The horrendous Teamfight Tactics card art seen so far in set three will soon be no more.
In an announcement made late Wednesday evening, the UX lead for TFT Jeff Zhang said that they will be going back to using champion splash arts for the cards going forward. The change is expected to hit the Public Beta Environment within the next week.
Hey y’all we’ve made the decision to move back to Splash Art from models for TFT.
More context here: https://t.co/s2931IzAYS
— Jeff Zhang (@Xhanghai) March 4, 2020
Backlash from the fans made Riot decide to move forward with the change. Fans have said the models on the cards are ugly and dont look good in game. Some complaints even brought up the fact that even with the models, it was hard to distinguish between champions which is why Riot started using the models in the first place.
It is ugly. I’m sorry, not going to sugar coat this, it looks REALLY bad. It looks cheap, and is a downgrade from what we had, at least aesthetically speaking.
Now, you may say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that my opinion is subjective.
— Nebura / Commissions closed / (@NeburaART) March 4, 2020
The first time players had a glimpse at the new changes was back when the mobile version was first tested out. In the mobile version for set two, the champions did not have the splash arts that the PC version had. They had the models similar to what has been seen in set three so far. Even back then, Riot was receiving backlash.
Set 2 on mobile used champion models as card art before it was cool. (photo credit to Notagamer.net)
Riot’s stance on the model use was due to new players not being able to recognize champions based on splash arts. They said that new players would have an easier time distinguishing champions from their in game model instead.
Riot also stated that using models allowed them to be more creative when it came to game design. Zhang on reddit stated that some champions didn’t have skins that fit in line with their class or trait and using models allowed for more flexibility.
Even though their point was valid in many players eyes the trade off to many was not enough to warrant a change. Having a better looking game for many players is more important than having a game that is more accessible to people who dont have knowledge of League of Legends splash arts.
However, Zhang said that Riot will continue to figure out a way to have the best of both worlds. In the future another change may come to the card art. But for now the decision has been made to go back to the splash arts. After all, splash arts have been in TFT since the beginning of set one.
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