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I don't care about dominion at all, but here is why I'm still pissed they're removing it

slippykitten··319 votes·11,013 views

I don't play dominion and never liked it one bit. Many players did enjoy it and it has been a permanent game mode for 4 years now. But here is the kicker -

Riot openly claims they can't support dominion anymore because it requires too many resources

This is what pisses me off. Riot made 1.6 billion last year. That's more than the highest grossing COD game brought in. 1.6 billion this year alone, and let's be honest here, it didn't cost them 1.6 billion dollars to make a few new pictures for champs and tweak some numbers around.

Riot also was acquired by Tencent holdings, which is the most successful video game company in the world. They have MORE resources than ANY OTHER GAME COMPANY IN EXISTENCE. No doubt thought, it was Tencent that put the pressure on league to become even MORE of a cash cow, so they decided to cut out something that was costing them a few dollars to get EVEN RICHER.

This is friggin unacceptable. If this community hasn't earned the right to keep a mode they have enjoyed for 4 years after making you filthy stinking rich, then I don't think i can have any faith in you at all. If after being made rich by this community, and selling out to Tencent holdings anyway, you still need to nab every single penny from your playerbase that you can, then you're nothing but a greedy corporate giant that doesn't deserve a penny more from this community.

Listen, this is nothing more than a greedy ploy to make EVEN MORE money than they already have by removing an aspect of the game many players enjoyed. They simply caclulated how many players would get pissed off by it and how much it took in upkeep and decided it was more profitible to remove it.

**TL;DR - in other words riot has said "we found a place we could make a few extra bucks, so screw the players" **

Edit: Those that are saying "but a business is SUPPOSED to make money" are missing something. You are in a constant state of getting less content the more money they make, and that is unacceptable.

We once got map skins for seasons - gone We used to get new champs much more frequently Champ prices used to get reduced when new ones were released and now they are removing a mode because it costs them too much to keep it up.

If it was a tradeoff, I would be fine. If they said "we had to choose between dominion and this new map we think will be much more fun" I would have understood, because not a whole lot play dominion. But it wasn't a choice to reallocate resources to something else for the consumer, it was a choice to reallocate resources into their pocketbooks.

287 Comments

Paroe77 votes

Riot: Alternate game modes are only good in small doses. Everyone else: So why dont we have a weekly rotation? Riot: Alternate game modes are only fun during the week theyre first released. Everyone else: So why dont we have a weekly rotation of them? Riot: Alternate game modes take time and resources. Everyone else: So why dont we have a rotation that changes as new game modes are released? Riot: Alternate maps take up to many resources Everyone else: But its already in the game. Riot: Anything not summoners rift-esque will not be supported. Everyone else: Isnt that discriminatory? Riot: What no its not discriminatory look at all this data! Everyone else: What data? Riot: The data we say! Everyone else: thats not that works.... Riot: Shut up you stupid pleb! Buy more RP and Maybe we wont ban you for being toxic!

Llanite7 votes

To be fair, alternative mode is only fun until someone finds a gamebreaking combo and then everyone and their mothers follow suits.

The second one-for-all was tard boring if you ask me.

Queen Scylla15 votes

the main game mode is the same thing tbh

Gentleman Shaco68 votes

it'd be less of a big deal if they actually gave us a new game mode took them 3yrs just to get treeline out of beta, canceled last two new maps and the "howling abbyss" is a friggen modified tutorial map so its like.... jeezsus how lazy can you be, not like the community has screamed for new map/gamemode for years what do we get? a tutorial remake and dominion removed, but worry not riot's making more skins to cram down our throat! i really wish riot would take a break from their near 1,000 skins and make a 3rd map sometime in the many yrs this game has been around

cuddlykitten45 votes

They did make a third map man. Nobody played it so they are removing it. If I bought you a car and you wrecked it, do you expect me to get you a new car?

Paroe33 votes

{quoted}

They did make a third map man. Nobody played it so they are removing it. If I bought you a car and you wrecked it, do you expect me to get you a new car?

your analogy is flawed. This is more like buying a 'for fun' car for your kids to cruise in, then when your kids get used to your car they stop using the old one; so instead of keeping the old car around (even though you could) you decide to scrap it entirely.

Newsflash; most people dont scrap their cars if they can help it.

Biffolo6 votes

A better example would be turning around and selling the car they don't need.

It Hertz When IP29 votes

To be fair it wasn't the best analogy in the first place. A better would be taking the dog that the kids don't play with anymore and feeding it through a shredder.

Narasimha4 votes

Eh, when the dog dies, you bury it right? That's what this is.

