Table of Contents
- Card Specific Questions
- Other Questions
- Questions From You!
- Keep Your Questions and Feedback Coming!
Hello all! Welcome back to this week’s breakdown of what’s happening over on theMarvel Snap official Discord! This week, we get answers to questions such as: are developers aware there is an exploit in Leagues, where is the Zabu buff, why didn’t Alliance rewards change this week, 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 cards Kate Bishop and Marvel Boy, as well as the new season and the first League! If you don’t know if these cards are worth the Season Pass or Spotlight Cache, 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: Is there a reason why almost all of Iron Fist’s variants show him punching towards the right, but his effect punches left?
A: Glenn “Just a quirk of composition that action features towards that direction a bit more often. I’m sure artists/art directors might have more reasons for it”
Q: Why did you aim for Leech to specifically target 6-Cost cards? Why not the highest cost card instead?
A: Glenn “We thought that risked being too strong and seeing more general use. We’d like Leech to be more like an Armor, Möbius, or Luke in that you can play it to firmly address a problem but it’s not one of the best options for its slot the way Ham or Red Guardian are.”
Q: Why would I use Crystal when I now have Loki? She has less stats and draws both players a card.
A: Glenn “Crystal is a card we can buff, but not one we’re in a particular hurry to given its incentives can only reduce the variation in SNAP.
However, the comparisons to Loki are misplaced; they do totally different jobs. If you’re trying to draw a card you put in your deck, Loki will never do that, and that’s what every Crystal player is trying to do with her.”
Q: Can you explain how you intend to buff cards like Snowguard and Mirage now that their homes in Loki decks are gone?
A: Glenn “We have a variety of options, from buffing them to creating more cards that emphasize what they do (rather than paint them all with the same brush, like Loki). Having a deck that wants Cable instead of Mirage is exactly the sort of thing we want to encourage, for example.”
Q: Where is the change for Zabu? He was severely nerfed, but never adjusted to be playable again.
A: Glenn “We have a change ready for Zabu, but we also endeavor to balance the quantity of cards adjusted and their relative impact across balance updates and other twists and turns of the metagame.”
Q: What is the state of the most played card, Shang-Chi?
A: Glenn “While he enjoyed a major surge in July, his play rate has dropped more than 50% of that since. His winrate remains almost dead-even, his cube rate is positive but low… he’s also not the most-played card in the game right now. Nothing about these values speak to a balance issue.
Is Shang impactful to gameplay and deckbuilding? Yes. He’s a little like a queen in chess–they’re both foundational pieces of their respective metagames that shape other choices.”
Q: In the developers video update wiccan appears as a 4/7 and in the game news he is a 4/5 witch one is the real one?
A: Glenn “He is a 4/7”
Q: What are some arrow types that didn’t make the cut for Kate Bishop?
A: Glenn “I can’t remember them all; I think 6 was the most we ever had written down. I know one we cut was a Plunger.”
Rada “Plunger made it the furthest of the cuts, here’s some more:
– Data Arrow
– Net Arrow
– Drone Arrow
– Web Arrow
– Smoke Arrow
– Taser Arrow”
Q: Do you think it’s good that Hawkeye and Kate Bishop’s basic Arrow share the same text? Basically, these two are the same card, so why use Hawkeye?
A: Glenn “Being able to play Hawkeye as early as turn 1 is a buff relative to the Arrow, and that Arrow’s effect is also rewarded by cards like Beast and Falcon that have more synergy with Kate. It’s just the set of numbers that balanced out right for us.”
Q: Could Kate Bishop ever get more arrows added to her potential draws?
A: Glenn “Possible, but not for quite a while. I doubt we’d do this for balance explicitly, more likely as a fun feature if we wanted to refresh the card way down the road.”
Q: Are Kate Bishop’s arrows weighted to pull one more often than another?
A: Glenn “Nope, random”
Q: Did you consider making Marvel Boy buff the same card multiple times, similar to Gwenpool?
A: Glenn “As we often do, these cards were designed to reward certain goals and behaviors.
For Gwenpool, she offers you more control on her output if you’re willing to commit to the board more aggressively before playing her. Since her output has random elements that affect which cards you will play, it also serves to hide whether you rolled high or low from the opponent.
For Marvel Boy, the aim was to reward relying on a bunch of 1-Costs specifically, which the suggestion above would eliminate. We wanted to enable that kind of deck better; in fact, our ‘canary’ during design was Squirrel Girl. If our best Marvel Boy decks weren’t playing her, it tended to mean we’d missed the mark.”
Q: Is the Wolverine character album impossible to complete without bonus variants, since one of them is a twitch drop?
