How Marvel Rivals' Matchmaking Manipulates You Into Spending (Not Skill Issue)

[Kaspar]

I spent a week grinding from Bronze to Diamond and uninstalled. Why? Because all ranks are full of the same skill level players, making ranking up feel completely pointless. This is the worst matchmaking I’ve ever seen in a game.

Here’s what’s happening:

1. Your Wins & Losses Are Artificially Controlled

Marvel Rivals doesn’t use pure Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM)—it uses a system similar to Engagement-Optimized Matchmaking (EOMM), which forces a win/loss cycle to keep you playing.

• Win a few games? Now you're given low-skill teammates and impossible matchups.
• Lose a few? Suddenly, you get bot lobbies or easy wins to make you feel better.
• Stuck at the same rank? That’s the point. The system is designed to frustrate you just enough to keep going.
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2. Even Your Wins Are Designed to Be Unsatisfying

They know that effortless wins feel just as frustrating as hopeless losses.

• If a match is too easy, you don’t get that dopamine hit from overcoming a challenge.
• If a match is too hard, you feel powerless and stuck.
• The game keeps everyone at the same emotional frustration level—never truly satisfied.

This isn’t accidental or an attempt to create fair matches. It’s deliberately designed to make players feel unfulfilled, so they start looking for other ways to feel good about the game—like buying skins.
This is why most players in most matches seem constantly on the verge of an emotional meltdown—they are being kept in a permanent cycle of dissatisfaction.
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3. The “Skill Issue” Spam Is Manufactured

Try calling out this system, and watch what happens: bots flood your post with “skill issue” spam, repeating the same phrases to shame anyone criticizing the game.
Meanwhile, paid influencers conveniently release videos reinforcing this narrative, framing matchmaking complaints as just bad players coping.

• Bots make sure every discussion about forced matchmaking is buried under spam.
• Influencers provide the "official" talking points, making it easier for bots and fanboys to dismiss criticism.
• This isn’t normal organic player response—it’s deliberate suppression of valid concerns.

It's manufactured gaslighting to keep players from questioning the system while driving engagement and spending.
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4. The Most Aggressive Psychological Manipulation in a Game Yet

The level of psychological control in Marvel Rivals feels engineered to dominate player emotions. This isn’t just another cash grab—it feels like an experiment in behavioral manipulation.

This isn’t about bad players complaining. It’s about matchmaking designed to emotionally manipulate you into spending.

[Dev Jonathan]

Kaspar eredeti hozzászólása:

Terotrous eredeti hozzászólása:

And also to get you stuck. We can read the OP, you know, it's right there:

I was truly interested to see how you would start backing out from the previous outright lie. The result? Not particularly impressive

Terotrous eredeti hozzászólása:

Yet somehow, it seems like the code to cause you to get stuck at a low rank didn't work for you for some reason. Without that, how would they frustrate you into spending money? Maybe it's not as infallible as you claim?

I think a large part of my frustration came from receiving just enough meaningless wins to keep me engaged. The algorithm likely adapts to each player, frustrating them in whatever way is most effective for them personally.

Terotrous eredeti hozzászólása:

The thing you need to understand is that an "unskilled" teammate is basically just a "skilled" teammate that is playing badly. I'm sure there have been matches where your teammates have thought you sucked, as well as other matches where you played great, and yet you are the same player in both games.

A key part of winning more, then, clearly involves trying to get your teammates to play better. This is where things like good comms come in. If you watch games between like, Plat / GM, I would agree that the mechanical skill of the players isn't drastically different, the big difference is that the GM players have far better comms.

A good example of something like this was in this game:

https://tracker.gg/marvel-rivals/matches/4891489_1738377255_224_11001_10

We got washed on point 1, largely because the Magik kept killing out backline. In the lobby before point 2, I brought up the problem with Magik and (politely) asked if our Mantis player could let me have Mantis to deal with her. I spent the rest of the game focusing her down, hitting the sleep on her and deleting her every time she tried to dive us. Had I not brought this up we would have lost. This is how you turn supposed "forced losses" into wins.

I find it unlikely that the issue is just ‘good players playing badly’ when the general skill level feels identical across all ranks—from hero choices to tactical decisions and aim.

What I find even more interesting is the strong urge some people have to defend this matchmaking system, even after running out of arguments.

