Dev Q&A Feb 2024

[queen orbit]

RISK Q&A Feb 2024

If you have any RISK-related questions you have come to the right place!

Today we are joined by our Producers, QA & Devs

Start time: <t:1707946200:F> <t:1707946200:R>
Approx. end time: <t:1707949800:F> <t:1707949800:R>

Notes
Please note there will be a 15 minute slow mode activated so the team is not overwhelmed with questions.
*Chat in the post will be enabled once we start

[queen orbit]

@everyone Chat is now open!

[errant wing]

Long term (3-4 years) what features do you expect to have added to the game that don't currently exist? Some common requests are:

• In game text functions for friends (ie a way to organize games and talk about the game inside of the app rather than on Discord)
• Teams modes (2v2 and 3v3 have gotten pretty popular in the community and many would like to see that be possible normally)
• Some sort of sandbox mode (customize settings like where the blizzards/portals go, how many they are, the turn order, etc.)
• A spectate mode (players not in a PWF game can watch anyway. This would be incredible for tournaments)
• In app tournaments

I'm sure y'all have more but would love to hear if any of these are in the works and any other features like this y'all are planning on.

[proud oar]

Hi! Chloe - Risk producer here. In terms of those features: teams mode, better spectating and in app tournaments are all features we've had on our list for a while so we hope to be able to deliver on these in the long term.

Text functions is not something we've considered just because we need to keep the family friendly rating of the game and making sure its safe and fun for everyone. Sandbox mode is also not something we've actively considered.

[halcyon scarab]

Thank you for taking your time to answer a few questions of the community.
We know from the network overhaul that you guys work on connection issues, but the roadmap says that bug fixing is a ongoing thing. Is there any specific bug that you are working on right now that is not about networking?

The roadmap also shows that you plan on quality of life updates. Will those include the different menus like the map selection screen and all of the cosmetic screens?

In terms of UI improvements are there any plans to update the tooltips in the game, like the class description that doesn't tell the thresholds.

[ruby nimbus]

Thank you for your time to answer our questions. In the future do you have any plans to implement any of the fan made maps that have been made?

[proud oar]

In terms of other features we want to look at after our multiplayer overhaul things like longer, turn based games of Risk that can be played over time, better map selection and new game modes and modifiers are all on the list for us to explore.

[velvet jackal]

@queen orbit
lucibot — Today at 3:29 PM
Josh might know he was QA and transitioned to Producer

Luci and I have been talking in DMs and in main server regarding ghost (aka "phantom") blizzards and how that might be impacted by the server update.

Being client sided, though you need not host a game to have real form blizzards observed save as ghost blizzards to the client, we thing the server update will wipe these.

I'm intending to go into depth and explain every kink in how ghost blizzards work with Luci so she can bring these forward for consideration as an integrated modifier in the base game, just refined in implementation. Anyway, I'm wondering if you can confirm that ghost blizzards will cease to be a part of the game as a result of the server update. I have a tournament based around these and some players who really are into them, so there's an analyst like group of players who will be very saddened to see these exit the game forever.

(whoa, Chloe, I haven't seen you in ages, cool to see you now are part of SMG :))... side tracked

[viral silo]

Hey! Stew (Dev) here - We're rebuilding the networking entirely to improve stability. Most of our updates include bugfixes but with networking being our priority we prioritise bugs that affect app stability.
Currently we are looking into an issue regarding games ending prematurely and another issue with capitals mode.

[errant wing]

Is it possible to share game logic with the community?

Some examples are the logic of zombie pathing for each map, the complete list of tiebreakers in the event of a cap run or speed blitz win, and the list of bot personalities and unique traits to each personality. (its not necessarily limited to this but these are some things that come to mind)

[queen orbit]

At this stage we won't be looking to implement them. The community made maps were really exciting to see especially in the latest competition, however they remain a grey area for us in terms of licensing which stops us from being able to implement them into the game.

[proud oar]

In terms of UI updates: our immediate priority this year is getting the map selection UI updated to make it easier for players to find maps and setup games. Tooltips aren't on the immediate list but could be something we look at a bit later.

[viral silo]

Hey Plazma, that 'feature' would most likely be impacted by the networking update, but if it's something the community like we could consider drafting it up as a deliberate feature.

[queen orbit]

Thanks for letting us know about this, We are always looking for new ways to spice up our gameplay so if this is something the community wants to see we would be open to implementing this as a modifier of the zombie mode in the future.

[hard yew]

@halcyon scarab: Backend Dev here. While we are neck deep in working towards the networking, work never stops on maintenance and updates on the backend system.

The past three months we have updates the operating systems and several support services. Over the past few weeks have been testing the largest database upgrade we've done since we launched Risk - that's happening this afternoon.

