So much wrong. This might take a while.
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As far as alternative game modes go, ARAM is legit, and so is TT.
Obviously they don't have the massive playerbase of SR, but they have their players and queue times are pretty quick.
I went like 200 wins 100 losses in normal TT, which made my queue-times long-ish. Like 5-15 minutes. I've seen ARAM players getting 10 minute queues once their MMR is high enough. And I've had 10 minute Normal SR draft queues. Aside from solo-queue and Blind Pick Normals, every queue seems to have long queues once you get to high MMR.
The reason why is that the game mode is too wonky. It was an attempt at creating non-linear play, no lines of turret but instead a more roaming, combat oriented mode. The problem is that it gets messed up by people playing speed ball rammus and other jank stuff that ruins the interactivity, and the experience of the game mode in all is poor.
However - Ascension is another more combat oriented game mode, but wins over in several ways.
1 - There is no farm mechanic. You get straight to the action, exactly what a combat oriented game mode wants.
Right, but you do in Dominion as well. You first poke a bit in a 4v4 before you engage or get engaged upon, and after that it's mostly roaming the map, with the occasional waveclearing. Good players tend to end up with around 20 cs or so at average, depending a bit on the situation. Good players will generally move through the fog of war and not give away their position. You generally don't want the enemy team to know where you are.
2 - No turrets to defend. You don't have to worry about playing pansy around turrets when you really just want to fight.
It adds depth.
3 - Even gold / xp feed. No one can snowball out, so even when players pick into weaker early game champs, they still have a chance to bring it back in the end game.
Dominion could be adjusted to even out gold/xp a bit. I don't disagree with you that this is good, although I do believe Ascension overdid it on the gold, you often got too much gold, which made certain champions overpowered.
4 - The Ascension goal - becoming the ascended - is a combat oriented goal. You aren't powering up to turret dive or playing cat and mouse around various objectives avoiding confrontation rather than engaging in it...
Right, but a lot of it had to do with whoever got the last hit. And once you got it you got way overpowered. Not that fun to play against.
5 - Most of all - Ascension is just fun! Because it's the raw, straight up combat game mode, it's fun! And because it's just a combat game, you can pick whoever you want. You don't have to pick a ranged guy to take out objectives, or pick a dive heavy champ to get under the turrets, or a speedy person to run all over the map... You just play.
False. Certain champions still did better, and having a balanced comp was still better than stacking. As for Dominion, you don't need to pick a "ranged guy" to take out objectives (I assume you mean marksman, which isn't even a very strong role on Dominion), or dive heavy champion (dives are risky), and you definitely don't need a speedy person. Try to get a somewhat balanced comp, with cc, some tankiness, and both magical and physical damage, and you're set.
Dump Dominion (keep it maybe as a rotation game mode), let's be honest - it's not doing anything (I queued up and see an estimated 20 minute timer lol) and bring in Ascension.
20 minute timer? Are you queueing at 5 AM? Or are you doing Draft? They disabled Draft on EUW due to lack of players, and the NA Dominion base is smaller than the EUW player base, so yeah... Just ignore Draft. Anyway, Dominion still has an active player base on EUW (and a semi-active on NA), so it shouldn't be disabled.
Ascension is fun.
I didn't find it that fun, it kind of felt like a poorly balanced dumbed-down Dominion.
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- League on the Rift wasn't high MMR people feeding low MMR players until they "learned," the game was intuitive and enjoyed and the high MMR field developed. People don't enjoy Dominion enough, and the game play is not intuitive enough, to be worth learning.
The game wasn't intuitive. Did you play pre-Season 1 or Season 1? Most people didn't really know how to play. Wards were barely used aside from Gold/Platinum players (which is basically Platinum/Diamond/Master/Challenger these days due to inflation), Dragon was ignored, and builds were awful. Oh, and ADC + support bot lane didn't pick up until late Season 1. And a lot of games were played without a jungler. And people used Summoner Heal for sustain in lane. It wasn't intuitive. Even these days a lot of people don't ward or upgrade their trinkets.
