Hello Generals, and welcome back to Building a Better RISK! (And if this is your first time, then welcome! 😀)
We started this blog series to bring you closer to the action behind the scenes at RISK: Global Domination. Each blog dives into hot topics from the community and, with your feedback, we’re making the game you love even better. So together, let’s build a better RISK!
This blog is all about quality-of-life upgrades. We’ve heard your ideas, and our dev team has been grinding away to make your RISK experience even more exciting! Here’s what’s coming your way!
Secret Missions
In Update v3.17, we released Secret Missions; a brand new way to play RISK that’s been requested for years.
We’ve been monitoring community feedback, and now our team is working on a second version of the game mode.
Here are some changes we’re looking at implementing early next year:
Kill missions: We agree with the community that these turned out to be too easy to achieve especially when another player kills your target.
It will be changing so YOU have to be the one to kill your target, if your target dies then you'll be dealt a new mission from the remaining unclaimed missions.
Blizzard issues: Current regression means blizzards can create unreachable zones, This will be fixed so blizzard generation will always make sure that all territories can be accessed
Occupy & kill missions: Currently don't highlight when clicked with UI this will be added as follows.
Occupy: Highlight all territories that satisfy the occupy criteria.
Destroy: Highlight all territories that your kill mission target controls.
Occupy missions are extremely difficult: especially 2 troops on each. We will look at adjusting this based on map size/players in the game to hopefully find a better sweet spot.
At the end of the game show who had what mission (not when you leave, only when someone wins the game)
Pass & play: Objective currently only shown to "host" player. This will be fixed in V2.
Mission button shown during manual placement phase: Will be hidden until after manual placement so players are no longer able to place according to their mission.
For now, it’s only available to play in solo and casual lobbies while we continue to work on the game mode. Ranked will be on hold while we monitor the above changes and once we feel the mode is ready for ranked we’ll turn it on.
We’d love to know your thoughts on Secret Missions so far! Let us know below what else we can do to improve it. 🙂
Secret Missions - New Variant
We’re working on a new variant of Secret Missions that’ll spice things up in the best way! As we know, kill missions are an exciting part of the game mode, but they are difficult to balance around other missions. Because of this, we are looking to implement a new variant of Secret Missions focused on kill missions.
Map Screen Overhaul
With the insane amount of maps, we understand that finding the correct one can be a tedious task. We’ve rolled out a new map selection screen which means no more doom scrolling! It should be a lot less painful to find the map you want to play.
Here’s the changes we’ve made:
Filters: Our new Map Selection screen lets you filter and search for any map you want.
Categories: have been added to encourage a more diverse range of play.
Map Likes: Add a Like or even a Double Like to let us and the community know which maps rule supreme.
Favourites: Save your maps to Favourites for easy selection.
We’re also taking notes of community feedback regarding the map selection screen. We want you to know that this overhaul is NOT finalised! Our team is open to suggestions from the community so please voice them down below!
2025
Alright, I can’t say too much yet 🤫, but the team’s got some big things in store for 2025!
Here’s what's in store for next year:
Game Modes
Something big is brewing in the game mode department. We’re keeping this one a secret for now, but trust us, you’re going to love it. Keep those eyes peeled for some exciting announcements soon!
Blitz Dice Rolls – Fine-Tuning Numbers
Let’s talk about dice rolls. We know these can make or break a game, and while our true random system is as fair as it gets, we've heard your feedback blitz rolls can feel a little unfair, especially at the higher dice rolls. Expect an investigation into this next year and some work to keep the Blitz dice rolls.
Dynamic Turn Timers – Levelling the Field for Mobile Players
Unfortunately, mobile players are at a disadvantage when competing against PC players, especially in games with larger maps and 60-second turn timers. We’re aiming to give mobile players a little boost by adding extra time to their turns when they’re performing actions, this way, they can keep up.
Network Overhaul
We’re reworking the way that the RISK servers operate, and refactoring the way that instructions are sent between players and servers. Ultimately, the game will run much more smoothly.
In order to deliver this, the team is working hard to deliver a Network Overhaul, and as you might know, it is a much bigger task than we initially thought.
Here’s an update from the devs:
We've refactored virtually the entire gameplay codebase to follow our new server-authoritative design.
We've built new systems to improve recoverability.
We're currently playing our first proper Risk games internally with the new networking as we fix bugs and improve the UI interaction with this new networking. It's rough, it's buggy but it's a very exciting milestone!
The Overhaul is one of our top priority tasks and we'll be diving into it in greater detail next year.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And that’s a wrap! As always, we’re excited to hear what you think - your feedback is what helps make this game better with every update. Our team is still on break and we will be back January 6th. We're looking forward to another amazing year of RISK! Happy holidays everybody! Over and Out, Team RISK@SMG.