Welcome back to Glenn Jones' Diary where I look at the best, most important, or most interesting answers from the Marvel Snap discord recently. This week, we've got several questions about card balance changes. Also, several answers from Stephen this week, and you know what that means! (Sub-optimal economy news, of course)
20)
Q: Hey team, last year you announced the internships for summer 2023 at around this time. Will there be any internships for 2024 and if so where can we apply?
A: We've just set our intern applications live this week: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/SecondDinner
-Glenn
19)
Q: With the frequent mentions of America Chavez recently, it got me thinking.
Are you considering adding any “undrawable cards” or other cards that start at the bottom of the deck (that bring with them a downside)?
One thing I thought of was making M’baku start at the bottom but he jumps out with negative power.
A: No, these kinds of cards are generally pretty unhealthy for the game.
-Glenn
18)
Q: By any chance does Marvel Snap want to become the first game ever to include Hope Summers, Franklin Richards, or Valeria Richards.
A: I don’t know if we’d be the first, but stay tuned.
-Glenn
**This is a group of very powerful child mutants from the Marvel comics. Do you think they should be powerful to reflect their comic book abilities?
17)
Q: Will there be any future changes to the rewards u can earn in collectors caches?
A: We will add rare variant avatars to the existing cosmetic drop in an upcoming patch. Beyond that there are none planned in the short term. We feel like we have changed them a lot over the past year and want to give it longer to breath before considering any additional changes.
-Stephen
**I can't imagine additional avatars being very exciting for many.
16)
Q: As stated: "In the future we will add a new section in the shop for non-variant cosmetics (avatars, titles, card backs, emotes, emoji reactions, etc)"
Regarding emotes;
Are there going to be any free changes / updates / toxicity inhibitors to the emote system as this store becomes available or are all planned changes strictly for purchase?
A: We are adding cooldowns to prevent emote spamming in one of the next two updates.
-Stephen
15)
Q: When the weekend missions were announced we were told the token rewards would be varied (and that Silk's 1000 was high end) but that S5 cards would at least always reward more than S4 cards due to the higher cost ij purchasing them. Recently this hasn't been the case however with S5 cards dropping down to 300 and now even 200 token rewards.
So what has changed here and why?
A: Nothing changed. Weekend missions for the new card are treated like a rebate. When we price them we are taking a bet on how many players will try to acquire that card based off our best guess from playtesting and performance of similar historic cards.
-Stephen
14)
Q: I realize we currently have 2 0-cost cards by base (wasp and yellow jacket). I'm wondering if you guys are considering adding new 0 energy card(s) to join their ranks. Feels pretty lonely with only 2.
A: I wouldn't say "never" but that's a kind of card we're very careful about. We have considered and eliminated (or recosted) a couple 0-Cost designs this year, in fact.
-Glenn
**This is a fun one to speculate about. Were the designs 0/3 or 0/4 cards with large downsides. 0/0 token-style cards that have an impact on other cards?
13)
Q: Now that we’re able to play around with Mobius, it’s very clear to see some of the cards we didn’t really consider much being hampered by him—namely She Hulk (most of the discussion i saw was centered on how Mobius might HELP her in conjunction with Wave, which has since been settled). I think that She Hulk’s power is significantly less concerning if Mobius exists to threaten any energy-efficient endgame plays.
I’ve also seen comments from the team indicating you’d like to PUSH the power of discount effects because of Mobius. Are there any balance changes you’d like to reconsider/revert as a result of Mobius?
A: Mobius has been live for less than 24 hours. We'll let you know on 10/12, the next OTA after his release, if we want to make shifts in his wake.
-Glenn
**Can we all agree to wait a little longer than 24 hours to worry about a card's power level?
12)
Q: Has Ben Brode voiced any cards.. If so which?
A: He is Super-Skrull's laugh when he takes abilities!
-TheChrisAlan
**Time to go play a few games with Super-Skrull in a deck with the volume up, am I right?
11)
Q: Both Spider-Ham and Iceman are cards that affect a single card in the opponent’s hand, but one shows the affected card while the other doesn’t. Discard effects like Black Bolt also show the discarded card.
Will Iceman remain inconsistent for the foreseeable future? If so, will future similar effects behave like Ham and discard or like Iceman?
A: I believe future cards will behave more like Ham. Revising Iceman is something we're considering, but not as high on our backfill VFX as some other cards.
-Glenn
10)
Q: What's a question that you've always wanted to answer but no one has ever asked?
A: "What's the hardest routine thing to test?"
Thanks, I thought you'd never ask! Matchmaking changes are WILD mainly because we have a lot of nuances to the system. Engineers can simulate a lot of their changes but actual manual verification of some of our rules normally requires several people with multiple clients each fiddling with a whole suite of numbers and levers and having to manipulate things in ways to ensure we're matched together under the expected conditions. It can get pretty crazy and time consuming and that's just for normal queue, Conquest adds even more layers of complexity
-Addison
9)
Q: Are there any location combinations that are not allowed to occur? An example of a forbidden combination might be Sanctum Sanctorum, Death's Domain and Luke's Bar.
A: No, although this is tech we're interested in building.
-Glenn
8)
Q: The patch notes seem to suggest that the primary reason for the snowguard nerf was the fact that she is being used primarily to provide procs to collector and targets for loki by adding the tokens to your hand. With that being said, it then seems counterproductive to make the tokens harder to play by increasing their cost, thereby reinforcing the behavior of never playing them.
