The new limited-time mode Deadpool's Diner launched last week, and the reception has been mixed. After some initial frustration and confusion passed, reviews seemed to improve. The rewards are great, the gameplay is good, and anxiety about acquiring the new card is lessening. While there's no second chance to make a first impression, here are 9 changes I would advocate for when the mode returns in the future.
1) Make the first plate free to play
Second Dinner responded to the early criticism of the game by lowering the amount of Bubs required to play at the Cereal table to 8. While it is excellent that they were responsive and took action, I still think the first table should be free. This could be implemented in a variety of ways. They could make it so you can't bet enough Bubs to fall below 8. They could even make this change applicable only to the first table so that players who make it to higher tables still have an hour to wait to play. Alternatively, they could shorten the regeneration timer to 30 minutes and divide the regeneration amount accordingly so that players are less likely to close out the game.
Unfortunately, this issue was most prominent on launch day. Once you've played some games and moved up a few tables, it's not as critical to be able to hop back in right away. However, players losing their first game and being locked out of the mode were the biggest issues with the launch of the Diner. It turned off a lot of players and generated a lot of unnecessary negative sentiment that will be extremely hard to reverse. If this game mode returns in the future, this is a critical change.
2) Change the Bub regeneration timer display
On launch day, the Bub regeneration timer was a source of confusion for many—you only see it when you’re below the cap. Many players had no idea how the system worked. To avert this, the timer should show your regeneration cap even when you're above it. There should also be a way to see how much you get per hour by clicking on the timer.
The regeneration timer was also quite buggy. Mine displayed zero Bubs even after an 8-hour wait. After playing a ladder game and returning to the mode, it showed that I was full-on Bubs. Another time, it showed the incorrect amount and corrected itself after I relaunched the game. There were other visual bugs as well.
The regeneration timer is too small, too buggy, and too confusing.
3) Display progress towards the next table rather than the next reward
In the initial stages of the game, the reward progress bar is confusing and even misleading for a new player starting out with the mode.
Because of the central placement above the table name, it makes it seem like to ‘beat’ the table you're on, you fill that progress bar and move to the next one. It also causes new players to think they need to be playing at the highest table—one of the primary reasons so many players hit zero Bubs so quickly on launch day. Marvel Snap players are used to checking a rewards track; you don't need this one placed the way it is. For players just learning the mode, an indication of how close they are to unlocking the next table would be more relevant.
A tutorial that specifically explored and thoroughly explained this screen, including the Bub regeneration timer and table progression, would have dramatically impacted this mode’s initial reception.
4) Don't tell me I'm out of Bubs when I'm not!
If you lose at a higher table, dropping you below the threshold to play at that table, you'll get this message:
You should only see this message if you are truly out of Bubs. Showing this screen to players who aren't out of Bubs but are simply below the threshold for their current table is one of the most predatory tactics in the mode. Change it to an honest notification.
5) Make it easier to know my Bub total while in a game
While in game mode, it is difficult to know how many Bubs you have remaining. You can't bet more Bubs than you have, so occasionally, you'll be able to tell when a Snap no longer doubles the pot. However, it should be easier to protect yourself against zeroing out and keep track of your total. How it is designed now, it is very easy to lose track and bust.
6) Modify the bot situation
This one is a bit complicated. Queue times are already pretty long, and I can understand having to inject some bots to mitigate this. Additionally, it seems like the game occasionally will pair you up with a bot after you've lost a massive amount of Bubs. I'm sure players struggling to climb and get the rewards they want to appreciate this.
But nobody really likes playing against bots, and at the top tables, it's especially unpleasant. Watching content creators play bot after bot and seeing the leaderboard made up of players crushing bots is not ideal. In the recent Conquerors Twitch event, most participants only played bots. There are now quite a few players in the Diner retreating immediately on turn one and instead seeking out a bot.
Beyond reducing the number of tables, I'm unsure how to fix this issue. Should they widen the matchmaking parameters? Should they open the Maximum Effort table after the first week? Maybe at least players who are trying to play at the Maximum Effort table can be made to wait for a real opponent. This is a much larger issue at higher levels than lower down. If this mode becomes a bot farming simulator for top players, it loses a lot of its luster.
7) Unlock the card to be played with later
Most of the anxiety around this mode came from players frantically trying to race for a new, especially meta-relevant card. The players who unlocked Cassandra Nova were at an advantage in a way that has never been so extreme in Marvel Snap. While I'm sure the company's bottom line enjoyed that so many people spent Gold to get Cassandra on day one, this was the most explicit example of pay-to-win in Snap’s history.
Next time, have players earn the ability to unlock at a later date Allow players to secure the card as soon as they want, but only add the card to the game later. Maybe you get a key that opens a Cassandra Nova cache that appears in the game later; maybe she's just added to your account later. It could be a week into the event or at the end of the event, but this bifurcated the player base and metagame in a pretty unpleasant way. While some, myself included, enjoyed the staggered release as a way of avoiding the “new card vs. hard counters” meta game we usually see when a new card releases, this caused far more animosity amongst players who either wanted to play through the Diner more slowly or were having trouble making progress. Aside from the initial table cost issue in point #1, I think the anxiety induced by wanting to unlock an important meta-relevant card contributed to players' negative feelings about this mode. Knowing the card would be released later would have allowed players to evaluate the mode on its own merits more and would have led to a more positive reception.
8) Change the Snap interface
Having the primary indication of a player-initiated Snap be audio is a mistake—a lot of players don't play with sound on. Of course, you can always tell the difference if you're paying close attention, but it should still be further differentiated. It's hard sometimes to remember what table you're on, what the starting stakes were, and if the opponent snapped earlier in the game. This should be easier to figure out during a game. The interface in the Diner is already represented by multiple sticky notes laid on each other; perhaps a different color, like red for a Player Snap vs. yellow for an automatic Diner Snap, would help.
9) Make the mode feel more exciting
Many of the players I talked to felt like the mode was less dramatic than either ladder games or conquest, rather than feeling like ‘higher stakes’ as advertised. The auto-doubling seems exciting in theory, but it felt like something was happening in the background. Because of the focus on earning the new card, the mode frequently felt grindy and slow rather than dramatic. People were jamming games, watching their rewards tick up by insignificant margins. Seeing the meter go from 8.34 million to 8.38 after a big win didn't provide much emotional juice.
I think having more player-controlled Snaps (maybe with one auto-double on either turn 4 or 6) would be a more interesting format. Aside from this suggestion and the card release method change from point #7, I don't know what could be done to make the mode feel exciting rather than grindy, but hopefully, steps in that direction will be taken before the mode returns in the future.
Those are my suggestions for improvements. Let me know in the comments what changes you would make and what you have liked/disliked about Deadpool's Diner so far!