Table of Contents
Welcome back to this week’s Developer Update! This week’s edition comes after the launch of the new Series 5 card Human Torch First Steps and the latest OTA and patch! If you haven’t seen what was changed with the balance update, be sure to check out the official patch notes!
If you don’t know if is worth Spotlight Caches, make sure to check out our Bonus Challenge guide for a post-release review of the card and new decklists!
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!
See all individual questions and answers updated in real time!
Card Specific Questions
Q: Is there any concern over Fantasticar in the high evo deck?
A: Glenn “I know the balance team reviewed the internal data last week before locking in the OTA for this week, but I don’t believe it indicated substantial cause for concern.”
Q: Was it intentional for First Step cards to have no synergy with the OG Fantastic Four?
A: Glenn “I would say it was intentional, but not to avoid both versions being played with one another. More to avoid them feeling redundant, ensuring they were mechanically distinct designs unto themselves.”
Q: Why wasn’t Alioth changed to also target Spells?
A: Glenn “Alioth was changed to purposefully avoid neutralizing skills. We made this update based on the feedback of our competitive playtesting team, who felt creating a ‘hole’ in Alioth’s functionality was ultimately the more fun route.”
Q: Why is Fantasticar a 4/7 and Spectrum a 6/7? Both cards target multiple cards with +2 Power of a specific keyword, so why the Cost difference?
A: Glenn “You’ve cited a handful of similarities on the face of things, but ultimately they’re different cards.
* There are meaningfully more Ongoing cards than End of Turn cards, so the floor of the deck is higher by virtue of having more options. Ongoing cards also have a bit more synergy overall—EoT only has that via High Evo, really.
* Ongoing-based decks are functional and already exist—End of Turn decks need stronger support to be viable relative to their competition. Similar case for Scream bolstering a deck that was unplayable before.
* Activate means Fantasticar won’t work if you draw it on the last turn, Spectrum will. This effect also makes Fantasticar worth less cubes, because it always reveals itself before the game ends.
* Spectrum’s rate is slightly constrained by her presence in the Starter/S1 metagame. We don’t want to blow the game up for new players by rating all of its cards around more competitive play—we have to strike a balance there.”
Q: Do you find Brood to be a big design constraint?
A: Glenn “It comes up occasionally, but it’s not a huge deal.”
Q: Have you considered making Silver Sable only target Characters like recent card changes?
A: Glenn “We’ve considered it, but haven’t felt improving the rate will hit a better spot (and the top card of the deck can’t be filtered to characters without getting weird).”
Q: Why have you been so hesitant to buff Doom 2099 with so many strong cards now released?
A: Glenn “Well, at 4/2 with 1-Power DoomBots, he was previously still too strong—we don’t want a generically widespread card here, we want him to go in some decks well.
We think adding Ravonna by making him a 4/1 or 4/0 would threaten to add more strength than it reduces, so our directions are a bit limited. We also have introduced a whole new archetype since his nerfs, and it remains to be seen if and how well he fits into that deck.”
Q: Can you explain how Negasonic functions exactly? If Magneto moves her to his location, he is destroyed. If Juggernaut moves an unrevealed card onto Negasonic, the revealed cards aren’t destroyed.
A: Glenn “There is an ‘event’ when a card you staged from your hand finishes revealing that essentially declares “I have been played.” That’s the event Negasonic cares about, and when she checks whether the staged and played locations match her own.
So in 1, when that event occurs for Magneto, Negasonic looks up, checks whether Magneto was played where Negasonic is (not was), and triggers.
In 2, Negasonic similarly looks up for the first of the two cards, but sees that while they are revealing where Negasonic is, the staging location of those cards is not Negasonic’s current location.”
Other Questions
Q: Does the team have any response about the decline in player count on steam?
A: Glenn “I’m sure there are things to learn there, but Steam’s a unique (and orders of magnitude smaller) audience relative to mobile. For example, I myself have been playing a lot more Steam but a lot less Snap over the last week thanks to the Steam Sale. (Not saying I know that’s ‘a thing’ in the data, just demonstrating one unique aspect of Steam.)”
Q: Are you planning on adding new missions for activate cards/create new cards/ play skills etc? Also are you planning on adding more filters to card overview so we can filter by activate/generate/skills etc?
A: Glenn “Yes on the first—we’ve just been waiting until those cards are at the right threshold of accessibility to make the additions fun. We’re also considering multiple collection updates, including the filter improvements.”
Q: Are there plans to support free to play players more, or do you not expect them to ever he collection complete?
A: Glenn “We’ve been fairly clear that we don’t expect F2P to be able to maintain a complete collection. We have further evolutions for Snap Packs coming, and some innovations in game modes as well designed to bring more gameplay to F2P. Check out Grand Arena soon!”
Q: Has Deadpool’s Diner officially closed?
