Team Answers Recap for Dev QAs - 10/12
Welcome back to Glenn Jones' Diary, our weekly look at the Dev team Questions and Answers from the Marvel Snap discord. This week the community had questions about OTAs, Seasonal Themes, and design philosophy.
16)
Q: Will Nico Minoru's spells replace her variants?
A: No, you’ll see Nico at the location.
-Glenn
15)
Q: Any ETA on when upgrade with gold will be re-enabled?
A: With any luck, later this week or early next.
-Addison
14)
Q: At any point in Man-Thing's design were there or is there the possibility to Add 0 cost to his text, possibly to synergise with Widows bite and to beat wasp. Is there a reason this wasn't considered or is there just not enough 0 cost in the game to implement this?
A: We preferred to line up with Goose/Crimson Cosmos/Big House for now, keeping 0 and 7+ "special" from other Costs.
-Glenn
13)
Q: How often are the various cerebro decks a consideration when balancing cards via OTA?
A: We take note when it’s meaningful, but it doesn’t weigh heavily on any of our decisions.
-Glenn
12)
Q: Are snap points relevant to Conquest matchmaking at all?
A: SNAP Points have no effect on Conquest.
-Glenn
11)
Q: Why not give some older nerfs their old stats back? Cards like Black Bolt and Stature in particular got nerfed a while back and have since completely fallen out of the game entirely especially now with Mobius in the game it feels like that combo just doesn’t exist anymore any chance they’ll get their old stats back? Same goes with captain marvel you mention in the ota notes that alioth's power was decreased so cards like doom could potentially counter him better so why not put captain marvel back up to 5 power for another counter to it?
A: Our philosophy around card changes involves keeping them to a small number for regular updating, 3-8 being the approximate range. We also prefer to time updates so that they have the most potential to be impactful. If we changed everything we thought could change every time, it would be very destabilizing and also quickly run us out of the queue of updates we use to make regular balance changes.
-Glenn
**Hmm, Glenn didn't really answer the question here. (Please give us back 4/5 Captain Marvel Glenn!!!)
10)
Q: Really like the special Hallowe’en Squirrels from Central Park. Is this going to be a thing going forward where Squirrels or any of the other token cards (Ninjas and Monsters) get a Token variant every season. Would just be a cool seasonal thing to happen.
A: We don't have plans to hit a token every season at the moment, but we'll certainly be doing similar stuff to what we're doing with the Squirrel right now whenever we have something that fits!
-Rada
9)
Q: Not sure if this has been answered but I was wondering if it would ever be possible for the seasonal audio to traverse across the different menus like deck building/shop/main menu? I really enjoy this season's theme but restarting or switching every time I switch between tabs is a bit disappointing. Keep up the awesome work!
A: This past patch brought the seasonal music to more places, including the shop and the game modes section. For the deck building section, that is going to remain as it is because some of these seasonal tracks can get a bit high energy which could be distracting to players in deep thought while deck building. There are more plans to continue improving on this even more in future!
-Chris Alan
8)
Q: Is there a reason Angela doesn't get the triggers from cards played in her lane that Alioth destroys before they flip? She gets the bonus when a card is Juggernauted away so it feels like she should get the bonus for a card that is destroyed too. If not, could we get an Alioth change that just destroys cards at the end of the turn? Alioth destroying cards that haven't been revealed is unique to it and creates unintuitive effects.
A: In Angela's case, the card needs to complete "being played" by turning face up to trigger her ability, just like a Cloning Vats or Death's Domain.
In Alioth's case, his unique functionality is purposeful. In any case, we try to avoid "delayed triggers" unless they're necessary to the card, such as Iron Fist. Separating the outcome of an effect from its source over time is inherently confusing.
-Glenn
**To those hoping for an Alioth change that involves him destroying cards at the end of the turn; it seems unlikely.
7)
Q: What's the thought process behind Stegron being a 4/5?
A: Stegron is closer to Juggernaut than to Polaris or Spider-Man, because he moves Power out of his location while they bring Power wherever they are. So they get to have a little extra Power to compensate.
I think these cards are already in a pretty diverse range and they all see play for different reasons, which is the goal.
