Team Answers Recap for Dev QAs - 10/05
Welcome back to Glenn Jones' Diary, our weekly look at the Dev team Questions and Answers from the Marvel Snap discord. This week we learn more about Nico Minoru, discuss trigger and merge, and we get to know the dev team more!
20)
Q: Wondering if we could get something that shows the number of spotlights specifically you have available?
A: QoL updates are coming soon for spotlight cache!
-Daniela
19)
Q: Will "hold to confirm" be added to spotlight caches?
A: Yes, hold to confirm is in the next update. We have a bunch of QoL coming next update for spotlight cache.
-Stephen
18)
Q: Will there be Twitch drops in the future since they were very successful the last time they were made?
A: Yes we will do more twitch drops!
-Stephen
**I'm wondering if there could be Twitch drops around the first anniversary of the game!
17)
Q: Do you plan on giving us an infinite leaderboard that we can go and see who are the top players?
A: This is our first step of several on building a deeper post-Infinite experience, including a public-facing leaderboard.
-Glenn
**This seems to imply a lot more is coming in addition to a leaderboard. A deeper post-infinite experience definitely would be welcome.
16)
Q: After this latest OTA, Galactus has been updated again with another nerf. Considering how often it gets nerfed, both effect and power, at what point is a re-do on the card considered?
A: This is the first time we’ve nerfed the card since creating a useful means with which to live balance it, so probably not soon. The structure of the original Galactus was fundamentally problematic, as we’ve shared. The rework that accompanied moving to 6/7 aimed to create a good game piece that we could tune if necessary. This is the rework functioning as intended—we didn’t build a strength dial expecting to never turn it, and it can turn both ways.
-Glenn
15)
Q: How do Nico’s spells work? Do they cycle each turn, or can you pick which one to use?
A: Each turn she's in your hand, her text will change to a random one of her abilities (without repeating).
-Glenn
14)
Q: Are there worries that Nico Minoru could end up in a similar situation to pre-rework Snowguard?
A: I think our biggest error with original Snowguard was that it was situational in multiple ways. You didn't know which animal you'd have, and you didn't even have any guarantee if you'd want either animal with the location setup.
Nico has a lot of variance, but we believe having the ability to build against only one random element helps a lot. You gain the ability to use cards that have synergy with multiple of her abilities, like Deadpool or Human Torch.
-Glenn
**I do think there is a chance that Nico ends up too variable to be of use. It's a very difficult card to predict until we get our hands on it.
13)
Q: I’ve always wondered this and now the new weekly reset moving solidly into Tuesday I thought I’d ask, why is the weekly reset in the middle of the week on Tuesdays? Why not move it in the opposite direction to align more with the beginning of the week?
A: We want the turnover to happen during our work day so we can more easily fix anything that may come up. Not sure about you but Monday morning I just want a cup of coffee and not worry about anything else. Tuesday is easier because it enables us to ensure everything is solid on Monday before it goes live on Tuesday.
-Glenn
12)
Q: Hotel inferno reads like it could potentially be triggered more than once.
1.) Will it trigger unto 4 times if I okay 4 cards in the location on the turn it reveals?
A: 1. Yes.
2.) Is this zone a good idea with destroy already having a lot of synergy with other zones. Seems like an unneeded boost to destroy.
A: 2. Destroy decks aren’t oppressive but are fun and popular, so we don’t mind supporting them in this way. We also can adjust the rarity of these locations as we add them to create the same frequency of “favorable conditions” but with more locations in the mix.
-Glenn
11)
Q: As a team of developers you guys are always needing to buff or nerf cards for the betterment of the game as a whole, and I feel like you’ve done a very good job at that so far. The meta always feels alive and changing. Is there ever a time where a buff or nerf is being released that members of the team are sad about for their own personal decks as players?
A: I periodically get some number of internal complaints (in good faith and fun, of course). Occasionally those even lead to larger discussions and reviews that wind up changing our minds, so they’re always welcome.
-Glenn
Legion's still an 8-power in my heart, Glenn!
-Addison
10)
Q: Which location(s) go before (and/or after) the left to right order of locations' triggering each turn? (do these locations have different tiers (as in their own priority) and/or same tiers (therefore left to right would apply to them).
