Dominion was released in 2011 as a trial of a new game mode for League of Legends. At this point, there was no ARAM so Dominion offered something that neither the 5v5 or 3v3 game modes did –. Dec 13, 2008 Dominion is behind the ugly design of new apartment buildings. Thought about franchising one myself by mcd lol but all the new apartments over here are so. This made me realize how little I play LoL anymore. I stopped playing regularly around Dominion getting cut so it feels super recent. EDIT: I guess to clarify: I didn't quit because Dominion was cut, that just happened to be one of the most recent things that happened in the game when I did.
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League of Legends has always had multiple game modes for players to choose from. There's the classic 5v5 Summoner's Rift. The dark and mysterious 3v3 map Twisted Treeline, the popular arcade style of ARAM and the recently retired capture the point style map of Dominion. Now that the only remains of this once loved map are memories and a summoner icon rewarded to those that played it regularly it's important to realise that this is something we've never really seen before – The retirement of one of the permanent game modes.
Dominion was released in 2011 as a trial of a new game mode for League of Legends. At this point, there was no ARAM so Dominion offered something that neither the 5v5 or 3v3 game modes did – a new objective. Its player base quickly grew with Dominion gaining lots of hard-core players as well as groups dedicated to only playing their champions on the Crystal Scar. It had regular competitive tournaments with prize pools of over $1000 and it replaced co-op versus AI as the place for players to practice their newly acquired champions.
Unfortunately, this success was short lived. In the later years, Dominion became a quieter place full of only the loyal Dominion fans who had to endure long queues and games full of bots to play their favourite game mode. There was much speculation about the future of this game mode even as early as 2013 until in 2016 Riot released an official statement stating that they are going to shut down Dominion for good.
'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.'
Where Did It Go So Wrong?
While the official Riot statement suggests that the long queue times and poor match making is to blame this isn't entirely accurate. Dominion wasn't born this way and its early success shows that this game mode had potential to rival the player base of the popular ARAM. The real problems that Dominion faced have been visible for some time and yet these complications remained unsolved. Dominion was neglected by Riot and eventually had to pay the full price of its 5 year old life.
Bots Everywhere
Dominion has an extremely large population of bots. It's quick game mode and low population made it an easy way to farm experience and IP with little risk. This made it a safe haven for bots and unfortunately ruined the game mode for the real players. What fun can it be when you play on a game mode based around team fights when half of your team is only doing the bare minimum to avoid being auto-reported for being AFK? While this was only a real problem at the lower MMR it prevented any new people from playing Dominion. As the loyal older population started to move on there was never a younger generation of Dominion fanatics replacing those that left. The population eventually shrank to a size so small that queue times became ridiculously long. This led to more people quitting and this feedback loop eventually led to a 28 hour Dominion Queue.
Soul Anchor Sucked the Soul from Dominion
When trinkets came into the game in Season 4 Riot knew they had to add something to the Crystal Scar. Their answer was the Soul Anchor. An item which would instantly revive you from your death and grant you a movement speed buff. Think that sounds like a good idea? It wasn't and it's no coincidence that since that item was added the player base for Dominion shrank dramatically. This free revive opened up additional summoner spell choices (as players no longer needed revive) which clearly weren't balanced for the game mode.
Additionally this item would give a player three revives throughout the game which takes away one of the penalties for the ultimate mistake: death. When your champion dies this is supposed to allow players to push forward and take objectives while you are powerless to stop them. What the Soul Anchor actually does is give you another life as well as a speed buff – this means that not only can you quickly reach where the team fight took place but you can actually win the team fight because you have full health and mana whereas your opponents are probably still wounded. Being punished for winning a team fight was not a fair mechanic and players quickly moved onto other game modes.
