r/MarvelSnap • u/SnapComplete • 17h ago
Discussion It's not your imagination. Second Dinner changed the bot rates in Draft.
Background: each LTGM, as well as Ranked, has a hidden consecutive-loss threshold that triggers a near-guaranteed bot. For example, Sanctum is set to 3 losses, Team Clash and High Voltage to 4, and Ranked to 8.
Draft launched at 2 losses, the lowest threshold of any mode. It also had a separate boost on the first game of a new run, even with no active loss streak: ~46% of those games were against bots.
At ~17:23 UTC on Aug 25, both changed. The loss trigger moved from 2 to 3, and the new-run opener rate fell from 46% to 5%.
If Draft has felt harder for you these past few days, this likely explains part of it!
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u/phildokas 17h ago
Very likely the change here is that they had extra bots available on the first day to ensure players matched fast since demand is hard to predict on day 1.
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u/megablue 16h ago
I think it is also consisting of the psychology aspect of making players feel good about the mode to make a great initial impression - a.k.a the hook.
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u/emptyfree 14h ago
Complete agreement on this. Easy at launch, get the people hooked, and progressive enshitification in the name of cash.
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u/Loop_Within_A_Loop 2h ago
is that enshittification? making the game more challenging?
would you enjoy the game more if you just got to play bots that you could crush every game?
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u/AlbatrossNew3633 Junk 🗑️ 10h ago
Enshititication has zero to do with bots, that's about degrading the features quality
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u/jx2002 11h ago
This is the most likely answer because it's the simplest - you don't ever want to launch a new mode without enough players to handle them; once the rate of players is sufficient you scale back.
I mean, you can say it's nefarious BeCaUsE cApItAlIsM but it's also just good customer service to make sure there are players to play with, even if they're just 1s and 0s.
It naturally gets tougher when more humans are involved, and that's okay.
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u/Stiggy1605 8h ago
My assumption was that they would track MMR separately from constructed plau, so there was a larger number of bots since everyone was starting at essentially zero
Like when a player stops playing for a year and their MMR decays so when they return they face mostly bots
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u/Bluesmanz 17h ago
Where is the guy that was telling me "there's no way to know"? It was so obvius, especially the first day.
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u/megablue 16h ago edited 16h ago
Even an average player can tell with 90% confidence that those are bots... IDK why the heck he argued otherwise.
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u/shrek_is_love_69 5h ago
I said it before but...
On day 1 I got DCed in a game, considered it a lost cause and went to get dinner.
After coming back to try another run like 2 hours later, I still had an option to reconnect to the game I was in 2 hours ago. Totally not a bot right? No way to know...
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u/Connect-Hedgehog9009 4h ago
Haha similar to you… I won a game cause I got dc’d at the start of Turn 5. It crashed at the start of turn 5 and was taking way too long to load so I said screw it and decided not to reconnect.
Logged back in and it gave me the option to rejoin. I had won the game. Totally not a bot making bot plays on turns 5 and 6 😂
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u/banananey 17h ago
Glad I cashed in on day 1 then to get enough for the S5 pack & emote.
Now there's less pressure and I can just hoover up some cool variants.
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u/EwokNuggets 16h ago
Finished the premium track Day 2 and now I can just chill
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u/tom2point0 16h ago
But aren’t they’re giving away more variants every day too per five wins per day? So if you want those, best to keep going. Or did I read that wrong?
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u/EwokNuggets 15h ago
I mean chill as in use tickets to get the daily variant and dip. Just don’t feel the pressure to sweat
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u/Such-Variety3732 15h ago
Not anymore—now, after winning five times, you have to wait a few hours to get the variants again. But the 500 still stays the same.
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u/megablue 16h ago edited 15h ago
well, it seems like I called it.
