The Developers at Second Dinner have been answering community questions over on the Marvel Snap Discord. We've gone through to find the most interesting answers from the past week and summarized them for you here.
- This recap covers answers given on the Discord from August 30 through September 10.
- This is not an exhaustive recap of every answer. We've picked out answers to questions that we either felt were the most interesting, enlightening, or provided additional context to previous answers.
- The transcript below covers the full answers given to the points we've summarized; for the full experience you'll have to scroll through the Discord and see what we haven't covered.
- If you want to read our previous Developer Discord Recaps, they can be found here.
Global Launch
- Marvel Snap has a release date: October 18th. Players can pre-register to get an exclusive variant.
- At launch, both iOS and Android will be supported. A PC version will be available at launch through Steam Early Access.
- Consoles will not be supported at launch, but may come later.
- The game will not be available at launch on the Amazon App Store.
- At launch, Marvel Snap's text will be localized into 14 languages: English, French, German, Spanish (Mexico), Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Thai, Indonesian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
- Six languages will be supported with audio at launch: English, Spanish (Mexico), French, Japanese, Traditional Chinese (Taiwan), and Korean.
- The October Season will be five weeks to accommodate new players.
Cards and Collection
- They don't plan to add new cards to Pools 1 or 2. New cards will usually be added to Pool 3.
- If it makes sense, they will move existing cards down. Players have already seen this happen with Killmonger.
- There is no Pool 4.
- They are working on ways to juice up player experience post-Pool 3.
- Some cards (like Galactus) aren't part of Pool 3 because the team wants them to feel special. They will share more details about that in the future.
- They do not want to incentivize players to destroy cards or Variants in their collection. Ironically, there will be no "dusting" in Marvel Snap.
- They want to add character bios to cards at some point.
Gameplay
- They aren't going to add a visual representation of your opponent's hand.
- They aren't going to change anything about the in-game experience for PC players. They want it to be as similar as possible to mobile so that PC players don't have an advantage.
- They don't want to add win bonuses because it messes with Snap decisions. They are going to improve the post-Infinite experience in some other way - details coming in the future.
- They are going to add friendly battles and Guilds in the future.
- An in-game deck-building assistant is something that they plan to add. Tian (who, you may remember, worked on Hearthstone) has a lot of experience with this sort of thing.
Variants
- After launch, the plan is to add 15-20 Variants per month.
- They like the current Variant pricing in the shop, but are open to continued experimentations with it.
- They will keep making Variants with art that players seem to like, but also continue to try out new art styles.
- They don't currently have plans to add Zombie Variants, but they think it would be cool.
Team Answers Transcript
Quote From Snap Developers On the trailer it says Pre-Register Now and shows Apple Store, Google Play and Windows, but on the website Windows isn't available, is this some sort of mistake? or is Windows Client coming also October 18th?
Stephen: Will be on Steam Early Access on 10/18 (Source)
Well you ever release it on other consoles ?
Stephen: Not for initial release but never know for the future (Source)
Will you release on Amazon App Store? It is my preferred method due to discounts offered
Stephen: No plans to go on Amazon at initial release (Source)
Which languages will be available at launch besides English?
Stephen: English (EN)
French (FR)
Italian (IT)
German (DE)
Spanish (Mexico, LatAm) (ES-LA)
Simplified Chinese (ZH-CN)
Traditional Chinese (ZH-TW)
Japanese (JPN)
Korean (KR)
Portuguese (Brazilian) (PT-BR)
Russian (RU)
Thai (TH)
Indonesian (ID)
Spanish (ES-ES)
Vietnamese (VT) (Source)Audio at launch will be:
- English (EN)
- Spanish (Mexico, LatAm) (ES-LA)
- French (FR)
- Japanese (JP)
- Traditional Chinese - Taiwain (ZH-TW)
- Korean (KR) (Source)
Next season is set to start on Oct4/5… Launch will be Oct 18… People who start playing on launch, after they do the recruit season will be half way through season 5… or something else?
Stephen: October's season will be 5 weeks to give new players more time to beat it (Source)
Are you planning on adding more cards to pool 1 and/or 2 in the future?
Stephen: We probably won't add new cards to pool 1-2 but we may move down existing cards when/if it makes sense like we did for Sandman and Killmonger (Source)
Do you know when Pool 3 will end and pool 4 will start?
Stephen: Series 3 ends when you acquire all the Series 3 cards. Series 4 doesn't exist. If it did, would it have to be mutually exclusive from Series 3? (Source)
What % of players have a full collection at this point?
Any concerns as to what players will do once they complete pool 3? I expect interest may drop off once all cards are collected.
Stephen: It's super small (less than .5%). Yes very concerned about what happens when someone gets all pool 3 cards and how it will impact their engagement. We are working on juicing up the experience for players after pool 3 in a future update. (Source)
What is the reason for some cards like Galactus being available randomly (District X .etc) but not from CL? And will there be added to CL at some point?
