Transcript (by Youtube)


3s [Music]
5s Rudy's Marvel Strike Force community and
8s welcome to strike time your community
10s update show we've got an absolutely
12s stacked program today so let's jump
15s right into our first interview we have a
17s very special guest with us here in the
19s studio today Mr Ryan Jacobson the
21s general manager for Marvel Strike Force
23s thank you for being here I'm doing well
25s cerebral thanks for setting this up it
27s is absolutely my pleasure as the general
30s manager for a video game do you play a
32s lot of video games yourself yes I'm a
34s hardcore video game player uh ever since
37s I was a little kid you know my mom never
39s really wanted to buy me a console so I
41s was one of those kids who would go over
43s to friends houses and literally play all
45s night on their consoles until I could
47s eventually get an NES a yes I play games
50s literally every single day whether
53s that's mobile games or console games I
55s try and find at least two to three hours
56s per day and right now I would say I'm
59s playing a lot of Diablo and then of
61s course I play a ton of Marvel Strike
63s Force this being a Marvel video game
65s many of our players love hearing from
67s our studio members who some of their
69s favorite characters are what are some of
71s the teams that you're favoring recently
72s in the game well I think it's uh that's
74s a two-prong question right because I
76s think uh for me I actually love a lot of
79s characters I don't necessarily get to
80s play with unfortunately you know too
82s often it's one of the things we've been
84s talking a lot about with the design team
86s of course I'm using a lot of Masters of
88s evil right now right I use various
90s combos uh really with Kang for me Marvel
93s characters I actually love Moon Knight
95s he's probably one of my favorite
96s characters ever since I was a little kid
98s not kind of the new hype around Moon
100s Knight I love Oscar Isaac and what he
101s kind of did for the show but he's always
103s been one of those characters that I
104s thought was just really fascinating this
106s kind of hero type mercenary guy who kind
109s of doesn't know what's really reality
111s what's not now I am glad you brought up
113s Moon Knight because I'm fairly certain
115s that his costume of Mr Knight is not
118s currently available in the game is that
121s something you can address for us yeah
122s let's do that I'll make that a top
124s priority we'll make sure that we get
125s that out there all right cool I've got
127s one more question about you and then I
129s want to jump into our Marquee topic here
131s what does the general manager of a video
134s game do that's a great question I don't
137s know uh no in all honesty uh I'm pretty
140s much responsible for everything right so
142s the business side the team what we're
144s developing why we're developing those
146s priorities uh working very
148s collaboratively with the design team the
150s product team on trying to execute our
151s goals trying to really put on an amazing
153s player experience came from a production
155s background and sometimes the the common
157s term there is kind of hurting cats this
159s is kind of hurting groups hurting team
161s members and kind of making sure that
162s we're all aligned on the goals that
164s we're trying to achieve for the the game
166s in the project um so you also want to
168s listen to a lot of those opinions taking
169s a lot of people's different perspective
171s and try and really think about what we
172s should be doing that's going to provide
174s the best experience for our player base
176s all right let's get into one of the main
177s reasons I invited you today which is the
179s formation of the brand new player voice
182s counsel what is that and what are we
186s going to be doing with it yeah I think
187s the player voice counsel you know came
189s together there was a player report that
192s was sent to us as a you know a 40 page
194s report of kind of everything that they
196s felt like we probably could or should be
198s aware of and potentially be looking at
199s changing
200s um from their perspective of just kind
202s of how much they love and how much
204s passion and engagement they have towards
205s this game and really what we're trying
208s to accomplish is is kind of allowing the
212s community in a little bit right I think
213s we've been a pretty closed off studio
215s and kind of thought hey we're the
216s smartest guys we know what we're doing
218s we're going to develop what we believe
219s in
220s um and not really necessarily listening
221s to a lot of our players and I think that
224s you know while I do believe we have a
225s lot of smart people on this team
227s sometimes we can go a direction that
229s maybe the players don't necessarily
231s agree with and so I think what we're
232s trying to accomplish and really achieve
234s is allowing a lot of that community in
237s to what we're developing why we think
239s we're what we're doing might be right
241s for the game game and also trying to
243s really build a an inclusive environment
245s think of every player type and kind of
248s what is that ultimate player experience
250s that we're trying to deliver for those
251s free to play players the the players who
