Table of Contents
Hello all! Welcome back to this week’s breakdown of what’s happening over on the Marvel Snap official Discord! This week, we get answers to questions such as: will the upcoming Reserve updates work on old Reserves, will we see better matchmaking for low CL players, what’s the difference in Hydra Bob and Martyr, and more! If you want to stay up to date with what’s coming and what answers developers have for the community, make sure to check back here each week!
This week’s edition comes after the launch of new Series 5 card Doctor Doom 2099! If you don’t know if this card is worth Spotlight Caches, make sure to check out our weekly Spotlight Cache guide, as well as our Bonus Challenge guide!
Answers and questions may be slightly rephrased for more clarity and ease of reading. This week’s topics will be divided into Card Specific Questions, Other Questions, and Questions From You!
Remember, you can check out our new Marvel Snap Developer Tracker to see all questions and answers in real time! Topics can also be searched, filtered, and sorted.
Card Acquisition Update!
Recently on the official Marvel Snap Discord, Developers have just announced the first step in card acquisition improvements. Since this was the most asked question we received each week, here is their official update:
As Marvel SNAP grows we’ve seen how acquiring cards has become progressively more difficult. Your feedback has been heard loud and clear. It’s helped us identify and prioritize a number of major concerns:
- Overall lack of agency in acquiring new cards
- New users struggling to “get to the meta” faster as it takes too long to earn of all Series 3’s cards
- Returning players struggling to catch up after missing a season or more of new cards and rewards
- The randomness of the Spotlight Cache system feeling frustrating
We take these concerns seriously and are in the process of improving the ways players can acquire cards in the game. We currently have a design we think addresses many of the above issues. However, rebuilding some core aspects of SNAP takes time to get right. We are in the process of gathering additional feedback on the design while the work continues in production. We don’t have exact dates of completion yet, but it will take a few months.
In the meantime, we are taking some steps near term to improve quality of life around card acquisition.
In January’s patch, we will be:
Doubling the drop rate of Series 3 cards in Collector’s Reserves, from 2 out of every 9 to 4 out of every 9.
- This will substantially reduce the time newer players need to acquire all S3 cards.
- This is a band-aid fix, but something we can do quickly
Increasing the token payout from Spotlight Cache duplicates from 1000 tokens to 2000 tokens
- We know there are multiple issues with the Spotlight Cache system, but one of the biggest complaints is pulling a duplicate from the fourth slot with a hard-earned Spotlight Key.
- Again, this change is a band-aid but fairly straightforward, so we can release it quickly
As previously mentioned, we’re planning for an even bigger Series Drop in the first quarter of 2025.
Card Specific Questions
Q: What’s the balance difference between Hydra Bob and Martyr, when Bob is a significantly better 1/5?
A: Glenn “Marty predated Bob, so she didn’t need to compete with him at the time. In making Bob, one of our goals was to fuel some decks that might want to play multiple 1-Cost cards of that nature, such as Dracula decks that play their hand to discard an Infinaut at the end of the game. Martyr is largely worse than Bob, but not 100%, and it’s possible to want both. And that’s only true because of the buff—he was failing to meet that goal at 1/4.
That said, I do think Martyr merits a revision eventually, to build more space all her own.”
Q: Well there ever be more duo cards like rocket and groot?
A: Glenn “Maybe!”
Q: Will Sauron have synergy with more future cards?
A: Glenn “I’m sure there will be.”
Q: When you designed Bruce Banner, did you mean to reference the MCU when Tony asks Bruce to Hulk out, but he didn’t want to?
A: Glenn “I honestly hadn’t thought of that connection until now, but probably some amount of subconscious design going on there.”
Q: Will Bruce Banner’s Hulk be changed by High Evolutionary?
A: Glenn “No; when High Evo triggers, the card in your deck is Bruce Banner and he has an ability.”
Other Questions
Q: Will there ever be more rivals variants? For the characters released that didn’t get one?
A: Glenn “Maybe!”
