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Dominion Relaunch, now with a mockup!

Rebonack·1/24/2015, 6:10:51 PM·8 votes·1,866 views

Hello hello! It's time for another Dominion topic!

Okay, so here's the problem. The Dominion player base is super-small and that's just sad. So the goal of this relaunch is to help address some of the anti-intuitive aspects of the map so that players can jump right in without stumbling into the many newb-traps that plague Dominion. With the addition of new relics to collect, minions restricted only to areas where killing them is already a good idea, a streamlined quest system, and a scary new neutral objective to contest, the map should prove farm more exciting for everyone involved!

Oh, and one other thing.

With this relaunch Dominion would become League's permanent 6v6 map. Due to having more objectives to contest, having another pair of boots on the ground for your team becomes pretty important. This would also help alleviate the issue of Assassins and Duelists being a bit overbearing since champions would be less likely to be wandering around by themselves. It's dangerous to go alone!

So let's get down to the points, shall we?

First off, instead of losing Nexus Health you instead gain points by completing objectives. This seemingly simple change is to address the feeling among some Non-Dominion players that you don't really win games of Dominion, you just lose them more slowly than the enemy team did. This is nothing more than a 'feel' change, but feel of play can be as vital as it is nebulous.

Purple circles on the map: The capture node at Windmill has been replaced by a platform where the map's neutral objective spawns. The middle node is instead found at The Market right in the middle of the map. This encourages players to control the Jungle rather than faffing about in the lanes molesting minions. Controlling more nodes beyond three doesn't gain you points any faster, but it does give your team a small movespeed buff if you control 4 or 5. So controlling more nodes is still a good idea, it gives your team more map control. And map control is the name of the game on Dominion. Also worth noting, capturing and/or neutralizing a node no longer nets your team two points. You're supposed to capture and hold nodes, remember?

Green circles on the map: Each Speed Shrine now also houses a capture relic. Think Ascension here, you click on a Relic to capture it and if you finish the job without being interrupted your team gains some points. Capture relics spawn at 2:00, giving your team time to reach and contest any relic on the map with time to spare. Where nodes are mostly concentrated toward the bottom half of the map, relics are mostly at the top, forcing the player to balance the importance of holding nodes with contesting relics. To preserve awesome comebacks, you can't win Dominion via a relic capture unless you currently hold more nodes than the enemy team. I have no idea what the point value or the respawn rate on relics would be, that's a fine-tuning thing that would require work on Riot's part. Also worth noting, champion kills no longer net your team 2 points. Champ kills are a means to an end, not an objective in and of themselves.

Red/black X's, blue/purple lines, and gold circles: This is bottom lane stuff! The red X's are where minion spawners have been removed from the map while the blue and purple lines show where minions will still spawn if there are two adjacent nodes held by the opposite teams. The black X's represent fog of war where previously there was open vision. As you can see, minions won't march toward Market nor toward Windmill, keeping the minion action mostly down between the Quarry and the Boneyard where farming them is actually a good idea. Due to the proximity of The Market, champions down in bottom lane will be able to more easily join the action with their team for some potential HEXAKILL shenanigans. Quests now only spawn at the two nodes with gold circles, eg bottom lane. This is to help reminding players that ganking bottom lane is always a good idea.

The scary Neutral Objective: I have no idea what this guy would be, but the basic idea is to have something to kill with your team hanging out on that Windmill platform. I think Ascension handled the Neutral Objective really well! Whether we get a repeat of that or something new (giant crystal golem kthx) would be up to Riot. The point of the Neutral Objective is to draw attention toward the top of the map and send both teams scrambling. Contest Windmill or go grab a bunch of relics or steal some points? WHAT DO!?

BRUSH! The dark green lines on the map represent new areas of Brush to hide in, mostly added around the new Jungle area up top, though also a bit added to the lower Market entrance to give players another ambush area to jump approaching foes. It would also probably be a good idea to clean up the wall-collision on the lower left Market wall since the unpathable area is WAY bigger than it appears to be. Some additional Brush was added near The Drill and The Refinery to give each side of the map three stealthy Jungle entrances rather than just two. This should make it harder to box a team into their base. Feel free to ignore the first image and click the second one, that's the updated one because I forgot the side-brush D=

Finally some non-map related fiddling.

  1. Personal score system is removed. It's a newb trap.
  2. Blind Pick and Draft Pick are both removed and replaced with Blind Draft. Don't feel like dealing with back-capping Shaco? Ban that clown!

So there you go!

I would love some feedback on this, especially from players who do NOT enjoy playing Dominion. If you wanted to tell me why you don't enjoy the map and whether or not some of these changes would make things more enjoyable for you (or what kind of changes WOULD make the map more enjoyable for you) feel free to speak up! Your input is valued.

And finally?

ManWolf, we need some dialog with you. Please come talk to us!

