Burning Questions - 03/29

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Scosco23

Hello, and welcome back to Burning Questions, your weekly dive into the most asked questions from the Marvel Snap community. This week, we're talking shop, the early game, hot locations, and more.

1) Is the shop too small now?

It's been eight months since the variant shop was increased from six to eight, plus a mystery premium variant. The shop needed to increase, and it was a welcome change. Have we outgrown it again, though? With so many albums and album variants to chase, shop takeovers, and just generally so many more variants in the game, the shop has started to feel crowded again. There are those players who expect to see the variants for the newest album because they want a particular reward, and there are players who are hunting for specific variants whose shops are crowded with album variants they don't want. Especially if you're looking for a variant that is not new, not a part of any album, and not likely to get the ‘popular’ tag, you could be waiting for an awfully long time. I have been waiting for a particular Magik variant for over a year. I understand why album variants need to be in the shop as opposed to purchasable within the albums (more hunting = more revenue), but the album system has put a strain on the current shop.

Some of these issues can be fixed with tweaks to their personalization system over time. But given how many variants are in the game now, I think it's high time we simply get another row of three in the shop. While we're at it, let's find a better use for the real estate taken up by the “free” series three card and the one ultimate variant on offer.

2) Is Second Dinner too protective of the early game experience?

The developers have repeatedly stated that they are wary of changing cards from the game's earliest stages. This presumably includes Series 1 cards as well as those you get even before Series 1 starts at collection level 18. You can check which cards are Series 1 and below here.

On the one hand, I get why they're protective of the early game experience. The first few days of playing the game are truly great, even award-worthy. The game is addictive, intuitive for even non-card game players, and visually appealing. They are correct that this is especially important for a mobile game and I think players often underestimate how much smaller the audience for Snap would be if the learning curve were higher in the first few days of the game.

However, I disagree with the team, where this protected ‘early game’ is demarcated. They seem to feel that the experience a couple weeks or months in is also outstanding and worthy of protection. It's not. It's one of the worst stages of the game. The game becomes a tedious slog towards pool three completion far before the development team seems to think it does. Making balance decisions to protect this environment makes a lot less sense.

Moreover, I get why a card like Quicksilver shouldn't be changed. It is a good built-in way to teach players from other card games that playing exactly on curve and an opening-hand mulligan are unnecessary in Marvel Snap. I think Quicksilver's design alone probably helps retain quite a few experienced players of other games that might otherwise quit in the first week.

However, I don't think this same design preciousness extends to cards like Captain America (series 1) and the Punisher (starter card). Second Dinner has said before that it is important to include some iconic characters in the earliest game experience to meet the expectations of a person who has newly downloaded the game. Imagine a casual Marvel fan downloading Snap for the first time and only seeing characters they don't recognize. That would indeed be a problem. Players need to encounter iconic characters early on. But that doesn't mean those cards must be unplayable beyond the first weeks of the game. Quicksilver is not useful later, but he serves a purpose. Not having stronger versions of Captain America and Punisher is just a missed opportunity.

As it stands now, Snap has an awesome first day, a great first week, a decent first month, and a pretty terrible second through ninth month, followed by a good end game. One solution would be to accelerate the pace of Series 3 acquisition massively. Remember how fast you got cards in Series 2? Series 3 should go just as fast. Getting a new card nearly daily would make that early-middle game slog much more stimulating.

This has led to the current situation: Second Dinner knows that they have a killer tutorial. They are afraid that messing with that tutorial too much will put the game’s future growth at risk. They've conflated that great initial experience with the entire early game experience. But we're now a year and a half into Global launch. Second Dinner has shown some savviness in adapting to a player base moving towards the end game (e.g., the decision to eventually allow custom cards to use any variant of a given character rather than being tied to a specific variant). If you look at the list of cards in Series 1 and below, they have actually already changed a lot of them! They should let Captain America, Colossus, Punisher, and others have their moment to shine. We have cool variants for these cards, and we want to play them.

3) Content Features You Should Check Out

There is a lot of Snap content I look forward to at particular times. The Snapchat comes out every Monday. KMBest does a top decks thread every Sunday (or Monday now?). Interrobang does follow Friday which helps to discover some great people.

But three new regular features have just started that I already look forward to! Be sure to check these out so that the fine folks who make them are encouraged to keep them going.