Q: Can you update matchmaking where a 3,000 CL players doesn’t face a 10,000 CL opponent?
A: Glenn “We are in the process of some updates to matchmaking that include a more nuanced approach to CL weighting.”
Q: Will any compensation be sent out to players who couldn’t play during the server outages?
A: Griffin “Compensation was sent to all players who played on the affected server at the affected time.”
Q: You have mentioned the team doesn’t take card suggestions, but what if they have a really good idea? Is it still a no, or would they get credit or compensation for it?
A: Glenn “Minor clarification: This is my decision as the gameplay design lead; it doesn’t necessarily reflect each individual on the team’s own belief.
As for the question, we just avoid reading posts or visiting forums where card designs are regularly posted. One of the reasons I prefer avoiding such designs is that it’s impractical to identify a player and to arrange compensation terms or other credit post facto. (And doing so regularly could create claims for it if we independently develop similar content.)”
Q: You mentioned you can’t buff Peni Parker in the OTA because she hadn’t been out for long and the OTA was already locked, yet you buffed Hydra Bob the same week of his release. Can you explain the discrepancy?
A: Glenn “Good question. We’ve experimented with different process improvements as we iterate. One we’ve added on occasion is that sometimes we prepare a potential change we suspect we might want, and then remove it closer to the wire if the data right before the OTA doesn’t line up. (It’s a lot easier to remove changes than add them.) We still have to have some data or other inclination to presume the change will be needed, though—we don’t just prep every plausible change.”
Q: If OTA’s are locked a week in advance, why do you wait until the moment of release to tell players? Early info could influence decisions on Token usage.
A: Glenn “It’s a debatable call, but for my part I mostly think it poses a large potential for in-game confusion. It also wouldn’t change the need for the current announcement timing—we’d be making double the announcements. And of course, as explained above, we may not make every change we prepare.”
Q: With the upcoming Reserves getting 2 extra cards, what rewards are getting removed?
A: Griffin “Here’s what the the new Reserves will look like:
In a group of 9 Reserve Pulls:
– 4 x S3 Card Reserves
> If S3 complete: 25% of 100 Tokens, Gold Ticket, Avatar, Title
– 1 x 100 Tokens
– 3 x Credit Reserve: 50% of 150 Credits or 200 Credits
– 1 x Random Variant”
Q: Why not just be straitforward and tell your playerbase what the card acquisition changes will be?
A: Griffin “Knowing when to share is a tough thing to balance. Even though details may be locked down, they can change or pivot as the development process goes on.
That said, we are currently gathering feedback from various creators and players behind the scenes to ensure their (and their community’s) feedback is incorporated from the beginning.”
Q: After reading the upcoming Reserve changes, will tokens be retroactive between now and then patch or just starting with the patch?
A: Griffin “Just starting from the changes come the January patch.”
Q: You mention you are polling content creators for feedback, who largely don’t feel the same effects as the general playerbase. Why is the general playerbase being excluded from the feedback gathering process?
A: Glenn “They’re not; I’m reading your feedback, right now! However, the channels and manners through which we gather feedback are necessarily different for different groups. We have multiple representative player groups we use to gather feedback and iterate, as well as methods to track social sentiment and concerns more generally.”
Q: What will happen to any saved Reserves that last until the next patch?
A: Griffin “Good question! Collector’s Reserve contents are determined when you open them, so any saved Reserves you have now will be updated to the new odds if you wait until after the January patch.”
Q: Griffin said that our saved (unopened) collector reserves would be updated with the new rates after the January patch. However, this seems to contradict what Stephen said on May 23rd, which was “We will tie the rewards of hoarding boxes to the current reward table. There will be no benefit to hoarding. We will not ship any major changes to reserves until we can ensure hoarded reserves are based on the current reward table.” Can we please get some clarity on which answer is correct?
A: Griffin “The answer I provided earlier today is correct.”
Q: When you answer questions here, do you have to run answers by the company for permission to post?
