Welcome back to Burning Questions, a weekly run through the hottest topics in Marvel Snap. This week we're talking about the future of the game, the new High Voltage mode, and Magik variants! Let's dive in!
1) Is Second Dinner ‘sunsetting’ Snap?
I've seen this common claim on social media and even seen it repeated by some content creators. The idea here is that some of Second Dinner's more poorly-conceived recent monetization strategies (e.g. the Kid Omega fiasco) signal that Second Dinner is moving Marvel Snap on to a new phase where they are trying to extract as much money from their customers as they can before the game reaches its end and they move on to other projects. Is there any truth to this? Let's look at the evidence.
They just implemented a massive acquisition rework
Any acquisition system change carries inherent risk. It's one of the easiest ways to accidentally kill a game. The new Snap Pack/Tokens system represents a lot of work and a lot of risk. There's simply no way Second Dinner follows through with such a change if they're not attempting to keep the game going for years afterwards. Furthermore, while I still think the game is too expensive, the new system is more generous, more player friendly, and, most importantly, removed the awful low-roll potential that was inherent to Spotlight Caches and caused a lot of people to leave the game after a string of bad luck.
They are actively developing new game modes and features
A lot of developmental resources went into High Voltage: Overdrive and the upcoming Champions Arena. In particular, a lot of effort was put into the visuals of these modes. That takes time, planning, and people. When a developer has decided to give up on a game, they may still add new features, but those features don't tend to involve more resources than they strictly require. Furthermore, we know additional future game modes are being actively conceived and they are planning tweaks to modes to allow them to return, with additional tweaks each time. Why would they be so focused on modular ways to change these modes if they didn't intend to be running them for several years?
They are coping with a publisher change
This is an underrated aspect of all of this. There is an impression that all that was required in the wake of “the blip” and the move away from NuVerse was to transfer some stuff from one server to another. On the contrary, this change was undoubtedly a real strain on development resources, delayed projects, or forced them to make difficult decisions on what to prioritize.
They are not shifting employees away from Snap
This is a common part of this claim that does not have any evidence to back it up. Second Dinner has addressed this many times in the past. Simply checking the dates on those responses should be evidence enough that it's a baseless claim. Following the publisher change they added a variety of job postings. There's literally one right now for a position specifically focused on growing the Marvel Snap playerbase! That doesn't sound like something a company that is planning to end a game would bother with.
There have been changes to the communication process
One of the frustrations we've had is a lack of advanced communication. Second Dinner seemingly had a policy of only sharing information as it was live in the game. I can understand the theory behind this. More casual players are likely to be confused if they see something explained that's not actually in the game yet, leading to endless questions about where the feature in question is. But the system just wasn't working. While they seemed reluctant to evolve on this issue it looks like they finally have. Releasing the blog for the new Arena mode several days in advance is a major departure from past behavior. For those saying nothing has changed, here is a concrete example. Without going into specifics, I can also say that communication in the creator program has picked up as well.
Why are people claiming this?
People are, understandably, upset. In the current environment of online communication, this means that people tend to reach for the most extreme and inflammatory accusations available to them to try to convey their anger in a way that translates through text on a screen. One of the most frightening concepts for users of a live-service game is its eventual end. By now, we've all played or seen live-service games that have come to an end. This is often preceded by aggressive and short-sighted decisions designed to get more money from customers while it's still possible. It's a death spiral for a game and it often ends in a very messy and unsatisfying way. People who claim this are preying on the fears and emotions of the users of a game.
Just because people are saying it, though, doesn't mean it's true. I get that there is a lot of anxiety about the game right now, but we should still be able to analyze the situation clearly and not get pulled in by conspiratorial claims. Will Snap end one day? Absolutely. Could it end prematurely due to poor decisions about acquisition and monetization? For sure.
Second Dinner has made several financial decisions that are the result of poor analytical process that could diminish long-term viability. The player base is undeniably shrinking. It contracted in the wake of “the blip,” which probably had a more deleterious effect than any monetization or sentiment issues, and it contracted again following the poor decisions around Kid Omega. It's entirely possible the game won't be able to recover from these two events, one outside their control and the other of their own making. But I don't see any compelling argument that Second Dinner has given up on the game or is intentionally winding it down.
2) How long should limited time modes be?