253s might spend a little bit of their
254s hard-earned money and then the players
255s that you know are willing to spend a lot
257s of their disposable income in the game
258s the community knows what they really
261s want out of this game and so for us it's
263s actually a lot of just listening you
265s know and kind of hearing their
266s perspective and kind of understanding
268s what their thoughts are what their
270s concerns are and then us kind of going
272s back and looking at well should we be
274s making adjustments and if so and you
276s know what are those adjustments and why
278s and do we believe in them really you can
279s just see the passion that they have
282s towards this game and when some of them
283s read off how many days they've been
285s playing this app it amazes me so yeah
289s I'm just really excited that we kind of
290s can collaborate closely with that group
293s on kind of what the future of Marvel
294s Strike Force looks like so the
296s representatives that we are speaking to
298s how are they chosen there's three leads
302s for the council itself right and they go
306s in and they kind of take in a lot of
308s players who actually want to be a part
309s of this Council they kind of say hey I
311s would like to be a part of this and then
313s they really look at who those players
314s are what those player types are to again
317s try and create that really diverse group
319s so we have no control over who is kind
321s of in the council rather they bring a
324s perspective to us of hey we would like
326s these types of players and these player
327s buckets to kind of come in and be a
329s voice of the council and then we just
330s say okay cool awesome let's bring them
332s on in and let's have a conversation can
334s you share some of the Highlight topics
336s that you've covered so far and maybe any
337s actions that we're taking because of it
339s you know the ones that stand out the
340s most for me is kind of events right and
342s kind of how we've been operating the
344s game on the event side and really
346s listening to what the community finds is
349s enjoyable and I think we've kind of
350s deviated a little bit from that path
352s right so I think we've you know been
354s pretty clear where we're stopping kind
356s of gold orb opening events and training
358s orb opening events I know as a player
360s myself I don't really like when I have
362s to wait for an event to come up to open
364s orbs so that I'm gaining points inside
366s of those events I'm very pinched on gold
368s so I know kind of how that feels as a
371s player and so we're trying to loosen
372s some of that up so you can get a little
374s bit more of that for free inside of the
376s game player agency and Theory crafting
378s you know I look back at kind of some of
381s those early videos that Zach did with
383s you right around kind of cosmic Crucible
385s and what that mode was supposed to
386s really deliver for our player base and
389s we really became very prescriptive right
391s on kind of what you could bring in and
392s the value add that you would get from
394s various teams um so we're trying to
396s figure out that right balance right and
397s I think we haven't Struck it yet but I
399s think we're making major changes to the
401s the way we operate this game and the
403s experience we wanted to deliver to our
405s players and I think there's a lot more
407s changes to come in the future so what's
409s going to be the best way for our players
411s to stay informed on an ongoing basis
413s about the topics in the player voice
415s Council and some of the actions that the
417s team is taking well I would say it's uh
419s your blog cerebral right like you gotta
422s always uh push people to the game right
423s and push people to our blog um I think
426s that's one of the ways our Friday blog
428s that comes out is a great way to always
429s stay informed on the latest uh
431s information that's happening in Marvel
432s Strike Force well this sounds great uh
435s I'm really excited that we're
436s communicating directly with players and
438s that we're going to keep the community
439s at large updated uh is there anything
441s that we didn't cover about the council
443s that maybe you wanted to touch on no I
445s wouldn't say necessarily I would say
447s this is going to be ongoing right I
449s think that's what I'm I'm really excited
451s about is kind of building this
453s relationship and this rapport with that
455s group and kind of again keeping them
457s very informed on kind of where we're
459s headed and why and kind of the features
461s we're thinking about new initiatives
462s that we want to be building inside of
464s Strikeforce they're kind of the the
465s first group that kind of gets a taste of
467s what we might be doing and we get their
469s feedback and then we potentially adjust
471s pivot uh off of kind of the feedback
473s that they've been giving us but I just
475s really do look forward to kind of
477s continuing that relationship of having
479s kind of a partner in where we're filling
481s and where Marvel Strike Force is headed
483s in the future thanks a lot Ryan
484s appreciate the info and we look forward
487s to keeping the players informed about
489s the player voice counsel thank you
491s awesome thank you cerebro have a good
