AsMarvel Snapcontinues to evolve its gameplay around an ever-shifting meta, developer Second Dinner has had to adapt to these changes with tweaks and improvements to cards to maintain the game’s balance. In order to elevate gameplay to new levels,Marvel Snaphas continued to introduce cards that push the limits of the game’s mechanics, and lately, end up breaking them. Last season, Kitty Pryde was introduced and promptly removed due to a game-breaking bug, and now it seems like the latest addition, Jeff, could suffer the same fate.
While it is commendable that Second Dinner is looking for ways to create innovativenew cards forMarvel Snapplayers to utilize, it seems like their card ability designs are becoming more ambitious than the game’s engine allows. Both Kitty Pryde and now Jeff have abilities that introduced unique mechanics which alter the rules of the game, causing unexpected interactions with other cards and locations. If Second Dinner hopes to create more unique cards in the future, they’ll need to find a way to account for all possible interactions new abilities might have to avoid breaking the game further.
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Jeff and Kitty Pryde Show the Problem with Introducing Cards that are Too Ambitious
Originally, Kitty Pryde was introduced during the Days of Future Past season as a card with 1-Cost and 0-Power, but the ability to return to the player’s hand to give it a +2 Power increase. As the only card that can return to the player’s hand at will, Kitty Pryde caused some unintended bugs within the game that resulted in game crashes and forced the developers to remove the card entirely while working on a solution to the issue. Recently, it was announced thatMarvel Snapplayers would receive Kitty Pryde for freein May with a new ability that functions within the established rules of the game and removes the feature to return to the player’s hand at will.
While the issue with Kitty Pryde seems to be resolved,Marvel Snap’s latest addition might have just introduced a whole new problem. Jeff the Baby Land Shark was recently added as a part ofMarvel Snap’s current Animals Assemble seasonas a 2-Cost/3-Power card with the ability to move locations once a match and be played at any location regardless of restrictions placed on it. As another card with an ability that operates outside the previously established rules of the game, Jeff has also caused game-breaking bugs to occur resulting in more game crashes and players being locked out of the app.
With another card on the table to be removed indefinitely for a potential rework,Marvel Snapcontinues the trend of introducing cards that are too ambitious for the game to handle. Second Dinner noted in itsMarvel Snapupdateabout the Kitty Pryde situation that her ability had to be completely reworked because the game’s engine simply couldn’t handle the interactions her previous ability caused. If the same thing happens to Jeff, the developers will need to seriously reconsider the scope of future card abilities to prevent a similar situation from happening again.
The good news is that Second Dinner has been very forthcoming about the ways in which they’re tweaking the game to account for player feedback and have offered generous compensation for players affected by theKitty Pryde card issue. As the studio works to create the best experience for players, future cards should introduce interesting new synergies without trying to rewrite the rules of the game. Otherwise, Second Dinner needs to rework theMarvel Snapengine entirely to allow for some of the ambitious ideas they want to implement.
Marvel Snapis available now for PC and mobile devices.
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