#What could make 1v1 Tourney more popular for Non-Grandmasters?

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

cedar anvil
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Over the last 3 seasons of 1v1 tourney, we’ve seen incredibly high rates of signups from Grandmasters, Top 100 and Top 10 players, and tournament veterans, however the rate of growth of signups from Novice-Master ranked players and New players has been slower.

Only 360 of the 90k+ members of the server have the Grandmaster role, so branching out to all ranks could make a big difference to the event.

Feedback from new players has improved a lot, since we started using elo, to allow them to play other equal opponents, instead of losing to far harder ones. Format changes only seem to have impacted player-retention, rather than new player signups, since new players generally aren’t aware of format intricacies before signing up.

Last season’s marketing for the event intentionally focussed heavily on emphasising that all ranks are welcome, and that novices can have fun participating too, but this didn’t impact new player signups much.

Is there any other approach we could take, to including newer players more?

cedar anvil
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Grandmasters make up only 0.2% of Risk’s monthly active players, and 0.3% of this server’s members, but 64% of 1v1 Tourney signups last season

radiant isle
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Only 360? That does put smurfing into a whole new perspective. I was under the impression they are at least 500-800 GMs in the server.

orchid patio
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Only 360? Damn

radiant isle
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Not everyone has to be on server in order to be GM

cedar anvil
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Back to the original point: does anyone have any ideas on how to make 1v1 tourney more exciting to new players and lower ranked players?

maiden terrace
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I think the app itself doesn't really make much awareness that 1v1's exist at all. The default is 4 players and a lot of people see Risk as a multiplayer game. I think low ranked players don't really play 1v1's and those who do quickly reach Grandmaster. So that might explain why. I don't really think there's much issue in the format itself, personally I think it's the lack of awareness of 1v1's existing at all. Another smaller part which is aware probably thinks that 1v1's are very luck based, and once or twice playing on luck based settings, completely quits them without bothering to find out what the actual skill based settings are.

I guess the situation won't change until the big leaderboard/ranking system changes come which should make people be more aware of 1v1's, since at the very least we know that there should be a separate leaderboard for them.

frank gorge
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A lot of new players play their first 1v1 games on bad settings, like classic auto non-fog, which leads to the misconception among new players that 1v1s are mostly luck

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There’s also the misconception that “Player 1 always wins”

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These misconceptions unfortunately can cause new players to not want to play 1v1, so maybe we could get more new players in 1v1 tourney if they knew that these misconceptions were false

proud gulch
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Maybe you can use some sort of pre-tournaments that determine wether you will or will not advance to a higher tier? Kinda like a league where you start at the lowest and need to work your way up? Win the lowest tournament to be able to participate in the next tier all the way up to the "champions league" of 1v1? Might make playing 1v1 more linked to your skill and thus less confronting if you loose?

Or maybe even a split in different leagues that would play at the same time?

cedar anvil
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A limitation of the current prizes, even if we did increase them, is that they mostly attract the players confident enough to think they could win, and those are the players we’re seeing sign up a lot already

radiant isle
cedar anvil
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A softer variation of the idea could be to invite each FFA tourney participant to the following 1v1 event

proud gulch
# cedar anvil This could definitely work, if we make sure Grandmasters don’t sign up to the Be...

It would be ok for GM to sign up to a beginner league on alts as it would mean they would compete on the lowest level only for 1 “season“ as they would probably score high and advance to the next one the following season... Also prices would be drastically lower in beginner leagues so probably not an incentive to play there?

You could also introduce wild cards for people to enter higher leagues kinda like tennis? Maybe for someone who hasn’t played a few years and returns can get a wildcard for a higher tier than beginner league based on past performances or something like that…

It would obviously mean you would need to keep track of every account 😅

cedar anvil
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That’s a cool idea too, could increase engagement if there’s a chance to go up a league

proud gulch
radiant isle
barren thicket
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1v1 Tournament play could be as follows:

  1. Each player is randomly given either South America or Australia to begin the game.

  2. Each player starts with four territories and 1 battalion on each of those territories.

  3. All other Territories are occupied by a random (single) defensive postured AI color

  4. At the Start of the game the AI player has 1 battalion on each territory it controls. When a new turn begins (for this AI color) each territory it still controls adds 1 battalion to its count. This continues throughout the game until all the AI players territories are captured

  5. The Computer player attacks every 6 turns until it is defeated. (6th, 12th, 18th, ECT.)

  6. When the computer attacks it does so aggressively, but without the intent of maintaining territories, instead it is trying to gather as much territory as it can.

  7. The AI players does not gain cards, continent bonuses, or territories held bonuses. This players only gains battalions in the ways mentioned above. (points 3 & 4)

In closing I know this wouldn't be technically a 1 on 1 match up; but we are talking about non-grandmasters becoming interested in this event. I propose this would be a good bridge towards preparing for a true game of 1 versus 1 Risk.

Just an idea... please share feedback, and humbly keep your hatred of the idea to yourself. What is good or what is bad, will help me (perhaps) make a better version of this for us to play as a game mode.

Then again... maybe it is total garbage. A friend of mine would play this house ruled version all the time and it helped both of us learn new strategies for Classic risk throughout our teens and early 20's.

Thanks for reading if you have made it this far. 🙂

cedar anvil
split gate
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To be fair though, from my own experience in 5as, even if newer players were to join 1v1 tournament they would probably get crushed anyway.

Maybe before the tournament, you could have something like a week of ''lessons'', where a few top players could explain strategies on a few different maps to get people into the playstyle.

maiden path
nocturne stag
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As a new player who's only been in the game for like a week and a half as well as a master at 25k rank, I don't play 1v1s for the sole purpose that I find them extremely boring and lackluster. 6 Player games are my go to because there are so many more variables to consider and account for, not to mention the psychological component that exists when it comes to manipulating your opponents against one another. 1v1s just feel so bland, it's an inherent problem with the mode, not with people just not knowing about it imo

barren thicket
median wasp
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Commenting from a very new to risk community perspective (about a week of watching, a day of playing). I'm the kind of person who gets interested in games by watching streams and other content, and that's how I found Risk. When doing so, the youtube algorithm gave me a lot of Risk videos, and almost all, if not all, of those videos were FFA. As a result, I have no interest in 1v1s, and if I wanted to learn, less content to watch about it. Is there any content, guides, or channels that focus on 1v1 over FFA? If so, could you find a way to promote that with the tournament to help them see what good settings and gameplay are?

cedar anvil
cedar anvil
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#risk_videos often gets a lot of great 1v1 videos too, so could help to find a way to publicise those more, so more players watch them

median wasp
cedar anvil
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Will also focus on getting more 1v1 Live Streams here during the tourney, as some seasons we’ve done better on that than others

marble olive
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You could always reach out to SMG to make an in game announcement in the news section. For when 1v1 or ffa tournaments start. I've done it in the past. Just need to have something written out for them. The beautiful about SMG and the risk community is that SMG cares about the community and does a handful of cool things. All you gotta do is ask🙂

cedar anvil
keen heath
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Part of the reason why 1v1 tournaments are so much more popular with grandmasters might be that anyone that is interested and reasonably competent at 1v1s will hit grandmaster incredibly quickly with the current ranking system

nocturne stag
vast dust
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To be honest 1v1 will continue to remain a leader board climbing mechanism for the few who know about it (relatively speaking considering number of players total) until the leader boards are split and regular players start to even see 1v1 as a possible way to play Risk much less participate in a tournament strictly for 1v1.

split gate
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1v1 gets a bad reputation. I think it is a lot more fun than people give it credit for, and I would suggest everybody to at least give it a try.

whole sparrow