493s one all right I am super happy to have
496s back with us on the show principal game
498s designer Matt danuzer Grant how are you
501s good sir good great to be back so we
504s were just talking before the show here
506s about where your Affinity with Marvel
510s actually started and I think it's pretty
512s interesting would you mind sharing that
514s story with us
515s yeah so it was a combination of a few
518s things definitely the X-Men animated
520s series was
522s I Believe In My Memory the first my very
524s first Contact point but what made it
527s that love grow very fast was this
530s gigantic pile of cards uh not this
533s specific pile of cards I got these as an
535s adult but all of the different Marvel
537s trading cards that were coming out in
539s the early 90s that really taught me a
541s lot about the all of the different
543s characters and you know every card had
546s the little stat line on the back so you
547s could be like oh this character can do
549s that this character can do that I have
552s one right here you can see Doctor
553s Strange's little stat bars there barely
558s um and I even found
559s a little black cat that's cool in the
561s binder so yeah that's cool uh I always
564s wondered like when I saw those like how
567s how scientific that was right because
569s they're usually represented like
571s visually like with bars and stuff I was
573s like I wonder what the yes the process
575s is for figuring that out I don't know
577s but I can tell you Doctor Strange has
580s six mental Powers that's what this is
583s wow well it's interesting that you
585s mentioned black cat because we announced
589s that that character is coming to the
590s game as part of a grander team the
593s secret Defenders uh if you could do us a
597s solid and let us all know who are the
600s secret Defenders yeah so the the secret
603s Defenders are a team that is uh it's
607s darker Strange's kind of emergency task
611s force so if something scary is happening
614s like maybe dormammu is around the corner
617s uh Doctor Strange will pull together
618s Secret agents if you will of superheroes
622s that he deems necessary to get things
624s done so in this iteration he calls
627s together uh Black Cat Miss Marvel hard
631s Light Ghost Writer Robbie Reyes and
633s photo so like this iteration uh this is
636s like the the strike force version right
639s like usually when we bring characters in
641s the game well sometimes put a little bit
643s of a spin on it or you know a slightly
645s unique story this is very much the msf
649s version of secret Defenders right that's
651s right that's correct but yeah this is
653s our take on the secret defenders in the
656s lore of Strikeforce at this current time
658s in the story I was just looking through
660s my binder of cards and saw some really
663s old teams that had the same names but
665s they were like totally different rosters
668s so it feels baked into the DNA well that
670s is quite an Eclectic group I think
672s Doctor Strange is going to have his
674s hands full
676s one of the characters uh Ghost Writer
679s Robbie the the hell Charger Vehicle that
682s he's got it looks amazing is that going
686s to be part of the animations like some
688s of the other vehicles in the game
690s sure is it's super cool uh so we're
695s usually testing these things
697s before the art is ready so I still
699s remember the first day I was just
701s testing in my own environment and all of
703s a sudden the car appeared and it was
706s glorious
707s every time it shows up you're very happy
709s to see it just plowing through the the
712s enemy team uh credit to the art team on
714s that one yeah it's almost kind of like
717s the unofficial sixth member I feel like
720s I like to imagine that's how they drive
722s around the world the secret Defenders
724s they all Pile in like a clown car all
727s right everybody
731s all right so the full kits are now there
734s in their Glory over on Marvel
736s strikeforce.com so you can go there over
738s there and read the full details we're
740s not going to do that here but if you
743s could give us kind of a high level
744s description of the team and how they all
747s synergize yeah for sure so the secret
751s Defenders are an apex arena team so
755s they're they're intended place in The
756s Meta is that of a dark hold or the
759s horsemen so you'll be you'll be wanting
762s them to continue
765s your dominance in the arena we we do
768s test them in in many different modes and
770s I can I can tell you they they're pretty
772s good in war as well all right so Arena
775s meta right now we're seeing a lot of
778s apocalypse and Horsemen how is secret
783s Defenders going to fare against some of
785s those other teams we're seeing at the
786s top right now uh well if I did my job
789s right you should win those matchups with
792s full with full secret Defenders you know
795s the the arena meta is such that we want
797s to encourage some amount of of theory
799s crafting so I I won't I won't say flat
802s out that the full five secret Defenders
803s are the absolute best best but you will
806s definitely need a couple secret
807s Defenders mixed in with your Arena teams
810s if you want to uh win so we've got uh
814s Doctor Strange wework coming he will get
817s a little stat boost as we usually do
