Marvel Rivals, a superhero team shooter from NetEase, received a significant update. The patch covered gameplay adjustments and fixes without disturbing the servers. The developers want to make fights more “sharper, smoother, and more explosive,” as they stated officially. Players are already divided and talking on social media about the changes.
The developers, in a way, did not just announce the patch; they insinuated it with a gear emoji and invited everyone to “suit up” as a new patch was ready. They projected updates that would make the fighting crisp and intense. And the good news??? No server maintenance. Simply refresh your client and immediately rejoin the battle. This is really nice compared to other games that make you wait for hours until the servers are back up, right?
But, community feedback is all over the place. The users who have the most to say are those who have personally experienced bug fixes. User LyarOnFire exclaimed, “Finally the Daredevil issues are resolved; I thought the lag was just me.” Apparently, there are some issues with Daredevil that render the gameplay quite unsteady, but this patch has improved it. It’s very encouraging when developers take notice of the customers’ complaints regarding the bugs related to characters.
The characters still need to be balanced, and there are constant requests for that. WillyBeamin__ spoke saying “Buff Human Torch revert him back to 1.5 update.” So, it looks like Human Torch has been somehow nerfed and this user just wants him to be as powerful as he was during the 1.5 update. On the other hand, Teondre_ merely wrote “BUFF LOKI” along with a crying emoji, so maybe the Loki players are feeling a bit underpowered. Moreover, FY0RAE tells the developers, “fix loki to go with that skin please,” thereby, indicating that with the recent update there could be some aesthetic or functional issues with a Loki skin.
Not all gamers consider heroes to be in good shape. User sainty_fem was quite cutting with her remark: “fix phoenix the ho sucks.” No confusion there. So Phoenix could either be not very good and blames bugs or even that people complain she is not very good in that game. And Dalie_T2 pointed out “Reed ULT is still bugged,” suggesting that Mister Fantastic’s ultimate move has been a problem for him and this patch has not sorted him out yet.
The discussion was rather intense in some threads, sandyfry, especially regarding PS4 support. For instance, DanteVOdream was reproaching others why PS4 doesn’t have some features while Phatmatt172 was explaining: “they would hav let ps4 have the game mode if it can handle it. It even says ps5 might have performance issues. So why would ps4 even have it if they cant play it anyways.” This hint that there are some limitations imposed by the hardware that, consequently, makes some of the content non-accessible to the older consoles is usually a very sensitive issue within the gaming community.
Then there is the ongoing comparison between hero shooters. User Ska’Vorah appears to be everywhere in these discussions according to YAnktch, who asked “GIRL,why are you in every hero shooter post ???” It seems quite humorous that every game of this genre is compared to others, above all Overwatch 2. PhilipStricklan even made a sarcastic comment saying, “Yeah cough cough overwatch 2😅,” in reply to someone’s remark about game updates which implied that Marvel Rivals was better than its competitor in patch management.
However, players are still not pleased with the matchmaking system. Nacho_Pouiller remarked, “I can’t find any match in any game mode! Is someone having the same problem? (I’m on Xbox and I have crossplay enabled).” And RGameplaysps4 pointed out hackers as one major issue. Therefore, it seems that although the patch has fixed certain problems, there are still tough ones remaining.
On the bright side, DiatonicRivals could not wait to say, “LOVE the new Ignite drops omg,” which implies that if not all, at least some players are thankful for the new stuff or whatever the Ignite drops are. And warbuxks was just joking about Scarlet Witch, saying, “Was hoping the problem with Wanda said ‘adjusted the issue that she exists, we’ve deleted her'” which is not just clever humor but at the same time a reminder that in every game there is always one character whom people love to hate.
The patch notes indicate different changes but still, we cannot yet figure out what the complete situation is just from the provided tweets. One thing for sure is that NetEase is working hard to keep Marvel Rivals’ appearances fresh by consistently providing updates. From a technical point of view, they are doing a great job of doing this without taking the servers down, and at the same time, the players are very appreciative of being allowed to get back to the game right after the update.
As it happens with every live service game, there will always be complaints and demands, the least of which will be balancing characters—some wanting them more powerful, others preferring just bug fixes, and still there’s an issue of which platform gets what features. However, the developers’ continuous interactions and timely updates, as such, are among the signs that they stick with their community, even if they can’t please everyone with each patch.
The Marvel Rivals team seems to be committed to preventing their superhero brawler from getting stale and keeping it operational. Although there are still some challenges, the no-downtime update policy remains a player-friendly option that helps to keep the game’s vibrancy. It would be interesting to see how the ongoing changes evolve the game and if the most requested changes make it to future patches.
