you roll this feature out to only a percentage of the users and see, over the course of 1-2 weeks, what the differences in retention and conversion are? That'd be great! I know I'm making a big deal out of this, but it does seem to me, as a player with no data on-hand other than what I've personally noticed and talked with users about, that this naming scheme might work quite a bit in your favour.
In the end, it's a relatively minor change, but I'd advise that it makes more business sense to keep the current similarity.
PS - my initial post was initially downvoted as well, I wouldn't worry so much, your points still get across!
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GG REPORT! THIS POST IS BOOSTED.
It's a joke, in my opinion is a good idea because champions aren't exactly as they are in league.
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Weed, it might be a good idea to add specific stats in the Champion pick order to show what the champions strong points are.
Lets say for Joker Role: Jungler Damage Affinity: AD
Something like this would make it easier for new players to know what the champions do in general instead of going back and forth from the champion stat list.
Just a thought
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Yeah thats a good idea Nekina, ill tell the devs to do that, maybe as a hover over or something it would be pretty useful
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Nice
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I disagree with insec. whatever he said
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Same
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I like the names. They help a lot and make this seem more into what we dream of doing.