Punished for Playing Well
Did you know that Dominion has a rubber banding effect? If your team was down by 50 or more nexus health (which is very common) then your respawn times are significantly shorter than the other teams. This only punishes the team that is currently winning. The absurdity of this situation is that you don't actually want to get too much of a lead in Dominion or you could face a comeback from the lesser skilled opponents. Rather than allowing skill to decide the game Riot decided that if you are losing you should be given a helping hand. Imagine this in any real sporting example and you'll quickly realise that Riot didn't think this decision through.
This mechanic along with the Soul Anchor led to dying not being feared as much as it is in other game modes. While in Summoners Rift a death can mean the end of your game, in Dominion a death doesn't particularly matter because you'll be back alive soon anyway.
Dominion Wasn't Balanced
It's difficult to balance over a hundred different champions for one game mode – balancing them all for a completely different game mode as well is impossible. Riot had to make a decision: Would Summoners Rift suffer because of Dominion or would Dominion suffer because of Summoners Rift? Considering Summoners Rift is their core game mode and has a world championship which offers the winner $1,000,000 the decision is pretty clear. Unfortunately meant that Dominion was never really given a chance after its initial launch.
Champions like Le Blanc, Fizz, Nidalee, Lee Sin, Braum and Pantheon were regulars on Dominion because their kits were simply too strong for the fast paced team fighting that Dominion offered. While there is little Riot could have done about this (without hurting their core game mode) it was certainly one of the biggest killers of Dominion and it's probably why we never saw ranked dominion.
Dominion Lol World
We Never Saw Ranked Dominion
A large chunk of the League of Legends player base don't play normal. The thrill and excitement that Ranked brings cannot be matched in any normal game mode. The feeling of climbing a ladder (or falling down it) makes each game worth playing and normal Dominion simply didn't offer this. Unfortunately, a ranked Dominion would then need to have a sizeable player base, good balancing and some support from Riot which just isn't possible. Ranked Dominion would have potentially extended the life span of this 5 year old game mode, it would have also highlighted some of its serious flaws.
League Of Legends Dominion
Disappointingly with the addition of regular ‘arcade' style game modes (which has its own team taken from Dominion) Riot just couldn't find the time to give Dominion the support it needs. Without regular balancing and a ranked queue the game mode has been doomed for quite some time. Similar to that of a much loved pet that has fallen terminally ill, Riot decided it's best to pull the plug and let the game mode leave League of Legends peacefully rather than have a prolonged and drawn out death.
Punished for Playing Well
Did you know that Dominion has a rubber banding effect? If your team was down by 50 or more nexus health (which is very common) then your respawn times are significantly shorter than the other teams. This only punishes the team that is currently winning. The absurdity of this situation is that you don't actually want to get too much of a lead in Dominion or you could face a comeback from the lesser skilled opponents. Rather than allowing skill to decide the game Riot decided that if you are losing you should be given a helping hand. Imagine this in any real sporting example and you'll quickly realise that Riot didn't think this decision through.
This mechanic along with the Soul Anchor led to dying not being feared as much as it is in other game modes. While in Summoners Rift a death can mean the end of your game, in Dominion a death doesn't particularly matter because you'll be back alive soon anyway.
Dominion Wasn't Balanced
It's difficult to balance over a hundred different champions for one game mode – balancing them all for a completely different game mode as well is impossible. Riot had to make a decision: Would Summoners Rift suffer because of Dominion or would Dominion suffer because of Summoners Rift? Considering Summoners Rift is their core game mode and has a world championship which offers the winner $1,000,000 the decision is pretty clear. Unfortunately meant that Dominion was never really given a chance after its initial launch.
Champions like Le Blanc, Fizz, Nidalee, Lee Sin, Braum and Pantheon were regulars on Dominion because their kits were simply too strong for the fast paced team fighting that Dominion offered. While there is little Riot could have done about this (without hurting their core game mode) it was certainly one of the biggest killers of Dominion and it's probably why we never saw ranked dominion.
