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: could we ever see Activate counter cards, how many old cards are getting changed to Activate, how does the team measure “fun”, 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 new Series 5 card Silver Sable, as well as the new season featuring Symbiote Spider-Man! 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 Specific Questions
Q: Are you concerned about the symbiote variant on classic Spider-Man being confused with the new Symbiote Spider-Man?
A: Glenn “We might rename it, but we have no intention of changing anything else about it. We decided to let it be for now, to measure the potential for confusion or what people would prefer, since it could affect future new cards.”
Q: Can you say if more old cards are getting updated to Activate than just Hellcow and Black Swan?
A: Glenn “Just those two for now. We’d like to see how it goes before changing more things.”
Q: Moonknight discards swarms that cost zero. In higher math, zero is labeled as not a number and actually as a placeholder. Is purposeful that moonknight discards zero cost cards?
A: Glenn “Yes, it’s more intuitive. Our game uses 0 as a number often.”
Q: If there are 2 unactivated negasonics in a lane, 1 card from the opponent uses both of their effects. It feels that the game should check and not work that way though. Am I wrong, or is it a bug?
A: Glenn “That sounds like a bug, likely because she used to be one-time by definition.”
Q: Why doesn’t Absorbing Man copy an On Reveal when Symbiote Spider-Man retriggers one?
A: Griffin “Good question! I can definitely see how one may assume that’s how it works. SSM’s text says ‘Copy its text like it just revealed.’ whereas Absorbing Man’s text says ‘If the last card you played as On Reveal, copy its text.'”
Q: Why is Black Swan getting Activate? She will be a dead draw on turn 5 and 6, isn’t that more of a nerf?
A: Glenn “Black Swan is performing pretty poorly right now, so we’re seeing if adding flexibility to when you can play her is a worthwhile tradeoff for losing the ability to draw her on turn 5. We expect Bounce decks that want to use the new Black Swan may need to adjust a few things, but that’s generally the sort of thing we’re happy with (multiple versions of a given deck).”
Q: It was hinted previously that Zabu was getting buffed by utilizing Activate. Are you able to confirm this now that the ability is showcased?
A: Glenn “This was our intent—well surmised. However, after putting it through its paces, 1/2 Zabu with Activate was deemed too strong by our competitive balance playtesters, so we’ve been looking for a different solution.”
Q: Since Zabu won’t have Activate, is there other change planned?
A: Glenn “We’re working on some stuff; we’ve moved through multiple iterations since activate.”
Q: Why does Symbiote Spider-Man showcase his art when merged with a card, but Hulkbuster doesn’t?
A: Glenn “Hulkbuster and SSM have meaningfully different text, as do Hulkbuster and Blob. The merge’s ‘direction’ matters for who keeps the art.”
Q: If I don’t own Symbiote Spider-Man, but get boosters for him through twitch drops, do I still keep the boosters?
A: Stephen “Yes you will have them saved for when you acquire him”
Q: If Araña triggers her Activate, but is destroyed before resolving, will she still use her ability (similar to Iron Fist)?
A: Glenn “No, the card needs to survive to resolve its activation.”
Q: Have you considered making War Machine an Activate card?
A: Glenn “We did, but ultimately we decided as a group that it made the effect weaker, not stronger, to make it an activate. It wasn’t a unanimous call, though.”
Q: If Symbiote Spider-Man is used on a one-time ability, will it refresh that too? For example: Black Knight, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Nightcrawler, or another Activate?
A: Glenn “A card can only be activated once per game, and Symbiote Spider-Man is still the same card and has already been activated. The other abilities are good to go though, as they’re ‘refreshed’ “
Other Questions
Q: Since we have an Ongoing doubler (Onslaught) and an On Reveal doubler (Wong), will we ever see an Activate doubler?
A: Glenn “I’d say that’s a when, not an if”
Q: Will Activate be added to the tutorial for new players to learn?
A: Glenn “For now, no. We’re restricting Activate to Series 3, so that players will have had a lot of time to get familiar with SNAP before seeing their first one. As we see the learning curve in live, we might change our minds and invest in that early tutorial.”
Q: How do you measure a players understanding of cards and mechanics?