I believe part of it is deliberate marketing psyops, designed to gaslight criticism and protect the system.
But.. I also think some players genuinely need to believe rank matters—not because of the game itself, but because their own self-worth is tied to it. If ranking up makes them feel superior, then admitting the system is flawed would mean questioning the very thing they use to validate themselves.

What do you think? Do you believe that rank provides an actual measure of skill—or is it just a manufactured illusion of progress?

I couldn't have said this better myself. There is substansial evidence of this matchmaking being in the game and people still defend the game and its systems with their lives. The only logical explanation for them doing so is that, in admitting the predatory matchmaking systems of the game, they in turn would be forced to admit they arent actually the skill level the game tells them they are

[Terotrous]

Dev Jonathan eredeti hozzászólása:

I couldn't have said this better myself. There is substansial evidence of this matchmaking being in the game

There's like zero actual evidence for it. It's all people saying "I lose a bunch of games sometimes!" and they never actually show the game ids that they believe are rigged or anything.

Also when people show actual evidence for it not being rigged (ie, profiles that win a ton and never have loss streaks), they always make up some excuse for how this doesn't matter in this case. And even though there is apparently some easy way to cheat the system and thus not get rigged games, they also don't use it themselves for some reason.

[Dev Jonathan]

Terotrous eredeti hozzászólása:

Dev Jonathan eredeti hozzászólása:

I couldn't have said this better myself. There is substansial evidence of this matchmaking being in the game

There's like zero actual evidence for it. It's all people saying "I lose a bunch of games sometimes!" and they never actually show the game ids that they believe are rigged or anything.

Read my thread and look at the pinned comment. There is an official NETEASE Document discussing it, and a 50 Minute NetEase video discussing the matchmaking. That is defenitive proof. Im not sure about others, but in my thread i directly provide evidence yet people continue to deny it

[Terotrous]

Dev Jonathan eredeti hozzászólása:

Read my thread and look at the pinned comment. There is an official NETEASE Document discussing it, and a 50 Minute NetEase video discussing the matchmaking. That is defenitive proof. Im not sure about others, but in my thread i directly provide evidence yet people continue to deny it

We've been over that document a million times. The document clearly states that they calculate the utility of the match as the chance of that match being a tie, in other words, the matchmaker's goal is to create the most fair matches possible.

Most of the rest of the document talks about using machine learning to predict player behaviour to create teams of compatible players, in order to increase the accuracy of the matchmaker's predictions of team quality.

Nowhere in this document does it suggest they are rigging matches. Everything players have said about this is purely conjecture. They then point back to that document and they're like "see, it says this in the document!" even though it doesn't and they just ignore it when this is pointed out.

[Dev Jonathan]

Terotrous eredeti hozzászólása:

Dev Jonathan eredeti hozzászólása:

Read my thread and look at the pinned comment. There is an official NETEASE Document discussing it, and a 50 Minute NetEase video discussing the matchmaking. That is defenitive proof. Im not sure about others, but in my thread i directly provide evidence yet people continue to deny it

We've been over that document a million times. The document clearly states that they calculate the utility of the match as the chance of that match being a tie, in other words, the matchmaker's goal is to create the most fair matches possible.

Most of the rest of the document talks about using machine learning to predict player behaviour to create teams of compatible players, in order to increase the accuracy of the matchmaker's predictions of team quality.

Nowhere in this document does it suggest they are rigging matches. Everything players have said about this is purely conjecture.

Watch the video thats in my pinned comment before replying back to me

[T0AD]

Dev Jonathan eredeti hozzászólása:

Terotrous eredeti hozzászólása:

There's like zero actual evidence for it. It's all people saying "I lose a bunch of games sometimes!" and they never actually show the game ids that they believe are rigged or anything.

Read my thread and look at the pinned comment. There is an official NETEASE Document discussing it, and a 50 Minute NetEase video discussing the matchmaking. That is defenitive proof. Im not sure about others, but in my thread i directly provide evidence yet people continue to deny it

Probably makes people's ranks more accurate honestly. If it's enforcing a predictive 50/50 to improve engagement then the only way you're ranking up is by actually improving as a player. Instead of rolling the dice hoping for a streak of carries.