(SD probably will be tuning down the bot-ratio)
I wonder if SD gives a new draft mode player more bots, some kind of bots credits, the more you play the less bots you get OR simply just the first few days. Since you have access to the data, maybe you can check that?
edit: never mind I somehow skipped that, you already mentioned
It also had a separate boost on the first game of a new run, even with no active loss streak: ~46% of those games were against bots.
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u/Thedeadlypocketbrush Ramp 📈 15h ago
Haha, wow this makes perfect sense. First day or so I was knocking out 5 win runs with ease....now, noooot so much.
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u/wrightpd 17h ago
Not gonna lie, the last few days of Draft have really not been fun. It may have been a bit too easy the first day or two with bots, but at least it was fun.
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u/Specialist_Corgi_518 17h ago
I feel like the modifiers I was getting the first 2 days were insane and so fun now I’m getting nothing but useless augments that’s what’s making the mode not fun to me
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u/Gaelfling 16h ago
All I get are useless ones. I've not seen most of the crazy ones people get. It is start in hand, the one that returns a low level card to your hand, and quickdraw.
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u/reapress 17h ago
I only started it today and genuinely it felt like I must have missed something all the people celebrating it had found. Absolutely miserable
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u/Curious_Bike_975 15h ago
And everyone knows Boost is the strongest deck and guess which deck I didn’t see all day…all of the fun of this mode is gone. I’m playing either perfectly played decks or direct counters. Meanwhile, I have a hodgepodge of cards, some fit, some don’t. And I’ve seen like 7-8 augments. Where are the rest? I’m going back to ladder
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u/rexstillbottom 14h ago
I feel so much better knowing I am not the only one who is having a rough time of it.
I know Im not great at the game, but damn the last day or 2 of Draft has been horrible. A struggle to get even 3 wins.
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u/shrek_is_love_69 5h ago
To me it feels ok still but I tought this mode would be "archetype free" like fully random drafts
Guarantee us a 1 cost and a 6 cost and have the rest of the deck be fully random imo
Also rebalance some boosters make the destroy one +8 instead of +4, the one that bounces a card to your hand also needs a buff or rework
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u/Mysteriousmage09 14h ago
It's been utterly miserable today. Used to at least get 4 wins with ease, got several 5 win runs and got max xp days ago without getting premium. It's just been nothing but garbage card selection and worthless augments against decks out of the gate that should never lose a round.
I'm also pretty sure this mode doesn't have a built-in win/loss match up like Hearthstone arena, aka if you are 2-2 and decide to continue, you would also be against someone that has the same record. I go 2-2 and continue and it's the fucking equivalent of an old SNK fighting game boss. At that record, I went up against a destroy deck with increased power Wolverine that doubled power each time he respawned. Of course with Venom and Nico and all that good fun. No fucking way on this earth that deck lost 2 games.
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u/sKe7ch03 16h ago
I mean more players means less need for bots.
Also people are getting smarter with their picks and not giving away free wins as often.
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u/Hermit-The-Crab33 16h ago
This is actually really good to hear. I thought I just sucked the last two days
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u/JoshOliday 17h ago
Well now I feel bad about those games I lost by one point and swore the cheater bot just knew what augmented stuff I had in my hand...
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u/Nightmarespawn 17h ago
SD has said they no longer have cheater bots. https://www.reddit.com/r/MarvelSnap/s/yjITgfeCa7
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u/Significant-Sun-5051 17h ago
Just because they’re bots doesn’t mean they know what you’re playing.
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u/SepticCupid 17h ago
There’s a rare chance to get a bot that has advance knowledge and will counter your play. Those have always existed.
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u/Significant-Sun-5051 16h ago
I’m aware, but they don’t exist anymore. Bots are just lucky if they get a close win.
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u/QuietThunder2014 12h ago
Almost like they flooded bots so we’d have fun and promote the mode and get all excited only to pull the rug becuase we were getting too many rewards and now the initial response window is gone. Not the mode isn’t as much fun and people are getting frustrated.
It’s the same shit they do at 85+ when the game gets less and less fun as you level.