820s with these reworks also his special
822s ability will now deal damage because it
825s looks like it should so now it does and
828s he also gained some secret Defender
830s specific synergies some Arena call
833s outsole Khan Miss Marvel she is pretty
836s quick she has a mechanic that lets her
840s go first most of the time and then she
843s also on her ultimate ability has a taunt
845s clear so you really want to use that to
850s to get out ahead of the other team clear
852s their taunts and then your next members
854s can can do more damage to the
856s appropriate enemies she's also the
858s protector of the team so she will be
860s taunting and providing defense up and
864s some Safeguard to everyone Safeguard
866s ends up being very important to Black
868s Cat let's talk about black cat she is
871s the legendary of the team and she
873s actually starts with nine Death Proof
876s on her passive ability called Nine Lives
879s it's very cute love it and uh she can
883s also generate her own Safeguard to
885s protect those those uh death proofs and
888s aside from being very difficult to kill
890s uh black cat's primary mechanic is
893s thievery she will steal everything that
897s is possible to steal in the game almost
899s that was kind of her Core Design so
901s you'll see a lot of got it transferring
903s and stealing and if the enemy has this I
906s get that as a legendary brawler she just
910s does plenty of damage pretty often
911s playline as you open with Kamala Khan
914s and she's usually a skirmisher we'll
916s talk more about isos later but you get
918s the skirmisher hit right off the bat and
919s then black cat follows up with the
921s striker hit and then we've got Robbie
923s Ray is Ghost Rider he is a blaster on
926s the team as he blasts through people
929s with his sweet car he applies a lot of
931s bleeds and whenever any enemy gains
934s bleed he gains some speed bar so he's
936s got some race car stuff going on he does
939s a ton of damage with the bleeds and all
942s of his attacks do some some form of AOE
945s so even his basically does a little
946s chain attack he has a charge mechanic
948s actually every character has a charge
949s mechanic but Robbie's is when he has
951s five charged he does a attack all which
954s applies disrupted to to the all enemies
957s and the way he gains charges is when his
959s allies are attacked so you're kind of on
961s a timer when you're facing him you want
963s to be very careful when you spring that
966s disrupted trap and last there is Photon
970s who is kind of the master of light and
974s she has some an AOE blind on her special
977s she generally does a bunch of damage and
979s very special about photon is she's
982s actually on two teams which is a
985s uncommon but very cool thing for her so
988s she is on the secret Defenders but she
990s is also a fifth member for the a-force
993s team that kind of splinters out into a
995s whole other discussion that we can of
996s later in addition to being a awesome
999s fifth member for your secret Defenders
1001s team once you start thinking about war
1003s you can have a full five a force team as
1006s well all right so you mentioned that
1008s photon is also has the a-force trait
1012s which means that if we're doing war
1015s attacks that opens up a slot
1018s on the secret Defenders team so is that
1022s that uh some potential for Theory
1024s crafting there
1025s yeah for sure and more specifically you
1028s you may you may want to keep photon with
1030s your senior Defenders maybe you have a
1032s fifth you really like with a force I I
1034s know Doom has always been a popular
1037s choice there but Doom's awesome maybe
1039s you want to move move Doom around
1040s somewhere else you can put Photon on a
1043s force and then that leaves you with a
1045s fifth spot on your secret Defenders team
1048s which since they are a new Apex team
1051s maybe you want to put another Apex uh
1055s plug and play with them to really really
1057s take down some
1059s big enemy teams so for ISO 8 always have
1062s to say subjective but in your testing
1065s what are you personally favoring for ISO
1068s 8 classes for each of the secret
1070s Defenders start with Dr Strange he is
1073s now a pretty good healer I feel and the
1076s team overall when you have Doctor
1078s Strange with them does get a lot of use
1080s out of that healing but he can also be a
1082s skirmisher certainly for just extra
1085s vulnerables Miss Marvel hard light
1087s almost certainly want her as a
1089s skirmisher because she very often goes
1091s first and you want to be placing that
1094s initial vulnerable strategically but she
1098s also works as a fortifier because she
1101s has lots of barrier in her kit so it
1103s helps kind of magnify that Robbie Ray is
1106s Ghost Rider I I ran him as a Raider most
1110s of the time due to his AOE attacks but I
1113s know some of my my teammates prefer him
1116s as a striker just for the more more
1119s damage Photon can also be a striker or a
1122s skirmisher she's pretty good at both but
1125s yeah you want to just balance out your
1126s vulnerables versus Strikers there and
1129s speaking of Strikers black cat just want
1131s you want her as a striker 95 of the time
1135s I will say
1137s um don't want to completely throw 94 95.
