Consider it an experiment.
If there's no play to speak of, then just shut it down against once Season 6 starts. Take Draft Queue along with it. I won't hold it against you.
But if it suddenly revives the mode due to people streaming back to try out the new competitive mode on a competitive map and investing the effort needed to learn to play it well because suddenly it means something?
Wouldn't that be a good thing?
Kholdstare134 votesIt would be best to do this alongside a VU relaunch with certain gameplay tweaks and rebalances.
Still, why not just give us the off-season? Off-season ONLY Dominion gets ranked, and they can stream the highest level matches in place of LCS broadcasts. Once the SR season starts back up, Dominion season rewards are tallied and ranked goes back on hiatus.
A small season with unique rewards, nothing else to distract players, SR keeps as only a normal queue to practice if that's what you REALLY prefer. The short time in which to earn something unique would attract even more players, and the lack of other distractions only improves that. You first need a bite before you can hook someone.
Still, we really need a VU relaunch, and the forum is flooded with suggestions (some really bad but others very much good like removing score) on what can be done to improve things. We can take a test year if you want, each patch iterating different ideas and finding what works best. We can iron out the ideas and have the game settled to launch in 2016. Just make sure to reform the champion balance team that vanished for no reason. There are important champion tweaks (see all threads about switching stacking champions to time-generated like GP) and balancing (nerf Urgot, and seriously look at buffing the bottom champions). Get a team working on this together with the community. We can make it great.
SKOBODO2 votesThere are important champion tweaks (see all threads about switching stacking champions to time-generated like GP) and balancing (nerf Urgot, and seriously look at buffing the bottom champions). Get a team working on this together with the community. We can make it great.
Switching stacking champions to time-generated like GP: Good. Nerfing Urgot: Meh, the Frozen Heart nerf hurt him quite a bit. Butting bottom champions: Well... Most of them are poorly designed. How do you make someone like Shyvana strong on Dominion without making her yet another mindless juggernaut? How would you make Nasus strong without making him a pain to deal with as an auto-attack based champion? How do you make Tryndamere strong without making him super annoying to deal with? Aside from the stack buffs (which I support, if done right) I'm not convinced they should add much champion specific buffs. Perhaps reduce Aatrox passive CD a bit? Perhaps introduce some new item that helps make auto-attack based marksmen a bit stronger?
Aatrox: Reducing his static cooldown at early levels should help make him a bit stronger without making him overpowered. His kit isn't that bad on Dominion though, and should Riot buff him globally I could see him being pretty decent.
Bard: Bard struggles in teamfights, and is likely to keep struggling in teamfights. Give him some chimes over time and he'll be a bit stronger, and his roaming is pretty good as it is.
Draven: Buff marksmen itemization and Draven will be a bit stronger. His passive and his juggling will probably mean he'll remain the weakest/hardest marksman to play in Dominion, but he'll be a bit stronger at least. No direct buffs.
Nasus: Eh, Nasus is poorly designed. If they do end up giving stacks over time, they should probably make it not stack with stacks farmed with Q. That way, bot lane Nasus won't get too many stacks, and top lane Nasus won't feel pressured to splitpush in order to gain stacks.
Nunu: I don't see much value in buffing him. He doesn't really add much interesting gameplay compared to much supports/tanks. He still has a niche as a bot lane stall lane anyway.
Shyvana: Give her a small buff to fury gain? I don't think she really adds much interesting gameplay, but slightly buffing her fury gain should help her out a bit, at least.
Sion: Give him health stacks over time (and perhaps make them not farm will kills, so you'd either get the stacks over time number or the kill number, that way you prevent extreme snowballing).
Tryndamere: Let him stay weak until he's reworked. Invincible crit-monster is not good game design.
Some other champions that I could see them giving some buffs to:
Cho'Gath: Something to make him keep stacks more easily. Perhaps cap the number of stacks lost to 2, or perhaps give him a minimum amount of stacks (perhaps 2/3/4 at rank 1/2/3/).
Lulu: Remove the map specific nerfs already, you're much better of picking Karma or Sona most of the time.
And... That's it, aside from the champions who need stacks over time. So, there shouldn't need to be many map-specific buffs, aside from the stacks over time.
Kholdstare132 votesAatrox: Reducing his static cooldown at early levels should help make him a bit stronger without making him overpowered. His kit isn't that bad on Dominion though, and should Riot buff him globally I could see him being pretty decent.
Spawning with a portion of his passive filled would be nice. A global buff to the heal side of W when used against champions would also help. Presently there's no reason to take it off of damage.
Reducing the cooldown for revive passives would be nice too. Him and Anivia. Possibly instead have the passives receive a flat cooldown effect applied on death?
Bard: Bard struggles in teamfights, and is likely to keep struggling in teamfights. Give him some chimes over time and he'll be a bit stronger, and his roaming is pretty good as it is.
Stacks are fine here. If he had his passive he would maintain enough of a threat between his singular cooldown to be a more effective tank.
Draven: Buff marksmen itemization and Draven will be a bit stronger. His passive and his juggling will probably mean he'll remain the weakest/hardest marksman to play in Dominion, but he'll be a bit stronger at least. No direct buffs.