A: Glenn “We don’t have any plans to close up Deadpool’s Diner for good. In fact the team is working on bringing it back in the future.”
Q: Does Conquest get ignored when balancing? Decks that are incredibly strong if a specific card is drawn makes winning a toss up based on deck matchups.
A: Glenn “We weigh Conquest some amount in balance adjustments, but not heavily. What you’re speaking to is largely a more fundamental element of Conquest and the metagaming implications. You can play a wide variety of decks on ladder and progress, but hitting one true ‘bad matchup’ in a Conquest tower is a way larger threat to the run than it would be to making Infinite.”
Q: Would you give Conquest unique rules to differ it more from ranked?
A: Glenn “Well, its unique rules are what create the dynamic—they’re part and parcel. That said, among some ideas I have for Conquest is introducing ways to soften a single loss ending the run. I think a seasonal rotating banned list could also be an interesting addition to the mode, although it’s tricky because the mode is already a little low on diversity relative to ladder. But yes, there are some experiments we’d like to try when we can.”
Q: When asked about Grand Arena’s awards, you said “players will be able to get the new cards at 31 games per day at a 50% winrate.” However, there appear to be entry tickets in the game mode. Will a free-to-play player with no gold be able to PLAY 31 games a day at a 50% winrate?
A: Griffin “After I shared the numbers you referenced I went back to the team to confirm it all. In the interest of clarity and communication, I jumped the gun in sharing that information which I didn’t have all correct nor was it approved to share yet. Below is an accurate update on what players can expect as we head into Grand Arena on July 24.
Based on previous LTGMs, we expect the average free-to-play player to earn enough event currency for one new Series 4 card. We also expect ~10% of free-to-players to earn enough event currency for both new Series 4 cards while supplementing their progress with 930 Gold in extra Tickets OR having an elite win rate. This cost can be as low as 465 Gold if the Daily Offers Ticket bundles are utilized effectively (more on this next week).
If you’re a true Champion of the Grand Arena you can absolutely get both Mole Man and Mad Thinker for free – but you may have to be FANTASTIC!
We’ll be sharing the full Grand Arena blog on July 21!”
Q: Why do you like making limited game mode rewards for elite players, who are the only ones who can actually win enough games to get the new cards?
A: Glenn “It’s in no way positioned for ‘elite’ players. I only mentioned that if you wanted to try to earn both S4 cards without spending any Gold it would require an elite win rate.
All players of all skill levels can play Grand Arena and have a great time and earn rewards.”
Q: Why doesn’t this High Voltage come with a new card,
A: Glenn “It’s a shorter duration, primarily. The structure of a LTGM is essentially that we reward players for engagement, and the amount of engagement this version of HV will sustain is less.”
Q: Why do you think there is such a big disconnect between rewards players want versus what you envision?
A: Glenn “We’ve looked for ways to increase the rewards and appeal of LTGMs, so that we can rely on them to be recurring and impactful events for as many players as possible. We know some of these have missed the mark, but that’s been the goal. At some threshold, increasing the rewards starts to outsize what gameplay is ‘worth.’ That means we either a) reduce the rewards (seen in the shorter HV) or b) introduce conversion via other ways, often gold (Sanctum Showdown and HV:OD).
We can theoretically make LTGMs that never cost any gold to earn all their rewards, but we would necessarily offer reduced rewards in them. These modes would also sustain less gameplay, because players would run out of motivation to play them faster. Our experience has shown us that the quality of the available rewards is a big enough part of what makes a LTGM appealing that we’d rather try to find the ‘right spot’ than make them less performant for us and less enjoyable for you all.”
Q: Why do your mentions of card/deck win and loss rates differ so much from fan sites?
A: Glenn “It’s not uncommon for a variety of third-party metrics to be pretty far off relative to the real data. While there are plenty of cards with low play rates, the trackers also tend to be very inaccurate on these cards. That’s most likely because tracker populations skew towards more competitive players than the general audience, and their deckbuilding varies accordingly.”
Q: Are there plans to better communicate about upcoming changes or events in Snap?
A: Griffin “My goal is to communicate as early as is possible and prudent. Sharing too early leads to inaccurate or non-finalized information, so it’s a balance we have to find.
We’ll be sharing the Grand Arena blog on Monday, before Thursday’s launch. Previously, we would have just shared those on launch day.
We’re also working on a new cadence for Season reveals, including the seasonal blogs to try to share earlier as well.”
Q: Were players earning cards too quickly in previous LTGM’s, so you added more cost?
A: Glenn “Previous to Sanctum, LTGMs only ever awarded one card. As we’ve experimented with adding more cards, we’ve aimed to maintain one card being fairly easy to achieve for free (like before) while the second is harder to earn.”
Q: Do you have a favorite combo or interaction in the game?