We've had some bug fixes in code such as reducing the amout of memory used when checking for malicious activity, fixed a rare issue where some stats were not immediately allocated where users left games early, logged out and then logged in to a second device before the game concluded (those also take some debugging!); improved some monitoring service etc.

Half of the dev work you don't see but never stops.

[halcyon scarab]

Thank you for these responses so far.

Are there any plans to change the end of the game screen to show things like your placement in that game?
Or could we at least get the exact tie breakers to know what determines placement in not world dom/zombies mode. There is information floating around that it's about troops and territories, but we don't know the exact weight of each component.

[velvet jackal]

@hard yew @viral silo @queen orbit
As it's incredibly hard to share information, and I am the guy to uncovered all this and continues to uncover zombie features (ehemm, intentional or not)... and bugs ask @errant wing who recorded one I need to share, I'm wondering if it's possible for me to DM you guys on official matters such as this when it gets technical, so a game of telephone is not played when ensuring it's understood exactly what happens. I code a bit myself so might be able to speak your language to a degree.

[errant wing]

Are there any plans to fix Balanced Blitz for capitals? I think it has been pretty well documented that the code is broken at this point.

[viral silo]

This scenario is complicated by disconnections (how does a temporarily disconnected player factor into ranking etc.), but as part of the networking rebuild we're migrating/consolidating game rules logic so we will review if we can share that information or expose it in-game.

[queen orbit]

Studio Devs will not usually be on discord so you might not be able to reach us quickly. Luci has direct access to message myself of Chloe for any pressing community matters.
The producers also check support tickets especially feature requests so I would recommend either creating a ticket or shooting luci a message if you would like us to get eyes on something ASAP.

[proud oar]

Although we do appreciate the communities desire to understand the system more. This is not something we are looking at providing right now for a few reasons, namely so that we don't provide some players with an unfair advantage within games and because some game logic is random and is based on a posability. For example AI make their choice based on several factors and at any given turn could do 1 of 50 things.

[halcyon scarab]

You guys have a very dedicated fanbase that does a lot of reverse engineering around your game.
How does that feel for most of you?

Speaking about reverse engeneering. I have done a lot of testing around territory cards for the game. And I stumbled across 2 weird quirks.

1. If you can't draw every card (like on simple world) there is always a random card "stuck" in the deck
2. If the deck has 3 or more cards remaining you can't draw the cards you played that turn at the end of that turn.
   Are these intended mechanics or bugs?

[errant wing]

Is there any way smaller tournament hosts can apply to have a map be one of the free maps of the week?

[viral silo]

Hey Ace, are you referring to the estimation technique (extrapolation etc.) for large battles? As part of rebuilding our networking system we're investigating possible efficiencies which may allow us to improve simulations at large scales. We can't promise anything concrete yet but considering the purpose of these estimation methods was to allow less powerful hardware to run the game smoothly there may be some improvements we can make after the networking rebuild.

[proud oar]

Yes! if you reach out and give us enough notice we're happy to work with all of the tourney hosts regardless of the size of the event.

[proud oar]

best way is to either contact us via support and a producer will see this or let Luci know and she can ask us on your behalf.

[hard yew]

Regarding the cards issue; yes, it's a bug that we have identified as well. There are a few quirks in card distributions but fixing it is quite a significant rewrite. We will get there on this one, but please bear with us.

[velvet jackal]

I recall The Risk World Cup managed to be featured in game as part of the discord link for a day, two, or three. I'm inquiring because I'm running something quite new and technical, and there are many leaderboard players who just haven't seen the light of day of what's possible with Risk.

I'm asking to inquire two things: 1st. What allowed the Risk World Cup to be featured 2. What is enticing to SMG. For example, I'm doing some game rebalancing metrics behind the scenes, and so forth, attempting to use statistical approaches to scoring. These things are not yet done, and the target size of the tournament is about equivalent to that of the world cup.

[hard yew]

Regarding reverse engineering, it's great to see we have such dedicated players. We appreciate the bug reports, debug information and feedback. But it's like a White-Hat hacker vs Black-Hat hacker scenario - so long as it's not used for malicious purposes, we like it!

[proud oar]

Generally when we support events like this its because we've been approached by the organisers. As mentioned in answer to a previous question we're very happy to get behind community events - specifically we love any tourneys or competitions that let everyone get involved and aren't limited to a certain skill level. The only real requirement is that there's no real money involved or financial sponsorship due to legal issues and the event is in line with our family friendly rating.

@lilac ingot is the go to person for getting your events featured or promoted.

[queen orbit]

That's all we have time for today,
Thanks all for your questions! Hopefully we could shed some light on what we are working on.
We appreciate all your feedback, if you have anymore questions for us please shoot us a support ticket.

See you in the next Dev Q&A!