Why people are leaving Marvel Rivals? Because of the EOMM!

[Cxcxcy]

Marvel Rivals is a game that had me hooked from the start. With its iconic characters, engaging gameplay and vibrant community, it seemed like the perfect game for fun. But my experience over time has taken a sharp turn and the root cause of my frustration boils down to one issue - the EOMM system.

For those unfamiliar, EOMM stands for Engagement Optimized Matchmaking. At first glance, it sounds like a clever idea - a system designed to keep players engaged by dynamically adjusting matchmaking to make the game more enjoyable. However, in practice, EOMM feels manipulative and deeply frustrating. Let me explain why.

The Flaws of EOMM:

Artificial Winning and Losing Streaks

EOMM seems to purposefully place players on streaks, both winning and losing. When you're on a winning streak, it feels great—but it’s clear in hindsight that these wins are often against significantly weaker opponents. Then, almost inevitably, you’re thrown into a losing streak where you’re matched against far more powerful players. This rollercoaster of emotions is not organic - it’s engineered to keep you chasing the high of victory, only to yank it away when you're at your peak.

Lack of Player Agency

EOMM undermines the core satisfaction of improving as a player. Your success or failure often feels disconnected from your skill level or strategic choices. Instead, it feels like the system is manipulating the odds to achieve its engagement metrics, leaving little room for genuine growth or mastery.

Community Frustration

I’m not the only one feeling this way. Many players in the community forums and on social media have expressed similar grievances about the matchmaking system. The shared sentiment is that EOMM prioritizes engagement metrics over player enjoyment and it’s driving long-time players away.

Why I’m Leaving

Gaming should be about fun, challenge and fair competition. Unfortunately, EOMM in Marvel Rivals undermines these principles by turning gameplay into a psychological tug-of-war designed to maximize player retention and monetization.

I’ve spent countless hours building my roster and strategizing, but the joy I once felt has been overshadowed by frustration and a sense of manipulation. I’m no longer willing to invest my time and money in a game that prioritizes metrics and skin sales over its players.

To the Developers

I hope the team behind Marvel Rivals takes this feedback seriously. EOMM might boost short-term engagement, but it’s driving dedicated players away in the long run. Consider revisiting the system and prioritizing fair, skill-based matchmaking that rewards player growth and strategy.

To my fellow players, if you’ve been feeling the same way, you’re not alone. Maybe it’s time we demand better or move on to games that truly value their communities.

UPDATE #1

Following 170 comments I see on this thread, I think it’s important to make a small announcement.

• First. Everything that is written here is my own OPINION, based on my personal experience and the experience of other players.

• Second. If you are asking me for a legal evidence to proof that it’s an EOMM, well I can’t provide you one. You need to be realistic, I am just a player playing the game. I am not from a game’s development team nor I have a team of 100’s of researchers who can gather data. The documents from devs been shared in this thread, where they express their views and research about matchmaking. Every person here interprets this document the way they want it to be due to it’s complexity.

• Third. When I made this post, I wasn’t aware that the game potentially also uses bots as well. It can be as a standalone practice or as a part of EOMM - I don’t know.

The thing that is true to me at this point, is that there are some serious issues with a matchmaking system, that does not separate SOLO PLAYERS IN RATED GAMES by their skill. Instead, it’s trying to satisfy everyone with 48%-52% win/loss ratio wether you are a noob or pro solo rated player. That’s what I believe.

• Four. I am not claiming that my opinion is the only one that is true. I am not asking you to believe me, follow me or agree with me.

The goal of this thread is to highlight a matchmaking problem that I believe exists and make players do an informative decision wether they want to carry on playing the game or not.

Ideally this thread would be seen by someone from the NetEase, so they could provide some clarity.

[Luquash]

The game is extremely repetetive. Every match is the same thing over and over. You load in, 3 dps are already instalocked so you either pick Strange/Mag and hope the remaining two players pick healers or you pick a healer yourself like a good boy and hope you will get one more healer and a tank. Then you walk out of the spawn room and either steamroll the entire enemy team in 10 seconds or get spawn camped until the match ends.

[[HN]]

I'll copy past what I wrote on another thread:

I quit the game shortly after the start of season 1, after having grinded quite a lot of the season 0, and the reason I quit was because of how extremely obvious the heavy hand of the match making was.

One game you roffle stomp an enemy team that is super weak and passive, the next you get completely spawncamped with a team that can't even get a basic comp.