[Dev Jonathan]

T0AD eredeti hozzászólása:

Dev Jonathan eredeti hozzászólása:

Read my thread and look at the pinned comment. There is an official NETEASE Document discussing it, and a 50 Minute NetEase video discussing the matchmaking. That is defenitive proof. Im not sure about others, but in my thread i directly provide evidence yet people continue to deny it

Probably makes people's ranks more accurate honestly. If it's enforcing a predictive 50/50 to improve engagement then the only way you're ranking up is by actually improving as a player. Instead of rolling the dice hoping for a streak of carries.

How is a forced 50/50 More accurate? That means there is a losers queue where the game intentionally feeds you losses and wins to directly control your engagement. You are basically playing a simulation. This is exactly what happens in League of Legends

[Terotrous]

Dev Jonathan eredeti hozzászólása:

Watch the video thats in my pinned comment before replying back to me

I've watched both videos. The video says nothing about rigging matches either.

At one point they discuss potentially giving players who are losing / frustrated a slight break in the matchmaking, with the cited example being that you could give them a 51-49 advantage in the matchmaker settings. This is the closest to a "smoking gun" that has been said anywhere. That said, it's obvious that a 2% advantage in matchmaking would barely matter, it would probably have to be like a 80-20 advantage to have any real impact. So if your theory is that they're rigging matches vastly more than they claimed to be that's once again conjecture.

It's worth noting that this video never discusses the idea of putting players into matches against bots that look like real players, though we know that this game does this, so it's likely that they simply used this instead of fiddling with matchmaking to give wins to frustrated players.

We can also easily see via empirical examples that the game does not do much to help players who go on long loss streaks. We saw that example of Flats losing 9 straight matches and deranking from GM1 to GM3. He did not get a free winstreak to balance this out, he just had to hold that L. It took him quite a while to climb back up.

[Dev Jonathan]

Terotrous eredeti hozzászólása:

Dev Jonathan eredeti hozzászólása:

Watch the video thats in my pinned comment before replying back to me

I've watched both videos. The video says nothing about rigging matches either.

At one point they discuss potentially giving players who are losing / frustrated a slight break in the matchmaking, with the cited example being that you could give them a 51-49 advantage in the matchmaker settings. This is the closest to a "smoking gun" that has been said anywhere. That said, it's obvious that a 2% advantage in matchmaking would barely matter, it would probably have to be like a 80-20 advantage to have any real impact. So if your theory is that they're rigging matches vastly more than they claimed to be that's once again conjecture.

It's worth noting that this video never discusses the idea of putting players into matches against bots that look like real players, though we know that this game does this, so it's likely that they simply used this instead of fiddling with matchmaking to give wins to frustrated players.

We can also easily see via empirical examples that the game does not do much to help players who go on long loss streaks. We saw that example of Flats losing 9 straight matches and deranking from GM1 to GM3. He did not get a free winstreak to balance this out, he just had to hold that L. It took him quite a while to climb back up.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a1Gf-DXz0w2q4avFtI1g9eKEN4CYQpIk/view 11:02 in this video

[Terotrous]

Dev Jonathan eredeti hozzászólása:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a1Gf-DXz0w2q4avFtI1g9eKEN4CYQpIk/view 11:02 in this video

Skip to 11:58 and listen to what she says. I'll quote it for you because I know her english isn't the best and it can be hard to make out.

"We can simplify the utility into score difference, based on the assumption that balanced games lead to good games".

At no point in any of the materials they have put out do they ever stray from this concept.

You can, of course, try to point out that something else she says on this slide is problematic, but the line I quoted is the summary of what she's saying, it's the last thing she says before going to the next slide.

[T0AD]

Dev Jonathan eredeti hozzászólása:

T0AD eredeti hozzászólása:

Probably makes people's ranks more accurate honestly. If it's enforcing a predictive 50/50 to improve engagement then the only way you're ranking up is by actually improving as a player. Instead of rolling the dice hoping for a streak of carries.

How is a forced 50/50 More accurate? That means there is a losers queue where the game intentionally feeds you losses and wins to directly control your engagement. You are basically playing a simulation. This is exactly what happens in League of Legends

Because you actually have to be a better player to pull up. Maybe you did aim training, learned some new heroes, spent more time in quickplay and watched your own replays, etc, and that helped you actually improve beyond what the system is predicting.

