@Riot, let's talk about Dominion
We launched Dominion more than four years ago as an alternative game mode designed to challenge players with fast-paced skirmishes, capture-and-hold gameplay, and different skills to master. Back then, we truly believed the mode would introduce new players to League of Legends and provide current players with an experience as captivating as Summoner’s Rift. As League continues to evolve, our vision for the core game becomes more and more refined, and, after years of learning, it’s clear today that alternative game modes work better in short cycles rather than as standalone queues.
**Alternative game modes DO NOT work better is short cycles. Featured Game Modes do. There’s a distinction. **
Alternative means that there is another entity (mode) which could be used in place of the original. They are not completely different, i.e. A Substitute.
Featured describes having distinctive attributes or aspects which differentiates it from original modes and eliminates it from being a substitute. Game Modes like URF, Ascension, Doom Bots, Poro King, they’re all fun but the whacky distinctive attibutes these modes contain is what makes the mode but what also kills the mode. Players want a stable, fun and balanced game to play the majority of the time. Occasionally it’s fun to throw all that out the window for a while because everything needs a break but that’s the thing.
Breaks anywhere in the World are always shorter than periods of normality. Featured game modes offer these breaks and we appreciate them but when we’re done with the break we want to go back to our original, our home. For some of us, the Crystal Scar is our home. It’s not fair for you to label Dominion, ARAM or Twisted Treeline as “Featured Game Modes”, as these modes are the periods of normality which we need to keep us attracted to the game in the long-term and they are the home to many players some a lot more than others. Even though you stated “Alternative”, you were clearly describing Dominion as “Featured”.
We want to support game modes delivering consistently engaging and competitive experiences. Fewer than 0.5% of players actively play Dominion and we’re aware some number of even that small population is still bots. We haven’t been supporting Dominion, and we’ve trapped ourselves in a vicious cycle where the queue isn’t large enough to warrant major attention, but falls prey to bugs and periods of imbalance from the introduction of new champs and items (which then drives down the size of the queue, and so on).
That first sentence, do it. Just do it. Doing it doesn’t entail closing game modes though. When you first launched League, did you have 70+ million players? No you started off in the thousands. How did you garner so many millions to the game though?
You consistently threw resources at it.
How do you expect modes to garner half of the playerbase as SR if you all you do is introduce the mode then abandon it? Y’all are business experts, when you launch a product, you need to give it your all and not just at the beginning, you need to do it consistently or you’ll end up in a premature decline. This is basically the position of not only Dominion, but Twisted Treeline and to some extend ARAM as well.
An obvious example of this would be SR. You continue to maintain and grow the SR playerbase because you’re consistently giving it your all. If you don’t wanna give other modes your all or even half of that, you’re going to end up in the very same cycle you’re in now – you don’t want to support it because it hasn’t garnered enough attention but it isn’t going to garner more attention if you don’t support it.
**It starts with YOU. **
You want to provide an alternative experience to SR? Then treat the alternatives like SR. As players see consistent development and improvement of a product they think they’ll like, you got them, they’re yours. You wanna keep them? Continue developing and improving, the only answer to continued growth, sustainability and ultimately success.
In the absence of our attention, matchmaking and game quality in Dominion varies wildly based on daily engagement. Because of how matchmaking works, the longer someone looking to play Dominion waits in queue, the wider the pool of potential foes the matchmaker can pull from -- with such a small population, Dominion games can match up widely divergent skill levels after long enough queue times. Unhealthy queues that force players to endure long waits with fluctuating match quality ultimately creates an overall poor experience -- one we take responsibility for.
I don’t where you’re getting your statistics or data from or if you’re just making this up but in the 800 Dominion matches I’ve played, 99% of the time it felt balanced. There was no instance of my team stomping the enemy team or vice versa due to matchmaking imbalance.
Queue times have also been healthy. On average the “Estimated” timer ranged from 1.5 – 3 minutes but usually matches are 90% of the time found within 1 minute if nobody declines or afks while queued. I’ve played 800 matches, this I know.
When you state 0.5% of players actively play it you pretty much means that 0.5% of the entire playerbase are Dominion mains. You’re twisting the data to make it seem as if almost nobody played Dominion and I find it very deceptive and unprofessional.
