Fans logging onto the PBE to try out the new League of Legends Star Guardian Akali skin were delighted to see that, while it looks very nice, it also had a deeper interaction with chromas that they’re used to seeing with these periodic releases. With each colourisation of the skin, the abilities had been changed to match, giving the entire line a much more cohesive look – and Akali mains a reason to purchase everything on offer.
It wasn’t long after the PBE release of the skin that Riot developers took away the ability re-colour, setting all of the champion’s projectiles and effects to the default purple. This was met with an extremely long, extremely negative, Reddit thread. Fans were confused and angry that Riot had seemingly chosen to take away a feature that was already there – in their eyes shoehorning ‘ability VFX’ into more premium chroma purchases.
Here is a YouTube video showcasing all Akali chromas, pre-revert:
A statement released by Riot a few days after the backlash attempted to clarify the reasoning for the reversal of the VFX changes on Star Guardian Akali, while also ‘clearing up some things’ about future releases. The full statement can be found on the League of Legends PBE subreddit; it explains that, while full VFX changes on chromas have made the League of Legends fanbase ‘pretty excited’, it is unsustainable for the development team to deliver on that level of work for each patch.
The statement breaks down each level of chroma that is available and what changes those will entail – ranging from Epic to Mythic. The only level of chroma that will receive the full VFX treatment is, unsurprisingly, the Mythic tier, and while they then went on to say any already released chromas will remain unchanged, the removal of the Akali VFX additions will stand.
Anger and confusion followed below this post, with a lot of users perplexed as to why the Akali chroma VFX was removed despite the work on creating them having already been completed. After all, the argument on not creating additional VFX was the workload it creates, so the decision to remove something that already exists nullifies that somewhat.
Stay tuned to PCGamesN for more details on the League of Legends Star Guardians skins and other rewards, as well as other updates on the MOBA game as they happen.