Poll: black market or dominion?

Daxterr·Aug 11, 2015·2 votes·556 views

I think this game mode should stay. It obviously had a ton of work put into it, and is marginally better than any of the previous featured game modes. I'd even go as far as to say it's better than 3v3 and dominion. You have to admit, it seems like a waste to remove BMB when there were so many great ideas that went into it. This has probably been discussed before, but who thinks BMB should replace dominion?

At the very least Rito, give us in dominion or something. That item is awesome!

8 Comments

Maximum ZileanAug 11, 20154 votes

I'd prefer them just heavily fixing dominion to be honest. Its a unique map, just in desperate need of ALOT of touching up. (And bot extermination).

I can actually see the map at some point getting a massive relaunch at some point, similar to how TT got one several years ago when Elise came out.

SKOBODOAug 11, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Maximum Zilean,realm=NA,application-id=LFfTlAky,discussion-id=74jvEvEO,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-08-11T21:31:16.697+0000)

I'd prefer them just heavily fixing dominion to be honest. Its a unique map, just in desperate need of ALOT of touching up.

Out of curiosity, what do you believe needs to be fixed?

Maximum ZileanAug 11, 20154 votes

{quoted}

Out of curiosity, what do you believe needs to be fixed?

Certain balance issues. They tried fixing this awhile ago, but they just stopped at some point.

Visual update on the map. Looks terrible when compared to the new SR update and butchers bridge. Heck howling abyss and TT look so much better then it.

Better objective to contest in the center. The current storm shield is just boring, should be something that when your team caps, it shifts power to the entire team to help cap towers. Currently it just makes one person stronger and doesn't really fit with the overall style of the map. A few examples I thought of

-Similar to the TT alters, a center point that grants vision. But when capped for your team, allows you to push the other points easier, maybe even weakening enemy minions and tower shots.

-Something to make your captured towers harder to take, like when you have the center point under control, your towers are slower for the enemy team to take by an extra 3 seconds or so when they are alone.

SKOBODOAug 11, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Maximum Zilean,realm=NA,application-id=LFfTlAky,discussion-id=74jvEvEO,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2015-08-11T23:15:56.585+0000)

Certain balance issues. They tried fixing this awhile ago, but they just stopped at some point.

I'm curious, which balance issues are you talking about?

Visual update on the map. Looks terrible when compared to the new SR update and butchers bridge. Heck howling abyss and TT look so much better then it.

I suppose they could do that, though I personally think it looks fine.

Better objective to contest in the center. The current storm shield is just boring, should be something that when your team caps, it shifts power to the entire team to help cap towers.

I'm not sure I agree that this is something they should do. You already benefit greatly from executing successful ambushes, and high level Dominion tends to be focused around jungle play, bot lane ganks and bot lane counter-ganks. I don't think the storm shield is all that problematic, it's actually quite powerful when used on the right person at the right moment.

-Similar to the TT alters, a center point that grants vision. But when capped for your team, allows you to push the other points easier, maybe even weakening enemy minions and tower shots.

No. Dominion is not, and should not be about pushing. If you want to get a point, kill some enemies or manage a backcap at the right time, don't just push into it.

-Something to make your captured towers harder to take, like when you have the center point under control, your towers are slower for the enemy team to take by an extra 3 seconds or so when they are alone.

Meh, this sounds rather boring, and it might limit several tactics. For instance, if the winning team gets the mid point, it'll be harder for the enemy team to comeback by backcapping or ganking bot.

RebonackAug 11, 20152 votes

Main issues with Dominion are:

Pushing lanes is generally a bad idea. There needs to be some way to communicate this (or otherwise make it so it isn't a thing).
Siegeing Windmill (or any point for that matter) is a bad idea. Revealing your position to the enemy team allows them to set the pace of the fight. Again, there needs to be something to make it clear to players that this isn't the way to go.
Bottom lane is an island. Some people don't mind the endless laning with frequent ganks. Others do. If bottom lane could be made more active rather than just reactive for the people down there, that would be swell.
The map lacks clear phases. Over on Rift you have the pre-spawn phase, the laning phase, the roaming phase, and the group up and push/take Baron phase. This is, I suspect, what a lot of people mean when they say the map is boring. You just do the same thing all game. Some kind of meaningful neutral objectives for teams to fight over could help break this up.
Quests are dumb. They should only spawn at the bottom two points.

My solution?

The middle point is moved to Market rather than Windmill. Minions only spawn between the four outer points. They never move toward Market. A major neutral objective is added to Windmill. Minor neutral objectives are spread around the jungle (at the speed shrines, maybe?). Capping more than 3 points doesn't cause nexus health to drop more rapidly, instead 5-capping the map causes all points to go neutral and deals a large amount of damage to the enemy Nexus. That should nicely solve the issue with '5-cap and camp' problem that can rear its ugly head if one team nets the Big Neutral and aces the enemy team.

