Developer Update for the Week of February 1, 2023: Battle Mode Edition!

Hello all! Welcome back to this week’s breakdown of what’s happening over on the Marvel Snap official Discord! 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! For further information on what’s coming to Marvel Snap, check out the Development Roadmap:

This week’s edition comes after the long awaited Battle Mode launches! If you haven’t read the patch notes yet, be sure to check those out! The first Series Drop also just happened in the latest patch! If you haven’t seen which cards got moved down series, make sure to check that out as well!

In this edition, we get answers to will there be another Winterverse, why Boosters were not enabled in Battle Mode, and do the devs even playtest cards before releasing them! Answers to questions will be prefaced with the developer who said it. Answers and questions may be slightly rephrased for more clarity and ease of reading.

This Week’s Questions

Q: The rewards track currently ends at CL 22,366 and no rewards can be obtained beyond this level. Will this be increased anytime soon? I’ve hit the max.
A: Stephen “Thanks for sharing! Impressive achievement. Think we can call it a ‘world first’. We will extend it in a future update.”

Q: Are there any plans for game modes involving more than two players?
A: Stephen “We want to continue to create new exciting game modes in the future!”

Q: Any plans on releasing animated avatars in the future?
A: Stephen “We want to do this in the future”

Q: Will there be a winterverse 2023? If so, will it have the same cards as last year?
A: Stephen “We hope to do Winterverse annually but too far away to say for sure right now”

Q: Any plans on adding a “variant only” filter?
A: Stephen “Not on the plan at the moment”

Q: Are you planning on changing visuals for Mysterio and Morph to show variants? It seems pointless to collect their variants right now.
A: Stephen “Mysterio is one we want to fix for sure. Hopefully that fix will come soon. We don’t have a change for morph planned in the short term”

Q: Do cards actually get playtested before they are released? To avoid cards getting released and end up being very oppressive.
A: Daniela “We do playtest cards every week! Sometimes yall impress us though!”

Q: Is it intentional that collapsed mine destroys rocks in ANY lane? Asking for Debrii.
A: Rada “Yup, it destroys all rocks”

Q: With battle mode launching, will there be a new channel on discord for people who are looking for a battle? Because I don’t have any friends who play this game, but would like to battle people.
A: Gozz (Administrator) “Yes, it’ll be public once the patch is live under ‘Battle-Mode’!”

Q: Whats the difference between playing a card and revealing a card? I’ve noticed inconsistent language being used within locations and cards and would like to hear from the devs on that the actual distinctions are.
A: Glenn “Good query. This topic is also important to me, and we have some minor templating changes already in upcoming patches aiming to make these interactions less ambiguous without giving up the simple language and brevity we value. To explain: A card is ‘played’ by dragging it from hand to a location. However, it isn’t finished being played until it’s revealed. So in the example of Aero, Aero just sees that the card began to be played– It doesn’t matter about whether it finishes or not. But if Lechuguilla or another effect says “when you play” or similar, it triggers after the card is fully played, which includes revealing it.”

Q: Will you be giving away the gold card back for infinite every season or is this a one time thing?.
A: Stephen “Every season will have a new golden card back for the at least next few seasons”

Q: Do friend battles count towards rank?
A: Stephen “No”

Q: Just saw the good news that Battle Mode will have cross-regional matchmaking on launch. Congrats! Just wanted to know whether that also means no restrictions in Ranked mode as well?
A: Stephen “Not yet but coming soon”

Q: Will Zabu and Silver Surfer be getting the same treatment as Leader?
A: Daniela “Zabu and Surfer will be getting a balance update soon, we are hoping to use some new tech so that the update doesn’t require a patch. Stay tuned!”

Q: Will there ever be a competitive battle mode? Seems weird to have a new mode that is friend only.
A: Stephen “Yes there is a competitive battle mode coming soon. We will share more soon.”

Q: Now that the first series drop has happened, can we expect a monthly drop now?
A: Stephen “Yes we intend to do a monthly drop”

Q: Can we get confirmation that Zabu is already available in Series 5 despite the ongoing season?
A: Stephen “Yes he is in series 5 now”

Q: Why did you decide to disable boosters in friendly battles? Many of us were looking forward to using battle mode to play the game more casually.
A: Stephen “We discussed it quite a bit. We did not do it because of how easy it would be to abuse.”

Q: Why is there a cooldown on name changes?
A: Stephen “The cooldown is to prevent negative situations (i.e. pick an inappropriate name and then change it before you get suspended)”

Q: Will spectate mode be possibly added to friendly battles? (Especially for tournaments)
A: Stephen “Spectating is not currently on our roadmap. We are focused on other priorities now like additional competitive game mode and our full PC release”

Q: Any plans to allow cards to be released into Series 4 and 3 without entering Series 5 first?
A: Stephen “All new card releases at this time are season pass or series 5. We are working on ways to make the release of new cards in series 5 more exciting and accessible for more players.”

That’s all for this week’s update! Be sure to check back here at MarvelSnapZone for next week’s update!

If you have a question for the developers, be sure to submit it in their official Discord in the “#ask-the-team” channel and you might see your question in the next update!