A: These notes didn't communicate our rationale well, which I take responsibility for. The issue with Snowguard was that the "floor" of the card, its lowest strength level, was too high. The card will be strong in Loki decks either way, but we'd like the non-Loki Snowguards to be the correct rate. We believe this card is still strong enough to play in decks.
In addition, as cited, we have some other changes coming that Snowguard was overlapping with. So the change was also motivated by wanting to create a fun range of options for cards that add other cards to your hand, which means we don't want one of them to be dramatically stronger than the rest.
-Glenn
**I'm glad that Glenn clarified this because the patch notes seemed to make the opposite point. I do think Snowguard was probably overpowered, but she might be a little too weak now.
7)
Q: Has the team seen any red flags in Alioth's performance thus far?
A: Alioth has one of our strongest cube rates, which is pretty common for a new card players are learning their way around. His winrate isn't as high but is pretty good, and we do see him in a relatively wide variety of decks right now. All of those factors are reasons for us to keep a close eye on him.
-Glenn
6)
Q: As it stands Negasonic is just the garbage can version of Alioth. I'm confused how Alioth gets released with the exact same power as Negasonic. It not only destroys all cards played there, but also doesn't destroy itself. Negasonic needs prio to get off efficiently, where Alioth doesn't require it at all. As well as the fact that Alioth can be Odin'd. Is there going to be a buff / rework for Negasonic? Or a complete nerf / rework for Alioth?
A: 6 is a much more significant Cost than 3. It's actually *more* than twice as much, because the opportunity cost to play the card and other cards are both reduced. That means 3-Cost cards should have much lower strength ceilings and/or more significant costs than 6-Cost cards with similar effects.
-Glenn
5)
Q: I'm curious about what the team thinks of the comparison between Alioth and old Aero. Both cards are optimally used when your cards reveal first on turn 6 (priority) to slam the door on their potential turn 6 come back and win the game, basically meaning the game was over on turn 5.
Aero because of this got changed and her change changed snap deckbuilding significantly. My question is, when it comes to alioth, do you guys believe that he is similar to her in your view? Was aeros problem her ability to win the game on t6 regardless of many possible opposing play lines or the fact that she could do that AND be in many "different" decks?
A: The biggest difference between the two is that "original" Aero often won the game regardless of how and where your opponent played their cards with very little setup--plus, your fallback scenario was having one of the best turn 5 plays in the game.
Alioth requires more meaningful setup and has more vulnerabilities. He also doesn't really have a backup plan.
One of the goals in creating Alioth was to encourage players to "attack" and want to reveal first in competitive play. Too many decks revolved around revealing last on turn 6, whether to present your counterplay or be immune to your opponent's, so we wanted a card that added tension to that situation.
-Glenn
**I think Alioth was always destined to be a disliked card due to his mechanic rather than any cube or win-rate numbers. Similar to the old Leader design, Alioth makes the opponent feel helpless, like there's no counterplay. He can feel like a "checkmate" in the way old Leader and Aero did. I don't necessarily think he's overpowered, but expect the community to dislike him.
4)
Q: Can we expect any series drops at all this year, and is there a chance that Spotlights can become less dependent on variant availabilty/that cards that haven't shown up on spotlights yet will show up soon?
A: This is a hotly debated topic internally at SD and has been for a while. Once we align on the right path forward we will share it with everyone. I know you guys want an answer to this right now but we aren’t ready to share next steps yet.
-Stephen
**This is definitely not encouraging. The new system only remains better if series drops resume (and soon!). The fact that this is 'hotly debated' is particularly worrying. You're hotly debating if the acquisition system will be problematic or not? Also, that points to a lack of a cohesive strategy for these acquisition changes.
3)
Q: Has the team discussed maybe adding gold as an option to purchase ultimate variants? Since the spotlight change tokens are naturally more scarce, it takes so much longer to amass 5k tokens now compared to before.
A: We want to add a new way to get ultimate variants but we are mindful of the players that invested a ton of tokens to have these special variants. When we add another method we will be fair to those players so they feel like they got a fair deal for their tokens. Whatever new acquisition method we do will most likely be applied to only new Ultimates for a while.
-Stephen
**Not sure if this is good news or not, but I believe it points potentially to a long-term goal to eliminate collector's tokens altogether. They've already been deemphasized, but they could go away altogether. A change like this would likely be gradual and on a long timeline.
2)
Q: Why was Kitty Pryde slowly 'murdered?'
A: Kitty has been a very strong card for a very long time, and we believed she would be too strong a card continuing at her current rate. Even if that weren't true, we like to make changes that circulate which cards are strong and why, and Kitty has had lots of time in the sun. I'm sure she'll have it again, too.
-Glenn
**Kitty has definitely been on a journey. She'll probably be pretty amazing with next month's season pass card and the reason she was nerfed, Elsa Bloodstone.
1)
Q: Has the team considered not doing weekly OTAs and making them more of a once a month or once every 6-8 weeks? I know there have been instances where things seem bad for a few days, but it seems like the constant updates are being done just to mix things up, not because anything is necessarily unhealthy.
A: We do biweekly OTAs, but their purpose is not exclusively correcting the metagame. It is just as often or more so to "mix things up" because that keeps the metagame fresh and challenging.
-Glenn
**Personally, frequent OTAs to "mix things up" is possibly my favorite thing about Marvel Snap and something I've always wanted in a card game. I'd prefer more, if anything.
That's all for this week. Head to the Marvel Snap discord and ask a question to potentially be featured here.