Welcome to this week's Burning Questions, where we explore the latest buzz from the Snap community. This week's topics include datamines, past exclusives, and mysterious interactions.
1) Are datamines healthy for the game?
There has been a lot of discussion regarding datamines and their usefulness and reliability. This is mainly because of the changes made to datamined bundles, such as the recently released Sugar and Spice bundle. Some players who aim to optimize their resources claim that they save up for specific bundles and plan their purchases several months in advance. However, Second Dinner, the developers behind the game, have some valid reasons for making changes to datamined bundles without announcing them beforehand. Recently, Tucker from the Second Dinner team shared his thoughts on this matter in the official Marvel Snap discord channel.
- Bundles announcements have to go through localization so every player can see them in every language, which means we have to get them locked in sooner than we’d prefer. We’ve gotten tripped up by this a couple times where I made an adjustment after that localization cutoff, and the bundle in-game didn’t match the blog. If the bundle is juicier than advertised, no harm no foul! But if it’s the other way around we obviously need to make that right, and setting up that compensation is extra work that eats into the time we could be spending making the game better in other ways.
- Why is setting bundles in advance tricky? In the perfect world, we would build bundles very very close to their release date because we want to have the strongest understanding of what currencies players want and in what quantities, and it’s tough to predict exactly where the economy’s gonna be far in advance. It's great to be able to adjust mid-season, because sometimes things happen in the economy we aren't expecting (“Woah, Legion’s a sleeper hit! Everyone spent a lot more tokens than we expected and folks need more tokens! Let's shift the bundles around to be more token-heavy this week.").
Datamines provide information about new and upcoming cards and other exciting content. For many people, especially those who use this site, reading about the new variants and upcoming content is the most enjoyable part of the month. Stephen from Second Dinner recently made a statement about this topic.
- We do feel that leaks and datamines take away a lot of the surprises, so that makes us disappointed to lose potential fun / delight moments. We will probably make more things server side as time goes on.
I understand that game companies want to control the flow of information for upcoming content to make it more exciting for players. However, Second Dinner has not revealed any information about their upcoming content, leaving the task to dataminers. They had previously promised to release the contents of Spotlight caches well in advance but this has not happened. Instead, players have to deduce what will be in the first caches themselves. The burden of keeping players updated on new content and its release dates has been left to sites like this and players have to create their checklists and infographics to stay informed.
While it would be great if Second Dinner made professional announcements on social media or in a video showcasing new variants and their release dates, at present, we only get a developer video a few days before a new season which only shows some highlights. This makes it difficult for players to plan their resources. Although Second Dinner should be making dynamic changes to bundles, if it was easier to acquire cards, players would probably be less upset when a bundle differs from its datamined version. In conclusion, datamines are exciting and necessary because Second Dinner has almost completely abrogated its responsibility of announcing and revealing new content. Until that changes, players will continue to rely on datamines, and, understandably, they get upset when the datamines change.
2) Can we access past content that we may have missed?
There have been a few ways to obtain items that were previously missed in the game. The beta rewind bundles provided an awesome opportunity to get cosmetics that were part of beta season passes. It would have felt unjust if beta content had remained inaccessible to players who joined after the global launch.
Furthermore, the exclusive Winter vacation variants have made a comeback this month, after being available during a variant rush last year. The Steampunk variants, which were part of another variant rush, are expected to return with a dedicated album soon. Variant rushes were poorly thought out and encouraged hoarding, overspending, and FOMO. It's great to see these variants return without these negative aspects.
When asked if the spotlight variants will ever be available again, Stephen had this to say:
- Maybe. We are still discussing how to do it in a way that is fair to folks who earned them in their featured week.
I have a suspicion that the previously released variants will eventually make a comeback as Ultimate Variants or even more expensive Super Ultimate-style variants. However, I don't think it will happen anytime soon. I guess that there will be at least a year's delay for each Spotlight variant, if not more. So, if you come across a variant that you like, I recommend getting it instead of waiting for a potential future release.
But what about the amazing variants that were only available in time-limited bundles? And what about the past conquest shop variants? Are they gone for good?
It is unlikely that the past bundle exclusive variants will be made available again anytime soon, as the developers have stated multiple times that they have no plans to do so. However, they may bring them back in the future, but it could take several years. Although it would be a profitable decision to reintroduce some of the most popular past bundles, the developers must consider the feelings of those who purchased them under the impression that they were exclusive. Therefore, it is a delicate balance between profitability and customer satisfaction. Nevertheless, there is a good chance that the past bundle exclusive variants will be made available again in the future, but it will not happen soon.
3)
I have noticed that Mysterio is being played more frequently lately. Therefore, I thought it would be helpful to review some of his odd interactions and commonly asked questions.
- If you use Forge on Mysterio, it will only enhance the leftmost Mysterio because that is the first card played.
- Shadow King reduces both copies and the real Mysterio to 0 power, which is currently recognized as a bug.
- Cards like Bast, Nakia, and Okoye will boost Mysterio's illusions.
- Copies of Mysterio always have 0 power, such as those created by Machine World, Bar Sinister, or Leader (however, Zola works!).
- Shuri and Shuri's laboratory will increase the strength of the real Mysterio.
- If he is played after Captain Marvel, she won't move to attack the real Mysterio since he'll reveal himself after she attempts to move.
For any burning questions you may have, you can find me on Twitter or leave a comment below.