A: It is our intent to eliminate this inconsistency completely or as much as possible in the near future, but we're still auditing the ramifications of that change.
-Glenn
**Starlight Citadel is an example of a location that is inconsistent. It's good to hear they're working on this.
9)
Q: We got seasonal MENU Music
but when playing game is same always
are u guys planning to add new music too??
A: Yeah! We'd love to do this so there's a variety of in-game songs you might hear. This is on our wishlist to work on.
-Nicki
8)
Q: I notice how multiple cards now use Merge as a term much like move and discard. Do you have any particular reason why Merge cards are still susceptible to Shadow King? Merging means the Merged card possesses the power of the Merger card, then why is the base power still the Merged card's original power?
A: If a card’s Power isn’t its base Power, it has a Power modifier. Multiple Man wearing Hulkbuster has a base Power of 3 and a modifier of 5. Merge is just a mechanical way to add a card’s Power to another card and also count the combined card for other effects, like Iron Fist.
-Glenn
**Interesting information for the newly datamined Blob card!
7)
Q: Will these Midnight Suns variants be an example of the “albums” that have been teased in the roadmap?
A: No but would be cool to do an Album for these in the future. Albums are still in development but excited to share more in the future.
-Stephen
6)
Q: As a team of developers you guys are always needing to buff or nerf cards for the betterment of the game as a whole, and I feel like you’ve done a very good job at that so far. The meta always feels alive and changing. Is there ever a time where a buff or nerf is being released that members of the team are sad about for their own personal decks as players?
A: We make the choice based off which card back will look cooler with gold treatment. The decision isn’t based off whether it is the free or paid card back.
-Stephen
5)
Q: Will there ever be any new cards without abilities? So like new cards for HE and for patriot or that's it?
A: We might make a 7-Cost card, but otherwise I think that's it.
-Glenn
**Which character would this suit best?
4)
Q: Have you considered giving cards like Kraven, Silk, and Elsa a keyword on their ability, like “Trigger”? Seems like it might open up some interesting design space without being too cumbersome.
A: From a rules structure standpoint, I agree that could be nice. However, part of our templating philosophy is avoiding "TCG-speak" because it's the kind of language that makes a card game feel less accessible to players new to the genre. "Trigger" is one of those words we want to avoid.
-Glenn
**Even as someone who has played a lot of TCGs, I have always been glad that Snap avoids using all of the common language of TCGs. I think it is jargon that gate keeps too many games, while often not being reliable or consistent anyway. That Snap tries to rely on logic and is willing to try new ideas has made it better than many new games that fall back on TCG cliches.
3)
Q: I’m sure this has been asked a million and one times… but are there any future updates or talks about allowing users to choose borders for each card? Nothing beats a gold border on a gold foil card with rainbow krackle
A: Yes we have a solution designed but it’s not yet in development. Will share more when it’s closer
-Stephen
**This is probably the question that gets asked the most, so it's clearly a popular notion. This change leads me to believe it's not happening particularly soon.
2)
Q: Firstly, I'd like to know a bit about the process of choosing who gets priority for receiving VFX and SFX. I'm guessing it's a bit random, with perhaps some priority put towards more iconic characters, but I would be curious to know exactly how it's handled. However, the main point of my question is a bit more specific. Do you ever plan to add unique VFX/SFX to cards with the capability of discarding? As it is, only MODOK has this, and the rest simply share the same couple of animations.
A: Before we launched Snap, we were trying our best to ship with VFX for all of our cards at launch. With the pending deadline, we decided to work smarter not harder - we focused on card categories that could share some FX without getting their own unique/custom FX. This allowed us to make custom FX for cards that really needed them to communicate important gameplay items.
In a way, this is still how we prioritize VFX today! We start with cards that we feel aren't shippable without FX, and move down the list. I shared about this previously on here, but the VFX team works on all areas of the game so sometimes it's cards, locations, features, ui, etc.! We're looking to have some more bandwidth to "catch up" on some cards and locations that don't yet have FX. This will include a wide varity of cards, such as ones that have been in the game since launch.
-Nicki
1)
Q: How do you do your testing of new/updated cards? Have any funny or strange situations ever arisen because of your early access to new/updated cards? Just wondering for the funnies.