A: Glenn “We rely mostly on monitoring social media channels for that kind of feedback in specific.”
Q: How can you track and measure “fun” as a metric?
A: Glenn “We track lots of things that correlate to fun—it can’t really be measured usefully in a way as specific as a single metric, unfortunately.
However, one way we support fun is by defining qualities that we think lead to fun being had, and those definitions can be measurable. For example, supporting a diverse metagame is fun, so we establish thresholds for balance action that create such metagames.”
Q: What made you design Activate to trigger in order of staging, and not copy the new move mechanics and Activate before cards reveal?
A: Glenn “The gameplay of letting players maximally sequence is generally better. It lets players discover more new things, unlock moments of cleverness and joy, etc. The issue with Move was that it needed to ‘physically’ happen before reveals in order to work at all, which created a lot of potential for weirdness and confusion because the visual representation of the board didn’t reflect what was actually happening.
If our locations were just sandboxes that could hold any number of cards, we’d have left Move alone. But they’re not (for good reason) so we made a change that would make the game clearer.
As for Activate, I mentioned above that it’s just better gameplay, and since Activate doesn’t have the same misrepresentation element, we’re happy to have it work that way. For example, an Activate that says ‘the next card you play’ is much more flexible than ‘the first card you play.'”
Q: Is it a bug that I can pick up a bounty with Activate, despite not owning a card with Activate?
A: Glenn “It’s not a bug. We updated Alliance Bounties this week knowing that more Activate cards are coming shortly.”
Q: Is Activate seen as a negative effect since it can’t work if drawn on the last turn?
A: Glenn “It can vary, but it’s true that Activate doesn’t line up exactly with On Reveal as a comparison. However, it’s not as formulaic as always weaker, even at various Costs. For example, Annihilus would be weaker with Activate, while Elektra would be a lot stronger, but Korg would also be weaker.”
Q: Would you say a card with Activate could be more Powerful than On Reveal cards at the same cost?
A: Glenn “Not necessarily, but often. Some effects might not need it, but also we can tune cards’ Cost and Power to find the right balance point.”
Q: Will there be no 6-Cost cards with Activate since they can’t be used on the same turn they are played?
A: Glenn “I imagine we will make very few of those, but probably not 0.”
Q: Did you consider letting Activate automatically trigger if played on the last turn?
A: Glenn “We did consider this, but it substantially constrains the design space by forcing us to consider every activate through the lens of being involuntarily activated. It would let us make more 6-Costs, and a few more 5s, but way fewer different abilities for those cards.”
Q: Are you concerned with the prevalence of Clog decks, and their ability to interfere with a wide range of cards?
A: Glenn “We’re looking at ways we can adjust current and future ‘clog’ cards to maintain their fun but be less oppressive, likely with more generous ‘out’ clauses than Widow's Kiss currently has.”
Q: Can we get desktop wallpapers of the new loading screens? I love the new Symbiote one!
A: Griffin “I’ll ask the team if we can get those produced. Glad you like ’em!”
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: What is your current relationship towards Rian Gonzales? I have not seen a single new image from her for 4 months now.
A: Maybe you already saw after posting your comment, but Rian had a new Silver Sable variant drop this week! These artists don’t always have art for each character, so SD likely didn’t have anything ready to release until Silver Sable.
Q: You mention that you won’t change Cosmo to counter “Activate”, but do you have a counter plan in case it becomes too powerful?
A: Glenn “The space exists, but given the small population I don’t imagine we’ll need it for quite a while.”
Q: Why are my questions being ignored?
A: While I do try to get answers for your questions, they don’t always get answers (even simple, good questions). Devs answer questions in their free time, so sometimes they may just not see it and it gets buried behind other questions after a couple of days.
Here’s a good example:
I posted this question a couple of times, but no response. It wasn’t removed by mods either. You can see other readers have even given the question an upvote (10 as of this screenshot).
If any of you are asking questions and think you are being ignored, that isn’t the case. I could mention your questions each week with a “No answer yet” or “mods removed it”, but it would make the section much harder to read. If you think I should include that anyways though, or have any suggestions, let me know in the comments.
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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