It depends on the mode. I love the idea of having shorter LTMs like the High Voltage that just started. I'm of the belief that if you're only playing a mode for the rewards, it means you don't actually like that mode and should skip it. We're about to find out how much people really like HV because this iteration doesn't have an extreme FOMO reward like a new card. The nature of High Voltage–casual, combo oriented, easily solvable–means it will really thrive with a shorter time frame. High Voltage is a blast, but it wears out its welcome incredibly quickly. The shorter time frame is going to help extend the lifespan of High Voltage and allow it to come back often.
Ideally, Second Dinner would develop a stable of new modes, so that there could always be 2-3 limited time modes per season. However, this means there need to be more casual, less grindy modes like this round of High Voltage. A mix of high-commitment modes with new cards and FOMO-free modes is important to ensure that players have enough to do, while not getting burned out. A maximum of one high-demand mode is a good limit, but we still need more to do in the game than a single limited time mode provides. Players complain about the game feeling like a job and dreading too many new modes, but those are primarily concerns about failing to earn the rewards than the modes themselves.
If the modes can't stand on their own, without luxurious rewards, then those modes should be reworked or replaced in favor of modes that are actually fun to play. There has been far too little to do in the game for far too long and it looks like Second Dinner is getting closer to a happy equilibrium.
3) Why are there so many Magik variants?
I saw this Reddit post recently, complaining about the glut of Magik variants. Illyana is one of my all-time favorite characters, so I'm always happy when we get more variants for her. There are so many Magik variants because she's cool and artists _love_ to draw her. But it does bring up the question of how to actually show off or use our variants for characters that have a lot of great ones.
One of the main features I'd like to see is a system of rotating favorites for variants!
Give us rotating favorites like they do with titles. Please make it so that we are able to favorite multiple variants of each character and when we add it to a deck it randomly selects from among them. There are more complicated and creative ways to allow us to use more variables, like groups of favorites or the ability to select from variant styles when deck-building, but this is the simplest to implement. We need more ways to show off all our cool Magik variants!
Now, let's dig through the official Marvel Snap discord and get some developer Q and As!
4) Q: Will there ever be a dedicated bug-fixing patch?
Some games have releases that are almost entirely for fixing bugs. Lately, it feels like there are more and more bugs creeping in: UI elements that draw under others or don't go away when you tap them, cards appearing on top of others when drawn so that you can't select them, Red notification dots that still don't go away properly, and more. I've worked in live service games before and know that while it feels like it's more important to release new content and put your effort into things that make money more directly, letting bugs languish can also doom your game to death by a thousand cuts as players get frustrated.
A: We have a lot of teammates whose talents are not necessarily focused on fixing bugs, so it's fairly unlikely we ever release a patch that is exclusively bugfixes. We may certainly in the future have patches that focus more heavily on bugs, but right now our primary focus is on expanding the horizon of possibilities within SNAP.
Author's note:
This is something I've seen proposed. The game has definitely had a lot of bugs lately. I don't think taking a break from new content is the best idea, though. They need to find a way to reduce the bugs while still delivering new content.
5) Q: Just under a year ago, Glenn said that a Thing buff was “complicated”. Since The Thing finally received a buff today, I figured I’d ask about this response again, just out of curiosity.
- Was the original response meant to indicate a “complicated buff”, or that giving any sort of buff to The Thing would be complicated?
- If there was a specific type of buff in mind at this point, where did that lead? I can’t help but notice the similarities between Thing and Laufey, and wonder if maybe he could have originated from these tests
A:
- The complexity lies in its role as one of several vanilla cards and understanding what the correct range of values should be. Having spent time working on that, we have a clearer vision of where we'd like to go and we just decided to hit Thing early.
- No, our focus was much more on the vanilla curve, Laufey's just a card we made. CCG design involves a lot of small twists on similar effects, to create spots where some are better than others.
-Glenn
Author's note:
There's a common misconception that increasing the vanilla curve (the power of cards with no abilities) is somehow inherently bad as it represents “power creep.” First of all, power creep is an inevitable part of a game and one that a game like Snap, which can rebalance cards released much earlier, is in a unique position to leverage in a positive way.
Second, this specific buff doesn't represent power creep at all. The Thing was underpowered, even as a vanilla card. As Glenn said, it was about finding the correct range for each vanilla card and Thing was too low. He never saw much play in classic Patriot lists or in very low series play. Changing the vanilla cards is something that requires careful consideration, but 4/7 feels right for the 4-Cost vanilla card.
That's it for this week! Come find me on social media for more Snap and comics talk!