SKOBODOAug 12, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Pushing lanes is generally a bad idea. There needs to be some way to communicate this (or otherwise make it so it isn't a thing).

Agreed. Perhaps as a loading screen tip, or a newbie popup tip?

Siegeing Windmill (or any point for that matter) is a bad idea. Revealing your position to the enemy team allows them to set the pace of the fight. Again, there needs to be something to make it clear to players that this isn't the way to go.

Agreed.

Bottom lane is an island. Some people don't mind the endless laning with frequent ganks. Others do. If bottom lane could be made more active rather than just reactive for the people down there, that would be swell.

One solution could be to lower the amount of gold from minion kills and increase the ambient gold gain, that way you could switch bot laners more often. There are some downsides with this idea, though, and it would make it harder to carry from bot. This is an issue that might be hard to solve.

The map lacks clear phases. Over on Rift you have the pre-spawn phase, the laning phase, the roaming phase, and the group up and push/take Baron phase. This is, I suspect, what a lot of people mean when they say the map is boring. You just do the same thing all game. Some kind of meaningful neutral objectives for teams to fight over could help break this up.

I don't think this is such a bad thing. Dominion skips the boring early laning phase and jumps right into a roaming/teamfighting/brawling phase. Adding a neutral objective isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it might potentially change the map for the worse.

Quests are dumb. They should only spawn at the bottom two points.

Agreed. I think Riot knows this but it's apparently hard to program a change, but something should be done. I wouldn't mind if they were disabled altogether.

My solution?

I think it changes too much, although it could be fun to try as a featured game mode. Sounds a bit like Ascension.

Kholdstare13Aug 12, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Main issues with Dominion are:

Pushing lanes is generally a bad idea. There needs to be some way to communicate this (or otherwise make it so it isn't a thing).

A tutorial for new players to the mode would do wonders.

Siegeing Windmill (or any point for that matter) is a bad idea. Revealing your position to the enemy team allows them to set the pace of the fight. Again, there needs to be something to make it clear to players that this isn't the way to go.

See 1.

Bottom lane is an island. Some people don't mind the endless laning with frequent ganks. Others do. If bottom lane could be made more active rather than just reactive for the people down there, that would be swell.

Not really an issue. Only 1 out of every 5 players needs to like the concept, and that seems to be well within the real case. Being the powerhouse down there makes ganks harder than keeping everything even and having constant swaps, increasing the strategy involved with the act. It also allows immobile champions like Malz a place to thrive, and creates a good dynamic with the types of effective bots and what kind of response is needed from top against each of them.

The map lacks clear phases. Over on Rift you have the pre-spawn phase, the laning phase, the roaming phase, and the group up and push/take Baron phase. This is, I suspect, what a lot of people mean when they say the map is boring. You just do the same thing all game. Some kind of meaningful neutral objectives for teams to fight over could help break this up.

Not really a problem. Phases break up the action of long game types. Dominion gets straight into the action and stays there. The point of the mode is skipping the slow buildup phases and providing passive benefits to create an even match the antithesis of SR's "get ahead early and win on raw numbers" gameplay.

Quests are dumb. They should only spawn at the bottom two points.

A rework for sure. Placing a quest on dual backcaps might be interesting too. Slight advantage for the team with windmill, but not as huge as the current advantage of backcap vs windmill for the team without it.

My solution?

The middle point is moved to Market rather than Windmill. Minions only spawn between the four outer points. They never move toward Market. A major neutral objective is added to Windmill. Minor neutral objectives are spread around the jungle (at the speed shrines, maybe?). Capping more than 3 points doesn't cause nexus health to drop more rapidly, instead 5-capping the map causes all points to go neutral and deals a large amount of damage to the enemy Nexus. That should nicely solve the issue with '5-cap and camp' problem that can rear its ugly head if one team nets the Big Neutral and aces the enemy team.

Don't really like this idea, at least not as a whole. A contested neutral objective in the middle would be nice, it just needs a lot of thought to prevent a snowballing 5-cap off of an objective ace. Perhaps a full reset (5-neut, all players forced B and revived) combined with instant nexus damage or a big buff would work. The neut especially makes the objective enticing for a team currently behind. If you wanted to go even crazier, it could neut and lock all points when it spawns until it is taken, FORCING the contest and giving some reward.

Last option for pure experimentation, what if you took your center point idea along with your "phases" idea, and made a certain time mark disable windmill and activate a point in the center? For late-game the action tightens towards the center of the map and increases the pace even more. That would also allow windmill to become your sub-objective for whatever benefit.

RebonackAug 12, 20152 votes

Mixing things up with a featured game mode would be a great way to test out potential changes for Dominion.

No need to just dump them all on the map. Experiment a bit!