After a couple of night like that I just called it quite.
I've been playing online games for 3 decades and I've never EVER seen such obvious match making manipulation in my life.

[Xenu]

It's so fascinating to see how conspiracy theories start.
EOMM dosen't exist. I know tons of people in the game industry.
This is not a thing lmao it dosen't do what you think it does

[J A 3]

I always stop playing for the day when I lose. And I don't buy skins.

[DietDrPibb]

Publicado originalmente por Xenu:

It's so fascinating to see how conspiracy theories start.
EOMM dosen't exist. I know tons of people in the game industry.
This is not a thing lmao it dosen't do what you think it does :praisesun:

No you see I am the best player in the world and if I lose especially if I lose twice in a row its because a giant conspiracy to make me lose, not because I'm bad or tilted.

[sentient microbe]

Publicado originalmente por DietDrPibb:

Publicado originalmente por Xenu:

It's so fascinating to see how conspiracy theories start.
EOMM dosen't exist. I know tons of people in the game industry.
This is not a thing lmao it dosen't do what you think it does :praisesun:

No you see I am the best player in the world and if I lose especially if I lose twice in a row its because a giant conspiracy to make me lose, not because I'm bad or tilted.

You think people are that tilted over 2 losses? C'mon have some class, or decency. People like me are irritated because of the overwhelming guarantee of lose or win due to the balance being so much in the favor of one team or another. In other words, the game has no competitive integrity. I've played this game for 200+ hours and at this point I've gathered what I need to know and even more than I should have.

I've been getting such obviously fabricated matches for too long. I can tolerate some here and there, but not the blatant manipulation so frequently occurring in this game. I know I'm not the best gamer, but I'm better than a 52% win rate. Its not even suspicious because it is so obvious. If its not obvious to you then you don't enjoy competitive integrity or you're trolling.

Don't want to call it EOMM? Call it whatever you need to so you may understand the issue that concerned gamers are trying to reveal. You may enjoy wasting your time winning matches that you would have won if you done nothing but stood in spawn, or you may enjoy losing matches that a God couldn't even sway to a victory. Many people however play competitive games so that they can ~COMPETE~ in them. This is not an RPG and we're not playing it so that I can drool on my keyboard while getting my in game character kicked around or while watching my enemies get kicked around.

[Wooden PC]

Publicado originalmente por sentient microbe:

Publicado originalmente por DietDrPibb:

No you see I am the best player in the world and if I lose especially if I lose twice in a row its because a giant conspiracy to make me lose, not because I'm bad or tilted.

You think people are that tilted over 2 losses? C'mon have some class, or decency. People like me are irritated because of the overwhelming guarantee of lose or win due to the balance being so much in the favor of one team or another. In other words, the game has no competitive integrity. I've played this game for 200+ hours and at this point I've gathered what I need to know and even more than I should have.

I've been getting such obviously fabricated matches for too long. I can tolerate some here and there, but not the blatant manipulation so frequently occurring in this game. I know I'm not the best gamer, but I'm better than a 52% win rate. Its not even suspicious because it is so obvious. If its not obvious to you then you don't enjoy competitive integrity or you're trolling.

Don't want to call it EOMM? Call it whatever you need to so you may understand the issue that concerned gamers are trying to reveal. You may enjoy wasting your time winning matches that you would have won if you done nothing but stood in spawn, or you may enjoy losing matches that a God couldn't even sway to a victory. Many people however play competitive games so that they can ~COMPETE~ in them. This is not an RPG and we're not playing it so that I can drool on my keyboard while getting my in game character kicked around or while watching my enemies get kicked around.

its always the ones with private profiles crying about their matches being rigged. I have heard countless of times about players always blaming their teammates for their losses across a lot of competitive games its always the same sentence of "if only i have good teammates i will easily rank up" . In this games case its more like " the matchmaker is purposely giving me bad teammates everytime im on a winstreak to prevent me from climbing ......"

[sentient microbe]

Publicado originalmente por Wooden PC:

Publicado originalmente por sentient microbe:

You think people are that tilted over 2 losses? C'mon have some class, or decency. People like me are irritated because of the overwhelming guarantee of lose or win due to the balance being so much in the favor of one team or another. In other words, the game has no competitive integrity. I've played this game for 200+ hours and at this point I've gathered what I need to know and even more than I should have.

