Dev Talk Vol.13 | Seasonal Balance & Competitive Performance

[Marvel Rivals]

Hey, Rivals!

With the launch of Season 2.0, we've been closely monitoring the game environment and feedback from the community. Lately, we've noticed two hot topics generating a lot of discussion: the impact of balance adjustments and the performance ratings of various classes in ranked play. As such, we want to take a moment to clarify and communicate about these two points.


1. Season Changes and Mid-Season Balance Adjustments
In previous seasons, the focus was on key abilities and energy management for ultimate abilities, resulting in a more stable combat pace. However, Season 2.0 shifts the spotlight to coordinated attacks and focused targets, along with the necessary collective protective strategies and counterattacks which has led to a more intense combat rhythm. In this fierce environment, Strategists face increased pressure, needing to monitor teammates' health closely while carefully using their key abilities and being mindful of their positioning on the map. Meanwhile, Vanguards and Duelists must not only attack effectively but also provide better protection for their Strategists to achieve victory.

In the upcoming patch, we will enhance the damage capabilities of certain Strategists to elevate their threat levels, which in turn, will increase team composition possibilities. Additionally, we will make minor adjustments to a few heroes. For example, Groot and Captain America will see slight reductions in survivability. Spider-Man's Amazing Combo damage range will be slightly decreased, Doctor Strange will require less energy for his ultimate, and Winter Soldier's Tainted Voltage and Team-Up Ability will be slightly buffed.

Since this is a mid-season balance adjustment, we aim to be cautious, keeping changes minimal to enhance the experience of certain heroes without drastically altering the overall meta. As we move into S2.5, with Ultron's arrival and new Team-Up Ability adjustments, we'll consider broader, more comprehensive balance changes.


2. Competitive Performance Points
In each match, hero performance rating is calculated based on the average key combat data for that hero at the player's current rank. The more a hero's key combat data exceeds the baseline for their rank during the match, the better their performance rating; and vice versa for poor performance. Of course, these stats are adjusted based on hero usage time to ensure they aren't skewed by playtime. If a player uses multiple heroes in a match, performance rating will be weighted according to their usage time.

We've noticed that, compared to previous seasons, a small number of Duelists have a slight advantage in performance ratings in Season 2.0, while some Vanguards and Strategists face a slight disadvantage. However, most heroes remain balanced. In the upcoming patch, we will optimize the performance rating calculations based on the latest data to ensure fairness across all heroes.

Balancing the game and rank adjustments is a challenging endeavor, and we can't guarantee perfection 100% of the time. However, we remain humble and attentive, striving to address issues promptly and enhance your experience. Stay tuned for official patch announcements for more updates. Thank you for your support and patience!


Ignite the Battle!

[Paulie]

Storm and Human Torch are overtuned, nerf them. Nerf characters that take no effort but deliver high rewards, such as Magik, Iron Fist, and Spiderman.

[Dione]

And the battle is ignited and hoping Mantis gets a little love too because she feels a little underwhelming this season tbh. Otherwise Marvel Rivals <3

[KaptainCnucklz]

Please don't "slightly" reduce Spider-Man's damage, you need to actually nerf him. He's outright oppressive. The "he has a high skill ceiling" argument only gets you so far, since the guy is unbearable to play against EVEN WITH a team who notices him. He can get in, gank both healers, and get out instantaneously before anyone has time to kill him.

You can literally just 1. put a 15 feet range limit on his enemy web grab ability so he can't freely delete enemies using a ledge, and 2. tighten the width of the hitboxes he uses so he can't effortlessly beat you, and most of the work is done. From there do whatever DPS reduction you already planned.

There's zero reason for him to to have the ability to grab a free kill off a cliff from across the map or have that much DPS in his combo, on top of this insane mobility. And NO I don't care if it's lore friendly, it's a video game, and games are supposed to be fun. Spidey is blatantly anti-fun when fighting a good one because he can't be countered.

Anyway can't wait till next patch where they break Adam Warlock's legs and find a way to somehow nerf Strange again.

[Xyxx]

Curious as to what Strategists are deemed worthy in need to get enhanced damage capabilities.

I can't honestly think anyone needs it considering they can all self heal and have really good escape abilities.

Mantis? 50dmg, crit hit capable, 150m a second travel, no fall off damage projectiles need a buff?

Her spore slumber grenade with a near 4 second stun not good enough?

Some one help me because I'm at a loss as to what Strategist need to be enhanced. Because as far as the score boards go players have no problem.

[Veenix]

Also fix Spidey hitting enemies in their phase ability please! CnD and Wanda should not be hit by Spidey when they literally phase into a different dimension!

[Sonrangeri]

I want them to revert Rocket shift-ability to season 1 numbers. I think that's all you need for Rocket, as he can escape divers better again, and can actually stay in frontline safely again as he should due to his minigun damage fall-off.

[Revenant]

1) why would increasing damage make this any better? Strategists can't live while your nerfing some characters...... range...... your overall increasing damage. Increasing the damage is not going to make people play strategist because the characters simply aren't to their liking, its not a i increase the damage and people will magically play them. This is like tekken doing their tekken community dev response (tekken talk) players wanted defense.... and they gave offense...... its completely crazy.

2) Why do you favor team ups .... you even say how important team compositions are but then proceed to not have a form of role queue ensuring you will have a viable team comp and not people locking in 5-6 dps and running it down. Its a waste of time and makes no sense how you can praise team comps, you value team comps, you value team-ups but then let EVERYONE run buck wild.