A: Glenn “I have a soft spot for deckbuilding around Blink with cards that only cost 1, 2, and 6–often including Mysterio, Sasquatch, and Mockingbird.”
Q: Are frequent card releases sustainable for the meta?
A: Glenn “We have no expectation of changing our release cadence. The fluctuating nature of our metagame and constant freshness of content is consistently one of our most popular attributes.”
Q: To get the bonus card protection in Snap Packs, how many failed rolls do you have to reach?
A: Griffin “37 rolls on goodies. There are two goodie rolls per Snap Pack. It resets if you roll a bonus card.”
Q: Do you have data that shows players enjoy the constant LTGM cycles?
A: Glenn “We’re gathering that data by running the events, with differences. I imagine we can all agree that there are things about the recent HV:OD/SS instance that make it likely not a reliable predictor for all future behavior around game modes. For example, shorter durations, more space between them, different LTMs, different prizing, refreshed content, etc.”
Q: Will we ever see a patch dedicated completely to bug fixes?
A: Glenn “We have a lot of teammates whose talents are not necessarily focused on fixing bugs, so I think it’s fairly unlikely we ever release a patch that is exclusively bugfixes. We may certainly in the future have patches that focus more heavily on bugs, but right now our primary focus is on expanding the horizon of possibilities within SNAP.”
Q: If you aren’t focusing on fixing bugs, is there not concern over players having an increasingly hard time having the game run well?
A: Glenn “The performance of the game is always a priority, and we have teams working on performance issues every sprint with stability issues taking high priorities. ‘Fixing bugs’ is a much broader set of focuses.”
Q: You mentioned the reward costs in the blog about HV, so why are the actual prices different?
A: Griffin “The team added a few changes to the rewards and I was working off of older information. They added one more tier and swapped the PMV and PMB.
Things WILL change last minute and we’ll continue to do our best in improving not only our external communications but our internal ones too.”
Q: You said the Japanese web shop would reopen in mid-July, but do you think it will be able to do so as scheduled?
A: Griffin “After speaking with the team, they’re still working on getting it spun up as soon as they can. However, they’re still a few weeks out.
We’re still committed to send any missed Milestone Rewards to affected players based upon their in-game spending during this down time.
Thank you so much for your patience.”
Q: The Ancient One art still has copyright material in the background. Was this missed or intended?
A: Griffin “Thank you for highlighting this. This was not our intended fix and a layer was missed in the update. We’ll be sure to update the back layer as well in a future update.”
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: Why aren’t you listening to your player feedback?
A: Griffin “We listen every day. We’ve used player feedback to help inform future decisions a lot.
We listen to all feedback, mix it with the data we see everyday, and then sprinkle our own opinions and thoughts on top.
That’s the triumvirate of game development: player opinion, data, developer opinion.
When all three agree on a decision, boom it’s easy. When two of the three agree, it’s generally the right path.”
Q: With so many new cards added per season, shouldn’t the 100 tokens reward on the CL track be increased from 100?
A: Glenn “No plans to increase the Tokens every 120 CT levels. The team is fairly happy with the current Token acquisition rates right now but we’ll always be keeping an eye on that.”
Glenn “I’ll add that the current system was developed concurrently with an increase in cards—we changed the Keys to tokens first, but it was baked into the value chosen and announced simultaneously.”
Q: Could we have an increase of the maximum number of decks you can have?
A: Not a new answer, but the team has consistently relayed they aren’t planning on adding more slots ar this time.
Q: With 350 credits removed from the Conquest shop and no credits in HV, what exactly is your plan about the game’s future concerning new players and catching up?
A: Glenn “I can’t speak to the economy tweak, but we do agree that new and returning players to SNAP need more help joining the larger world that the game now offers, and we’re working on that. It’s a complex problem, as a) we love a lot about our current new user experience and b) the transition from middle-to-endgame-player has turned out to be a lot rockier than initially hoped for. But I’m excited to solve it.”
Q: Do you intentionally release stronger cards in the season pass?
A: Glenn “It’s more that we avoid a weak Season Pass than that we aim for a strong one, but the result will often be similar. The Season Pass is one of our most popular game elements, it sets the tone for the whole season, it can often be the difference-maker in whether a player is excited to play each month. We always want to make it an appealing and exciting card–if someone buys the SP and immediately regrets the decision, that’s a worst-case outcome for the player and us.
However, another element that leads to the weighting is that we deliberately take more unusual risks or narrower shots on our Series 5 and 4 cards. That’s going to wind up with them having a different ‘hit rate’ because we design them with different limitations. For example, Bullseye and Redwing are both fun cards with fairly narrow sets of uses–that’s less appropriate for a Season Pass, because the Season Pass should be exciting for everyone, but we still want to make these kinds of cards.”
Q: What are the plans for Snap’s future? Is there a roadmap coming soon?
