This is an IGN opinion piece from Carlos Morales, who is a massive fan of Marvel whether it’s comics, movies, or video games. He’s sunk well over 1,000 hours into Marvel Rivals.
Marvel Rivals Season 10 is now available, and it’s coming at a time of crisis for NetEase’s premiere hero shooter. What was once a smash hit success on launch back in December of 2024 has now become a confused mess of developer priorities as more and more players drop off in favor of games with a clearer sense of direction. Making a live-service game work long term is a feat only a handful of dev teams have managed to achieve, and during its first year it seemed like Rivals was set to join that club. But between consistent balancing problems and a lack of integrity in competitive mode, NetEase’s penchant for predatory monetization creeping into the store, and controversies around character cosmetics that some players believe to be racially motivated, Rivals has found itself floundering when it should be hitting new heights.
These problems can’t be something that Marvel and Disney are too happy about, especially since Avengers: Doomsday, which is almost certain to be a financial success, is only a few short months away and could generate a large influx of new players. Let’s take a look at what’s gone wrong with Marvel Rivals, and what NetEase needs to do to turn things around.
To say that Rivals has had a recurring problem with balancing is something of an understatement. Although the game receives balance changes with each half-season, including a new patch that updated more than half the cast to start off Season 10, Rivals has often struggled to create a battlefield that feels entirely fair. Not that there’s anything wrong with a casual “anything goes” mentality to game design, but NetEase clearly wants Rivals to be a competitive game – it’s heavily pushing into the e-sports and tournament space, to the point of clogging up the main menu with tabs dedicated to those elements. Yet if NetEase really wants Rivals to be that kind of game, it needs to take a hard look at not just the current state of its characters, but its entire content release strategy.
Starting with Season 3, Rivals implemented an accelerated release schedule, with seasons shortened to two months and one hero released every month (Gorr being the only new hero in Season 10 is set to be an exception). This has resulted in many new heroes being released seemingly without being adequately playtested, with additions like Daredevil, Gambit, Elsa Bloodstone and Black Cat being utterly broken on release and needing multiple seasons worth of nerfs to get them even close to a reasonable state. The new team-up system introduced in Season 9 may have given most characters new tools, but it’s also snowballed the power creep to an outrageous degree, creating a battlefield littered with nonstop ability cooldowns and visual clutter instead of a meaningful neutral game.
Compounding these problems are NetEase’s flawed matchmaking algorithm, which often results in stomps instead of engaging matches, and the developer’s refusal to add significant penalties for toxic behavior in competitive mode. While cheaters do receive account bans, throwers and leavers are only slapped on the wrist with 15 minute suspensions, which hardly deters bad actors. NetEase recently announced it will implement “stricter penalties” for repeat offenders, but didn’t offer any details beyond increasing the duration of suspensions. I know this is a free-to-play game that depends on players routinely purchasing battle passes and costume bundles to stay afloat, so NetEase likely doesn’t want to shut out paying customers, but the lack of integrity in ranked play is detrimental to the intended strategy for the game’s future.
These problems have been so pronounced that many players on social media have even called for Zhiyong, the game’s lead combat designer, to be fired. While that may be several steps too far, such sentiments don’t materialize in a vacuum, and they’re only exacerbated by the game’s other issues, many of which stem from the cosmetics.
As mentioned previously, I’m well aware that free-to-play games like Rivals need to make money in their costume shop. And to be fair to NetEase, the game has been quite generous with free costumes and in-game units through seasonal events. However, the game has also been mired in controversy both for the more aggressive monetization strategies (a problem endemic to other NetEase games) and the uneven distribution of costumes among the character roster.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/marvel-rivals-needs-an-intervention
