Retiring Dominion

Riot·1/15/2016, 7:41:36 PM·57 votes·238,488 views

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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..

I am a fairly veteran player of this game (mid season 2). This decision is the latest and if I may say agregious, in a recent string of changes that I believe are negatively impacting the game in such a way that I personally fear will and has been driving away a core player base that made the game what it is today. In the nature of expediency I shall limit my post to my grievance with the removal of dominion. I have very fond memories of playing the Dominion game mode as soon as I discovered it as an option in my early days of league. I must admit that I have not played dominion very often lately, but that is because of a multitude of factors, that you yourselves have admitted to being responsible for. The first and foremost being you pay zero attention to the game mode. As I was growing up I was raised with the mentality that if you make a mistake you don't run away from it, you stand up, take responsibility for it and you fix it. By abandoning dominion riot not only shows a lack of integrity but a lack of will to work on its most challenging tasks. Take the champion Galio as an example, with a pick rate of .1% for support and .2% in top.(ranked platinum and above as of 6.2) by following this precident that you are setting with the removal of Dominion, would Galio be next on the chopping block? Albeit this may be a slightly extreme example, following your logic it's not out of the realm of possibility. The notion that content can be removed from the game because of the current lack of player base is a frightening notion. My next point touches on another one of your arguments for the removal of Dominion. Bot accounts are toxic and unhealthy for the state of the game, everyone can agree on this. However, instead of addressing the underlying issue, getting rid of the bots, you want to simply remove the vehicle for which the bots are accessing the game. This is not a logical solution. If you break a finger, don't drop off your own hand, you fix the finger! I can remember seeing bot accounts in Dominion and even Twisted Treeline as far back as two to three seasons ago. This is not a new issue. Just because it occurs during low server traffic times on the less popular game modes it has not even been acknowledged, to my awareness. Does this mean that the Twisted Treeline will also go the way of dominion? I would be more outraged more than I am now if you were remove treeline. I understand as with previous content that has been removed from the game e.g. heart of gold, force of nature, or blood razor, were removed because they were unhealthy for the current state of game. However dominion is its own stand alone game mode which does not impact Summoner's Rift what so ever. Sure you don't have the time or resources to dedicate to fixing dominion so just leave it alone people are currently satisfied with the way it is. I would guarantee that the player base of Dominion would have no qualms with new champions being disabled on dominion until somebody have the time to get around to it. My final point is that concerning the community created Custom mode of hide and seek. whereas Dominion and its normal mode may not have a large player base, people that play hide and seek are quite numerous. One can enter the join a custom game lobby and find a large number of people playing hide and seek. As another poster mentioned that there are at least three different chat dedicated to creating hide and seek games. I understand the the difficulty that would be required for making hide and seek a custom game mode such as perma banned champions, items, excetera. However removing Dominion as a map even from the custom game mode options, is an insult to the people who love to play the Hide and Seek mode which I count myself among. The necessity of having such games available is to provide a form of relaxation and stress relief for those individuals who take League of Legends is a game very seriously. I know what you're thinking, " this is a game it's meant to have fun, if you aren't having fun then why play at all?" For many individuals, myself included, league has become more than just a game. It is not only a lifestyle but a passion which many individuals dedicate themselves to. I'm sure that many people will agree that even normal Summoner's Rift can be an extremely stressful experience as the game has progressed into such a state that the level of competitiveness and the shrinking window of what is meta has created an environment that can cause great stress and experiences that are downright unpleasant. I would bet that every summoner has questioned why they play this game anymore at one point or another, or even taking large breaks of time from playing the game at all. Sure you have the aram mode as a laid back way to play. However, at least in my personal opinion, Aram quickly becomes repetitive and just downright not fun as often times, at least in my experience, the balance of teams due to the random selection is skewed. For example one team has three assassins that rely on stealth and the other team has the wombo combo of doom. Hide and seek is a way for me personally to have fun in a guaranteed matter I never play a game of hide and seek that I want to rip my hair out over. It's a game mode that I can relax and be sociable and just enjoy the game for the sake of the game. By removing the Dominion map you take this away from me and I find that inexcusable.

Retiring Dominion

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