I've been getting such obviously fabricated matches for too long. I can tolerate some here and there, but not the blatant manipulation so frequently occurring in this game. I know I'm not the best gamer, but I'm better than a 52% win rate. Its not even suspicious because it is so obvious. If its not obvious to you then you don't enjoy competitive integrity or you're trolling.

Don't want to call it EOMM? Call it whatever you need to so you may understand the issue that concerned gamers are trying to reveal. You may enjoy wasting your time winning matches that you would have won if you done nothing but stood in spawn, or you may enjoy losing matches that a God couldn't even sway to a victory. Many people however play competitive games so that they can ~COMPETE~ in them. This is not an RPG and we're not playing it so that I can drool on my keyboard while getting my in game character kicked around or while watching my enemies get kicked around.

its always the ones with private profiles crying about their matches being rigged. I have heard countless of times about players always blaming their teammates for their losses across a lot of competitive games its always the same sentence of "if only i have good teammates i will easily rank up" . In this games case its more like " the matchmaker is purposely giving me bad teammates everytime im on a winstreak to prevent me from climbing ......"

Oh, so sorry you can't see my profile, troll :(

Is your IQ really so low that you don't understand a team game requires team effort? I can switch and play my role as much as i want, but its not going to stop the forced loss. Regardless of skill a persons match outcomes should not be so heavily manipulated that a genuine door knob is getting participation trophies and someone like myself who is certainly above average having the same near 50% win rate. I don't have to be the next Timmy to enjoy realistic match outcomes for my skill.

Nah, you're just a troll though. A real person with remotely reasonable thinking skills would understand the situation as it is.

[Rave Pathfinder.]

Because although hands outs are nice, give too many people handouts leave some with bad taste in their mouth.

[CriticalFury]

The thing that triggers me is when you start a match with 1 or 2 players disconnected from the game and you just get steam rolled by the opposite team. If teams are uneven the match shouldn't start at all.

[sentient microbe]

Publicado originalmente por Rave Pathfinder.:

Because although hands outs are nice, give too many people handouts leave some with bad taste in their mouth.

Handouts are nice for people that don't like to earn things with reasonable effort.

[Rave Pathfinder.]

Publicado originalmente por sentient microbe:

Publicado originalmente por Rave Pathfinder.:

Because although hands outs are nice, give too many people handouts leave some with bad taste in their mouth.

Handouts are nice for people that don't like to earn things with reasonable effort.

True. Then again I only say that as person who had to go through trial with fire a lot here and there.

[sentient microbe]

Publicado originalmente por Rave Pathfinder.:

Publicado originalmente por sentient microbe:

Handouts are nice for people that don't like to earn things with reasonable effort.

True. Then again I only say that as person who had to go through trial with fire a lot here and there.

Yeah I understand that perspective as well. But its more of relief from abuse than it is a feeling of genuine accomplishment and the comparison in that alone feels distasteful ya know? Like feeling comfort in getting yelled at as opposed to being beaten or something of the like.

[Wooden PC]

Publicado originalmente por sentient microbe:

Publicado originalmente por Wooden PC:

its always the ones with private profiles crying about their matches being rigged. I have heard countless of times about players always blaming their teammates for their losses across a lot of competitive games its always the same sentence of "if only i have good teammates i will easily rank up" . In this games case its more like " the matchmaker is purposely giving me bad teammates everytime im on a winstreak to prevent me from climbing ......"

Oh, so sorry you can't see my profile, troll :(

Is your IQ really so low that you don't understand a team game requires team effort? I can switch and play my role as much as i want, but its not going to stop the forced loss. Regardless of skill a persons match outcomes should not be so heavily manipulated that a genuine door knob is getting participation trophies and someone like myself who is certainly above average having the same near 50% win rate. I don't have to be the next Timmy to enjoy realistic match outcomes for my skill.

Nah, you're just a troll though. A real person with remotely reasonable thinking skills would understand the situation as it is.

"Someone like myself who is certainly above average" do you genuinely believe this crap even though you keep going back and forth from diamond and plat? Is accepting the fact the your skill lvl is between diamond-plat difficult?. No you it must be the matchmaker giving you bad teammates to keep you from going up

[Rune]

Congratulations. You have discovered that peoples interests vain over time.

People find new cool game.
People play game. A lot.
People suffer burnout.
People don't play as much.
People sometimes come back with new DLC or just because they miss it.