We might have been able to break out of that downward spiral with more dedicated resources, but we chose Summoner’s Rift as the core League of Legends experience with its depth of gameplay, match pacing, and path to mastery. When it comes to the resources required to keep Dominion permanent and solve the inherent design problems and give it ongoing live balance support, we’ve consistently devoted them to Summoner’s Rift and related features because we felt they’d improve the overall League experience more.
I would the second word in your first sentence from “might” to “would”. You blame the lack of resources to sustain alternative game modes because you want SR to be the “core of League”. I don’t have a problem with SR being the core but is that really your aim or is your aim to turn the game from “League of Legends” into “Summoner’s Rift”?
You generated $1.6 Billion in 2015 and the cost of production isn’t half of that with all regions and esports accounted for. You’re pretty much sitting on $1.0 Billion of profits and what are you doing with it? Stacking it in a bank account? Businesses don’t stack profits, they invest them.
Summoner’s Rift was updated in 2015 / Season 5. Unless you’re working on yet another Summoner’s Rift Update again and so soon to boot, what is the maps team doing? There has been no significant improvements or developments to Summoner’s Rift since the launch of Season 5, there’s hasn’t even been an alternative version such as SR Winter or Autumn. Rift Herald and Rift Scuttlers do not count as significant by the way.
You say you’ve devoted resources to SR but I don’t even think this is true because there is no evidence which implies this. SR is stagnant development wise and yet all other maps are as well – at the same time.
I don’t even think you need more resources I think you’re mismanaging them so horribly that this is your core failure which is preventing you from delivering high-quality content to alternative maps.
As I stated before, 99% of Dominion games feel balanced so the balance team is doing a good job keeping Dominion in check to be honest. There can be improvements, there will always be room for improvement, but job well done to the balance team for keeping Dominion balanced. It’s arguably more balanced than SR is.
For players who’ve made the Crystal Scar their home over the last four years, we’ll be taking a snapshot of the queue today just before this post goes live. Then we’ll give out an exclusive, never-to-be-reproduced Summoner Icon to anyone with over 100 wins in matchmade Dominion games (not including Co-op vs AI). You can expect the icon to land in your account within two weeks of this announcement! We know this doesn’t ease the sting of losing the mode you’ve spent thousands of hours in. But if you want to stick around and join us on the Rift, we feel you deserve a way to show off your domination.
This is a giant middle finger to all the Dominion mains. An icon, seriously? No Domination skin? No Domination ward skin? No RP to the players with 1000+ wins or 2000+ games played?
Furthermore, do we even get to keep the progress we made – the Diamond badges for our Wins, Takedowns and Points Captured?
We’ve learned a lot from Dominion and the costs associated with maintaining a fully separate game mode with balance changes, bugfixes, and item updates. We’re considering other ways to use the Dominion map (as a featured game mode, for example) but nothing is set in stone. We’re retiring Dominion to focus on our vision for League moving forward: we’ll concentrate on the core League game while supporting alternative experiences which deliver consistent, competitive gameplay with healthy queues and appropriate matchmaking (ARAM and featured game modes are good examples of this). We’re permanently disabling Dominion and removing the Crystal Scar from custom games on Monday, February 22.
Dominion is balanced champion-wise and item-wise. What works on SR works on alternative maps as well. Most of it at least.
The champions which you stated you specifically designed for SR, I don’t if you’re lying but they work just as good on alternative maps as on SR. There is no design flaw on champions in alternative game modes. There’s like one instance where Azir isn’t able to spawn a turret? Other than that it’s all good.
Dominion IS a core part of League which delivers consistent, competitive experience despite being neglected. All the alternative modes are. Without alternative modes, this wouldn’t be League of Legends, this would be Summoner’s Rift.
Dominion isn’t a failure like what you deem it Riot, in fact none of the modes are, they’re all unfinished projects. If you really want to grow League of Legends, you aren’t going to do it by focusing on one mode 110% of the time.
You talk about diversity in SR. It’s time for some diversity in League. Not only will you appeal your current playerbase, but new players who aren’t enticed by SR will join the League. Honestly, why can’t it be like this? “We’ve got several maps and modes to cater to every player’s liking. Pick your map, pick your mode and Join the League.”
Diversity in League wouldn’t lead to SR being neglected or dying rather the opposite – it’ll lead to SR continuing to grow, not alone but with the alternative modes standing by its side.
Please don’t take our home away.