If you're forced into this 50/50 no matter what, then how are the usual group of high ranking players in other games also high ranking here? How is it that my group of friends who are in bronze/silver/gold etc in Overwatch are pretty much in the same rank in this game?

[Kaspar]

Terotrous eredeti hozzászólása:

[
See, here's where the entire argument falls apart.

Your theory is that it is somehow more effective for making money for the system to give you poor matches (matches where there is a significant skill disparity between the players) rather than good matches. Yet, you also note that you got frustrated due to the number of poor matches and stopped playing.

You want to know the funny thing? Netease says the same thing in their document about matchmaking. They calculate the expected happiness of each match as the chance of that match ending in a draw, because players are happiest when playing good matches. They note that even if players win a lot, they can still churn if they feel the matches are of low quality.

So why then, would they sabotage their own system by deliberately creating poor matches? All research into player spending habits shows that poor matches make players spend less. It's mutually beneficial for both Netease and the players for them to create as many good matches as possible.

It is clear that the system creates a fair number of bad matches, but so do all games of this type, including those that don't even attempt to sell you anything at all like Splatoon (we could easily have a whole topic on Splatoon's matchmaking). A much more logical conclusion might be that making good matches for games like this is simply a very difficult problem to solve, rather than that they're deliberately trying to make bad matches out of some mistaken belief that it is beneficial to do so when it clearly isn't.

Your argument assumes that frustration always leads to quitting. That’s false. Frustration paired with shame keeps players hooked.

When someone believes their losses are their fault, they don’t quit—they double down. They chase that illusory satisfaction that ‘true winners’ are supposed to feel. The system isn’t designed for fair matches—it’s designed to keep players in a constant state of “almost there” frustration, where spending money or playing more seems like the only solution.

And when that frustrated player is staring at the menu screen, feeling stuck and unsatisfied, they’re far more likely to buy a skin to make themselves feel better.

Terotrous eredeti hozzászólása:

See, the funny thing is I actually don't care about rank much at all. If you look at my profile, you'll see if I've played a whopping 11 games of comp so far. I generally play quick play. I'm mainly just playing some comp because I want the IW skin.

So why do I try to explain to people that their takes on matchmaking are wrong? Because I genuinely want to help people get better at the game. I have played games competitively in the past and it's pretty much the same in every game. The key to getting better is to always view yourself as the carry, and to think that you can win every game if you play well enough. Even if this is sometimes not true it's a useful belief to have because it gets you to focus on improving your own play, which leads to more wins.

That said, I recognize most of the complainers are probably beyond help. They are, as I noted before, generally DPS 1tricks who are allergic to analyzing their own play or learning from their mistakes and will never attempt to learn any other character. It's more for the other people on the forum who might read these posts and be mislead by them.

Oh, and also boredom. Unfortunately, these "matchmaking complaint" threads are the in thing on the forum right now. If there were instead a bunch of threads about character viability I'd be discussing that instead. So you can decrease the number of posts I make about the matchmaking by simply spamming fewer matchmaking complaint topics.

I agree—it is quite funny that you believe your current actions are helping anyone improve at the game.

Your argument isn’t about getting better—it’s about dismissing criticism and shifting blame onto players. If your goal was truly to help, you’d acknowledge that matchmaking frustration isn’t just a ‘mentality issue’—it’s a deliberately engineered system designed to keep players engaged through controlled highs and lows.

But hey, if debating this out of boredom is your real motivation, at least we’re being honest now.

Terotrous eredeti hozzászólása:

Back to your other question, Extremely high ranks provide some measure of skill. If you are celestial, then clearly you're pretty good. I don't think this is really debatable.

The game does artificially boost the low ranks to some degree. In lower ranks, you tend to win about twice as many rank points as you lose. Obviously, this makes it fairly easy to rank up just by playing a lot. This cuts off at some point (probably either Plat or Diamond), which is why a lot of people get stuck there.

So, you agree that ranks are meaningless up to Diamond, but I should keep grinding to see if it magically changes in higher ranks?

Interesting—because I heard the exact same argument from Bronze players about Diamond.

I tried to keep my replies short to counter this attempt to hide the critical points of the conversation with meaningless noise.

[Terotrous]

Kaspar eredeti hozzászólása:

Your argument assumes that frustration always leads to quitting. That’s false. Frustration paired with shame keeps players hooked.