A: Addison “Depends on the subject or the scope of the answer, but generally no.
For me personally, knowing that my answers here reflect official company stances and stuff, if I’m talking about something in a more official capacity like maybe the extent/history of a bug or a compensation plan or a workaround of an issue or something I’ll often run it by some folks just to make sure I’m not blindsiding anyone. Generally it’s not ‘approval’ so much as it is just ensuring my answer is in line with other folks’ expectations.
If it’s an answer to something more goofy or fun, I just post whatever my heart desires.
Sometimes I’ll also post quick responses in an ATT thread to raise visibility on a thing (such as last week’s server outages).
As a note, I’m not getting approval for this response right here 🙂”
Q: If making the Reserve changes was so quick and easy for you, why didn’t it happen sooner? Why wait until this amount of negative feedback?
A: Glenn “SNAP is still very young, and we’re all constantly more about what it takes to keep it sustainable as both an awesome CCG and a business. Card acquisition is central to both, so we manage it very carefully and aim to make a small number of precise changes—it’s harder to evaluate what’s going on if the system is in flux in a way we can’t forecast.
This year, we’ve been able to release features and updates that distribute the weight cards carried in more places, such as game modes, borders, and making more cards. Those updates going live gave us some freedom to soften a few spots, once we had enough data to identify which spots and by how much. Then we could prioritize it amidst other ongoing efforts.
But also yes—player sentiment certainly matters to us. We have so many ideas for what we want to improve about SNAP and in what order, and your feedback is a huge part of our internal advocacy for specific changes and timing them.”
Q: How big is the Marvel Snap Team now?
A: Glenn “I think we very recently hit 130? The team roughly doubled in size over the last two years.
(I could also be off, don’t really track this closely myself)”
Griffin “Glenn’s number is our total studio number. The number of fully dedicated SNAP team members is less. I’m not actually sure what that number is though.”
Q: The current spotlight artist for Daken (Cameron Stewart) has some very serious grooming and sex abuse allegations. Was the team aware of these complaints when you chose or commissioned this art? If not, will you be replacing the variant and offering compensation?
A: Griffin “Thank you for alerting us to this serious issue.
As the Variant in question is currently in the Spotlight Cache for this week only, it will remain there until the end of its current run due to technical limitations. We’ll continue to investigate the issue and provide an update at a later date.”
Questions From You!
Each week, I ask readers of the weekly dev update to leave their questions down in the comment section. That way we can ask those questions on your behalf, or let you know the answers if those questions have been asked before! I read each comment you leave, so I will be adding this section at the end of each week’s edition to highlight your questions that you asked last week!
Q: Will we see more cards with negative Power in the future?
A: Glenn “Negative Power is an unusual idea in and of itself. Most players expect their cards to provide Power. Because it’s weird, we deploy it sparingly and only in places where we feel it’s especially appropriate to the story the card is telling. We don’t consider it a ‘standard’ balance dial–for example, if we wanted to nerf Darkhawk, we wouldn’t make it a 4/-2.”
Q: When can we finally expect to see Firestar added to the game?
A: The team has a strict rule against talking about datamines cards. Firestar was never officially announced, so the card won’t be talked about until her actual reveal.
Q: Can we expect new cards without any abilities in the future?
A: I haven’t had a question asked with the answer actively on the same article before, but there’s a first time for everything! Here’s that answer again my friend:
Glenn “Not at this time. [If we did make a new no abilty card] we’d think about it then, but lean no with the possible exception of a 7-Cost”
Keep Your Questions and Feedback Coming!
That’s all for this week’s update! Be sure to check back here at Marvel Snap Zone for next week’s update! If you enjoyed the amount of content in this edition, make sure to keep asking your questions to the developers by submitting it in their official Discord in the “#ask-the-team” channel. If you have questions and don’t use Discord, leave your questions for the developers in the comment section here, and I will make sure your question has been answered by the devs!
If you have feedback or changes you would like to see with these weekly updates, also let us know in the comment section!
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