Dominion Lol World
We Never Saw Ranked Dominion
A large chunk of the League of Legends player base don't play normal. The thrill and excitement that Ranked brings cannot be matched in any normal game mode. The feeling of climbing a ladder (or falling down it) makes each game worth playing and normal Dominion simply didn't offer this. Unfortunately, a ranked Dominion would then need to have a sizeable player base, good balancing and some support from Riot which just isn't possible. Ranked Dominion would have potentially extended the life span of this 5 year old game mode, it would have also highlighted some of its serious flaws.
League Of Legends Dominion
Disappointingly with the addition of regular ‘arcade' style game modes (which has its own team taken from Dominion) Riot just couldn't find the time to give Dominion the support it needs. Without regular balancing and a ranked queue the game mode has been doomed for quite some time. Similar to that of a much loved pet that has fallen terminally ill, Riot decided it's best to pull the plug and let the game mode leave League of Legends peacefully rather than have a prolonged and drawn out death.
© Provided by Win.gg The Crystal ScarDominion was officially retired in League of Legends five years ago, but fans of the game mode are still longing for its return.
The fast-paced game mode was one of the first to hit the League of Legends servers after Summoner's Rift. After being introduced in 2011, Dominion quickly became a place where players could duke it out without trying too hard to win. Ableton live lite manual. The main focus of Dominion was to have fun while playing a new game mode with different objectives compared to Summoner's Rift.
So why was Dominion removed in the first place, and will it ever return to the League of Legends client?
What is Dominion in LoL?
Dominion was League of Legends' answer to Capture the Flag. Dominion was played on the Crystal Scar, a circular map with five different capture points. The game mode was five versus five just like any other League of Legends mode, and the objective was to take down the enemy Nexus.
What made Dominion unique was the fact that killing the Nexus with champions wasn't an option. Instead, players had to capture the different points around the map and defend them. Controlling the points dealt damage to the enemy Nexus, meaning that the team who controlled most points for the longest time would eventually win.
This type of game mode gave players a completely new way to play League of Legends and introduced people to a fast-paced style that had never been seen before. A game of Dominion was usually very quick, just like players know it from ARAM today.
Why was Dominion removed?
Even though Riot originally intended to have Dominion as a permanent game mode, this changed as League of Legends as a whole developed over time. Dominion was permanently retired after being available in the game for five years.
The reason for the shutdown was based on a few different things when Riot made the decision back in 2016. One of the main reasons for retiring the long-standing game mode was because it just wasn't going anywhere according to Riot, and not a lot of players were interested in playing Dominion on a regular basis. It had gotten to the point that many of the active Dominion players were bots that were used to level up new accounts.
Another big reason for Riot to remove Dominion was balancing and matchmaking. The Dominion player base had shrunk to the point that it was hard to match players evenly, as the pool of players was simply too small. Riot also realized that balancing the Crystal Scar would require different changes than the ones being made for Summoner's Rift. This ultimately meant that Riot had to prioritize resources to balance Dominion from patch to patch, something that seemed like wasted work at the time given how few people were playing the game mode.
© Provided by Win.gg DominionIs Dominion coming back to LoL?
While many players miss the good old days when Dominion was an option, it's unlikely that the game mode will ever return. Since the removal of Dominion, Riot has introduced other featured game modes that only become available in a limited time. These game modes like URF, Nexus Siege, Nexus Blitz, and others. Unfortunately for the Dominion fans, the game mode has not been introduced back amongst the rotating game modes.
Not more than a couple of months ago, Riot Reinboom commented on the matter and said that 'The Crystal Scar is dead.' Instead, Reinboom provided fans with some hope that a game mode similar to Dominion, known as Ascension, could potentially make a return.
'Ascension is unlikely to come back in the form you're familiar with. If it's coming back, it'll come back on a different map,' Reinboom said. 'Currently, we've actually considered modifying the Nexus Blitz map for it (given how rounded the Nexus Blitz map is).'
This essentially means that there is a slight hope that the game mode will return in some form, but likely never as the old Dominion mode that fans remember.