If so, it's a statistically insignificant number, and big companies are all about general patterns over isolated examples. Everything about EOMM is about minimizing churn rate and thus frustration because frustrated players are most likely to churn

Kaspar eredeti hozzászólása:

Your argument isn’t about getting better—it’s about dismissing criticism and shifting blame onto players.

The players are the ones actually playing the game. When people complain about "rigged matchmaking", they're complaining about their teammates being bad, so clearly everyone agrees that the players are to blame here, the only difference is we disagree about which ones. I would argue that the players complaining about the matchmaking are themselves part of the group of bad players that people feel cause them to lose games.

If you don't want to be part of this group, the key is to learn from your mistakes and improve, thus allowing you to be a consistently good teammate (or at least be a good teammate most of the time). If you look at my stats, you'll notice that I have MVP very often (especially on Mantis) and the number of matches where my stats are bad is very low. This is what you want to be aiming for.

A huge part of this is keeping a cool head and not getting frustrated when you lose or things are going badly. I don't always do this perfectly either, but I do think I clearly do it a bit better than people who feel the need to make long threads complaining about the matchmaking every time they lose.

Kaspar eredeti hozzászólása:

So, you agree that ranks are meaningless up to Diamond, but I should keep grinding to see if it magically changes in higher ranks?

I don't agree that you should grind at all if you don't enjoy it. Just play quickplay or play a different game if you're not having fun.

If you did grind high enough to reach the pro levels, yes, I do think you would have a different experience, but this requires a level of dedication to the game that most people don't have, and that's fine.

[CT-99 STRIKER]

The patent behind this is public (anyone can read it, is not locked behind any paywall or smth), yet so many still on denial or just trolling by making claims that unlike the patent ruinning ranked games can not be verified. I won 30 tanked in a row, TRUTH, i said so *wink wink*, but i dont have to proof anything.

[Snaht]

Kaspar eredeti hozzászólása:

I spent a week grinding from Bronze to Diamond and uninstalled. Why? Because all ranks are full of the same skill level players, making ranking up feel completely pointless. This is the worst matchmaking I’ve ever seen in a game.

Here’s what’s happening:

1. Your Wins & Losses Are Artificially Controlled

Marvel Rivals doesn’t use pure Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM)—it uses a system similar to Engagement-Optimized Matchmaking (EOMM), which forces a win/loss cycle to keep you playing.

• Win a few games? Now you're given low-skill teammates and impossible matchups.
• Lose a few? Suddenly, you get bot lobbies or easy wins to make you feel better.
• Stuck at the same rank? That’s the point. The system is designed to frustrate you just enough to keep going.
-

2. Even Your Wins Are Designed to Be Unsatisfying

They know that effortless wins feel just as frustrating as hopeless losses.

• If a match is too easy, you don’t get that dopamine hit from overcoming a challenge.
• If a match is too hard, you feel powerless and stuck.
• The game keeps everyone at the same emotional frustration level—never truly satisfied.

This isn’t accidental or an attempt to create fair matches. It’s deliberately designed to make players feel unfulfilled, so they start looking for other ways to feel good about the game—like buying skins.
This is why most players in most matches seem constantly on the verge of an emotional meltdown—they are being kept in a permanent cycle of dissatisfaction.
-

3. The “Skill Issue” Spam Is Manufactured

Try calling out this system, and watch what happens: bots flood your post with “skill issue” spam, repeating the same phrases to shame anyone criticizing the game.
Meanwhile, paid influencers conveniently release videos reinforcing this narrative, framing matchmaking complaints as just bad players coping.

• Bots make sure every discussion about forced matchmaking is buried under spam.
• Influencers provide the "official" talking points, making it easier for bots and fanboys to dismiss criticism.
• This isn’t normal organic player response—it’s deliberate suppression of valid concerns.

It's manufactured gaslighting to keep players from questioning the system while driving engagement and spending.
-

4. The Most Aggressive Psychological Manipulation in a Game Yet

The level of psychological control in Marvel Rivals feels engineered to dominate player emotions. This isn’t just another cash grab—it feels like an experiment in behavioral manipulation.

This isn’t about bad players complaining. It’s about matchmaking designed to emotionally manipulate you into spending.

1. Your confused with quickplay
2. Skill Issue
3. Competitive does't have bots, your still confused with quick play
4. You are a very confused person, talk to a doctor and chill bruh.