A: Griffin “The Wolverine variant from the Twitch drop will be added to the Shop variant pool in the future!”
Other Questions
Q: Are there any cards you think you balanced perfectly the first time and haven’t needed any adjustments?
A: Glenn “We don’t try to ‘protect’ cards per se, so various things could wind up causing just about anything to change.
I’d say Magneto has stood the test of time impressively in a tough category, since 6-Costs are very competitive.
Nebula was another tough plane to land, and one of the first cards I worked on so that’s cool.
Deadpool probably can’t change due to the parameters of his actual function, so hopefully he never needs to since it’s a really satisfying shape.”
Q: Can past earned Avatars ever return to the cosmetic shop?
A: Stephen “No, avatars that are timed exclusive (ranked rewards, season pass rewards, etc) are not available to purchase in the shop”
Q: I was reading the text for clubhouse and wanted to make sure of something; is it a one time on reveal effect, or is it an ongoing +1 to cards at other locations?
A: Glenn “One-time trigger, similar to The Raft.”
Q: For Alliance bounties nobody wants to use, can we get a way to remove those bounties? And can you share what percentage of players are skipping bounties?
A: Glenn “The reroll mechanic exists to ensure players can freshen the board a bit for this scenario.
I don’t expect us to publish much hard data about players’ selections; that’s proprietary information. We might disclose the occasional interesting observation from time to time, though.
Keep in mind the feature is new, and we are evaluating data and feedback as we evaluate updates.”
Q: It was mentioned Alliance rewards would change, but they didn’t this week. How often will these rewards change?
A: KentErik “We intend to change up the rewards slightly each week but unfortunately ran into some issues with updating them for this week. Will hopefully update them next week!”
Q: Why doesn’t the Headpool variant count towards the Deadpool character bundle?
A: Griffin “Bonus progress will be given for any Bundle, Season Pass, Conquest, or limited time variants that are/were available at the Album’s release season.
That means we’ll be adding the much requested Headpool Variant to the Album as a bonus variant in our next patch.”
Q: Why won’t future variants apply to a character album?
A: Griffin “Like other albums, their contents are determined when they’re created. A Dan Hipp album isn’t updated as more Hipps are released, same goes for the Character Albums.
We wanted to include the new Deadpool and Wolverine Variants that released the same season as the album as we felt that made the most sense.
Future Variants for Character albums won’t be added to the albums.”
Q: Do you track players spending habits that tend to hoard currencies?
A: Glenn “Certainly. That kind of behavior can tell us different things depending on the context and currency in question, and informs feature development around how to best satisfy those players.”
Q: If an Alliance has a bounty for a Series 5 card nobody owns, is the entire Alliance just locked out of access to a bounty slot for an entire week?
A: Glenn “We’re looking into this, thanks”
Q: You said leagues match you with 30 players of similar skill levels in a competitive leaderboard format. What does similar skill level mean? Is it based on collection, rank, both or something else?
A: Griffin “Leagues match players based on similar daily activity level.”
Q: Can you add an option to opt out of Leagues? I don’t want to compete, but it’s tilting to see negative points pop up when I retreat.
A: Griffin “Thanks for that feedback. We’ll pass it along.”
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: How do you make the distinction between passive abilities and ongoing?
A: Glenn “Ongoing is a tag given to cards based on the actual execution of the card’s behavior. Specifically, they are ‘always on’ once they’re in play, with a passive effect. Their output may be gated by a condition, like Ant-Man, but it’s not a trigger created by a game action, like Angela. For how we build and test the function of cards, these abilities are clearly distinct.
We may decide whether a card should be triggered or Ongoing for balance reasons, but we don’t determine the application of the tag that way. For example, Ant-Man could say ‘After you fill your side of this location, +3 Power’ but we would never just remove the word “Ongoing” completely and leave the functionality the same.”
Q: Is there anyway Second Dinner can do a Throwback Thursday Bundle Release?
A: Stephen “In general our philosophy is not to bring them back just like a clothes collection in a retail store shifts over time. We have not re-run a variant bundle yet and have no plans to at this time.”
Q: Are you aware of the abuse of Conquest to climb in the Deadpool League?
A:Griffin “We want to thank all players for their feedback on the global launch of our new Leagues format in Deadpool League. We’re aware of an exploit that has compromised the competitive integrity of the Leagues. Due to this issue, we’ll be rewarding ALL League participants the Deadpool Emote and one Neon Blue Border. All other League rewards will be awarded based on final standing when Deadpool League ends.
We look forward to fixing this issue when Leagues returns in two weeks with Jeff League. Keep the feedback coming!”
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 theirofficial Discordin 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!
