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 The Thing First Steps. If you don’t know the card is worth tokens or Snap Packs, make sure to check out our Bonus Challenge guide for a post-release review of the card and new decklists!
- The launch of Grand Arena! Check out our latest Marvel Snap Grand Arena Meta Tier List for the best decks and champions!
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: Why is Master Mold not on the ban list for Grand Arena? Aren’t cards like this or Black Widow too impactful in limited time modes?
A: Glenn “While we’re not aiming to push Master Mold (or Widow) to a top-tier card, I don’t think either is especially strong at their current rate.
At any rate, given this mode starts you off with extra cards, losing a draw is much less punishing even though it’s technically ‘easier’ to do it.”
Q: First Steps Invisible Woman’s text says she will trigger an end-of-turn ability twice. Human Torch’s Power-Double and Thing’s destroy ability both say “Once Per Game.”
Will Invisble Woman allow these “once per game” end-of-turn abilities to happen twice, or does the “once per game” modifier win in this case?
A: Glenn “She can double the parts of these abilities that aren’t once per game, but not the piece that only happens once.”
Q: Why were Black Widow and Spider-Pig changed to Activate instead of “end of turn” to prevent bounce abuse?
A: Glenn “It’s a less elegant execution. We use On Reveals and Activates for different things, and ‘an ability that goes off once per game’ is the purview of Activate. Further, it can actually be tricky to design Activates that don’t just always get held until turn 6, and each of these are easy opportunities to do that.”
Q: If you knew Invisible Woman was a champion, why wasn’t Alioth banned?
A: Glenn “Our balance team decided it wasn’t necessary and we default to being conservative with bans. However, I think it’s fair to say we might want to recalibrate a bit in the future and veer safer over sorrier on Alioth.”
Other Questions
Q: Will the other Grand Arena variants ever be avalible?
A: Griffin “We didn’t want to overstuff the Shop this go around but we plan on bringing back the other Champion Variants in future runs of Grand Arena.”
Q: Would you consider making a separate queue for Grand Arena prebuilt and custom decks?
A: Glenn “We’ll see! This is our first experiment with prebuilt decks in a game mode, and we’re already exploring different thresholds for customization.”
Q: If certain cards get out of hand during Grand Arena, can you adjust the ban list quickly?
A: Glenn “Yes, we can if necessary.”
Q: Would you ever let the prebuilt decks from Grand Arena continue into the base game too?
A: Glenn “These specific decks are built around the rules for their game mode, so no. But some form of a prebuilt deck is one of the possible tools we’re considering for new and returning players.”
Q: Why are players required to play more and get less rewards in limited time modes? Why not keep the old format of 1 new card per mode, or give it more value like Series 5 cards?
A: Glenn “Players have long been able to achieve a card for moderate playtime. That has remained fairly consistently true, with the exception of the recent short run of High Voltage. We’ve often added *more* cards, and unlocking those additional cards requires more investment, either with time or spend. Nor do any of these cards require the grind—they all enter the token shop later.
We could ‘go back in time’ as you seem to prefer and remove the extra cards from all these game modes, reducing their rewards for some of the players going the extra mile—but why is that better for players? Among our goals is to make sure that players who want to play a lot of Snap or support its development don’t run out of rewards for doing so.
If the Cassandra Nova variant in the first Diner run had been a new Series 4 card instead, would that have made the mode less generous? I don’t think so, but that seems to be the case you’re making here. Perhaps I have misunderstood?”
Q: How does the team track win rates between the average player and the elite player?
A: Glenn “We focus more on the win and cube rates of decks, not players. When we do slice by audiences, we also eliminate players who don’t meet the criteria. So when I’m checking how Thanos does at average MMR vs. elite MMR, the elite stats don’t include wins against non-elite players. That ensures that we’re comparing ‘apples to apples’ and seeing how things shift most clearly.
When we discuss winrate in terms of game modes, we tend to just use 50% as the primary metric. That’s because our matchmaking already strives to create fair matchups, where both players have similar chances to win—elite or not.”
Q: Are themed snap pack only aimed for variant or will there be more archetype themed snap pack to get new cards?
A: Griffin “There will be archetypal Featured Set Snap Packs coming as well.”
Q: Why don’t ties reward both players an Arena ticket?
A: Griffin “The goal of every game of Snap needs to center around winning and being rewarded for those wins.
Ties are not wins, which is the main goal. We want to avoid a scenario where players are incentivized to try and tie, therefore returning Tickets to both players. While it may be seen as an edge case, players have proven to be resourceful when it comes to finding the most efficient path of progression. This also can cause game quality to go down or even animosity between those trying to win and those trying to tie.
Ties are rare to begin with, so this shouldn’t be a major hindrance to any player’s experience of Grand Arena.”
