Welcome back to Glenn Jones' diary, our look at the developer answers from the official Marvel Snap discord. The team came roaring back from their holiday break with a flurry of answers. The recent release of a new developer roadmap also led to a lot of questions and there's a treasure trove of new info in the answers below about upcoming features and cards.
Q: Does Grandmaster Require Moving The Card To Actually Reactivate It? Or Will It Still Reactivate Even If Mid Is Full?
A: The move is required for it to activate. If mid is full, no activation. If mid has room, but Cosmo is there, it’ll move but no activation.
-KentErik
Q: Do you look at all matches ever played when calculating MMR? No matter many SP I finish with, or how fast I hit infinite, I always start with the same SP as last season, sometimes lower. Is this because I have been playing since beta and a have such a large number of games played that it takes awhile to move the needle?
A: Your SP reset is based on your MMR, and your MMR is a hard number to raise or lower for anyone who has been playing for more than a few seasons. Most players’ skill plateaus at that point, raising very gradually over time.
-Glenn
**I wonder how wildly people's MMR changed after the infinite leaderboard introduction. I'm not sure about you, my play behavior changed dramatically after the change.
Q: As far as I understand (correct me if I'm wrong), the purpose of SD team this season was to revive Shuri-like decks. Where u just put ultra big numbers on locations and win. Is that's true? And what's your personal attitude to such kind of gameplay. I know some people, especcially new ones may like such gameplay... But for older snappers, who play quite a long time, this feels a little bit too primitive and boring. What do you think?
A: For Planet Hulk season we are deliberately seeking to create gameplay worthy of the angry green giant, not puny Banner. We like to keep metagames on the move.
-Glenn
**The team has previously stated that their goal is for each season to feel unique and reflect its theme. I think it's an admirable concept. The game shouldn't always just feel the same season after season. Hulk smash!
Q: Hi, I want to ask about Hercules, if we move the card from location A to Hercules location (B) will the card only move to location C or is there a possibility that the card will return to position A?
A: It can return to its previous location.
-Glenn
Q: Last year, we got only one new card for the first week of the season. The first season of 2024 introduce two new cards for the first week of the season.
Q1. Is it just for this season or will it continue to next season?
Q2. Are you planning to make new multiple cards for one week, I mean two new cards for one spotlight cache week.
A:
- Yep
- Currently, we’re only making an extra card for the first week of each season, to give that week’s Spotlight Cache a new card.
-Glenn
Q: Hey, I want to ask more information about Hercules. The card said that "The first time another card moves here each turn, move it to another location." So, does it mean that Hercules can only move one card per turn?
A: Hercules can only move one card each turn, the first one to move to his location.
-KentErik
Q: Just out of curiosity, is there a reason that Bill’s Stormbreaker is a 0/1 while Mjolnir is a 0/0? Is it a gameplay reason, a flavor one, or a mix of the two?
A: There's upside to adding a clear visual differentiator between the cards, as they're a little similar, but mostly flavor.
-Glenn
Q: I was curious as to why Hulk Buster and Wave ended up as 3 cost 5 power cards when this is over the "standard" limit of 4 power for 3 cost cards. 3 costs that go over 4 power always had inherent "downsides" (such as discarding a card) even if you could take advantage.
A: The TL;DR answer is just "we make the cards good enough to do their jobs." Our primary goal is a fun game piece, not a mathematically cohesive column in Excel
The longer one is that 3/4 isn't the "top" of 3-Cost cards--it's more like 3/4.95, really. Even regular Cyclops has Patriot.
Both Wave and Hulkbuster have effects that can be downsides, and I could list the ways--Wave is super-different from Cosmo! But my point is that these specifics don't actually matter very much. If a 3/4 is a weak game piece and a 3/5 would be a fun one, it's using the 3/4 that needs to be justified.
-Glenn
**Glenn has alluded to this concept before. Putting fun above some sort of internal logic about card power is the best approach. Other games stick to this type of math for fear of power creep, ease of design with huge batches of cards, and a misguided sense of symmetry. Snap doesn't have the same worries. If a card isn't fun they can always just change it and we only get a handful of new cards per month.
Q: Caiera affects all locations. After the changes on Luke Cage and Elsa isn't this going in the opposite direction?
A: Caiera is a 3-Cost card. Our changes to Luke and Elsa were clear that the previous designs had proven problematic for a 2-cost card.
In fact, we've publicly acknowledged that the alternatives we considered to the Elsa and Luke changes were leaving their effects alone and increasing their Cost and Power.
-Glenn
Q: Please walk us through what happens if Hercules and a lane full of other cards slides left into a clear lane due to Heimdall being played. Does Hercules trigger?
A: Hercules will trigger. If he's in slot 1, he'll move whichever card is in slot 2. If he's in any other slot, he'll move the slot 1 card. This is because Heimdall moves everyone all at once, so the "earliest" other mover is the same regardless of Hercules's order in that move.
-Glenn
Q: If I discard two cards with Hellcow, will Miek jump 2 locations and gain +2 power?
A: No, he'll jump once and get 2 Power.