Stephen: These are some of the most powerful beings in the multiverse. We wanted them to feel special when you get them so they aren't part of series 3. More details in the future! (Source)
Could there be a ticket thing in the BP where you use a ticket and sacrifice an variant or something like that for the folks who want to change then? I like most of them, but some people might not.
Stephen: Philosophically we do not want players to destroy cards or variants. The game is about collecting as much as it is about winning (Source)
i've collected physical marvel cards before. i miss the feeling of reading character bio or stats on cards, will you be adding more info on the cards outside the functional stuff?
Stephen: We want to add this at some point (Source)
Do you have any intention of creating visual representation of opposing players' hands? While it doesn't take a ton of effort to click on the portraits, it feels like information we're used to just glancing at in other card games
Stephen: No plans to do this right now (Source)
for the PC client is it your intention that we will be able to clearly see the opponent’s hand and the positions of their cards in hand rather than just the number of cards they have?
Daniela: At this time I can say that we're trying to keep the in-game experiences between mobile and pc as similar as possible so PC players don't have info advantage over mobile (Source)
After hitting infinite I find myself never snapping for reasons I'm sure the team is aware of.
Would it be possible to reward the player with additional boosters based on the number of cubes they win?
Stephen: We don't want to mess with win bonuses because it changes the dynamics with snapping. However, we do want to improve the post infinite experience. Coming in the future. (Source)
Does this game ever plan to introduce friends lists and you’ll be able to challenge your friends to opponents?
Also, clubs? Where clubs compete against other clubs for big rewards etc?Stephen: We want to do guilds and friendly battles in the future. (Source)
Any plans for an in-app suggestion tool to assist with deckbuilding? Not every player will be as interested or good at deck-building, and relying on 3rd party resources isn't an ideal player experience.
Stephen: Yes we want to do this. Tian is a brilliant data scientist who has built this in other top card games. Coming in the future for Snap! (Source)
at what speed do you expect to be adding new variants into the game?
Ben Brode: we have a LOT we are working on but I don't know the exact pace off hand
Stephen: After global we will add about 15-20 per month (Source)
With a small but not insignificant sample size, how does the team feel about variant skins at the 750 gold price point? Too expensive? Too cheap?
Secondary question, has the team considered varying costs for variants in the shop?
Ben Brode: overall we feel pretty good, although I imagine we will continue to experiment in this area over time (Source)
Are there any long term art goals for the game? Like to have Venom or wrestling variants for every character or to have Dan Hipp do a variant for every card?
Stephen: We will keep making what players are interested in and keep trying new art styles (Source)
do you have plan to add zombie variants?
Stephen: Not sure but it would be cool (Source)
Comments
Too late now, I guess, but I would have made the global release day coincide with a new month/Season. Just set it for November 1st: the rewards from October aren't going anywhere - they get added to the various Pools later on - and we don't have to deal with an add-on week to compensate. Is November now going to be a 3-week Season to reset the timeline, will it overlap with the October Season, or will all Seasons from now on be pushed a little outside their month?
Seems like a situation that could have been easily avoided. Everyone clamoring for the game would have to wait two more weeks, sure, but it's still earlier than most expected and I don't think anyone would have seen the November 1st start-date and been upset. "Okay, starts with the new Season; that makes sense." As it is now a fifth week of October's Season still has new players behind the 8-ball, as they only have roughly three weeks to work toward the pass instead of a full month like normal.
Wouldn't have been an issue at all if-not for the battle-pass system in place, but I digress.
I find that answer really strange, tbh. I had thought October would be a "beta" season (meaning that all its rewards are going to be made available to new players later, like they've said all beta season rewards will be), so the answer, in my opinion, should have been that, and not "Well, you get an extra week, so..." October was always going to be a five week season: we've seen them move season starts to the second Tuesday before, and they're on record saying that some seasons will be five weeks to stay in line with the months. The November season will still be four weeks: it'll start on the 8th and go until December 6th.
I do agree that it makes more sense to launch the game closer to a new season starting, but maybe they want to make sure there aren't any unexpected bugs with the season launch that interfere with the global launch. And yeah, considering that they've said that ALL beta rewards will be available to new players after launch, it seems strange to start some players halfway through a season.
I'm holding onto the idea that October will be considered a "beta" season, and November will be the first True Season, meaning that all the rewards from October will be made available later anyway. At the same time, I feel like they would have said that if it were the case. Maybe I need to carefully word a question on the Discord to get more clarification.
Ah, okay, must have missed that information. Still kinda weird, but they have their reasons...
Hasn't dampened my enthusiasm to play Snap, by the by. Just found it to be an odd decision. The drama with the Nexus Events hurt, but they ultimately made the right choice there (i.e: burn that bitch to the ground lol). Perhaps this could still be my new card game of choice, given my diminishing opinion of Hearthstone.