Or perhaps another analogy. I have no experience with this, but I believe it goes that when a horse is on its last legs and can't be saved, you shoot it, correct?

HeadHonchkrow7 votes

Assuming that Dominion was "on it's last legs"

Narasimha15 votes

I don't think Dominion ever really got on its first legs, to be fair.

Niclroy10 votes

You have 3 kids. 2 no longer play with the dog, but 1 of them does. You figure that since most of the kids no longer play with the dog, you should just put it down.

That's the best analogy I could come up with.

Rozzeta10 votes

Not only is ARAM the "friggen tutorial" map, I think it was a project carried out by interns.

Krinu24 votes

Speaking as somebody with a small bit of experience in the industry...

It's really not as simple as "throw more money at the problem."

It takes a long time to get people up to speed on the culture, the content pipeline, the management, and the quirks of a studio. It takes time to gather hires, to interview people, to relocate them (if necessary) to be near the studio. If you add too many people, you may need to change how you manage them, or even divide teams up. All of this takes a lot of time and effort, and when somebody is coaching a new hire on how things are done, they're less productive on their own.

Yes, you do eventually gain more productivity... but it can be quite a while before you start moving ahead of where you would have been if you hadn't hired somebody. For many studios, the ramp-up time between "newly hired" and "productive independent member of team" can be six months or more. For companies that do more complex work - like operating systems - that time can be measured in years.

If you're interested in some related reading, I suggest "The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering" by Frederick Brooks. It really goes into detail as to why "throw more bodies at the problem" doesn't help.

Game developers really care about what they do. They put heart and soul into it, and one of the most painful accusations is "you don't care and just want money." That simply isn't true, for the vast majority of developers.

LichKing2343 votes

true but riot hasnt really grown its team (last time i checked if they have thats my bad on my part) but for the msot part everyone at riot headquarters has the experience to fix dominion.

plus with all stuff they been doing for SR while showing barely any love to the other gamemodes the last big thing was the bilgewater update and they could have kept that map in customs but they didnt.

they have promised the playerbase alot of things then turned back on there word and said its not in the budget but they made 1.6 billion dollars if i rember correctly last year so where did all that money go to if they didnt have the money to add some features to the game but can crank out skins like its no tomorrow but fixing a gamemode or at the very least revamp it like fix the map up cause the map lets be honest its old and needs to be updated. they give no insentive to play dominion hell allowing champ masteries (sorry for spelling) to be gained in dominion will help boost its popularity granted it will also increase toxicty in that gamemode. or add items that are exculsive to dominion and not shared with TTL or ARAM fix the map you got tons of ways to fix dominion with out removing it.

its not so much riot cant do it its that they refuse to do it.[slayer-jinx-unamused]

LeprechaunJinx3 votes

I'm just going to point out that Riot's use of the words "resources" and "budget"* (though I don't remember them ever using that term for reasons I'll go into at a footnote) doesn't refer to strictly money. In fact if I'm remembering correctly and the term "budget" wasn't used at all in this case, it primarily means man hours of work/the number of people necessary for the job. Riot Games is a big company but they're always doing work, game modes, champions, balance changes, icons, sound, bug fixes, performance, etc. are all worked on simultaneously by all the different teams.

Now if the visual update team is currently working on champion overhauls (Taric, Mage Update, Yorick, as well as visual changes to upcoming champions who have models), there are only so many of them. If Riot were to reassign values to a Dominion update most of the staff involved in visuals at the least would prioritize that as designated and all other projects would be set aside or worked very slowly on over a much longer time frame.

It's the same reason we didn't get nearly as many visual updates on things like champions, icons, particles, etc. when Summoners Rift was getting an overhaul, that portion of the staff was working on a much larger but much more demanding project.

  • Footnoted because I don't want this to be the major point for continuing conversation. Why the term "budget" wasn't or wouldn't be used is because it generates the same connotations that a lot of people in this thread seem to be getting, that the issue is money. Now money is always a factor, and looking over Riot's yearly income gains certainly seems like it'd be pertinent information, those values are misunderstood often. That money isn't just the money that they earned to use however they'd like, that's the money used for: expansion, new facilities, hiring workers/voice actors/staff/investors, paying salaries/bills/investors/stock, etc.
TallyZrg22 votes

I love how these OPs don't understand how game / software design actually works. They just get some facts, paint their own picture and jump to conclusions instead of critically thinking or doing the actual research on how it works.

I also love how they don't understand business decisions and take things personally.

