Poppy/Development

Development
 was designed by Steven 'Coronach' DeRose.

Champion Sneak Peek
By Pendragon
 * Prepare yourselves. The tiny but mighty Poppy has joined the League of Legends! This compact little warrior packs one mean punch with her mighty hammer, Whomper. Boasting a powerful set of abilities, Poppy is ready to pulverize anyone who thinks it funny to make a short joke.

Poppy Visual Talks
By Fruity Sebbles

"Everyone’s favorite hammer girl has been on our scopes for a while, as she’s one of those older champions in need of across-the-board work to bring her up to current standards. To be clear, we LOVE her core identity - who doesn’t want to play the fearless Yordle striking hammer-induced terror into enemies across the map? In fact, the gap between her awesome premise and lackluster execution is exactly why we’re working on her.

Artistically, Poppy will still look like a heavily armed and armored ball of golden death. We’re looking to preserve her thematic and color scheme while bringing her art up-to-date both technically and stylistically. Similarly, there’s a lot to love in her story, we just plan to bring it up-to-date and cement her more firmly in the world and among her fellow Yordles. On the gameplay front the challenge is a bit bigger, as Poppy’s kit is pretty archaic at this point. Nevertheless, we’re looking to keep her current fearless style of gameplay and core dash-and-smash mechanics - we still want her to have that same diver mentality.

Poppy is definitely a hefty undertaking - not quite a Sion-level project but pretty close to it. She’s still a ways out and is going to take a lot of work, but will hopefully offer an awesome experience for players once we’re done with the job."

Champion Insight: Poppy
BY FIZZNCHIPS "Poppy’s champion update’s been on the list since before there even was a list. With the Keeper of the Hammer making her debut on PBE, read the story of how it came together.

Design notes from Solcrushed

Narrative notes from JohnODyin

Art notes from Lonewingy

We started exploring Poppy more than a year ago. With her outdated visuals and awkward, imbalanced kit, she’s long been a candidate for a champion update, but getting it right meant expanding on the limited things we knew about her (she had fewer than twenty lines in game) while finding a new gameplay design that would fit with her character and satisfy fans of the little-yordle-that-could.

Poppy’s the Demacian yordle. That was clear from the beginning. But as a champion proud and loud about her love for Demacia, it was important to keep her from seeming like a mini-Garen. So while she can fangirl for Garen and kneel to Jarvan IV, she has to stand out as her own yordle. Demacian in her own way.

The solution we arrived at was embracing the notion of an unaware hero. She was given a legendary weapon and tasked with finding the hero worthy of wielding it. She’s an answer to the question, what would a hero be like if they had all of the strength, courage, and potential of legend, but no idea of it?



Poppy’s the underdog, even when she’s packing the biggest hammer in the fight. Poppy’s a walking contradiction. Small, but unbelievably tanky. First into the fray, but last to believe in herself. She’s earnest to the point where you can’t quite trust her, but honest to the extreme that you know you have to.

Hammering home her personality keeps her identity distinct among the yordles, while showing off an alternate take on the traditional Demacian warrior. Whether defending a small village besieged by a nefarious dragon, or a sidelane squishy under assault by a gank-hungry jungler, Poppy’s coming to save the day. She just might apologize afterwards.
 * Like a giant Demacian hero, but yordle-r

Balancing the contradiction inherent in her character and then expressing it through gameplay, art, and story proved a unique challenge. At the same time we were puzzling out how to really put the hammer down in terms of her story, it was our chance to figure out how Poppy should look. Some champs are dark and grim like Thresh or horrifying like Hecarim. And others have a snaggletooth. Unlike a champ like Sion, Poppy’s in-game visuals were outdated, but not far off from the way a yordle decked out in Demacian dress would appear.

The one thing that really stood out was the hammer. Her story, gameplay, and art all center around her weapon, but it wasn’t always the biggest thing about her. So we re-rolled the drop. Now her hammer is twice the size of the diminutive yordle, representing the burden of her quest to find the hero of legend and the power she packs into a small frame.

To show off those unique sides of her that make her different from other Demacians (and yordles), we’ve played up the extremes of her personality in art and in-game visuals as well as the story and gameplay: she’s introspective and full of doubts but also eager and full of energy. She shoulders the burden of her quest with pluck and courage, but her humility leaves her with a glaring blind spot. She can’t see that she might be the Demacian hero she’s been seeking the whole time.






 * Frontline Demacian juggeryordle



No part of a champion update happens in a vacuum, and while we explored different storytelling and visual possibilities for a pint-sized brawler, we were also experimenting with gameplay kits. When we first brought Poppy into the ol’ update workshop, we had to deal with one of the most powerful, but least compelling abilities in the game.