Bynx

Bynx has started a new series called The Off-Meta Report that highlights weird and wacky decks from himself and what he finds around the community.

Chase Pitzer

Chase Pitzer has started the Snap Back series on Twitter, which highlights an awesome split and adds an informational “back” for it, giving off a real classic trading card vibe.

Skiddy

Skiddy on Twitter has started doing daily #pushthebutton posts with fun and engaging quick hits about the game.

Even if the meta gets stale, the community always keeps things fresh and clean.

Now, let's peek at a couple of questions from the official Marvel Snap discord.

4) Q: Has anyone on the team considered a buff for Doc Ock? This card is one of my favorites in the whole game but as it stands its a tough card to make use out of. He either pulls a shang chi and instantly dies or if he doesn’t get shanged, his low 10 power isnt enough to help win the lane. Dropping him down a point or giving him some more points could be some well needed love this card could use.

A: We’ve mostly debated making him 5/9, so that he ducks Shang Chi.

-Glenn

**As someone who is also a fan of playing weird Doc Ock decks, I would love this change. Doctor Octopus would be more useful at 5-9, and it's a more elegant buff than making him, for example, 5-12.

There are quite a few cards right along this cut line. Mockingbird would probably become weaker if she gained one power, but I think that would mess with the interesting in-game identity of Mockingbird. The best way to modify Mockingbird would be to increase her cost. It wouldn't be the same as increasing the cost of another card; it would add extra steps to build optimally around her. Cull Obsidian would probably be stronger at 4-9. Neither card probably warrants a change outside of Thanos decks, so I'd rather see him changed.

Another card along the cut line is Living Tribunal. I think I'm probably in the minority, but I'd like to see him moved back up into the Shang range. Currently, that deck has very limited counterplay, and allowing a second tech card to counter it would make it more interesting.

5) Q: Hot locations.

Why.

Pretty sure the majority of us dislike them.

Why must they continue to be a thing.

It limits decks being played.

Just why, I want to understand why 2nd Dinner thinks this needs to be in the game as frequently as it is.

How about once a month?

A: If we had data indicating the majority of players disliked them, or even a substantial minority, we wouldn't be doing them. While individual locations' popularity can vary, forcing players to evaluate cards and decks in different contexts for a small window creates more variation in the game experience and thus more fun in the long-term.

However, it's certainly possible that as we introduce other game elements in this space, such as Power Couples and AvX, that our approach to H/F locations changes.

-Glenn

**I will forever be saddened that the community doesn't embrace hot and featured locations more. The fact that we can get totally different micro-metas for 24 hours is cool and should lead people to get outside of their comfort zone and try different decks and cards. In reality, it just becomes a bunch of people playing the deck that most obviously synergizes with the location, a few people hard countering them, and the rest of the player base stubbornly playing their “main deck” and having a bad time. Content creators especially complain about hot locations because making a YouTube video focused on a featured location that will be gone by the time the video goes up isn't a recipe for success. Ironically, I think the shortened length of hot and featured locations probably makes players even more reluctant to experiment and try to plow through the temporary change. I'm not sure what can be done by Second Dinner to get people into the idea of these mini-metas. Making new locations more fun has certainly helped. I think all of the locations that we've gotten since they axed the most restrictive locations (Plunder Castle, previous Krakoa, The Sandbar, Milano, etc.) have been really fun. Perhaps they could change the day of the week to make them feel more intuitive in some way. Or load them more into the back half of a season to keep things fresh later when it's needed.

That's it for this week! Hit me up on Twitter if you've got a Burning Question! Join in on the conversation in the comments or head to the official Marvel Snap discord and submit a question in the ask-the-team channel to try to get your question featured here.

Also, I will be covering this awesome event on April 6th! Come out if you're in the area.

Who is Scosco23?

Scott is a former editor and teacher who is now a stay-at-home Dad. He has played TCGs for a long time, including Pokemon TCG and MTG and has been Snapping since global launch. He likes to walk the line between competitive meta decks and wacky Rogue decks.

You can find him on Twitter @scodenim

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MARVEL SNAP unleashes the complete MARVEL multiverse into a fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping, strategic, card battler. Assemble your team from a limitless dream roster of heroes and villains, collect endless styles of card backs, and experience superpowered play—all in just three minutes

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