3) Why are you not being transparent about the point gain....... Its obvious it was based on last hits.... and based on damage ...... and not based on healing like whatsoever. Why don't you exactly admit where you went wrong at ... explain the situation in full instead you say hero performance...... Its obvious based on the current matchmaking system.... there is no performance skill identifier because bronze silver gold all feel the same, and i'm assuming platinum aswell.

4) Why are bans limited to only gold? it should be from bronze onward. Competitive integrity is what this game lacks. You shouldn't have matches where a 3 stacks gets put against a 4 stack...... and you shouldn't have matches where a stack goes against a no stack...... and the change you made to the top two ranks only have duo queue capabilities should APPLY to every rank......this is nonsense.

5) Every game is a landslide....... do you play your own game seriously? I don't know how engaging it is to completely roll your opponent over vs winning a really close match...... it makes no sense how 90+% of the games are just so 1 sided there's like no chance for the other team.

6) EOMM is a terrible system give it up. - i just want more fair matches where people know what they are doing...atleast giving us a shot and not 100-0. Making smurf accounts is actually beneficial to skewing your ranked system.... allowing the player to play longer without being completely destroyed for playing longer sessions. On top of games having smurfing issues, this game actually rewards you indirectly for doing so. If your semi-serious about ranked play, there is no reason to not have an alternative account.

7) Leavers - Trolls - Potentially Bots in ranked - How do half of my games have leavers in them..... i had a guy who legit crashed his pc... and then went to the store to buy some milk.... YOU actually can't make it up. There are some people leaving even though they are winning...... which is obviously a derank tactic. I actually think from watching some players on my team..... rivals makes bots of users and places them in a match with you. Theres just no way i'm believing a landslide like this.

8) Almost every change outside balance (I think you've done a decent job here making all characters in the usable realm) has been based on engagement instead of actual skill.

9) Cheaters - obvious, i can't say much about this but its obvious cheats are running rampant in the game

10) Ranks Mean almost Nothing: The rank system has no competitive nature to them...... season 1.5 - ask gm players if they can notice a difference from gold/plat - GM and you will find that there's no difference. All it comes down to is playing enough games because the game feels sorry for you. Games have to stop making everyone feel like they are good at something when the whole point to playing a competitive game is to know the truth so you can actually learn how to play if required. People in game are actually mistaking kills for kill participation even though LAST hits are exactly what kills are....... someone with 30 kill assists are being interpreted by users that they have 30 kills. This is because you also show the last hits only at the end of a match.

11) Quickplay is WAY to casual that its actually affecting ranked play. When theres someone under preforming on your team..... in qp while it doesn't matter much they will respond to you saying its just quick play im having fun go play ranked if you want a hardcore experience..... then the same thing happens in ranked and they tell you.... well.... its just a game... go play another game.... People are literally playing for fun in a way that makes a game COMPLETELY not winnable and the whole point of the game is to win whether its casual mode or ranked. The enemy team ALWAYS tries to win, but people on my team are playing strictly for fun as they do not care about your time at all. Also the queue system for qp is CRAZY bad. How do you queue up into a match thats over..... engagement wise this would make EVEN more players than the original 12 in the game upset...... There are so many leavers match in match out..... you;d think that these are robots. Even in rocket league there was a decent amount of leavers but man this is like a whole new level.

12) Character Identitiy: This is fairly obvious but rocket change overall a W but the L that the game takes is that every character is becoming the same thing..... rocket was unique giving an extreme amount of damage to his team if the goal to make a character good is just to make them the exact same as the other broken healers....... then they clearly have a design flaw or simply made those ultimates too good. We will have to see how this goes moving forward.

TLDR: the rank system, matchmaking, engagement changes, no forms of role queue (can be one designed exactly for this game) is killing the game; Balances are done good enough to make new team comps viable, giving other characters a 2nd kick at the can. The new team-ups are good additions, but the system has a flaw in it where players are only learning 1-2 characters in a pool of 10+ each role...... so the team-ups MIGHT get used. QP queuing up into game over matches is just terrible and a waste of time..... usually the player who left was playing a healer leaving you forced to play a healer.

[Onceuponatimetherewasalongasname]

What about objective score? Like being on point or contesting the enemy team?

[bRixxchezzY]

REMOVE EOMM

[76561199672363159]

Remove

[pumparty420]

Remove EOMM
It is really bad, unfair, and takes the objective of winning the game away.

[Master YEETster]

Originally posted by TMK777:

Storm and Human Torch are overtuned, nerf them. Nerf characters that take no effort but deliver high rewards, such as Magik, Iron Fist, and Spiderman.

Of all the characters you could've chosen that take no skill, you chose three that do lmao

Not Scarlet Witch, Moon Knight, or Squirrel Girl, you chose 3 divers

[ZoneJF]

Originally posted by TMK777:

Storm and Human Torch are overtuned, nerf them. Nerf characters that take no effort but deliver high rewards, such as Magik, Iron Fist, and Spiderman.

no effort High Reward? are we dead ass LOL try playing spiderman for once .

[Chunchunmaru]

As lord bucky rocket and captain America, bucky cooldown after update was bad enough for me to quit using him after update, rocket shift ability cooldown too threw his survivability out of the window and i can't stay alive if a panther or spider decide to flank me, and now captain nerf for the second time... I look forward to how they will ruin him now 👍

[Ignutu]

What about the EOMM? How you gonna tune it in the future? Will you consider skill in matchmaking instead of only 3 division ranks?