Poppy’s old ultimate, Diplomatic Immunity, could render her immune from damage and crowd control from everything that wasn’t trapped in a glowing gold cylinder of sadness. Diplomatic Immunity defined her kit, and pushed her play pattern towards “assassinate the backline with absurd damage out of nowhere.” That squishy-squasher style didn’t make sense given Poppy’s original story or the direction we were taking her, and Diplomatic Immunity was so powerful, Poppy’s entire kit had to be limited because of it.

After initial explorations, it became clear that straight up nerfing Diplomatic Immunity meant losing what made the ability cool and unique. Once we made the decision to remove it instead, we could play around with new signature abilities to anchor the kit around. After trying a few different themes, we circled back to her story and focused on one aspect of her character in particular—disproportionate power—which led to her new ultimate. With the exaggerated hammer slap of Keeper’s Verdict in place, we found we were able to really push Poppy’s strategic niche of tanky disruption to eleven.



We’re looking forward to bringing her back to the battlefield packing a whole new wallop.

Poppy’s new unique gameplay identity embraces her small-stature/big-hammer duality. Despite being one of the smallest champions in the game, she brings a ton of crowd control that’s perfect both for causing commotion in a big scrum and flattening bad guys one-on-one.

Through her art, gameplay, and story, we’ve refined the core of Poppy’s personality and playstyle while discovering a few things, too. She’s on PBE now, but we’re looking forward to bringing her back to the battlefield packing a whole new wallop."

The Arsenal: Forging Poppy’s Hammer
BY RUMTUMTUMMERS

"Reworking Poppy was a chance to tune up her biggest, baddest character elements while giving her completely new play patterns. We knew the hammer, her signature weapon, would be critical in solidifying her refreshed identity; like Jinx’s rocket launcher, Nautilus’ anchor, or Riven’s sword, Poppy’s hammer is an integral part of both her kit and her personality. We had to get it right for both to ring true.

In short, it was hammer time.

Poppy’s original hammer and shield were designed to fit her small stature. “Before, Poppy had a Yordle hammer and a Yordle shield,” explains concept artist Gem Lim. “But we wanted to do more with it.” The team realized that by choosing one primary item for Poppy to wield and over-emphasizing it, they could create a champion with a silhouette and style different from any other champion in League. “Instead of equal attention for the hammer and shield, we toned the shield down and made the hammer ginormous,” says Gem. “What struck me the most about Poppy was this sense of disproportionate power. She’s a small character who does big things. The hammer should communicate that.”
 * Small character; big impact

Poppy’s new champion-smasher wasn’t custom-made to fit her; it’s a regular-sized hammer she wields with incredible power. “The new hammer is more than a weapon,” Gem says. “Its humongous size contributes to her silhouette and her movement. No champion moves like her. When you see her swing that hammer, it’s so different from Sion with his axe or Garen with his sword.” Senior narrative writer John O’Bryan adds, “It’s almost like she puts all of herself into every swing.” The new hammer design contributed to Poppy’s new ult and each of her re-tuned abilities.


 * " When others run away, Poppy runs forward. She’s indomitable. "

Gem emphasizes the idea of a tiny character packing a big punch: “We want people to feel that crazy disproportionate power. Like, ‘Oh, look at the cute little—ouch!' It’s over-the-top and unexpected.”


 * A hero’s journey

Poppy’s hammer is an important part of her personal journey. “A Hero’s Call,” which offers players a glimpse into Poppy’s world, is centered on the hammer and what it means to her. O’Bryan elaborates, “Even she doesn’t think it’s hers. She thinks it’s a tool for someone else.” Scaling the hammer to make it a normal hammer size helps emphasise the idea that Poppy doesn’t necessarily believe the hammer is hers to wield, that somewhere in the world is a hero meant to carry it. The hammer existed long before Poppy took possession of it.



Though she’s been carrying the hammer for a long, long time, Poppy hasn’t yet realized that she’s what gives the hammer its strength. O’Bryan explains, “If you were to ask Poppy, she would probably think she’s nothing special. Everything she’s doing is because of this hammer she’s carrying around. But really, it’s all coming from her.” Players know one thing Poppy doesn’t: The hammer is right where it needs to be. The immovable object

Poppy’s new weapon is meant to emphasise core elements of her personality. “She’s purposeful,” says O’Bryan. “Nothing can stop her; if you knock her down, she’s going to keep getting back up.” The team behind the Poppy update wanted to give a sense of solidity to Poppy, the idea that to get to Poppy’s team, enemies have to go through her. “When others run away, Poppy runs forward,” says Gem. “She’s indomitable.”

The hammer is a symbol of Poppy’s strength, her unflinching dedication to her task, and her world view. “Poppy doesn’t think of herself as a small character,” O’Bryan says, “because she really isn’t.” Gem says, “She’s the pebble you thought you could kick, but couldn’t. There’s no one like her.”"