Hello and welcome back to Glenn Jones’ Diary, our weekly peek at the most interesting or important questions and answers from the official Marvel Snap discord. This week we've got chatter about the recent OTA balance changes, and bad cards.
Q: What are your thoughts on the surfer deck still hopping in and out of the meta every season?
A: Silver Surfer's a cool deck and we don't mind decks ebbing and flowing over time. That's the ideal outcome, as the number of distinct archetypes increases, because it makes deck selection more diverse and meaningful for players.
-Glenn
Q: Since Rogue is technically an on reveal, has the team considered having abs man copy her effect even if she didn't copy an ability with an on reveal effect? Also, is abs man/ mystique not being able to copy an effect of a card that was turned into a demon by Nico intentional or a bug?
A: Rogue *had* an On Reveal—she doesn’t once her effect resolves, outside of stuff like Electro and Blob. Absorbing Man can’t copy what isn’t there.
Ditto the Demon. If you can’t see the words on the card in play, neither will they.
-Glenn
Q: It's December, so time to spread some holiday *jeer* and bring out the dirty laundry. Which member of SD is the saltiest Snap player? Who's most prone to tilting in a game session?
A: Oh this one's easy. One time Stephen got so salty after a Conquest losing streak that he made me lower the number of medals you need to get the variant.
-Tucker
**Funny, yet unsurprising!
Q: Does having a higher CL equal stronger opponents or is it just used to make sure players who are Series 1/2 not face Series 3 complete players? How much weight does CL have on matchmaking? This would only be pre infinite.
A: CL brackets and MMR are handled individually. The CL bracket restricts the pool of players available to match against to the same range that you're in. The MMR then influences who exactly within that bracket you'd pair with.
After reaching a certain Collection Level, you are placed in the XXXX+ range and it no longer really matters and is exclusively MMR based, you just won't match with folks below that CL threshold.
-Addison
Q: Is there a particular reason for changing the sentry bundle with it coming out in less than a week now and requiring ages of savings?
A: Hi there! Datamines are often not quite final and we don't intend for folks to be able to see em ahead of time. Datamined bundles could always get their values shifted around before release.
For this bundle in particular, the currently-datamined version also isn’t final: expect the final version to be more credit-heavy than either version before it (but less token-heavy).
-Tucker
**I would take any datamined details of bundles with a grain of salt from now on. It seems like adjusting them upon release is going to be the norm from now on.
Q: You all know the community was/is upset with the nerf to the "Xmas bundle." I understand it's going to change some more. This bundle was data-mined months ago and many have been saving gold, skipping other bundles, etc, due to the data mine.
Similarly, spotlights have been data-mined and people have made plans around them, later to have them change.
- How do you all feel about data-mining?
- Regardless of how you feel about data-mining, you clearly must know it occurs and that players plan around it. Does this or should this impact what data you make mineable to the community?
- Is there a technical reason you guys must put specific data-mine-able content up ahead of time?
A: We don’t love data mines but we understand why players value them.
We feel they ruin what could be an exciting moment (new card launches, new variant launches, new events, etc)
We would love to limit data mining more but we know it is not something we could limit easily so we accept that they will exist.
The items that are datamined need to be part of our releases ahead of time because they represent functionality or content that needs to be part of the game client. We try to plan and build multiple seasons ahead of time resulting in the content from those seasons being data mineable.
We will continue changing things before they are live. Similar to any other game that has data mines, Snap will continue to make changes to unreleased content before its live.
-Stephen
**They say they don't love datamines, but they are the only way players have access to any information to plan their resources. We were explicitly told that spotlight cache contents would be made available well in advance. They've literally never done this. We only ever know spotlight contents because of datamines. It's one thing to say this about new cards or bundles but we were told they would update us about spotlight contents and they have fobbed that off onto the dataminers.
Q: Will old spotlight variants ever be available again?
A: Maybe. We are still discussing how to do it in a way that is fair to folks who earned them in their featured week.
-Stephen
Q: Are the Winterverse variants from last year’s variant rush now in the shop permanently? Or time limited exclusives still?
A: They will only be available in the shop during Winterverse
-Stephen
Q: What is the funniest thing to happen to a card while it was in development?
A: We somewhat recently playtested a card that filled your board with random cards. Some of the outcomes were simply hysterical—I think I cried laughing during one of the games. Card was a cursed problem, though. (Which means it can’t be developed into a functional game piece. I expect we’ll never make that effect.)
