It’s not often that Riot Games improves on League of Legends’ detailed code. In Sylas’ instance, however, they did it without any particular design or intention.
Sylas was introduced to League of Legends by Riot Games in 2019. Sylas is already nearing the region of an old champion by today’s standards.
Riot Games had to change the way they programmed champion abilities in League of Legends, which meant rewriting hundreds of components of the game as well as the core ability of every champion.
How Sylas helped created the ‘stealing’ mechanic
The champion was inspired by a mage who steals abilities and utilizes them as a mechanic. While the stealing aspect of his ultimate was eventually adjusted to match a better theme, the champion core remained.
Regardless of how much fun it was to play, actually making the ultimate proved a headache for the devs. According to the developers, in order for spell-stealing to operate in League, the technical team had to completely rewrite every ability in the game.
Previously, spells in League were not put up in such a way that another champ could access them, as they explain.
Each champion was fundamentally bound by their own particular spells. Prior to Sylas, the idea of an ability, or how a spell works from beginning to end, didn’t truly exist in League’s system.
Because most spells were contained within an individual champion’s scripts, the devs did not comprehend each ability on its own. Spell passives were also not a self-contained idea. So, in order for abilities and passives to flow over to Sylas, the team had to develop those systems and apply them for every champion.
Thus, the devs started improvising with those systems to improve the ‘stealing’ mechanics, which then created opportunities for the team in the long term to develop Viego and Ultimate Spellbook.
You must log in to post a comment.