Glenn “Games should line rewards up with incentives. If tying receives equal rewards, that’s a misalignment because both players will prefer to tie over winning. Will all players try to coordinate in this way? No, of course not. But we want that number to be zero.”
Q: Why does the game have to be centered around only winning? What happened to play for fun?
A: Glenn “Having stakes to compete for provides context for other things to be cool. Making huge numbers with Mister Negative is cool because those numbers matter.
There’s a difference between winning as a systems tool (what Griffin is referring to) and winning as an explicit motivation, which would be more like competing in ladder. Games need to provide players with feedback–even a sandbox wouldn’t be satisfying if you couldn’t somehow appreciate the achievement.”
Q: Why lean on monetizing cards more and not focusing on monetizing customization?
A: Glenn “This is not exactly my purview, but I can add some context.
I think Snap has explored cosmetics fairly deeply–I’m not sure if any digital CCG has been able to use them as effectively as we have. We do still believe there is room to innovate further and bring players more rad stuff (and agency in selecting their rad stuff).
But the value of cosmetics to players can vary widely by platform, genre, target audience, IP, scale, style, etc. which in turn impacts their use as monetization. Certainly games like Fortnite and League have been very successful, while there are plenty of games that have failed.
If I thought Snap could work relying only or even primarily on cosmetics, I’d be beating that drum louder than anyone else, but the data indicates otherwise.”
Q: What do you think about these 3rd party trackers giving players the ability to see what deck they are playing against ahead of time?
A: Glenn “None of these trackers can see what you are playing ahead of time—if you believe one is doing that, by all means report it and we’ll investigate. The functionality of these applications tend to be ‘really good notebooks.’ For what it’s worth, I personally don’t think they make the game more fun.”
Q: Why not decrease prices? This would give more value to purchases, meaning more people can buy it and would want to.
A: Glenn “While this is a popular premise, there’s plenty of mobile gaming research on the topic indicating otherwise that’s freely available. The concepts of monopolies and elastic/inelastic goods are significant considerations. Time-based sales or events and things like that tend to be the most successful variations.”
Q: Are there any characters that are off limits?
A: Glenn “No; we build the game based on what’s available to us in our license. If we’re missing someone we’d like, there’s a process to ask for them.”
Q: Can you share any characters you had to ask permission for?
A: Glenn “Sure—Alioth, Cassandra Nova, and Kahhori. Common theme among these being characters with ties to newer media we wanted to celebrate.”
Q: Is the team looking into doing any crossovers with other licensed characters? Like Marvel vs Capcom?
A: Griffin “I can’t speak to your specific example, however these types of things are quite complicated from a legal or rights perspective to get across the finish line so we’ll stay pretty quiet about any attempts for cross-promotion ahead of time.”
Q: Could we ever see a campaign mode?
A: Glenn “It’s a fairly significant undertaking, and kind of conflicts with the existing core loop of the game. That makes it harder to justify putting resources toward it relative to other new content or improving other features.”
Q: Why don’t skills affect copies of champions?
A: Glenn “For Grand Arena, we elected to limit these skills to the character that created them. It helped constrain the space we had to cover and let us push the strength of the effects.”
Q: Was there any reason on why you decided to limit champions from use in other decks?
A: Glenn “It was a technical consideration.”
Q: Why even allow custom decks in Grand Arena?
A: Glenn “We’re a card game; deckbuilding’s a compelling part of the fun, and removing it would’ve been a fairly big risk. I’m excited to see how many players loved the prebuilt decks, and we’re taking that feedback into consideration for the future.”
Q: Will we be able to collect the champion border or herbie’s pixel flair?
A: Glenn “The flare, certainly. The ‘champion’ border, probably not—its purpose is to differentiate cards in the mode.”
Q: Do you playtest new cards around new players and low CL players?
A: Glenn “Not really, because we focus playtests on new content and can review live data to see how those metagames are working out. New content tends to impact audiences with smaller collections less, because they are a bit less likely to get a given new card with so many other options to choose from.
We do evaluate how critical one card might be to another to succeed, such as Skaar and Surtur.”
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: Are there any plans to make physical cards you can collect?
A: Daniela “No plans at this time”
Q: What is the purpose of having two “Retreat” buttons, now and later? It seems redundant, and the immediate option is always a bad idea.
A: Stephen “Sometimes you just want to get out and move on to the next game. We didn’t want to force you into waiting for the other player”
Q: Why did you drop the daily credit amount from 200 to 100 in the webshop?
A: The team made it clear the 200 credits were a celebration bonus on the shop. After the Merlin season ended, the rewards shifted to the pre-announced 100 credits, where it will stay at going forward.
Q: Is Conquest used anymore? It seems like players have issues with it and don’t play it anymore.
A: Griffin “The team is absolutely aware of all of the pieces of feedback and desires for updates. They’re all on our list. It’s just a matter of prioritization and required work.
I don’t have anything to share right now on what future updates will look like or when they’re coming, however.”
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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