Is Dominion worth learning? I think it is. I do agree that it's not intuitive (a lot of people seem to default to pushing the lanes instead of roaming the jungle and occasionally ganking bot), but I disagree that it's not worth learning. You can learn a lot just by talking to a skilled Dominion veteran.
Get ahead by some kill gold, and there isn't a lot of passive experience or gold gained through farming to catch up. Dominion is incredibly snowbally.
Fun fact: Killing 3 minions grants more gold than 1 kill. Two small is 60 gold, and one large is 60, so that's 120 gold. A basic kill is 100 gold. Another fun fact: Shutdown gold values in Dominion are there to prevent snowballing. If you get 7 kills and you die you give them 400 gold (600 if it's with assists), meanwhile you only got around 100 gold per kill. Granted, this could let that other person snowball a bit, especially if you went bot to feed their bot laner 400 gold. Anyway, gold kill values are low and ambient gold gain is high. There's not that much snowballing, and early game doesn't matter that much.
- You know why draft is dead? Because no one plays without playing some jank speedball rammus BS.
I rarely see Rammus, he's not even a top 5 tank atm. He's good at punishing bad teams though. Teams that tend to "windmill" (push the lane towards the top point) tend to be vulnerable to backcaps. The proper solution is to establish jungle control and stop him when he tries to backcap, and counter-gank when he ganks bot. Or just force teamfights in the jungle, he's worse at teamfighting compared to most tanks. I do agree that he's annoying to deal with though, and he's pretty good still. You pretty much never see him in tournament games though.
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It's not bad because it takes thought, it's bad because the game play is full of holes. Because things like re-cap Shaco and speedball rammus exist.
"full of holes" is an exaggeration. Backcap Shaco is annoying and I do hope Riot does something about it, perhaps give us an anti-stealth use of the trinket, or perhaps better anti-stealth items. Another option is to simply give him some map-specific nerfs to make him less annoying to deal with. I don't think he's OP or even that strong, but he's annoying.
Dominion would need TONS of balancing, and a really intrusive rework to become viable. But is it even what people want?
Dominion is arguably the most balanced game mode at the moment. Bans in tournament are generally counter-bans rather than "Gotta ban the OP", and lots of champions are viable.
If you want the "real" game you play SR. If you want the "mini" game you play TT. If you want complete chaos you play aram. What role is Dominion even supposed to fill?
An alternate mode that offers lots of fights without having to farm or play a jungler. SR is the mode for people who like slow-paced games that often are decided by the laning phase, TT is the mode for people who want more frequent fights while still having a snowball factor. Dominion is a mode where farm is less important and the focus more lies on individual decision making, roaming, and good plays.
Bot lane Dominion is for people who really like laning (and don't mind getting ganked a lot). I personally dislike bot lane Dominion, but I know some people that like it, and only two people need to play it per game. It's kind of the "support" role of Dominion, as in it's the least popular role, but someone usually steps up, and some people even offers to go bot.
Currently I don't even play normal games much because it's more stress than I like.
Right. The issue is that even game modes that are supposed to be fun often end up with people tryharding in the end. I used to like ARAM, but these days it feels like people are playing safe rather than doing crazy plays for fun. URF had similar issues, some people just tryharded so hard. Oh, you should try Dominion URF though, even people who dislike regular Dominion tend to like URF Dominion.
What this game needs is a game mode where I don't have to consider what role is open, what the meta is, who's auto-locking some BS or calling lanes... A mode where I can get home from work, pick a champ I like, and just play. A mode where I can play with my scrub friends without getting slaughtered because of the complexity of SR.
Co-op vs AI? I wouldn't mind having some crazy mode for fun, but I'm not sure if it'd have lasting appeal. ARAM didn't, at least not for me (although I've played hundreds of games, maybe over a thousand if you count customs, not sure).