1141s but yeah as the legendary and primary
1143s damage dealer yeah you want her as a
1145s striker all right I'm stoked for this
1148s team Matt when are we going to be able
1150s to get our hands on the secret defenders
1152s in the game you will be able to acquire
1155s the secret defenders in version 7.3
1158s releasing soon all right Matt thank you
1162s so much for taking the time out of your
1164s busy schedule to come here and chat with
1165s us and uh tell us about this team really
1168s appreciate it my pleasure always love
1170s doing this and go community
1174s go Community cheers what's up commanders
1177s Community Archangel here to bring you
1180s this episode's Community Spotlight the
1182s moment when we shine the spotlight on
1184s you the community and show off some of
1186s your accomplishments now if you remember
1188s our last episode at the very end cerebro
1191s showed off his Marvel shirt and said
1194s have you found a great Marvel shirt
1196s somewhere yourself well
1198s Rory scott2941 stated the best Marvel
1202s shirt I found was a visit Tahiti shirt
1204s it's a magical place I love it so much
1208s I'm excited to announce that we're going
1210s to be adding something to community
1211s Spotlight it's going to be called epic
1214s replays go to the official Marvel strike
1216s 4 Discord and there will be a new
1218s channel called epic replays maybe you
1221s get off the amazing King alt on the
1225s entire wakanda team in closet Crucible
1226s and it wipes the entire team that's an
1229s epic moment maybe there's a time where
1232s something doesn't go right and you still
1233s win like this battle between eternals
1236s and here as Guardians on war defense it
1240s doesn't go well at first but still
1242s pulled out the victory maybe it's that
1244s moment when you have a baby apoc and you
1247s finally get to make them into big
1250s apocalypse come to the official Discord
1252s and leave them and I will show them off
1255s on this new segment on the community
1257s Spotlight something else I really
1259s excited to bring to you is only Marvel
1261s Strike Force official Discord we're
1263s going to add a new channel called blog
1265s questions and every Friday when the blog
1267s is posted if you have questions go in
1270s there and post them and I Archangel will
1272s come and answer them as soon as I can
1274s now let's show off the community art if
1277s you weren't aware there was actually a
1279s contest this past month announced on the
1282s official Discord server this is done by
1284s our moderators there we want to give a
1286s big shout out so this contest was a
1288s theme involved the bifrost team here are
1291s the finalists first up we have
1294s shark evolve by P gagovgo
1297s an album cover for bifrost by Baku Nawa
1301s 909 the Loki Kiss by penguin of the
1305s wattles and also by bakunawa 909 Beta
1309s Ray Bill
1310s and the winner was Sharky ball
1313s congratulations
1315s this will now be a new reaction emote
1319s you can use on the Discord server we are
1322s going to be doing more of these art
1324s contests so please participate and also
1327s get out there and vote for your
1329s favorites next up we have your
1331s accomplishments first up we have how
1333s bite la who pulled a seven red star core
1337s off the Conqueror he said anti-brag on
1339s there but hey take good use of him on
1342s the cree Lane and Gamma raid right and
1344s then next up we have someone who G18 a
1347s character oh and it is
1352s and Archer
1355s it's an interesting choice interesting
1357s choice okay uh moving on uh next and
1360s finally we have Benjamin who got an
1363s amazing
1365s 100 Shard Nova pull dude
1369s fist bump thank you so much for
1371s submitting your artwork and your
1373s accomplishments we're going to leave you
1375s with this question in Marvel Strike
1377s Force what character got announced that
1381s made you the most excited please go to
1383s the comments and answer and we'll show
1385s them all for the next episode thank you
1387s so much for watching please be sure to
1389s hit that subscribe button and the like
1391s button give us a little thumbs up and
1393s we'll see you next time
1401s what's wrong with the crown there are
1403s plenty of Marvel characters that have
1405s worn crowns
1406s well maybe Halloween should be in July