It’s no picnic attempting to balance a widely popular and competitive game like League of Legends. For years, the game’s developer Riot Games has tried to introduce avenues for newcomers to learn the game in a competitive but safe environment. For four years, Dominion mode was a more streamlined and simpler version of the traditional MOBA gameplay. Every player character started at level three, the map was always the same, and it was a more familiar control point mode. The mode may have been an interesting change, but it simply isn’t popular. According to Riot, less than one percent of players are playing Dominion at any given time and a good chunk of them may just be bots.
So, on February 22nd, the mode will no longer be available. Riot cites problems with balance and bugs in Dominion since Riot’s focus was rightly on the larger, more competitive Summoner’s Rift gameplay. Any player with over one hundred wins in Dominion by the time it ends will get a unique icon as a thank you. Riot also says from now on new modes will be timed around events and thus avoid the balancing issue.
I haven’t played a ton of LoL, but Dominion was a fun diversion to play with a group of friends. It helped to sharpen skills that traditional modes didn’t offer. The faster leveling and gold accumulation meant you had more fun with whichever character you choose without wasting time in a competitive match. Hard to say that Riot is doing wrong here since they’ve clearly done plenty right up until this point.