A: Thanks for the question! I don't get to answer too many test-related ones!
For new cards and most major updates we start by having a member of the QA team sit down and cross-reference existing cards/locations and determine which are likely to have an impact and which aren't. From there that person will write test cases around those interactions, this includes situations where you test against cards from your own perspective, from the opponent's perspective, and a mix (if relevant, like Mobius M. Mobius for example). After that, other members of the QA team will sweep through the cases and try to supplement or expand on them. Finally there will be a session where the test cases are executed and bugs are written when things happen that aren't expected.
There are other elements to this as well including some amount of automated unit testing, looking through log files to ensure client errors aren't occurring, retesting if there are functional tweaks, testing as art assets come in, etc...
Also there's a lot of playtesting internally over the months between initial development/hookup of a card and when they typically release.
As for "funny situations" there are always funny bugs that occur, but I think maybe the weirdest in the last few months is with Jean Grey.
A lot of folks have commented that clearly she wasn't tested or that QA was slacking on her, but the unfortunate reality is that after she had already been tested there were some VFX hooked up to her pretty late in the process that required a tweak to her script that controls her "ongoing" effect and that wasn't realized. So when we went to test her VFX, we just did quick VFX tests and generalized functional checks but didn't do the full suite again because we didn't know that underlying functional tweak had occurred. Her test suite explicitly had a Goose check in it! So that's why when she initially released there were some real weird interactions between her and cards like Goose and then why the fix resulted in her not having VFX anymore (hopefully fixed for real in an upcoming update!).
-Addison
**I love that Jean will be getting VFX soon. The team has mentioned before that, now that the PC client is out, more focus can return to audio and VFX!
Get to know the dev team better below as they each share how they got into game development!
Q: How did the team get into game dev?
Glenn
I'm and English/History major that played a variety of games competitively before moving into content creation, content editing, and then game design. I mostly just followed what was interesting and exciting to me. I was *very* fortunate to have a collection of excellent friends, mentors, and managers that grew me at each stage.
-Glenn
Addison
I initially went to school for CS but the ’08 economic shakeup dried up a lot of available financing so I wound up dropping out shortly after. Probably for the best as I was a terrible engineer then and would likely be a terrible engineer now haha.
A few years later I was bouncing around retail and sales jobs and while working in a call center selling MLB tickets I was super fortunate to be hit up by a friend who had wound up at a new web-based MMO studio that was willing to hire inexperienced folks to bulk up their QA team. He referred me and I like to think my sales experience helped me wing the interview process and sell myself because I had NO idea what I was doing at the time!
I've been very fortunate to be able to try a bunch of things since getting into the industry and, like Glenn above, having a ton of awesome people mentor me along the way.
Nicki
I was super lucky to get an internship in the industry while I was in college (at Blizzard Entertainment), which lead to my first gig outside of college. I've been in game dev ever since! My degree is in Creative Writing, which I think contributes a lot to my skills as a Sr. Producer -- lots of jobs, project, skills, etc are totally transferrable.
I hope the industry continues to grow in a direction that invites more new folks in, as we can learn a lot from parallel industries.
Stephen
I did a boring corporate job for 3-4 years then went to grad school to find out what I wanted to be when I grow up. I wanted a job that didn't feel like a job. I had an epiphany that someone had to make games for them to be real, so I tried to figure out if I could break through. I paid for my own flight out to GDC in my last year of graduate school and tried to convince all of the major game companies to hire me. Thankfully one of them took a chance on me! I've tried to pass that on to others trying to break into the industry who have the passion and potential.
Daniela
When I was in high school I wanted to study computer science. then I realized I sucked at a lot of the non programming stuff, so I started looking for something that was half techy half artsy. I stumbled upon this "UX Design" major and I LOVED every class on the curriculum so I studied that. Then in like sophomore(?) year everything CLICKED as I was playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. I could do UX for GAMES! As a lifelong gamer I felt like I discovered exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I minored in Game UX (cause apparently we had that lol), and by chance also stumbled on an Associate UX/UI designer role here at SD. The rest is history.
That's all for this week. Head to the Marvel Snap discord and ask a question to potentially be featured here.