20 Comments

SKOBODO1/29/2015, 10:16:15 PM3 votes

I stopped reading at 6v6. I think 6v6 is a mistake, and here's why: You'd need to find 12 players to play a game, instead of 10. If 300 players queue up, you'd only get 25 games instead of 30. Queue times would increase and fewer people would play the mode, making it even worse.

Of course, should the relaunch as a 6v6 map greatly the population things would change. I find that somewhat unlikely, though. So, yeah.

Rebonack2/3/2015, 5:25:53 PM2 votes

I stopped reading at 6v6.

The point of this topic is to encourage discussion about Dominion and how it can be improved. The ideas here are just conversation starters. Nonsense like the above quote only serves to shut conversation down. Stop being the problem.

Six vs six is by no means required for the relaunch, but would help give the map its own identity further distanced from Rift. The relaunch would be new and shiny, a lot of people would hop on to test it out pretty much without question. Would they stick around? Only one way to find out.

Dr Easter1/25/2015, 11:30:07 PM2 votes

We don't need to reinvent the wheel. Dom needs a relaunch but not to be totally changed. 6v6? Worst idea ever, sorry. I love Dom but this would destroy it

Rhlax1/27/2015, 1:53:01 AM2 votes

I like the idea of 6v6. It would make the map more unique.

Personal score system is removed. It's a newb trap.

I agree. The scoring system didn't work as well as expected.

If you wanted to tell me why you don't enjoy the map

-Pace of the map is too fast.
-Capturing things isn't fun -No monsters. PvPvM is so much fun (e.g. Baron 5v5 fight)

Rebonack1/26/2015, 5:26:51 PM1 votes

It is intuitive now

Have you ever watched newish people trying to play Dominion? Or read people's descriptions of what they do? Farming minions, siegeing Windmill, and sitting around on points like a lump waiting for someone to show up and contest it are all really common.

The removal of minion spawns from the top portion of the map is there to make it obvious that, save for bottom lane, any sort of minion farming is detrimental.

The swapping of the central capture node down to The Market is there to make it clear that jungle control is one of the most important aspects of the map.

The addition of capture relics is to make it obvious that camping the capture nodes isn't a good idea, you should be controlling the map with your team.

This seems pretty well thought out I must say. I'm not normally a Dominion player but this looks like a game mode that I would pop into once in a while.

Iactually have to correct myself a little as the game mode would seem more diverse but would also have more things similar to Summoner's Rift than it does right now

Thanks! I'm glad you think it looks interesting.

And all the changes are very intentional. Part of my relaunch concept was to introduce some aspects that Rift players would be familiar and comfortable with while keeping Dominion's core gameplay intact as much as possible.

chide da jungler1/26/2015, 5:30:04 PM1 votes

that map is dead and riot doesn't give a f about it

Rebonack4/29/2015, 3:38:09 PM1 votes

<_<

BUMP for what 'something cool down the pip' would actually look like.

Reikken4/30/2015, 2:15:07 AM1 votes

So what is the point of capture points under this idea? If they don't give you points, it doesn't seem worthwhile to try to contest them most of the time. You cap the two on your side of the map, and then ignore them for the rest of the game.

Ironclad Dragon1/24/2015, 6:19:49 PM1 votes

We could always retcon the Crystal Scar in being Shurima. Make it the valley that leads to Skarner's subterranean lair. Have some sort of desert monster or ancient Shuriman construct as the neutral monster.

Rebonack4/30/2015, 10:26:02 PM1 votes

Thanks for pointing that out!

I'll edit to make things a little more clear.

Rebonack1/24/2015, 6:37:09 PM1 votes

Potentially! I'm mostly concerned with making the map more exciting and accessible for players so that more people will actually play Dominion.

FDru1/25/2015, 8:11:44 PM1 votes

{quoted} With this relaunch Dominion would become League's permanent 6v6 map. Due to having more objectives to contest, having another pair of boots on the ground for your team becomes pretty important. This would also help alleviate the issue of Assassins and Duelists being a bit overbearing since champions would be less likely to be wandering around by themselves.

Just one problem... bot lane will still be "by themselves". All I see this doing is making bot a 2v2 since it'd be too dangerous to solo lane, not to mention bot will be lost if they send 2 and you don't.

If they do end up reworking the map, I'd like to see some changes to take emphasis off of bot lane so you're not forced to have a strong bot or lose every game like you are now.

The Red Goat1/26/2015, 6:57:51 AM1 votes

This seems pretty well thought out I must say. I'm not normally a Dominion player but this looks like a game mode that I would pop into once in a while.

And I would further agree tat making it 6v6 would help it out as Crystal Scar has always been more hectic and fast paced than Summoner's Rift so adding another player will only make the difference more noticeable to people. New players would be less likely think that Dominion is "just another version of the basic 5v5". They would see it more as a mode all t itself like ARAM is right now.

Iactually have to correct myself a little as the game mode would seem more diverse but would also have more things similar to Summoner's Rift than it does right now (neutral boss, a definitive lane set up).

There is one more downside to these changes is that the Hide ans Seek game mode would have to really be reworked to be done properly on 6v6 basis.