ZephyrDrake13 votes

{quoted}

I love how these OPs don't understand how game / software design actually works. They just get some facts, paint their own picture and jump to conclusions instead of critically thinking or doing the actual research on how it works.

I also love how they don't understand business decisions and take things personally.

i love how people keep sucking Riot's dick not matter how they fuck up and go out of their way to defend their terrible decisions that they keep making over and over and over.

TallyZrg12 votes

At least Riot is professional and owns their mistakes and is making an effort to improve their systems.

Something I cant say about most of this community of immature millenials that think negative toxic outbursts that are fueled by their need to vent frustration in an effort to make themselves feel better (verbal masturbation) is the best way to handle a situation.

Also here's a spoiler about life. Not everyone is going to agree with you, dont be surprised when I happens.

ZephyrDrake14 votes

{quoted}

At least Riot is professional and owns their mistakes and is making an effort to improve their systems.

Something I cant say about most of this community of immature millenials that think negative toxic outbursts that are fueled by their need to vent frustration in an effort to make themselves feel better (verbal masturbation) is the best way to handle a situation.

Also here's a spoiler about life. Not everyone is going to agree with you, dont be surprised when I happens.

is this supposed to be sarcasm? "Riot owns their mistakes and is making an effort to improve the systems"? sorry but what? they only ever acknowledge their mistakes when it blows up right in front of their faces and they have no other choice but to do so and i don't see how they are trying to improve their systems when they literally change things for the worse more often than not and then refuse to fix the broken change until once again, it blows up right in their face.

Keep sucking Riot's dick please

Tridem5 votes

They did that on the boards... In a thread today, RiotRepertoir apologized for Riots behalf on being a bit distant on champion reworkd i think. I forgot which thread but I'll never forget that moment.

Mast3rShake17 votes

The whole point the OP brings up is that he understands the business decision and thinks that it is greedy, because it is.

Pyrodinium13 votes

He doesn't understand a thing. He brings up the 1.6 billion figure, which is Riot's revenue, and tries to pass it off as income.

I assume he believes the company's infraestructure runs on the community's good wishes and the employees are paid in hugs.

And offing a part of your system that is draining resources and weighing down your operation is not mere greed (although it may be greed as well), but a sound decision from both a financial and game design perspective.

By Riot's number, only 1 in each 200 players played Dominion regularly, while the effort required to support the map is likely many times higher than that. Are they jusified in pulling the plug on a mode that is not working as intended? Yes, they totally are.

Rot Panda17 votes

http://imgur.com/a/iQnfG

and https://youtu.be/cgXXtukE7rs?t=3m from pax 2012

TheI3igDaddy14 votes

They're straight up lying at this point. They just don't want to bother with it anymore, and focus purely on SR competitive play.

Ulquiorra99536 votes

Unfortunately, I do agree they are most probably blatantly lying to their playerbase. Let's look at two responses from a Rioter in the Dominion removal annoucment thread:

When asked about keeping it as a custom game mode;

{quoted}

Unfortunately, keeping Dominion available in Custom games still has the same cost as being a matchmade queue. :/ We have to ensure all champions work with capture points, items, etc.

In response to asking if Dominion can return as featured mode sometimes:

{quoted}

I like this idea. Always have. Something we'd certainly consider.

And here's a big contradiction. If they consider keeping it even as featured mode, they'd still have to ensure all champions and stuff works. Which means that one of above quotes is almost certainly a huge fucking lie - there are two outcomes here, and none of them is pretty:

1.) They are flat out lying about considering Dominion as a featured mode in order to try and calm down people. 2.) They do consider Dominion as a featured mode and thus will work to optimize new stuff on that map. However, this means that it isn't the problem that they can't keep it as a custom game mode - but rather that they don't want to. Stick with the Summoners LC$BIGPLAYS Rift, kids.

Aaaand Riot lost the last ounce of respect I had for them with this move.

Neomea3 votes

Please don't misquote the Rioters, the question that the

"I like this idea. Always have. Something we'd certainly consider."

was in response to had NOTHING to do with bring back Dominion as a featured game mode, the question asked was

At the very least,in place of Dominion,can we get a Featured Game mode rotation Queue?

cuddlykitten413 votes

You guys have no idea what it takes to keep something like that up and running do you?

Bots Whilst High12 votes

Well assuming each developer makes ~100,000k annually, the cost of hiring one more developer is .006% of their annual income, i think they can spare it.

The Soulforged5 votes

Sadly, I think it might be lower than 100k annually.

slippykitten7 votes

{quoted}

You guys have no idea what it takes to keep something like that up and running do you?

