Ranked QnA with Brett

[sick swallow]

Hey! If you have any questions about the upcoming changes to the ranking system this is the place!

Brett will be here to answer questions and the forum will be actively moderated. Please note there will be a longer cooldown so we are not overwhelmed with questions!

Please note - we are starting in 22 minutes from this message - please do not post any questions here until we're here.

There is a 30 minute slowmode active - so this permits a question each

[cursive echo]

Where do you see risk in 5 years?

[tall charm]

Good evening. Do you anticipate making a ranked API available for us player-developers? Specifically with match information.

[willow narwhal]

do you plan on making big changes that diviste away from the board game roots of this game? soecifcly with core design of the gameplay and oerhaps introduing new systems to encourage players to do things that will lead to more fun gameplay

[ripe robin]

Hi Brett, thanks for making yourself available to us! Some questions:

1. Will there be a rank reset of some kind with this update? This had been talked about in much earlier iterations of this update.
2. Have you all considered removing premium name coloring as lobbies as a quick fix for noob grinding on this basis?
3. I can imagine that the free-for-all leaderboard will be very volatile. Have you all thought about any changes to the separated free-for-all rank points that would reduce this volatility?

[stiff veldt]

There are no immediate plans for us to release anything like that however we have been discussing options on making more game data available so it's not completely off the table.

[bright pasture]

@cursive echo Hey we have released a road-map that goes over the next two years. Once we hit that goal we want to focus on new game modes and incorporate more community feedback.

[outer jungle]

Will there be measures taken to prevent farming new players for rank in the new ranking system?
If GMs are able to play novices, the 1v1 leaderboard won't be much different from the current leaderboard, and people could farm FFA too by playing settings that are unfamiliar to new players.
Have you considered only allowing players to play people of relatively similar rank, to prevent them from farming new players?

[small cove]

first of all thanks for taking the time for this Q&A. I was just wondering if you can still be able to play all game modes ranked in the future. From what was communicated last spring from SMG several people were under the impression that for instance capital conquest would not be allowed to play ranked on. I also know there has been talk of Automatch only for ranked

[potent summit]

Does SMG have any plans to develop more boardgames into mobile games? I mainly hope that you can get your hands on scrabble as the current scrabble app is terrible. I think you guys would do a better job

[pseudo lantern]

So what system will the new system look like? When I say that I’m asking if skill points are being replaced and if so can you give us some info on the new system will work and what it uses for determining rank. Also can you clarify if there will or will not be a reset?

[stiff veldt]

Hi Frail Waif.

1. The rank won't be reset for the next release but your current rank points will be converted to Free For All (FFA) and the new 1v1 rank points will start from scratch. We will be implementing the new rank decay system for your existing rank points FFA so your rank points will drop for the next season.
2. We haven't removed the colouring for this update as we want to encourage users to become premium, if this is something that we feel is requested by enough users and it's impacting your gameplay then we'd consider it.
3. In terms of the leaderboards, we see the FFA leaderboard will be as volatile as the current leaderboard, we will just be splitting out the new 1v1 game mode to it's own leaderboard.

[round kiln]

I'd like to see a conversation with SMG and some of the top players who are also on YouTube. Some of them have really good ideas and are doing a lot to grow the community. I'm sure this could be done in a professional way. Thanks for communicating with us.

[sick swallow]

We don't currently have changes impacting what ranks you can play (handy article here) https://smgstudio.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/11000117659 - If it's something that is quite frequent we'll look into options for this - it's not on the current roadmap just now

[stiff veldt]

We will be doing a major update for our 4.0 + release where we will be making big improvements to our multiplayer system. These kind of issues and lots of other issues to do with fair play will be addressed for this update.

[stiff veldt]

Yes you can still play all the game modes for ranked games. There has been talk for automatch only for ranked but that's been shelved for now.

[hollow cape]

Is there a date for release of the upcoming update? Firm date

[supple elbow]

Will I keep the ranking I have currently? Also how will we seperate 1v1s and FFA leaderboard. How will the ranked system work differently from how it is right now?

