It has now been almost 4 years since Riot Games introduced the “Dominion” game mode in the MOBA League of Legends. Soon it will be coming to an end.
Especially in recent years, it has become clear that this game mode no longer fit the current League of Legends. The Summoner’s Rift received its visual update and the champions are gradually being updated as well. However, Dominion is not.
This game mode, which was originally announced as something new or innovative, was unfortunately only able to maintain the hype for a short time. In an official announcement, developer Riot Games has now revealed that the Dominion game mode will be permanently disabled on February 22, 2016. Additionally, the map “The Crystal Scar” will no longer be available in free play.
Dominion – A multitude of reasons led to the deactivation of the unpopular mode in LoL
Dominion is caught in a vicious cycle. On one hand, there are long wait times because hardly any player plays this mode. When a wait time is excessively long, the opponent search expands further, resulting in players facing opponents who have very different skill levels. So if you, as an experienced player, have been in the queue for Dominion for 30 minutes, it could happen that you play against players who have not even reached level 30. This naturally leads to frustration, which in turn results in even fewer players signing up.
In the end, only 0.5% of the League of Legends players played this game mode. However, this 0.5% also included some bots, as stated in the official announcement.
Reward for “Veterans”
For those of you who enjoyed playing Dominion and might have a teary eye at this announcement, there is some good news. If you have achieved over 100 victories in normal Dominion (no cooperative games), you will receive a summoner icon that cannot be obtained in any other way.
If you only have 50 victories and want to quickly reach 100 by February 22, you unfortunately need to put that idea out of your mind. A snapshot of players and their Dominion victories was taken before the official announcement. The icon will be distributed in approximately 2 weeks after this news.
The announcement also states that much has been learned from this game mode. It is now known what to expect when introducing a new game mode. The ARAM queue is an example that these new game modes can also work well. The map may still be used for new game modes, but there are currently no concrete plans for that.
Have you collected 100 wins in Dominion and gotten the exclusive icon?
At this point, we can only say: RIP Dominion