-Glenn
**I'm assuming this was a 6-cost card. I hope they keep trying to make crazy cards. Snap's ability to be funny is a major thing that sets it apart from other card games.
Q: Is new player growth stagnating at all? Are people generally sticking with the game?
I find it very difficult to get new friends to play because of the catch-up they have to play. They want to play with more cards, but pool 3 is an absolute slog. And since they’re good enough to hit infinite in pools 1 and 2, they get absolutely slaughtered in infinite. That’s can’t be the final experience you want for new players. Weeks of getting brutalized if they go infinite early.
I know you don’t love tipping your hand or pulling back the curtain too much, but are there any plans to make the experience for new players more palatable?
A: We are planning to change the infinite rank experience for low CL players to maintain some CL banding. We recognize the current experience which is setup to try to keep the leaderboard purity in place is not the best for new players or the health of the game.
-Stephen
Q: This question is mostly pertaining to Viper's changes today in the OTA. I'm wondering if you can talk more about the philosophy of changing a card that isn't in a problematic spot, simply for the goal of doing something interesting .
I understand you also justified the change by saying you were making it due to an overabundance of caution with the Havok interaction and fears that might prove too prevalent/toxic. So I'm wondering if you can provide some insight on this philosophy - is this something you expect to do more frequently in the future? Changes just for changes sake? Do you feel the trade off of maybe making an interesting shift in the meta is worth undermining player expectations for healthy cards?
A: It wasn't "simply for the goal of doing something interesting"--there were 2 reasons, technically 3 when you consider Sentry had also become one of the top cards in the metagame, since it shaves some strength off him.
We don't make changes *just* to be interesting. But when we can make a change that accomplishes another goal and is also interesting, we prefer those to simple buffs and nerfs because it adds more to explore.
The only real difference between this and one of those changes is that we often let things "prove out" and in this case we acted preemptively. Why?
We felt fairly confident Havok+Viper wasn't a problem--let's say 90%, to put an number on it. But if we're wrong--if we roll a 1 on a d10--we'd be unable to take any action until probably January 9th. And the worst outcome here isn't "Black Bolt + Stature + tech cards is the best deck by a mile," a previous instance of us waiting multiple weeks to nerf. The outcome is "People can't play their cards."
As stewards of the play experience, we felt that was an unnecessarily cavalier risk for us to make on behalf of players who would love to play SNAP for those 3 weeks, including Infinite Conquest and the end of the ladder climb.
As for your last question, no. Our live balance philosophy purposefully maintains an expectation of change. We don't want those changes to always be expected and predictable--there is value in surprise. You can see that live today with Ronan and Maximus.
-Glenn
Q: Is there ever a possibility of seeing a card with an ability to unreveal a card? Using it as an activator for Alioth, or a way to activate on reveals again, is that something the game could do or that you could even consider doing?
A: Probably more of a "when" than an "if" for me, but not a certainty. It's fairly weird.
-Glenn
Q: What other nerfs for Werewolf by Night we're tested and discarded before arriving at 4/4?
A: We tried out a fair bit of stuff. Our top other candidates were:
- 3/1 +2
- 3/3 +1
- 3/1 +3 but once per turn
When we do need to nerf, we like looking for changes that might recontextualize the card's role while also accomplishing our goal. So the first two were bummers because they didn't do that, they were just clear downgrades. We also weren't certain #1 would be sufficient--it was debatably stronger than 3/2 due to Shang-Chi--and worried #2 might be too harsh. Pure downside change and might not work, not ideal combos.
#3 accomplished our goal of adding new context to the card. It diminished the rewards for going ham with Beast and made the card a lot easier to understand. Werewolf is one of the most skill-intensive cards to play both with and against, so we did like that.
Ultimately, the reason we went with 4/4 instead is that preserving multiple jumps better matched the original fantasy and excitement of the card, and similarly added new context to where it might work best and how well. It also preserved our OTA knobs a little better moving forward; #3 isn't quite as flexible on that count.
-Glenn
Q: Have you considered making an extremely bad card on purpose?
A: No. We may make cards that are narrow, in that their use and appeal is specific to a smaller number of decks or interested players. Making a card isn't easy or cheap--in addition to design and playtest, we have to gather and/or commission art, layer the art for splits, build the logo, creat VFX, and QA the ability. We wouldn't waste all of that on a game piece we don't expect anyone to love playing with.
