Editor's Note: Hello everyone! As you may have noticed, Zeli bears a striking resemblance to Valorant's new hero, Neon – because we did it on purpose! Both roles were developed simultaneously by the same team.
If you were told that the city of Zuan is not just pervasive with harsh pollutants, with serious disparities between rich and poor, and pregnant with all kinds of unstable technology, would you believe it? In fact, under that layer of poisonous haze, there is still a side that ordinary people can't see. Here, magic not only exists, but also flourishes; Here, unity between neighbors is more important than anything else; Here, we are a family that tolerates each other's shortcomings.
So, now we'll have the opportunity to experience this dynamic, neon-glowing Zuan in a different way. Her name is Zeli.
Add an accuracy level of confrontation to the down-road alignment
Most of the league's heroes start with a creative seed — the design team needs a starting point. However, Zeli's starting point is not some special gameplay, not a character in the background story, nor a beautiful concept illustration, Zeli's life begins with a gun.
"The fun of shooting games is that there is a lot of emphasis on precision in the gameplay. Aiming marksmanship is important – marksmanship is the player's most important action in the game. Chief game designer August Browning elaborated, "In the league, ADC heroes attack quickly, but often do not focus on player accuracy as FPS games. Our iconic throwing skill hero, Izerell, is the closest to real-gun aiming, but there's still a big gap. Our ADC heroes have never had the thrill of suddenly killing an enemy in an FPS game, so we wanted to try it out this time to see if we could achieve that feeling in the league. ”
There were many guns in the league, but none of them really felt the way August wanted. Therefore, at this time, a new type of firearm should be introduced to the canyon: the assault rifle.
In tactical shooter games, assault rifles are often the most representative. This gun can achieve high-speed burst firing, in contrast to sniper rifles, which test the accuracy of a moment, while the submachine gun is a sudden and pouring fire. However, there is a fundamental problem with this concept idea: how do you test the accuracy of your marksmanship in a normal League of Legends attack? After all, ADC hero attacks are all right-clicked.
We all like to "walk a monster", such as Jinx and Big Mouth. But the thrill of right-clicking and the thrill of a headshot are completely incomparable. Therefore, in order to make Zeli show a sense of substitution as a sharpshooter, August decided to turn Zeli's general attack into a skill that needs to be aimed.
"Don't make a fuss, Fist, you just said that ADC General Attack should be right-clicked... How do you use the right button to put skills?"
Very simple. Zeli needs to use the Q skill to attack.
Did you hear that? It was this voice that made thousands of auxiliaries weep in shock.
"We don't deliberately design heroes with multiple general attack methods in order to pursue different. This is to give the player a special feeling when playing this character. August elaborated, "Zeli's general attack method is unique because we want to present the sense of substitution of precision shooting in FPS games in the league." But that means she's harder to pick up than other ADC heroes. A good Zeli player will perform frequent moves and hit all of her Q skills, but it will take a lot of play time to reach this level, because her gameplay is different from other ADC heroes. ”
In addition to marksmanship, Zeli also brings another common game mechanic in shooting games. Don't be in a hurry to spit in your heart, "Fist what the hell are you doing???" Let's hear what we're done.
Positioning isn't a new idea in any game — we've talked about position flexibility before, but positioning in League of Legends is very different from in shooters.
The shooter requires you to move quickly between two points, wrap the flanks, climb over vertical obstacles, and point to kill single enemies (or snipers all crooked). Although there are teleportations in the league, you can wrap the flanks, and occasionally there are homeopathic crushes, but these can't match the feeling of the full force in valorant competitive mode. That is to say, Zeli also needs some additional qualities, both to create a feeling of high mobility and to conform to the confrontation environment of League of Legends.
It was around this point in time that concept painter Nancy "Riot Sojyoo" Kim drew a set of illustrations by Zeli, with one option adding a distinct feature: roller skates.
"I didn't like Zeli in roller skates at first." August smiled and said, "But I think about it, roller skates can bring mobility to play, so it's quite appropriate." I can imagine Zeli sliding on Zuan's pipe in her roller skates. This reminds me of skateboarding games, where players can pedal on walls, go up U-shaped slots, and set up a set of actions. So, Zeli can too. She can slide over any wall in the game. ”
Not only can Zeli climb over the wall, but she can also have another unique interaction with the wall: bullets through the wall.
"My favorite thing about VALORANT is going through walls." August shared his personal experience, "Essentially, you shoot through a thin wall. Although you can't see the enemy, you may hear the footsteps of the enemy and guess the approximate position through the wall blindly shooting. Zeri's W skill is to shoot through the wall: she shoots a bullet that extends through the wall after hitting it, hitting enemies on the other side. This skill is partly inspired by the sniper in Valorant, but the walls of League of Legends are very different. This skill answers the assumption, 'What if you take the sniper in VALORANT to the League of Legends and shoot it?' However, considering that the skill missiles in League of Legends can already penetrate walls, it requires some special effects to pass through walls. ”
The Flash
In addition to marksmanship, Zeli's development process had another initial goal: to develop an alliance hero and a VALORANT agent in parallel. About 20% of league players also play VALORANT, so we wanted to try designing a similar set of characters so you could train new heroes in both games. In fact, this goal is very challenging.
