Marvel Rivals Proves Listening to Fans Can Be a Double-Edged Sword

Free-to-play games are everywhere now and show no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Marvel Rivals is a shining example of one that excels in large part thanks to its satisfying gameplay, but also because its developers readily incorporate fan feedback and criticism.

Nonetheless, you can have too much of a good thing. In this case, some aspects of the game have gotten worse, proving that striking a balance between listening and remaining resolute is crucial for both player retention and fulfilling gameplay.

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Fan Feedback Has Made Marvel Rivals So Much Better

Games as a Service are frequently seen as anti-consumer, and people often sarcastically say things like “devs listened!” when even the tiniest of conveniences are added. However, Marvel Rivals‘ developers do sincerely pay attention to the community.

For instance, Marvel Rivals has a consistent history of adding quality-of-life features and streamlining game mechanics because players requested them. Some notable examples include:

• Being able to earn currency for any expired battle passes (provided you bought the premium version).
• Altering the mission system to make it easier for players to gain currency.
• Joining mid-match in Quick Play will not count as a loss if your team loses.
• Lord icons can replace generic portraits on the character selection wheel.
• Excess battle pass currency can be redeemed for premium currency once all rewards have been claimed.

Another point of praise for the Marvel Rivals developers is how quickly they manage to patch out bugs and glitches. Given its competitive atmosphere, anything that adversely affects the game needs to be addressed immediately. I’ve only personally encountered a handful of bugs in my 300 hours of playtime, and a big part of that is because of the constant hotfixes and balance patches.

One of the best examples of quick turnaround involves the vanguard, Peni Parker. A few months ago, a hotfix introduced a new bug where Peni’s Arachno-Mines became destructible in her Cyber-Webs. A key component of her kit is strategically placing her mines into Cyber-Webs because it makes the mines both invisible and invincible.

With that protection gone, it made her practically unplayable since many heroes could effortlessly destroy her mines. Not even a full day passed before it was fixed, with some players saying they didn’t even notice the issue because the developers resolved the issue so quickly.

That’s far from all they do, though. The News tab on the official website and the game’s social media channels are regularly updated with patch information, upcoming events, and even insider videos of things like the game’s music and art. They also play on streams with content creators before seasons start to showcase new characters, stages, and changes to existing heroes. It’s easy for companies to say they care, but it’s palpable from the way the developers communicate how much they genuinely love the game, and it’s refreshing to see.

You might think community involvement would take a backseat to gameplay, but good PR can throttle a game, even one with a stellar gameplay loop. Overwatch 2 is a great example of a game that isn’t doing as well as it should, and that’s in large part because developers over-promised before release and have only recently started listening to fans.

Overwatch 2 is still one of the best hero shooters on PC, but Blizzard’s constant miscommunication and turning a deaf ear to player feedback has damaged its reputation. I’m frequently teamed up with people who used to play Overwatch 2 in Marvel Rivals, and they often say they’re playing the latter due to frustration with Blizzard.

Sometimes Developers Need to Act Alone

As wonderful as it is for a game’s developers to hear players, there is an unfortunate side effect of indulging them too much. In the case of Marvel Rivals, Competitive Mode is the worst it has been since it launched. This resulted primarily from fans asking for performance-based point distribution and backlash against the announced mid-season rank reset.

At a glance, the amount of points you win or lose after a match, hinging on your own performance, sounds like a great idea. Sadly, that doesn’t apply to Marvel Rivals for several reasons. The first and most obvious is that, since this is a team shooter, much of how well you do can often depend on your teammates.

Every role in the game depends on another in some way to do well, and if one of those is lacking, the others typically won’t perform well either. A tank that isn’t getting healed isn’t going to be a very good tank, but the supports may not be healing well because they’re constantly getting picked off.

That issue leads to the other problem, which is how the game weighs certain stats at the end of a match. As of now, it appears to prioritize damage dealt and final hits, which is fine for duelists, but that means some tanks and supports are going to fall short, such as Rocket Raccoon.

