!Most Wanted Updates!

[tame steppe]

What does everyone think are some of the most desired additions/patches to the game according to the overall consensus of the community?

(could be anything from a new game mode to a small bug)

[bold perch]

Fix the ranking system. By far most requested.

[round pilot]

I believe there are three critical things that need to be addressed above all else:

1. Ranking system. The whole system needs to be completely revamped. It's nonsense that the fastest way to rank up is to play a version of the game that is devoid of everything that makes Risk Risk. There needs to be 2-4 separate ladders for 1v1 vs FFA Progressive vs FFA Fixed. They are all completely different game modes and ranking people against each other across these game modes makes no sense whatsoever.

2. Automatch also needs to be fixed to allow players to automatch for specific sets of filters, with a minimum player threshold (i hate automatch since it always starts at 4 players, I prefer 6, and is only classic fixed). It should automatch you into games that people have created that match your filters, or create a game for others to find or automatch into if a lobby doesn't already exist for it (using sane defaults for filters you set to "Any"). This would allow created games to populate faster and make automatch WAY more useful.

3. Speed disparity between devices. First: just remove the camera animation default on PC. There's no reason to give new players an immediate competitive handicap. Then, figure out a way to allow mobile players to move as quickly as they are able to think/tap.

I consider these three issues to be the main ones holding the game back from being truly great.

[tame steppe]

Absolutely #3 is probably my number 1 concern
All great points

[tame steppe]

Other than making different ladders how else can the ranking system be improved?

[tall tusk]

Showing how many players and how many bots the certain game has before you click on it, I think this would be a huge help and I feel like a lot of players would want this to be added so they don’t enter lobbies with just all bots and 1 player

[round pilot]

Honestly I think separating the ladders would go a LONG ways. Right now it seems like most players that get to the top do so in 1v1 games. ELO calculations still make sense, but perhaps there should be some consideration into how many kills (bounties) you get in games too that would affect your ELO rating for the game.

The main gripe that people seem to have is that "it takes me 30 games to make up one loss at the top ranks," which wouldn't be the case if

a) the ladders were separate so everyone was on the same playing field when climbing or falling ranks (this would somewhat close the gap on ELO / ranking points, making a loss not quite as painful). and

b) There were ladder 'seasons' that would periodically completely reset the ladders. Top season players could perhaps be rewarded with some gems or a cosmetic or something. This would eliminate the rather toxic behavior of getting top 10 by noob-grinding 1v1s (I know you can't do this anymore but still) and then completely stop playing that account. Anything that encourages you to stop playing the account for fear of losing ranking points is a failed system.

[supple wadi]

The ranking system rework already addresses the problem with the forced win percentage by moving to a point system depending on players in the game and capping that out at about 2 wins for 1 loss.

Other things that are pretty wanted would be the following:

1. Default back to Blitz and 100% slider at the start of your game
2. Allow cards to be sorted to have a faster correct match if you are forced to match in
3. fix cap
4. Filtered automatch
5. Legal public lobby's with friends outside of global domination without the need of discord
6. Fix connection issues/bugs that prevent troop placement or attacks
7. Further camera zoom for pc
8. Many people wish for a ingame chat (bad idea)
9. Custom maps (also horrible idea)
10. Punish/nerf botting out
11. Ready check before loading screen (maybe players that got removed have a cooldown to rejoin to prevent trolling)
12. Harsher enforcement of teaming/cheating
13. Better ingame tooltips (for example battle points earned that day/cap, the skill points in you have on your profile page etc.)
14. Any way to contact your ingame friends (it could be via linked discord/social media accounts or anything from your profile)
15. I have seen the secret mission gamemode wish. (Everyone gets a mission turn 1 inside of a world dom game like kill the green player, either do that or conquer the world)

That is all that I have on top of my head maybe I have missed something.

[elfin bramble]

Add any amount of player games capping at the maps territories for play with friends

[scenic galleon]

The one and only thing I desire most in this world…would be to have a Risk: Global Domination Sandbox mode…where we can control the player turn order and blizzards. And the ability to either create unique borders or “Great Wall” of china borders as such. I could go deeper into this topic. I think it’s self explanatory.

[trim elk]

I like all of your suggestions.

[pliant cape]

Besides making separate ladders, I think players should only be able to play people of similar rank, at least for 1v1, to prevent noobfarming

[tame steppe]

I disagree, because of the low population of masters/Gm’s they would rarely be able to find a game

The current system is good because you can’t know if the player is new or experienced.
I feel like that is the best solution to the problem

[lavish notch]

2v2 3v3 2v2v2 kill the King

[feral berry]

That's not true. Gms are some of the most active players. They are just all hosting games.

@tame steppe I cant reply due to cooldown, but the filter in searching for games only shows games with gm as the min rank. So a gm would have to be hosting games with that set which is never the case

[tame steppe]

ive experienced it firsthand 🤷‍♂️

try filtering your games to gms only

[wooden kernel]

To point number 3) possibly “double tap” on mobile. Sacrifice ability to decide how many troops to leave behind (default to leave behind only required 1 troop). It’s a different action, it bypasses the number slider, and it’s a trade off - give up information (what’s on the other side of this territory I’m attacking?) for speed.

[trim elk]

Some lower-level players may want to seek out games with higher-level players to improve their skills. However, I do think it is fair for players to see their opponent’s level before committing to a game with them. Currently the system does not show this information until after the game is over.

[cunning fiber]

Easiest Useful Update: Bring back Moscow, Moscow Advanced, Russia and Russia Advanced Maps.

It’s been months, so SMG has clearly made their point of removing them by now. The news has also largely moved on to other topics, so it’s time SMG move on too.

Simple Moscow was the best Zombies 1v1 map, so it would be especially great if it returns in time for the next 1v1 tourney season

[tame steppe]

Why was it removed?

[wooden kernel]

Leaderboard by variant

We have various settings that we can create games under. I imagine, going from easiest to most difficult, leaderboards could be generated to match the configuration of individual games.

One human player, Two humans, FFA
Fixed Cards, Progressive Cards
World Dom, 70%, 5 round, Capitols, Zombies
Alliance on?
Fog on?
Blizzard on?
(All 7 permutations, perhaps)
Individual map leaderboards

Keeping “one leaderboard to rule them all” can be legacy, and correcting the rank system (and ladder climbing inefficiency) has been discussed elsewhere. I’m envisioning something like the Lichess variant leaderboard, where individual ratings are maintained by time control, or by variant (racing kings, horde chess, anti chess, three check)

Visual example can be viewed
Lichess dot org

[tame steppe]

If rank was derived from a different point value than skill points and was accumulated and not lost then it would encourage people in top spots to play.
With that said In that situation I think it should give very low points when winning against players with low skill points and more when against players with high skill points.
Basically it would separate the skill points from rank points.

Skill points would determine class.
And rank points would determine leaderboard.

Perhaps it could even be a separate leaderboard and we could keep different skill point based ladders

[round pilot]

I think seasons with leaderboard resets would do more to encourage top players to continue playing, but your suggestion could work too. Without resets, your suggestion would result in too much rank point inflation though, over time

[tame steppe]

As Pete said you never want to punish players for playing your game