-Glenn
Q: In this most recent OTA, professor X received a nerf of 2 power, which was somewhat heavier than what most players seemed to be expecting. In a previous answer it was mentioned that Cerebro rarely factors into balance decisions because of how easily affected decks centered around it are to patches.
However, Cerebro2 is already a quite consistently strong deck, with access to a powerful suite of lockdown tools like Storm and Goose. Was professor X pushed to 1 power at least in part to avoid pushing him to prominence again in this deck? Or was it more broadly to just lower his play across the board.
A: Not really. We were stuck between Ravonna and Cerebro either way as potentially worrying considerations, so we just went with the harsher nerf that didn’t risk buffing an existing deck. We weren’t looking to do the minimum damage to Professor X this time around, he’s taking a timeout.
-Glenn
Q: I figured this might have been mentioned in the OTA notes but didn't see it: I know we're getting a patch on 1/9, should we expect the standard PONO schedule to resume starting then?
A: That’s the current plan, but it may change as we review our process for the new year.
-Glenn
**As an OTA enthusiast, I hope we return to PONO (Patch, OTA, Nothing that week, OTA).
Q: Earlier you stated that the Viper nerf was done preemptively to ensure that Havok did not cause chaos over the holidays. Are there any plans to revert that nerf in a future OTA, when the team can monitor her + Havock more closely? If not, has there been consideration to alter Havock instead of Viper, as Havok would be the problem, while Viper is the enabler.
For example:
Making Havok 3/4
Making Havok 3/0 (but +5 per energy ate)
Keeping Havok 2/0 (but also +5 energy per turn), but does not trigger the first turn he's at a location? (If he moves that turn, either to the opponent or another location, doesn't trigger). Doing this would give the opponent time to respond, while also lowering the overall energy damage.
A: We tested Havok at a variety of stat combinations, so we knew we didn’t want to pursue that route. And functionality changes to him, while theoretically possible with our new OTA tech, would carry added risk if something went wrong that would be difficult to repair with the holidays looming. Plus, he works how we wanted him to.
We’re certainly open to moving Viper back to 2-Cost in the future.
-Glenn
Q: When making multiple nerfs at once to a single archetype, like Widow and Viper, what consideration is given to other available options for the archetype? For instance junk has Debrii and Green Goblin now joined by Widow and Viper, with minimal turn two plays. In a situation like this are the cards considered in relation to each other along with the archetype or just as individual cards?
A: Yep, we consider them. A deck built around gumming up your opponent’s ability to play isn’t one we want to feature a robust curve though, either.
-Glenn
**I think it's important that the game allow archetypes other than just “point slam” decks. So far other types of decks have been allowed to exist, but I hope they don't push them all out of the meta.
Q: I had always thought it elegant how the big-name 3-cost ongoing starter cards were so aligned, with Punisher, Captain America, and Mister Fantastic all having the same potential to add up to 6 total power to the board for 3 energy. Moreover, this design symmetry helped teach new players what kind of power should reasonably be expected at the three cost level. Was there any concern in buffing only Punisher by one power that it would compromise the educational value of the starter card experience?
A: Not really. This is a fairly small and imperceptible difference to the vast majority of players, educationally speaking. Even if they did, this lesson gets unlearned in endgame play anyway, as synergy and interaction even more heavily outweigh single points of Power.
-Glenn
**I think Second Dinner is often a bit too precious about the first month player experience, but I'm glad we got at least a little nudge to Punisher.
Q: It seems that Ms. Marvel, with equal cost and power has a way more lenient requirement for more power per lane than Omega Red.
I’ve used Red to trick an opponent to investing resources in a specific lane, but at 4 cost, I could use that energy in more beneficial ways.
Are there plans for an Omega Red rework or adjustment? Perhaps there’s something I’m missing?
A: Nope, he's a little too weak and we'll adjust him at some point.
-Glenn
**Second Dinner has a list of cards that need adjustment. Surely Omega Red will get some help soon. Baron Mordo will have to wait and see if the recent Ronan changes will spike his effectiveness (spoiler alert: it won't help much).
That's it for this week. The second dinner team is officially on Holiday so I'm anticipating a week long break from answers on the official discord. Happy holidays to the devs, we appreciate you all!
❄️Happy Holidays!❄️We're on holiday. We ♥️ you all, be kind to each other.
— Second Dinner (@seconddinner) December 22, 2023
'Twas the night before Dumplingmas, when all through the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a Bao; The steamers were placed by the kitchen with care, In hopes that St. Fud soon would be there; pic.twitter.com/nel0PAMkcJ