Most ADCs fall in this camp. Draven may as well be without a passive, true, but unless we want to bring back his old stacking bleed...
Pillager needs its nerf reverted for these guys. At least change it to have dual passives, ranged get increased crit damage while melee get the slower bleed. Still not enough, but it's a start. ADCs are stuck in a position where they need to quickly kill or be killed. DoTs are the opposite of what they need.
Porting in mirage blade from BMB (as ranged only?) might also work.
Nasus: Eh, Nasus is poorly designed. If they do end up giving stacks over time, they should probably make it not stack with stacks farmed with Q. That way, bot lane Nasus won't get too many stacks, and top lane Nasus won't feel pressured to splitpush in order to gain stacks.
He needs a global rework honestly. Get him away from stacking mechanics.
For a bandaid solution, I would place a second stack count on Dominion that generates with time, and have Q use the higher of the 2 stack counts for damage.
Nunu: I don't see much value in buffing him. He doesn't really add much interesting gameplay compared to much supports/tanks. He still has a niche as a bot lane stall lane anyway.
Leave him. He's still ok enough bot.
Shyvana: Give her a small buff to fury gain? I don't think she really adds much interesting gameplay, but slightly buffing her fury gain should help her out a bit, at least.
Hard without something global. I might give her Q a small version of Udyr's E, in that it has increased AA range and does a small dash into normal AA range?
Sion: Give him health stacks over time (and perhaps make them not farm will kills, so you'd either get the stacks over time number or the kill number, that way you prevent extreme snowballing).
+1000% turn speed on ult. Since his takedown stacks are fairly decent already, a small value increase for those might work instead of time, tho it does leave bot lane a bit weak.
Tryndamere: Let him stay weak until he's reworked. Invincible crit-monster is not good game design.
Yeah... yeah. Maybe buff AP botlane Trynd? Halfway between current and old? Buff minimum heal to 75% AP + 150, and increase it by 1% per fury?
Some other champions that I could see them giving some buffs to:
Cho'Gath: Something to make him keep stacks more easily. Perhaps cap the number of stacks lost to 2, or perhaps give him a minimum amount of stacks (perhaps 2/3/4 at rank 1/2/3/).
Feast stacks lost on death changed to 1/3 rounded down from 1/2 rounded up. This puts minimum stacks at 2, and only loses 1 per death unless maxed, in which case it's 2 lost.
Lulu: Remove the map specific nerfs already, you're much better of picking Karma or Sona most of the time.
Karma buffs OP. But yeah, the ult CD is a bit excessive nowadays.
And... That's it, aside from the champions who need stacks over time. So, there shouldn't need to be many map-specific buffs, aside from the stacks over time.
SKOBODO2 votesSpawning with a portion of his passive filled would be nice. A global buff to the heal side of W when used against champions would also help. Presently there's no reason to take it off of damage.
Spawning with the passive probably wouldn't help that much, since it decays quickly. Perhaps give it a minimum of 25% for Dominion? That would make it a bit easier to keep at least some of his passive up, it's quite hard to keep his passive up for jungle fights as it is.
Reducing the cooldown for revive passives would be nice too. Him and Anivia. Possibly instead have the passives receive a flat cooldown effect applied on death?
I considered Anivia but she's not really that weak. But yeah, she's not exactly super strong either, so some small buffs to her passive might be in order. Maybe cut it down by 30 seconds or so for Anivia, and a bit more for Aatrox early on.
Pillager needs its nerf reverted for these guys. At least change it to have dual passives, ranged get increased crit damage while melee get the slower bleed. Still not enough, but it's a start. ADCs are stuck in a position where they need to quickly kill or be killed. DoTs are the opposite of what they need.
Maybe they should make Pillager ranged only? That way they could rework it to buff auto-attack based marksmen without champioions like Master Yi or Yasuo getting overbuffed.
Porting in mirage blade from BMB (as ranged only?) might also work.
Maybe, but it might be pretty annoying to deal with as a melee.
For a bandaid solution, I would place a second stack count on Dominion that generates with time, and have Q use the higher of the 2 stack counts for damage.
Why not give every champion with stacks that soluion? That way, they'll either get stacks through farming normally, or over time, but not both. so bot lanes would probably gain more stacks than top, but it wouldn't be bot lane thresh levels of overbearing.
Hard without something global. I might give her Q a small version of Udyr's E, in that it has increased AA range and does a small dash into normal AA range?
That would change her gameplay too much if it were just for Dominion. Buffs to fury gain would be better, I think.
+1000% turn speed on ult. Since his takedown stacks are fairly decent already, a small value increase for those might work instead of time, tho it does leave bot lane a bit weak.
The issue with takedown is that it's snowbally. If he goes 10/2/15 he's going to snowball much harder than if he goes 2/1/3 early on. I think that goes against the spirit of Dominion, better to just give him stacks over time. As for turn speed, the problem with that is confusion between maps. Players who are used to him on SR might get confused for Dom, and vice versa.