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what it takes to keep it up, but I do have some other information that proves it isn't THAT much. The game was released with just a few mill in total dev and startup costs, AND there are about a million other mobas on the market from everybody and their mother. I would imagine that if it was a tremendous amount to have a server that could support this type of game, they wouldnt have been able to do it with 3 guys and a million bucks, and there wouldnt be everyone else just throwing themselves at the chance.

Mister Support10 votes

The biggest cost is probably server management to support millions of players across many regions able to play all at once. Especially since each region has their own central servers and they need to support hundreds if not millions of games occurring at once. The game opened with the idea that not many would play, which is why it started up with about a million, big server management wasn't needed. There's also paying employees (probably near a hundred people per team) and pro players + teams (guess where their pay comes from).

Ariel the Cruel7 votes

Especially since each region has their own central servers and they need to support hundreds if not millions of games occurring at once

Dominion wasn't released onto every server.

Surr20plz4 votes

{quoted}

You guys have no idea what it takes to keep something like that up and running do you?

1.6 billion dollars and 38 cents?

Kinjishi6 votes

1.6 billion dollars and 10 cents

Alsek10 votes

Honestly, a lot of it is probably balance. The more champions they add the more difficult it is to manage their interactions in multiple game modes. They chose to prioritize SR for obvious reasons.

Kyrrion9 votes

I wanna know how Riot GameS expects to support multiple games if they can't handle multiple game modes in their flagship (currently only) title.

Actually xPeke8 votes

Riot Games Logic:

  • Has resources to design Butchers Bridge, an entirely new reskinned ARAM Map with new textures everywhere for only about 2 weeks

  • Doesn't have resources to keep Dominion up

??? I still feel sad that we have so little maps. Riot, we need more maps.

Nanuk Pihoqahiak5 votes

The bothersome thing to me is that Riot Games, as far as we know currently, isn't making any strides to produce other games. Why take out things that actually diversify their only success?

Aura Blackquill5 votes

Riot hasn't been "short on resources" for years. The problem with Riot is they have the most abysmal time and resource management I've seen since fucking Funcom and Valve.

sreggad5 votes

Think about it this way. They can take resources off of a game mode/map that almost no one plays and put it into making either a new map/mode people will play or possibly help balance the game better. crazy thoughts man crazy thoughts

Oberic3 votes

They literally only removed it because it was a waste of money for them. They moved all of their teams to Summoner's Rift a while back and just didn't tell us.

The only new maps/modes we're going to see (unless they change their minds) are going to be temporary.

The bilgewater bridge map was amazing, and the backstreet brawlers mode? That was the best thing I have ever played in a moba since Warcraft 3's non-dota maps.

Aeszarck4 votes

{quoted}

They literally only removed it because it was a waste of money for them. They moved all of their teams to Summoner's Rift a while back and just didn't tell us.

The only new maps/modes we're going to see (unless they change their minds) are going to be temporary.

The bilgewater bridge map was amazing, and the backstreet brawlers mode? That was the best thing I have ever played in a moba since Warcraft 3's non-dota maps.

Butcher's Bridge definitely was awesome, and so was Black Market Brawlers.

Also, Warcraft III wasn't a MOBA, it was a RTS that could accomodate basically any genre of map due to the power of its editor. You're making it seem like it was a MOBA.

Scarsky4 votes

Most successful game in the world, can only afford 3 maps seems legit

Porta Nova1 votes

It's not about whether or not they can afford more maps. It's about whether or not more maps improves the overall player experience.

Scarsky3 votes

How does at least having more map options in customs not improve the player experience?

And if you are saying that they can afford more maps, then they should start putting resources into dominion and update it so people will play it, which would definitely improve the player experience.

Falbindan4 votes

At least one new map would greatly improve player experience imo. Even a second 5v5 map or just a reskin for SR, but it gets boring to stare at the same forrest every single game. Also, I think LoL needs some 'faster' gamemodes.

Siglord4 votes

I think everyone noticed how hard riot went downhill since whole tencent sellout. And to think they used to make both haloween and winter skins for map. Sometimes i wonder where all of those BILIONS go? The game is same since beginning pretty much, they are just constantly doing small map/number/item tweaks. Everything they do take long months, like what the fuck? This game as a game itself is seriously small, how can every single thing take so long?

KoKoboto4 votes

Biggest thing that pisses me off is when they make excuses like "too much work" wtf company says something is too much work, you work hard so that you can be successful

Falbindan3 votes

You forgot to mention the increase in 1350 RP skins and the decrease of their quality. Quite a bit of the new 1350er skins would have been classified 975 RP skins about one year ago.

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