League of Legends and VALORANT don't have much in common – Swift Crab barely counts as one. But there's one fundamental similarity between the two games, and that's that all playable characters have their own unique source of power.
"I work closely with Riot Sojyoo on the job, and there's also a senior concept artist at VALORANT, Konstantin 'Zoonoid' Maystrenko, and we brainstormed together many different ideas." Concept illustrator Gem "Lonewingy" Lim recalls, "We had so many ideas! Origami magic, graffiti art, misty black smoke, light magic, liquid metal and mercury, body printers, baseball girls, VR game girls... Later someone proposed a biofluorescence electric eel girl, which we thought was very cool. ”
The inhabitants of the Rune Land may have innate magic, regardless of where they were born. The Ihonians may be more likely to have magical talents than the inhabitants of the pi city of Zuan, but nothing is absolute. Although we already have a few magical heroes who have settled in the Twin Cities, most of them rely on Hex technology or alchemy technology.
Zeli's magic is produced from the inside out, she is like a human battery, and it is full of electricity. The electricity was very, very adequate. And because she was still very young and didn't know how to use this power stably, sometimes her magical power would be beyond her control.
"Zeli's strength is still growing. She is very different from the other heroes of Picheng Zuan, who are more mature and are very confident in their own strength, such as Wei, Victor, and Jace. Narrative writer Michael "SkiptoMyLuo" Luo shared his thoughts, "She's kind of like Ike in that regard." But Zeli is different in her magic principles. She couldn't control her strength for the time being, and she was even a little creepy. She's anxious, she's confused, she's scrambled, and that fits the theme of lightning, because she's always very fast. I think this emotionally charged personality also echoes The August designed gameplay very well. ”
Ze Li's big move is the specific presentation of her high-energy charged state. She will become extremely excited, with electricity flowing through her body, and she can meet any challenge. The effect reflected in the game is that she will get a huge increase in attack speed and movement speed, rush into the battlefield, and be ecstatic in her ability to use it flexibly.
However, this level of magic is not without flaws.
Imagine you have a consistent source of electricity, but control decreases when mood swings. This will require you to be extra careful at times, such as hugging your parents or kissing for the first time. Even a nightmare can make your power run out of control.
The unstable magic power makes Zeli easy to become a problem that needs to be corrected in the eyes of the residents of Pi City. But fortunately Zeli was not born in Picheng. She is a Zuan native. Zuan, on the other hand, has a different attitude: they don't care about the popularity of magic, but want to highlight their unique characteristics, the beauty under that layer of sludge, which is Zuan's true color.
The traditional spirit of the city of Zuan
We have a lot to consider when making new heroes: difficulty, gameplay substitution, silhouette (a simple example). But beyond that, we want players around the world to see their shadow in a certain hero — like an old friend they know.
Many of our heroes are inspired by the stories and cultures of the developers behind them. For example, Akshan likes Bollywood-style performances, and then samura's expatriate stories. Zeli is no exception.
Seriously, the Character of the Zuan in the video game is probably only... Four. Lonewingy shares her personal experience, "When SkiptoMyLuo came up with the idea of an electric eel, I wrote one..." She laughed out loud, "A very simple elementary school student essay about a little girl in a middle-class family in Zuan who can't control her own power." She caused power outages to her neighbors – something that's common in Zuan! Once our side was sucked into the pipes of the power station because of the jellyfish, which led to a major power outage. ”
"I was inspired by those conversations! I used this as a foothold, especially the part of her portrayal as a cute little fool. In Zuan, the urban environment is magical, pitch black, and not suitable for survival. SkiptoMyLuo said, "But on the other hand, it's also a city full of rugged beauty that people have to love." There are many beloved characters here, such as Ike, who reminds us that Zuan is never a place to pass. I think a hero like Zeli must be able to show such a Zuan from another angle. It's not just her story, it's also the story of her family, and the story of the people around her. ”
So, back to the topic of "Zeli has powerful superpowers that are difficult to control"... Her neighbors and family are here.
Everything Zeli had, everything that shaped her, came from the neighborhood, not from the rich alchemical barons and the group they were in charge of. Her jacket was given to her by a neighbor who wore an old one, and her father's modification could hinder her ability to hug her family. Her guns were made by her mother from industrial waste, materials collected by neighbors who wanted to help her control the power. And they don't ask for anything in return. Zeli is very content and grateful for everything. She wants to repay everyone's unconditional love and support. So she fought for them. Fight for Zuan.
"I think... We are all proud of today's Zeli. SkiptoMyLuo laughs and says, "When Lonoewingy told me how much the local people valued neighborhood affection, everything felt very right: Zeli was a hero of neighborhood achievements." Game design, storytelling, and visual art all come together. She is not a perfect person, but she is undoubtedly the highlight of Zuan City, bringing joy and pleasure to the surroundings. But unlike heroes like Salefani, she is well aware of the harsh reality of her hometown. She's not naïve, and she's not ready to save the world, but even if she's clumsy, she has to work 100 percent harder. ”
Fortunately, the whole of Zuan and her neighbors will help her when she is shaken.