Yeah... yeah. Maybe buff AP botlane Trynd? Halfway between current and old? Buff minimum heal to 75% AP + 150, and increase it by 1% per fury?
AP Tryndamere got nerfed for a reason. He's also pretty toxic. Not every champion needs to be viable right now, just wait for a rework.
Feast stacks lost on death changed to 1/3 rounded down from 1/2 rounded up. This puts minimum stacks at 2, and only loses 1 per death unless maxed, in which case it's 2 lost.
That would help him a lot, yeah.
Kholdstare132 votesIt would be best to do this alongside a VU relaunch with certain gameplay tweaks and rebalances.
Still, why not just give us the off-season? Off-season ONLY Dominion gets ranked, and they can stream the highest level matches in place of LCS broadcasts. Once the SR season starts back up, Dominion season rewards are tallied and ranked goes back on hiatus.
A small season with unique rewards, nothing else to distract players, SR keeps as only a normal queue to practice if that's what you REALLY prefer. The short time in which to earn something unique would attract even more players, and the lack of other distractions only improves that. You first need a bite before you can hook someone.
Still, we really need a VU relaunch, and the forum is flooded with suggestions (some really bad but others very much good like removing score) on what can be done to improve things. We can take a test year if you want, each patch iterating different ideas and finding what works best. We can iron out the ideas and have the game settled to launch in 2016. Just make sure to reform the champion balance team that vanished for no reason. There are important champion tweaks (see all threads about switching stacking champions to time-generated like GP) and balancing (nerf Urgot, and seriously look at buffing the bottom champions). Get a team working on this together with the community. We can make it great.
@MWAB @Reds Can we get a response on this? A smaller ranked season just for Dominion?
The normal argument is that the population as it stands can't support year-round ranked. If we clustered it all within a couple months' window it would attract all the Dominion players to be more active all at once, and additionally gave the SR sheep incentives (via Dominion-exclusive rank rewards) to expand their palates and learn a new mode, since their "main" pursuit is down for its off-season.
It also gives Riot time to learn about Dominion's massive esports potential by streaming it during this time. (Hint: It's easier for casual viewers and non-players to follow even without knowing the meta yet themselves, and far more exciting in terms of uptime for real action, requiring particularly skilled commentators to keep up with it all.)
It's a win-win, and we can use the SR main season/Dominion off-season to work on things like a VU, and take the first off-season as a bigger balancing test for new ideas.
FDru3 votesGOOD LUCK THIS YEAR, LOL
Rebonack3 votesSadly, it'll never happen.
Never stop believing!
Rebonack3 votesIs this really too much to ask, Riot?
Come on, throw us a bone.
Minarde2 votesWouldn't there also need to be some promotional news posts or email notifications or something? If it's done subtly, the vast majority of players (current and former) might not even realize it's available.
Rebonack2 votesWouldn't there also need to be some promotional news posts or email notifications or something? If it's done subtly, the vast majority of players (current and former) might not even realize it's available.
I'm sure they could send out an e-mail and post it up on the home page. People would hear about it. People would notice. The Dominion community has always been pretty close.
Rebonack2 votesWe can take a test year if you want, each patch iterating different ideas and finding what works best. We can iron out the ideas and have the game settled to launch in 2016. Just make sure to reform the champion balance team that vanished for no reason
This right here is a great idea.
Use the next year to go hog-wild with Dominion tweaks. Try everything. Let the Dominion community test it live. Keep what sticks, axe what doesn't. Luanch in 2016 or 2017 or whenever things settle down. It would be great.
Minarde1 votesThat'd be amazing on so many levels. Balance/map changes to handle the stagnation, Riot attention to address the historic neglect, advertisement to fix general perception issues, incentives to motivate the playerbase, practice for (new) balance team members, and new data for the player behavior team.
Sadly, it'll never happen.
Rebonack2 votesNever give up!
Never surrender!
That's one thing I like about Dominion. There's no such thing as a lost game. If your team can pull it together, it's always possible to turn things around due to the general lack of snowballing. I would love to play Ranked games where the attitude is 'Keep on keeping on, we can do it!' rather than 'Welp, mid fed two kills. May as well surrender at 20'.
Kholdstare131 votesYeah, I meant the shyv thing as global.
SKOBODO1 votesYeah, I meant the shyv thing as global.
Perhaps. I never really found Shyvana to be a very interesting character, personally. She seems rather bland to me, though I suppose the dragon interaction could be interesting. It probably doesn't help that she was released after Dominion was released and I thus never really played her that much.
Rebonack1 votesIt's a win-win, and we can use the SR main season/Dominion off-season to work on things like a VU, and take the first off-season as a bigger balancing test for new ideas.
The part that baffles me the most is just... how little Riot would have to invest in this experiment to kick it off.
Like they said before, years ago, Dominion just needs the Ranked switch to be flipped and it's good to go. Kick it on for one pre-season and see what happens. Have it replace Draft. Then either remove it if no one plays, or keep it if it becomes popular and use the main season as a time to do deep-level Dominion tweaks and experiments.
Rebonack1 votesI still hope for the day when Riot finally realizes that people make 'meaningful choices' about which map they enjoy playing, too.