Rocket Raccoon is a support known for dealing little damage, but providing great healing and utility. Because the game is looking more at damage done, Raccoon players gain less when they win and lose more when they are defeated, especially when compared to high-damage heroes like Iron Fist.

The performance-based point change is already detrimental to climbing in Competitive Mode, but last season’s rank reset hugely contributes, too. In Season 1, the developers stated that at every season’s mid-point, players would drop four ranks. This idea was so vehemently opposed that they scrapped it the same day it was announced. Instead, the new plan was to decrease everyone’s rank only when a season ended, but they would drop nine divisions instead of four.

This turned out to be an even worse idea than the mid-season reset. In Competitive Mode, anyone from Bronze, Silver, and Gold can play with one another. Because the majority of players hadn’t climbed to the highest ranks in Season 1, most of us were dropped into those three ranks.

This resulted in massive rank congestion, where people who were as high as Grandmaster the previous season were playing with people who had never climbed out of Gold. As you can imagine, many matches have become horribly one-sided, leaving players disgruntled.

Roughly once a month, the developers release a “Dev Vision” video discussing upcoming content and changes to existing heroes, systems, and mechanics. In these videos, they often mention the team’s vision and mentality when making decisions concerning balance and the game as a whole.

Marvel Rivals was designed with this vision in mind, and veering from it so frequently is what has led to things like inconsistent matchmaking. Players may not want to hear this, but sometimes they don’t know what’s best for a game, even if it sounds great on paper.

Consistently backtracking and incorporating too much player feedback also leads to two other issues. The first is that by setting this precedent, the fanbase will expect the game to constantly be tweaked and catered to them. If the requested changes aren’t made, it seems like the developers no longer care or aren’t interested in what the community has to say, which isn’t necessarily true.

The second problem is determining whose advice to take. What if casual players feel a character is too strong and demand they be nerfed, while competitive players say the character is actually weak and needs buffs? Black Panther currently falls into that exact category.

Dubbed the “ticklemonster” by players in higher ranks, Black Panther has trouble doing damage and securing kills. In lower ranks, a good Panther player can carry entire teams. Trying to appease so many voices in the decision-making process only hurts the game in the long run and will always leave one or more parties disappointed.

A Balanced Approach Works Best

Like most things in life, the key to maintaining a positive relationship with players without compromising gameplay is balance. Though it’s not a team shooter, a good example of this in the free-to-play space is MiHoYo with Genshin Impact. Since its release back in 2020, the game has seen its fair share of controversy and fan outcry, but is keen on when to stand its ground and when to yield to fan requests.

Quality-of-life updates and increased event rewards are often added because of player feedback, but at its core, the game is still what the developers envisioned when making it. This is a big reason for its continued success and why it still has such loyal fans, despite not always catering to their whims.

Marvel Rivals is a phenomenal game, and there’s a reason it consistently has hundreds of thousands of people playing at any given time. While I truly do appreciate feeling like my voice is heard, I’ll be the first to tell you I’m not a game developer, and my ideas aren’t always going to be as good for a game as I’d like to think. In an ideal world, developers would stand firm with a game’s direction, provided it isn’t inherently predatory or anti-consumer, while keeping an ear to the ground regarding public perception.

In this case, perhaps the performance-based point system could be tweaked further, or even reverted. Another suggestion for matchmaking would be placement matches at the start of every season. This would help even out the playerbase and those that should be much higher will be, theoretically making it easier to match players of similar skill together.

I love Marvel Rivals, and the developers’ transparency has actually managed to sway my cynical outlook that the companies making these free-to-play games don’t really care about their players. I think it has a bright future and will continue to improve, but they should be a little more hesitant when listening to their fan base.

Games are built on the foundation of vision, and diverting from it too often will result in a fractured mess no one will be happy with.