Marvel Rivals has been the talk of the town for a while now and gamers have taken quite a bit of liking for this new 6v6 third-person shooter. Although Rivals did not really get the reception it was expecting during its initial alpha release, the game blew up massively when the final experience was launched.
The title made by NetEase Games has made a lot of players switch to Rivals from their usual FPS games like Valorant or Overwatch 2. This has in turn introduced those players to the new competitive setting of Marvel Rivals which has absolutely gone down the gutter since its last update. Let’s delve deeper into this and find out more.
Marvel Rivals’ competitive balance is worse than any other hero-shooter games
Marvel Rivals took the world over by storm when it was first released back in December of 2024. The game has reached more than 40 million players as of February 2025 and currently, the game is averaging more than 100,000 players per day. It is safe to say that Marvel Rivals is significantly doing well in the gaming market.
While the popularity of Rivals was somewhat expected, a recent graph of the rank distribution in-game has horrified players to the core. The graph was posted on the Rivals‘ official subreddit by a Redditor named TheMadHa7 which showed that more than 10% of the playerbase was sitting on Grandmaster 3. Which is supposed to be a rank that houses players who are much better than average.
New distribution dropped an its horrifying. gm3 is larger than plat 1 and almost larger than gold 1.
byu/TheMadHa7 inmarvelrivals
What is more scary is that Grandmaster 3 contains more players than Platinum 3 or Diamond 3. While the margins are super thin in the graph, it is clearly visible which ranks have more players than others. The rank distribution in any competitive game should be more like a bell curve instead of whatever monstrosity this graph is.
Since the release of Marvel Rivals, the title has been suffering a lot from cheaters and NetEase has combated this issue by banning third-party plugins. Now a new concern has taken over the game and that is the increase in smurfing. Due to the imbalance in the competitive setting of the game, high-ranked players from Platinum or Grandmaster are not able to thrive in their own ranks and hence, they prefer to smurf in lower lobbies.
NetEase should take appropriate actions to deal with the smurfing issue
This expanding problem of smurfing has brought even more disparity in the competitive environment. Players are constantly stuck with smurfs in lower lobbies and are not progressing in their ranks, while other players don’t even want to get into the ranked matches because of this widespread issue.
Comment
byu/TheMadHa7 from discussion
inmarvelrivals
Comment
byu/TheMadHa7 from discussion
inmarvelrivals
Comment
byu/TheMadHa7 from discussion
inmarvelrivals
NetEase has done a great job of making the game as much fun as possible, but a huge problem like competitive imbalance can make the entire game feel frustrating for both casual and competitive players alike. If NetEase does not address this issue soon, a huge number of players might switch to some other hero-shooter game that suits their ranked needs better.
Competitive balance is one of the most crucial aspects of any multiplayer game. A well-balanced system is vital for long-lasting fun and engagement. We are not sure how will Marvel Rivals fix its competitive irregularity, but one thing we are sure of is, that if NetEase does not take action sooner, it might be detrimental to the entire game.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
