Illaoi is one of the eight characters that'll kickstart 2XKO when she launches in closed beta on PC on Sept. 9 and is one of the roster's more unique fighters due to her moveset and her use of tentacles on screen to land devastating blows.
I've always found the character fascinating, and a recent trip to Evo allowed me to spend time with the champion's designer, learning what drives her and the challenges of designing and developing her moveset.
Note: Portions of the interview have been edited to remove repetition and enhance the reading experience.
How did you first of all take Illaoi as a champion in League of Legends and turn that into what could be described as a good fighting game character?
Caroline “Shyvana” Montano (Champion Designer for Illaoi in 2XKO): So Illaoi in League of Legends is one of my mains. I main her on top and I love her. But what we did was we didn't want to take the gameplay directly from League of Legends. What we wanted to do was take the essence of what the character is all about, and we set up some goals and guardrails for what her kit could be in a fighting game.
And we went, "Okay, some things that are calling out to us are, should she be a puppet character? Should she be a brawler? What should she do?" And so we landed on this idea of, Oh, she's not controlling the God. The God is helping her and rewarding her for playing well. So we made it so that whenever she wants to use a tentacle, she has to earn it. So she has to go in and hit you with an S2, and then she gets a tentacle as a reward. And then she can beef up all of her combos and do all these cool things out of it. So with that kind of as a guiding light, we sort of set that as her thing.
Let's also talk about how she plays in 2XKO. It's very unique in comparison to all the other characters in there. Let's be honest, if we look at the roster as this, there is a lot of punching, a lot of shooting, but Illaoi has this whole mechanic with the tentacles that truly sets her apart from everyone else on the roster. Can you tell about can you tell us how a pain it was to develop those tentacles to work as you wanted it to?
Oh my gosh, the tentacles were probably the most complicated technological thing that I've encountered in a fighting Grace is the engineer who kind of built the tentacles from the ground up, and she and I were going back and forth on. Should we be able to hit them? Should they go away when she gets hit? All these little details that you don't really think about when you see a puppet character on in a fighting game.
And so with Illaoi, because the God is separate from her, we wanted to keep that as the guiding light, and they're hanging out. They can get hit, and then they go away, and that means there's counterplay. With the tentacle being independent, they will go away if Illaoi gets counter-hit. So, yeah, the tentacles are a real, real, really challenging part of developing Illaoi.
Let's also talk about the gameplay for a second here. Was there anything else that you looked at when designing the character that you kind of thought this had to be included because it's unique to her personality or a play style?
Yeah, so the way that we think about allowing is she's kind of a personal trainer that's also, kind of tough love, she's encouraging you to be the best version of yourself. And so we had this idea of keeping everyone in motion. She has all those lines [in League like] in motion. So, we were thinking that everything she does should encourage the opponent to move. And so we gave her a command grab on her tentacles so that they're a distance away from her. And whenever she uses a grab and there's a tentacle out, then the tentacle will grab them and spit them out, and she can do more combos.
The main thing about allowing Illaoi's unique self, aside from the God, is that she is the one that we're trying to highlight as the cool, heroic, very strong being.
Equally, I want to talk about making a character this fighting game. There are a lot of things a lot of people don't think about, the balancing issues, the stuff that comes with future character releases, making them well-balanced characters. Were there any issues, other than obviously, the tentacles that you had difficulty with when actually designing her as a well-rounded fighter that didn't feel overpowered, but equally, didn't feel completely weak and useless?
Yeah. So for sure... How strong should she be? And I think we land in a pretty, exciting place where she's not op. Before, what was happening was, for example, her charge forward as to where she summons a tentacle. It used to pop people up in Alpha Lab One. And that enabled too many good combos. And she was pretty top tier during that time. But now we've balanced it out. Her weakness before was neutral, and now we added in a charged crowd test to track the opponent, so that she could still be viable from full screen, because before, she didn't have anything full screen.
So I mean, I guess in general, balance-wise, we want all of our champions to have play—counterplay and something that makes them exciting to play and main for a lifetime. But we also don't want anyone to stand out as, "Oh, this has to be a part of your team." Or you're failing.
Final question, after working with Illaoi as long as you have and balancing her, which champion from the League roster would you work on next, and why and how would you go about doing it?
I mean, I would love to work... well, honestly, I would have loved to work on Vi because Vi is who I main in the jungle. So, but I guess because I don't want to give away too much information, I am working on some exciting channels and...
Can't tell me a little thing about it, not even a little hint!?
Unfortunately, no, but it's very exciting for me personally.
The post 2XKO Illaoi’s champion designer discusses tentacle problems and doing the character justice appeared first on Destructoid.
