League of Replays

So I don't play Dominion all that often these days, but one of the things that stands out to me whenever I go back to it is the way quests work. Specifically, as they're implemented right now they tend to dramatically favor whichever team doesn't have control of Windmill at the exact moment the quest pops.

It's pretty common knowledge that Windmill changes hands more than any point on Dominion, and that's rather clearly enforced by the structure of the map. Obviously you get ganks on bot and steamrolls that push through to mid, but in general the fighting happens over Windmill and everything else is ganks and pooters. This is a problem when Windmill becomes a quest target; one team has to capture Windmill (a fairly easy task since it changes hands frequently), while the other team has to try to capture the opponent's mid (the most difficult point on the map to capture reliably.) It's a huge advantage to whoever doesn't own Windmill but it's too random to plan around since you don't know what points a quest will appear on. The end result is that quests can turn into random free points for one team, rather than something that rewards players for grouping or playing as a team.

And really, with the symmetrical nature of the map, there's no reason a quest should ever have Windmill as a target. Any time it does it gives one team a massive advantage purely because of the RNG. Quests should either be mid-mid (not currently possible and would be interesting) or bot-bot.

It feels enough like an oversight that I'm honestly surprised this has stayed in the game as long as it has. There's really no positives to Windmill quests, and there are some rather obvious negatives.

Anyone disagree?

I do plan to revisit the quest system at some point, but that's going to be a bit further down the road. Some thoughts follow; consider them separately, but all will be tested internally before proceeding further.
-Quest system warnings (game alerts you 60 seconds prior to a quest spawning)
-Quest system expiry (not sure about this one yet)
-Quest reward permanence (capturing a quest locks the point for a period of time)
-Slightly more diverse quests

Before I start, remember that the quest system can go in several directions. It can simply be refined, or we can go a bit more crazy to involve more of the team on more portions of the map. Some ideas:
-A neutral, slow super minion spawns in the middle of a lane. Capturing it causes it to slowly move towards the opposing capture point. If it reaches the point, it will take the point for your team. Of course, the other team can capture it any time during its walk. Basically a tug of war.
-A "bomb" spawns somewhere on the map. Capturing it attaches the bomb to you, and if you manage to neutralize a point with it, it will remain your team's for a while (this one goes with the permanence concept). If you die with the bomb, it drops and someone else can capture it. You are revealed while holding the bomb.

Right, the general idea behind this is that it can change the map dynamics significantly, especially if coupled with a more free-form quest, not just the attack/defend one. It'd probably have the most impact in bottom lane.

If we don't do bottom-only quests, then "In 60 seconds, a quest will spawn." If no quest can spawn, then it simply won't. If we do, it simplifies matters greatly. The big impact here is that players will either try harder to gank or play very defensively.

Brackhar told me that they tried several quests that originate in mid. The team fights that erupted there were enjoyable, but the aftermath was not, as a team winning mid is in a unique position to travel to any and all capture points on the map. So I want to stay away from mid-based quests and localize them either to individual capture points, a specific champion, or a lane.

The thought has crossed my mind, but I'm worried DM-style quests that are a few steps removed from the actual objectives on the map are veering too far from the tactical experience Dominion is intended to be.

No. I joined the live design team specifically to work on Dominion, Twisted Treeline, and Proving Grounds, but it won't be all I work on, especially after I start getting the immediate, high-priority fixes in. There's a lot of other secret work that I can't comment on that pique my interest. I like to dip my fingers into everything