-Glenn
**This rationale definitely makes sense. Stegron could still use an extra point of power though.
6)
Q: Do you only change the numbers on the card in an OTA or because there is a technical limitation that prevents you from doing more? Or is it because more complex reworks require more testing than just adjusting a couple of digits? Could something simple like changing Coulson's "Add a random 4-Cost AND 5-Cost card to your hand" to "Add a random 4-Cost OR 5-Cost card to your hand" be done via an OTA? Or would something like this require a patch?
A: It’s a technical limitation. Updating any card text other than the numerals requires localization into other languages, and those updates (at least currently) need a full patch to implement.
-Glenn
5)
Q: Two of the most recent additions to Marvel Snap, Mobius and Alioth, are such powerful text boxes that they are basically auto-includes in basically any deck that hopes to interact with the meta at all. At what point do you determine if a card’s use cases are too broad and what is the process for narrowing its effectiveness?
A: It varies depending on the card—there’s no “it’s played at least X% of the time in Y decks” metric we adhere to. We just monitor the game, discuss the trends we’re seeing, and review what kinds of changes we think would impact the card in the desired direction, and by how much. Then we start trying them out.
-Glenn
**I was under the impression that there was a threshold for play rate and that if a card exceeded it, they would consider a change. Perhaps the parameters Glenn has mentioned only apply to win rates?
4)
Q: Will we ever see cards that create like raptors from Savage Land if Central Park creates squirrels?
A: Sauron's probably the character that makes the most sense for that, but I imagine we could find someone else.
-Glenn
**Ooh, interesting! Who could create raptors? Could Daredevil and Elektra's sensei Stick create Ninjas?
3)
Q: A little bit of a weirder question but some other Marvel games are set to be their own universe in Marvel's Multiverse so I was wondering if this is the case for Snap too or not or if you have even thought about that? One more little thing connected to this, I've had several interactions on the discord where Cosmo came up and it was unsure if Cosmo is male or female because the Comic version of the character is male while the MCU version is female. Have you ever thought about Cosmos' gender in Snap? He? She? Either?
A: Our game isn't narratively centered; we feature characters and interpretations of those characters from the entire Marvel multiverse. So one could say we've got both Cosmos, in that context.
-Glenn
**Side note: for those who don't know, Goose is named Chewie in the comics. He was changed for the films. They don't choose one or the other, but they definitely slant towards the MCU when possible.
2)
Q: Does the team have any update on the Phoenix Force bug (that only one Multiple Man copy can move around the board, instead of all of them)? It is maybe the biggest card bug in the game, and it has been known since July but there has been radio silence since.
A: Hey, so this issue is fun as it requires more engineering support than most card issues and so it's been tougher to actually get someone to take it on. It's still on the radar and relatively high priority as far as card work goes, I just don't know WHEN exactly it's going to get fixed. It will however be included in the Known Issues list going forward until it's fixed...I kept forgetting to add it...my bad!
-Addison
**This is good news, as Phoenix Force has been hot lately. I believe Phoenix Force is going to get better and better in the near future and this big fix could accelerate that.
1)
Q: Is it part of the plan to make the season pass card OP?
A: It’s an express goal of ours that new cards be impactful, especially the Season Pass. When they’re not, it can feel like we didn’t add content to the game for our players. For that reason, we’d rather be slightly too bold when it’s close. Plus, if we theme a season around a character, it’s even more important to capture that seasonal theme and excitement in the gameplay. If the most exciting card during Loki season is Shuri, we screwed up.
Because game balance isn’t an exact science, we won’t always hit our mark “just right,” and we’ll also miss in both directions. You used a few examples, but we can also look at Nimrod, Ghost-Spider, and Phoenix Force releasing a little too weak, while Nebula and Daken have been just about perfect. And when we do overreach, we have tools available to ensure we nudge things into place.
-Glenn
**I think it's important to reiterate a point Glenn has made in the past: Their goal is not for every card to be equal, the goal is a fun game. Printing new, powerful cards is essential for the health of any card game.
That's all for this week. Head to the Marvel Snap discord and ask a question to potentially be featured here.