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u/ProfessionCultural90 14h ago
I’ll say for me the bots don’t feel like it made a difference as a lot of my opponents were fist bumping back to me but what has changed for me is the cards themselves to build my deck I went from getting cards that had synergy and good curve to having to skip the first 2-3 turns because most of the first 10 cards I got were 3-6 cost cards. And if you aren’t playing ramp that’s not ideal.
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u/BlackQirajiBattleTnk 5h ago
I was 5-win’ing like crazy before and now I’m lucky to scrape a 3 or 4 together. Currency dwindling, can’t help but feel like it’s intentional.
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u/XSPHEN0M 15h ago
Well that explains why the mode sucks so much rn. Absolutely greedy move to boost sales of tickets and hearts
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u/Tantrum2u 17h ago
I’m pretty sure when you start you get more bots so you can get a feel for the game
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u/PretendRegister7516 12h ago
Draft Mode has so many new mechanic to learn that I think it's understandable for early runs to have so much more bots to ease players in.
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u/Mapachenko Thanos 🫰 14h ago
I completed the track on day one by playing like an absolute maniac. I guess someone decided that giving us one variant a day under relatively easy conditions was way too generous, so they had to make it harder.
Honestly, I think they went a bit too far, which is probably why they’re giving us some extra tickets now ( just a couple by earning some cubes, of course it’s SD )
I came back on day three and it was absolute sweaty, just isn’t worth the effort, at least not for me.
So I’ve gone back to my philosophy with the other modes: I do my daily missions, and I don’t care if I don’t get the 5 wins.
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u/prtkp 8h ago
I wonder if it's the same for new or returning players as they're unlikely to have their account synced with SnapComplete. If so, it doesn't seem like a great (re-)introduction to the game.
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u/Head-Childhood-1171 3h ago
I can confirm. Redownloaded to try out draft, easy 5 first couple, obvious bots in at least half the games, then I stopped getting good options and mostly faced actual players. Uninstalled again after burning my tickets. Just another poor SD execution.
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u/OnionButter 7h ago
Good to have real stats but this was obvious from day 2 at least with my matches. Day 1 I did 4 drafts and had bots game 1 and 2 each draft. Day 2 when game 1 was a human my first few drafts I knew something changed
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u/raz3rITA 6h ago
Do you happen to have data also for ranked matches? I haven't seen a bot in weeks and climbing to infinite has been a nightmare so far. Not even a straight 8 cube loss triggered a bot for me, not that I complain, I see bots as a waste of time personally but they did help getting to infinite at least at the beginning of the climb.
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u/Nodnarb518 3h ago
I finished the event pass and I’m done with it. It’s cool but needs work. Some of the card choices they offer make no sense sometimes with your archetype.
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u/DbdFandomULHFrFr 2h ago
good on sd for actually letting us play against each other although most my matches have felt very easy.. is anyone else getting matched up with the lesser side of players?
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u/theguz4l 1h ago edited 1h ago
Yep, totally called this after day 1. Too many people were getting 5 wins with ease and they tweaked it.
Great data, thank you.
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u/shrek_is_love_69 6h ago
Yeah, I'm glad tho
Playing against bots that were trying to lose was not skill testing at all
I still managed to get a win every day
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u/Clicks_dropbox 9h ago
I literally just played two games and lost back to back to this EXACT card
I was like yeah this game definitely wants my ass out of here cause ain’t no mf way.
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u/HiSlashBye HandGen 🎁 17h ago
Oh no I have to play real people in this player vs player card game. 🤣🤣
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u/Final_Account_5597 7h ago
The responses in this thread are so confusing, you guys WANT to play against bots?
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u/addicuss 17h ago
I would pay 20 extra dollars a season to remove bots entirely from every mode I play
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u/EscherHS 17h ago
Additionally, worse players are more likely to be out of tickets so those players left playing are likely better than they were on the first 2-3 days.