[sick swallow]

Really appreciate the vote of confidence! We're not currently looking to just now as we're wanting to make sure RISK is as great as it can be

[bright pasture]

It will be over the next couple of weeks, its with QA at the moment and once they are happy we will release the update.

[woven sail]

I have a follow up for #1. Since most of the lb is currently populated with 1v1 players, why not keep current ranks as 1v1 and start new FFA from scratch?

My actual question is regarding how will you measure if this rank rework is a success? And if it is not, what will be the next steps?

[stiff veldt]

Hi, the new system will involve us converting the current rank points into the new FFA rank points, we'll also be introducing a new leaderboard for 1v1 rank points. We've also added rank decay in for each season that will mean if you don't play for a season your points will drop a level.

[royal verge]

I think the decay feature will be a great incentive to keep players playing new games after attaining their rank goal (GM, top 1000, top 100). Any thought on creating different ladders per game mode? So that we could have a FFA Global Domination rank, then a separate Zombies Rank, separate Capitals rank, and so on?

[languid spindle]

New update will be in roughly 1-2 weeks right?

[bright pasture]

We try and focus on the whole Community feedback rather then preferential treatment. But we do watch streams and YouTube videos . We are accepting expressions of interest for streamers to be featured on the RISK menu page.

[stiff veldt]

Yes your current rank points will be converted to your new FFA rank points. We'll have seperate leaderboards for 1v1 and FFA so the rank points that you earn from playing 1v1 games will go towards your 1v1 leaderboard. The rank calculation will continue work the same as it has been.

[hearty crescent]

Are you guys working on something to balance mobile vs pc player time advantages?

[stiff veldt]

This is not off the table, we've been discussing this with the dev team. It's a great idea though and we'd like to look into it more in the future.

[bright pasture]

We are aware of this issue, we have seen it the community feedback come up a bit. We have started discussions on how best to approach this.

[valid ferry]

This isn’t ranked related so forgive me if this is the wrong place and time to ask but I feel it needs to be asked.

Q: How often do you guys look at #risk_ideas and use those ideas and take inspiration from them?

Currently there is a general feeling around the community that SMG doesn’t look at our suggestions.
Thank you for your time and your work on the game we all love!

[stiff veldt]

The original ranking system didn't include 1v1 games so we decided to convert the rank to FFA. Things will even out over a few seasons of play as people play in the two rank modes.
As for the rank updates being a success, we'll measure that from user feedback and in game stats. If it's a success and people are happy then we'll look into seeing if other rank updates would be beneficial moving forward.

[wintry ferry]

Will the update involve the ability to report players for cheating after being killed? So many reports die when You’re killed before finishing the report. There’s been an overwhelming positive vote “Yes!”

[naive bloom]

Will the new system for FFA be as punitive for losses at higher levels, like right now it’s basically impossible to grind FFA since wins are so little in sp and losses are way more, to add to it, so what will our current sp he used for our new FFA rank?

[sick swallow]

We're not changing the system for points currently, but as 1v1 will no longer be with FFA - the threshold will be much lower overall (so lower ceiling and less convolution as there is currently)

[stiff veldt]

This next update won't have any changes to cheat reporting but we are aware of this and it's on the cards for the future, no expected date through unfortunately.

[stiff veldt]

We review risk ideas every 3 weeks as a team so we're across what the community are asking for. We look at how we can fit these ideas into our roadmap but sometimes big updates require more time or are better placed for after we make more significant changes such as our planned multiplayer overhaul next year.

[sick swallow]

Okay that's it for today - we need to let our developers go back to writing code - thanks for participating!

[bright pasture]

We review risk ideas every 3 weeks as a team so we're across what the community are asking for. We look at how we can fit these ideas into our road-map but sometimes big updates require more time or are better placed for after we make more significant changes such as our planned multiplayer overhaul next year.

Thanks everyone for your questions,