A: Glenn “We wanted to get to the ‘other side’ of our self-publishing launch before starting the conversation of what a new Roadmap would look like.
As you know, game development is very fluid and things can change quickly. We’ve had issues in the past with some Roadmaps providing expectations for features that either had to be shelved or delayed due to a myriad of issues.
We’re currently thinking of ways to best present the excitement for the future of Marvel Snap while also not putting the cart before the horse.
That’s a long-winded way of saying yes, we are currently discussing how to showcase upcoming content.”
Q: Are there any plans to revamp the variant shop due to the amount of new variants being added to the game? It’s very hard to get variants you are chasing.
A: Griffin “We’re aware that players wish there was a way for them to target certain variants, absolutely. Some of this is by design but we’re always looking for ways to improve the Variant Shop.”
Q: Will we see more cards that are repeat characters instead of new ones, or is there a limit?
A: Glenn “We do intend to continue revisiting characters. We don’t have ‘firm cutoff’ right now for what that means, but my line is that each card needs to have its own story to tell creatively and mechanically.”
Q: Are there any plans to add a spectator mode?
A: Griffin “We don’t have any plans for that in the short-term but we’re definitely aware of the feedback that it’d be great to have. I’ll continue sharing this feedback with the team in light of recent Snap tournaments.”
Q: What is a character you want to see added to the game the most?
A: Glenn “Blink was actually one of mine, as she was the main character in my first comic book. As for characters we don’t yet have, Spider-Punk is up there.”
Q: Will we ever get more deck slots?
A: Well over a year ago, Danielle said they had no plans to add more deck slots. Players are CONSTANTLY asking this question almost weekly, but admins always divert the question to the “suggestion” page and no answer is given. So many of you asked about this, but this is the best answer I can get you.
Q: Was there ever a card that was fun in concept, but was broken when tested?
A: Glenn “We tried ‘On Reveal: Fill all your locations with random cards” on a 7-Cost card. It was often hilarious, but overall as busted as we assumed it would be.’
Q: Are you concerned about player burnout with so many limited time modes?
A: Glenn “Many CCGs occupy different ranges of time and hobby for players. Traditional card games have always been a small number of sessions a week, for solid chunks of time. As a mobile game, players can play SNAP every day with much more variation in session time. As such, our philosophy is that people should feel like there’s something new and interesting to do in the game every day. Thus, we believe ongoing refreshment is a more fun experience than a static metagame. There is a balance to be struck, and we do talk about that balance and how it could change or improve. Of course, the best equilibrium for the game also might not be the best equilibrium for every player (a common scenario in all games).”
Q: Are you considering removing Gold Tickets from CL rewards?
A: Griffin “No plans to replace Gold Tickets right now.”
Q: The Chinese version of Snap has [X Feature] that isn’t released elsewhere. Could we see that added to the global version?
A: Griffin “We’re watching with a keen eye at how updates and features for Snap in China perform and how they’re received by players. While it’s a great piece of data that can and will help inform how the future of SNAP will look, it’s also a bespoke design with unique challenges for a unique region and we have to evaluate whether or not those ideas work for the global Snap community as a whole.”
Q: What is the average cycle to think about what character to add to the game, how long it takes to add its text and figure out how to revolve a season theme around it, specifically during times when it isn’t revolved/obligated to be themed around a Marvel movie or Rivals dropping.
A: To summarize a ton of answers here, the team develops seasons 6 months in advance. They start with the season theme, then interesting characters, then abilities to fit those themes. So now in July, the team is likely working on the start of next Febuary’s season.
Q: Will you continue to put new cards in Super Premium, even if the community doesn’t approve?
A: Griffin “As with everything we try, we hope it’ll work but if it doesn’t we’ll pivot. As of now, we plan to continue to try this in future seasons but nothing is ever written in stone.”
Q: Could Snap ever introduce card set (batch) rotations?
A: Glenn “The biggest downside is that people simply want to be able to play their cards, for a wide range of reasons, and a system that’s widely appealing needs more than that.”
Q: Are you planning on making changes to Character Mastery?
A: Griffin “We’re absolutely investigating changes. We plan for Character Masterty to continue to iterate over time based on your feedback.”
Q: How do you measure fun as a metric?
A: Glenn “There are many ways, both data-driven and anecdotal. One data-based way we measure fun is by looking at what players choose to do when winrate or cuberate aren’t their primary motivators.
For example, if a card’s performance is bad–say it’s a 50% deck or worse–but tons of players opt to play it, that’s an indicator that those players enjoy the experience. They could win more with something else, but they like doing it that way.
Clearly, Hela is such a deck for some people. I understand that there are other people that dislike playing against Hela–they may even outnumber the people who enjoy playing with her. But as a CCG, our goal is to support as wide a range of appealing gameplay as we can for all of our players.”
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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