What's viscerality in terms of champion design?
Let's talk about the v-word!
Viscerality is one of those words that gets used and abused so much it's become a semi-sarcastic buzzword around the office. It is, however, an important concept to keep in mind.
The simplest definition I can think of is that viscerality in game design is a measure of how good a mechanic feels. That's really it. Viscerality is a problem when a numerically powerful ability is severely undersold (Taric's armor aura, Janna's AD bonus on her shield).
Viscerality derives from good communication. Sometimes that's entirely in the audiovisual (chunky sounds, snappy animations, clear particle effects), sometimes viscerality derives from additional things a spell requires that extend into other areas of gameplay (many of our big hits have follow-up slows that mechanically the spell could do without but that serve a meaningful function as hit confirmation).
As a mechanics designer, I am responsible for viscerality whenever I think through the balancing parameters of a spell: how fast can this move block be, how short a wind-up animation can I get away with, how much of this debuff can be frontloaded? Whenever you do a powerful thing without understanding that you did a powerful thing, we have failed on a viscerality level. Whenever you play a champion that feels "floaty" and "loose", we have failed.
I would argue that among the champions I worked on, Tahm Kench's Q satisfies this in the best way: the tongue animation is snappy, has a short but powerful looking windup, the "smack" sound when it hits is really satisfying and the saliva splashing off the target is, eh, disgusting/satisfying. To buy these effects I had to put power into the spell (short windup, fast missile speed) that had to come out of something else. This is why Tahm has to stand still for the entire duration and why the enemy gets the ground indicator.
Viscerality is one of those words that gets used and abused so much it's become a semi-sarcastic buzzword around the office. It is, however, an important concept to keep in mind.
The simplest definition I can think of is that viscerality in game design is a measure of how good a mechanic feels. That's really it. Viscerality is a problem when a numerically powerful ability is severely undersold (Taric's armor aura, Janna's AD bonus on her shield).
Viscerality derives from good communication. Sometimes that's entirely in the audiovisual (chunky sounds, snappy animations, clear particle effects), sometimes viscerality derives from additional things a spell requires that extend into other areas of gameplay (many of our big hits have follow-up slows that mechanically the spell could do without but that serve a meaningful function as hit confirmation).
As a mechanics designer, I am responsible for viscerality whenever I think through the balancing parameters of a spell: how fast can this move block be, how short a wind-up animation can I get away with, how much of this debuff can be frontloaded? Whenever you do a powerful thing without understanding that you did a powerful thing, we have failed on a viscerality level. Whenever you play a champion that feels "floaty" and "loose", we have failed.
I would argue that among the champions I worked on, Tahm Kench's Q satisfies this in the best way: the tongue animation is snappy, has a short but powerful looking windup, the "smack" sound when it hits is really satisfying and the saliva splashing off the target is, eh, disgusting/satisfying. To buy these effects I had to put power into the spell (short windup, fast missile speed) that had to come out of something else. This is why Tahm has to stand still for the entire duration and why the enemy gets the ground indicator.
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Jason Viers
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