Ranked by Ace

[lucid ridge]

Welcome @devout sky! 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!

[devout sky]

A couple ideas:

Have the amount of points earned be based on rank and not relative ELO. (Helps solve the problem of a GM playing another GM but one of the GMs could have twice the RP of the other, making it incredibly skewed)

Make the minimum rank a GM can play be intermediate.

Introduce an automatch system for 1v1

[devout sky]

Hide profiles for 1v1. Hosts shouldn’t be able to kick every player that has premium or doesn’t have the standard “General xxxxx 20000” name format. Every name should be anonymous and the avatar should be the “???” until the game starts to limit noob grinding (I’m looking at you command base guy)

[tribal snow]

Agree with you Ace, i play a few 1v1 everyday, so i know how it works. Just by playing luck based settings spent enough time and kicking everyone you think thats isn’t a novice could get you in the top 10 last season.

The easiest way to make an end of noob grinding is adjust the minimum rank a GM can compete against i think . A intermediate (as you suggested) should be the right level, they are not gonna give you free continents at start as player 1 and they know the basics.

[devout sky]

I’ve played about 70 games over the last 2 days in my quest to stay at the top of the leaderboard. Out of those 70 opponents, 2 have been above beginner, and I don’t kick players (unless I know them) so that’s a real sample.

So I think the real problem is that the good players are hosting their lobbies, and the bad players are just joining them (as a rule of thumb). I could be wrong, but I’m just not getting anybody above a beginner in my lobby.

So if you made it to where GMs could only play intermediates and above as I suggested, you would have to wait forever for your game to fire

[tribal snow]

I played against 2 masters and 1 expert and the rest were novice and beginner in about 35 games since the reset, so yes with the current system it’s not to do to filter. I tried it before and it toke ages to fill a lobby.

But if they forced and players are still willing to rank up, it’s the only way. So i have faith that if they would make this change, lobbies will fill.

I joined your lobby twice (different maps) since the reset with my main (with changed name), but i left, because we talked before. So if someone host tournaments settings big change i am not allowed to play against them.

[lunar timber]

Having auto-placement would help make the leaderboard more meaningful; however, several issues would remain.  For example, lumping games together in one leaderboard with vastly different settings.  A grandmaster in one group of settings can easily be a novice in another.  Allowing multiple accounts where a high skill individual can play as a novice also creates problems.

[devout sky]

Why would Auto placement make the leaderboard more meaningful? Manual placement is where the vast majority of skill is in 1v1s.

Personally rather than have a bunch of different leaderboards I’d rather it be an auto match system into a group of different settings if you really think that people playing different settings is an issue.

And yes the multiple accounts thing is an issue. Another problem that would be solved by players only being able to play similar ranks

[lunar timber]

My bad.  I meant to say auto-match. 
 
To truly be meaningful a leaderboard needs to compare like things.  In the case of RISK, you would need leaderboards that compared individual playing games with similar (if not exactly the same) settings.
 
As you suggest, a good rank system also encourages individuals to play strong opponents (not weaker) and discourages individuals from playing on accounts that do not represent their actual skill level.
 
I agree that manual placement games are more strategic than games where troops are auto-placed.

[devout sky]

I personally believe that most of the “skilled” 1v1 settings are pretty comparable in terms of skill. If you’re good at the Jules Verne settings you are probably going to be good at the Boston settings. The strategy really doesn’t change much, if at all, between settings. The only real difference is between caps and non-caps. But with France and Brazil being the only viable 1v1 caps settings I hate to even include them. Everyone pretty much knows how to play them and caps are a bit broken currently.
The players playing any different settings are inevitably playing luckier settings. And if they aren’t kicking every player who isn’t a noob (like the command base guy) then they aren’t going to win enough to be anywhere near the top of the leaderboard. So I do think the current leaderboard is comparing like things with the problem being more in the fact that the majority of games aren’t between opponents of similar skill.

What I like about a potential auto match system is that you wouldn’t get to pick your opponent (and they would be of similar rank). And ideally you wouldn’t get to pick the settings either so you can’t just sit there and play 4,000 games on the same settings (just gives an advantage even if the opponent knows the settings)

[lunar timber]

An auto-match system should help reduce noob farming and sniping and I support the concept.  However, for a leaderboard to truly be meaningful, it needs measure people playing in the same environment.  A good example of this is track.  There is a separate season and leaderboard for indoor and outdoor track.  Even though the events are identical, it is recognized that there are significant differences between competing indoors vs outdoors.

If a top sprinter (100m) competed against a top distance runner (500k) it would mean very little.  Each would win their preferred race.  Likewise, a game between progressive caps grandmaster and a fixed non-caps grandmaster would reveal very little as each would likely win with their preferred settings.
 
If you want to truly know how good you are at something, you need to compete against individuals of similar skill in the same environment.

[devout sky]

While this is true I think it’s a bit of a stretch. In racing you don’t race on the same track every single time. And in sports sprinting and distance running are usually considered two entirely different sports (I also don’t know anyone running 500k’s. That would be insanely far so I hope that’s a typo 😂). And runners rarely run just a single race. They might run the 200 and the 400 (essentially races where similar training allows them to be successful. That sounds a lot like 1v1s to me)

I think you also need to consider that a one map system will never work for SMG. They make a lot of money from people buying map packs so turning ranked 1v1s into a single map that you didn’t have to buy would hurt that.

Because of that I believe an auto match system where you can play a wide variety of settings is the best. I personally don’t want to just play 1v1s on the classic map over and over again. I also think with how 1v1s currently work, once everyone knows the settings and the strategy, it becomes a 50/50. There’s not enough factors in the game to make it not a luck of the draw situation every game. I also believe to be a true “GM” or “Top Player” you need to be well rounded. If you’re only good at one settings, then you aren’t a GM. The best players can and should be able to win on any settings

[lunar timber]

Most competitions have highly regulated standard playing environments.  If the environment changes, a separate leaderboard is established.  A good example is how Chess has separate leaderboards for classic, blitz, bullet, and rapid versions of the game.
 
Given the wide variety of maps/settings with SMG’s RISK, it would be impractical to have leaderboards for every combination.  At a minimum, I think that there needs to be leaderboards for the original version of the game (Classic fixed and progressive).  Then you can add separate leaderboards featuring specialty maps/setting combinations on a seasonal basis.  This makes the original game the primary skill benchmark, while accommodating those who enjoy more variety. It also ensures that there is a competitive path, for those who do not have access to unlimited premium content.
 
In track, no one expects a sprinter to also be highly competitive at distance running (or vice versa).  Likewise, I do not think that a RISK player should be expected to be highly skilled in every possible map/setting combination.  If this is the requirement, then you create a pay to win scenario, as the majority of players do not have regular access to all premium content.

[unreal salmon]

I agree that there's a lot of 'noob farming'/cherry picking opponents, and it's not healthy for the Risk ecosystem. Due to the low population of 1v1 playlist though, I'm not sure it would be practical to limit a GMs games to Intermediate+. It would take forever to find a game.

Some kind of match-making system would be a better solution, in my opinion.

[tribal snow]

It depends on the settings which rank will join. When i host for example Jules Vernes 1v1, it’s almost only novices and smurfs on novice accounts.

Yesterday i hosted 4 Simple World WD 1v1 coinflip settings and i played against 2 masters and 2 experts.
It was kinda funny.

[unreal salmon]

Yeah, because of the highly customizable settings in Risk, match-making would be very tricky.

Perhaps, players could choose a mode/modes(WD, Capital Conquest, etc.) and the placement type/types; then that would match them with an opponent who chose similar match-making options. The map and other options would be randomized. The maps could be pooled from both players.