-Glenn
Q: I just saw a video showing destroyer being played on t6 or 7, with caiera on board actively protecting all 1's and 6's... However, to the players dismay all cards got destroyed except for one lonely sunspot... Can you explain why that is?
A: Destroyer blows things up in the order in which they were played. The Sunspot was played before Caiera, so he survived, but Caiera was played before the other 1 and 6-Cost cards, so she was already destroyed when it was their turn.
-Glenn
Q: Move has always been an intriguing archetype but seldom competitive. This is primarily due to the inherent dependency of most movement cards on additional card support to yield substantial effects. Consequently, higher-cost movement cards have historically exhibited poor performance, exemplified by cards like Spiderman2099 at 4-cost or even Vulture at 3-cost.
In the past, there have been consistent efforts to reduce the cost of movement cards, for instance, lowering Ghost-Spider to 1-cost or Doctor Strange to 2-cost, aiming to enhance their performance.
So, my question is, why was Hercules, a movement card, designed as a 4-cost card this time? Have you confirmed through internal testing that he will perform reasonably fine at 4-cost? Or was it driven by considerations surrounding the character's stature, prompting the inclination towards a "Big" card?
A: Certainly we wanted a “big” Herc, but among our design goals for Move decks have been trying to push some cards that function in the archetype at a more diverse range of Costs. We certainly hope to have succeeded here, but if we didn’t we’ll adjust accordingly.
-Glenn
**I think it's a mistake for Hercules to come in at 4 cost for the reasons stated in the question above. 4 is such an awkward cost, especially for a card that needs to be followed up with several cards to be powerful.
Q: Can you give any information or ETA or anything about full global matchmaking or about the ability to undo end turn?
A: We're still working on global matchmaking, but excited for it.
The Undo End Turn button is pretty far along; we're playtesting it. Looking forward to it going live in a future patch.
-Glenn
Q: How close is that Test Mode I saw on the Second Dinner Road Map some time ago?
I’m mostly facing top tier lists in PG, when I’m testing quirky combinations. It’s a little frustrating
A: We removed Test Mode from our Road Map following the release of Conquest. While they are different, there's a lot of overlap on what Test Mode offers available there.
-Glenn
**Personally, proving grounds is enough for me. Especially if it means resources go towards more interesting features like those in the roadmap.
Q: What is “in game graveyard” from the roadmap?
A: This one is being able to see the cards that were destroyed or discarded in game. No more wondering what Yondu destroyed while you were reaching for another cookie
-Daniela
Q: Hey I wanted to ask is the graveyard going to be a hud that shows all the actions that happen in the game such as spider ham making a card a pig but you missed that card it is will that be shown on the graveyard or is it specifically destroyed cards ?
A: Graveyard is the first step! It only shows which cards were discarded or destroyed. In game history (more what you’re describing with Spider Ham) is something we’re discussing.
-Daniela
Q: Can you delve more into effect/border customization?
A: You will have a new card at the top of your variant selection screen called a "Custom Card" for each character. You will be able to pick three characteristics to start with: variant art, split combo, and border.
Variant art will be selectable based on what variants you own for that character.
Split combos will be based on what splits you have received for the variant art you select (for example if you previously got a gold foil finish + purple sparkle flare for your Artgerm Carnage then you can apply gold foil + purple sparkle to your Custom Card when Artgerm Carnage is selected). We did not include mixing and matching because getting a cool split is an awesome achievement and we want it to remain an awesome achievement.
Border will be selectable based off what you have unlocked for the character as a whole.
-Stephen
**How do we get the “Custom Card?” Do you suppose we will already have it in our inventories or will this be a feature that costs money? Also not being able to choose mix and match effect and background is odd and makes this change more about the border than anything else.
Q: Regarding character mastery, will our current splits/variants/avatars carry over once the update drops?
A: Yes you will get Mastery levels retroactively for owning variants, splits, avatars, etc
-Stephen
Q: Does border selection include the effects?
A: Border selection will match the normal state of that border (i.e. white border will not be frame broken or animated). The scope to uncouple them is quite large and we may do it at a later date, but for initial release border color will be coupled with its same effect level as currently in the game.
-Stephen
Q: I was wondering if you’re able to tell us how many members are going to be able to join a clan at a time?
A: Haven’t settled on that yet!
-KentErik
Q: Could we get any clarification on why ultimates revamp went from in development to in concept? I remember a while back someone saying ultimates would get player icons similar to spotlights has this also been pushed back?
A: The design of Ultimate Evolution has not changed. However, it dropped in priority because we want to aggressively add new gameplay experiences and clans. We hope to get to Ultimate Evo later this year
-Stephen
That concludes this week's edition of Glenn Jones' Diary. Don't forget to drop by the official Marvel Snap discord and post your questions in the ask-the-team channel. See you next week!
One of the lesser-known “combos” in #MARVELSNAP: Mysterio can trick Martyr into staying put :) pic.twitter.com/YouPhgCtmf
— Glenn Jones (@Glenn_Jones_) January 5, 2024