Ranked by sterling27

[gusty sundial]

Welcome @crisp compass! Any feedback from the community will show up here.
Please note that this thread discussion is not shared with SMG.
It is solely for the RISK Community to discuss ideas & provide constructive feedback!

[mint gale]

This isn't an idea and more of just a poll?

[torn sorrel]

Yeah, we all agree it's broken. But nobody can agree on a solution.

[feral flint]

I suspect that if some options are presented side by side, a clear winner would become evident. Ideally these polls should be available in game as only a small percentage of the player base actively uses Discord.

[night gazelle]

Change is best made in small increments. Showing SMG that their audience believes that the ranking system can be improved is the first step, this poll is showing that. I’m sure as J. W. mentioned, a small fraction of Risk players are members of Discord. However, if an overwhelming majority of those members want something better, I hope they listen to what the members are saying. 36-1 is pretty overwhelming…

[feral flint]

Keep in mind that the Risk Ideas bot automatically crates one yes, no, and neutral response to facilitate voting. This means that there are zero no votes for the poll.

[thorny dock]

Well, if this is not enough for SMG to take action, then Idk what it is... 42 yays to 0 nays and 2 neutrals, means that the vast majority of Risk players think by consensus (and therefore would like to see) an improvement to the RS is in order... What are they waiting for? That the vote is 543.232 yays to 1 no to do something? Of course, the day that excuses were invented, now it turns out that there are 543 priorities over this in the pipeline. That, and as @night gazelle points out, that despite the fact that the difference is overwhelming, the no existence of a clear guideline on how many upvotes does a proposal have to have in order to be considered, makes that those incremental improvements, even in baby steps, could take years, if ever take place. Not doing something, is doing something. It's clear to me where SMG stands on this regard. No matter how much we write and talk about this, they will do nothing. As Xerokee pointed out on the Risk rank chat, they are tired of this topic, and most likely won't move a finger, because he can read them as a book (his words, not mine)...

No matter how they rephrase it, it's clear that they won't do a thing... All the "thanks for your input, we'll take into account for the near future", is the polite way of saying like when you scratch playing lotto "better luck next time, keep trying, we are not going to do @#$ about it"... Or perhaps we are going to print all the suggestions of the such and do a nice toilette paper with it. I would prefer some real honesty here and declare their real intentions, instead of just playing nice and doing nothing about it. It's just disrespectful, as they are underestimating our intelligence, by pretending that we are going to buy this crap over and over again... Better to know where we stand and stop trying to count the sand grains in the beach...

Tbh, I rather prefer not being part of a community where gaslighting and playing nice while backstabing you is the norm. Then there are cases of people like @waxen kite, who is losing rank on purpose, because he's tired of this bullcrap... It's like in Westworld, when machines start sabotaging the system by malfunctioning, because they are tired of it being broken...

[night gazelle]

I want to encourage everyone to have patience here. Rome wasn’t built in a day. SMG has custody of Risk right now. They have said that they do monitor this area for discord. If we can show them that we care, and develop small incremental steps that the collective group of us agree upon, I believe that is our starting point. I posted a suggestion on the ranking thread about the possibility of incorporating bounties (in FFA ranked games) that I would ask people to read and consider. Make suggestions… it’s just a thought right now, help mold it before we put it up here. I think the reason SMG is “tired of it” is because they think we will complain about any system that is in place. So we have to think carefully about our suggestions, and be sure it is what we want when we ask for it. The next step will be to probably ask for a separate database solely for classic fixed play.

[thorny dock]

I strongly believe that the whole Risk ideas is more of a make believe thing than anything else, because of the following:

1. There is not (nor will be, by the looks of it) any clear guideline on how a proposal gets traction. Only to post it, hope that it gets enough votes (how much is enough?), and pray for it to be seen, and eventually picked up by Devs. This is a suggestions box. The fact that you take the time to write one very nicely and get a lot of people to sign it, doesn't mean a thing, because it's not binding.

2. There's no transparency on which proposals get picked up or why have they been discarded. Although SMG's staff are not our employees (but some customer satisfaction would be nice), other than doing a Q&A with the Devs once in a while, what goes on internally, in terms of what will be prioritzed/discarded is complete obscure to us, in a black box fashion.

3. For them, probably we just represent like 1% of their users' base, those who took the time and effort to make an educated proposal on how to address an specific issue such as the Ranking system. To hear us or not to hear us won't hurt their bottom line significantly, so why bother?

So with all this into account, as recent experience shows more than eloquently, writing smth, having a dismal proportion of upvotes to downvotes (essentialy infinite), and all the goodwill in the world, means nothing to them. They will only move if it makes sense business/monetary wise, not just to make happy a bunch of GMs who want to see a change for once in a lifetime.

Btw, I wouldn't put great hopes on the bounties suggestion. If making a simple split between Classic and everything else seems like a lifelong undertaking in their eyes, I don't want to imagine about a more elaborated bounty system, that could have multiple ways to go about it...

[night gazelle]

They are a business, customer satisfaction is important to them. No programmers want to mess with a ranking system frequently. I’m sure it is time intensive on an already developed program. But, small changes can be made. It takes time, patience and persistence. But it will only happen via consensus. Right now, the only thing that has been shown is that it has overwhelming interest in making changes. Based on the discussion on the ranking thread, there is not much more consensus about much more. I’m surprised that there wasn’t overwhelming support for just a classic fixed database. The programming has to be mainly copy and paste with some editing thrown in there. Depending on what the staff is doing it could be done. I expect nothing to be done with their audience showing consensus though.

[thorny dock]

The problem is, the vast majority of players play FFA, so they wanted to segregate 1v1 players of the ranking, which had somehow an edge, when there was a single ranking, as it's somewhat easier to beat one rival, than 5. As you rightfuly pointed out, making another segregation between Classic and anything else, that is a no-brainer, would need consensus, which is not something easy to get, when most vocal (top) players, often play meta settings such as prog caps euro advanced with fog, blizzards and unstable portals. So as it doesn't affect them (on the contrary, it's rather beneficial to them), they won't move a finger on that regard, and that's why SMG won't budge on making another breakout on the leaderboard either.

As you can see, everyone has an agenda. Those who play the most the Classic fixed mode are mainly noobs-beginners, because that's the popular way that the original board game was played. But they don't have a voice, as they're underepresented in this forum. So despite making up to 70% of the playing community, as well as the game mode, their opinion isn't there in volumes. What we have is the same old blokes opining day in and day out. There are a handfuld of highly skilled players, who prefer the old fashioned game, but are not as noisy as others.

The sad part is, a ranking system that doesn't invite to participate in an active, engaged manner, is a system that eventually die out of tiredness and starvation, so those against improving it to have a more dynamic set of rules, are actually killing the cash cow by decreasing the active users' base one day at a time. By trying to favor monetization, they are actually doing the opposite. So it seems to be more important to keep happy a selected group of top players, that could be counted with your hands' fingers, than the goose that laid the golden eggs. The oxymoron...