An official announcement about the new emoji list coming on September 12 has let loose some… interesting leaks from the players. The official tweet read, “Express yourself like never before… showcase every emoji you own in and out of battle,” but the answer is completely the opposite.
First, the big news: Marvel Rivals, the superhero-team shooter that is finally getting traction, is getting a full emoji list feature. Meaning that on the 12th of September, players will crash every match and menu with their emotes (at least in theory). Sounds like a ton of fun to spam emotes, doesn’t it? Wait. What was I just saying?
Right, the community’s response. It’s crazy how many players are using this emoji announcement to air their actual grievances! Super Evil Panda cuts to the chase: “Your matchmaking is the shittest I’ve ever seen in a game. People are never moving ranks at all cos you keep putting them with the wrong people match after match. Forget your emotes & sort that out unless you want people to drop your game like trash.”
And they aren’t alone: Most people still want to express their grievances about the real gameplay issues before they start celebrating the emoji thing. Iggyvoo said, “Add a flexible role queue, no way I’m continuing to sweat my butt off for 25 RP just to lose it next game because people’s emotions have them throwing because of roles.”
There’s this ever-present discussion about balance in the reply section. Someone named Highlander goes on about Emma Frost needing more utility and counters to flying characters. Something like, “I want to have fun with a game. More utility.” Then, elsewhere, someone else is on about how Hulk has been an anchor since day one and is finally catching some heat.
Then, the companies on consoles ask, “Ps4? Where is Xbox One!?” which is a legitimate question, seeing how the game’s not on there yet. And others-beg for particular characters to join, like Ghost Rider and Deadpool number.
One of the strangest things is that some people are genuinely hyped about the emojis. Klaw said they’re “about to Luna ult and throw all the emojis i own.” It sounds ugly but fun, I guess. Then, Greg Shope said he would make it his “life’s mission to come for you” if some particular emojis are not added. That is quite extreme.
And that’s still the situation with matchmaking. It’s like they like the cosmetic upgrades, but deep down, they care about the core gameplay experience. For example, some players even want more pings; for now, they can only ping twice, and nobody recognizes when someone is on them. It freaking sounds frustrating.
Another whole debate about character viability comes up for ranked plays. Some players believe everyone was viable during the honeymoon phase but now that people have learned how to play, some characters just outperform others. And there you have your classic competitive game cycle: the meta develops, and balance issues are thrust into the spotlight.
It is kind of funny how the community is using this emoji announcement as a platform for all the other grievances. Said like the developers probably thought they were just adding a fun social feature, and the players were like, “Cool story, bro. Now fix the actual game, please.”
Still, it sounds fun… The emoji system can be really cool, spamming emotes mid-match to express is pouring out much of the game’s character. And it’s definitely a quality of life improvement to have all emojis owned on one list instead of that absolutely messed up system they had before.
But yeah, basically everybody’s screaming that matchmaking, character balance, and core gameplay need to be the devs’ priorities on which to work, rather than cosmetic frivolities. Classic ‘gameplay first,’ was the slogan every competitive player just instinctively subscribes to.
So that’s the update that drops on the 12th of September, and from that day onward, we’ll see how players take to it being it live. Maybe they’ll all collectively get embarrassed by all the emoji spam and move on from matchmaking disasters for a little bit, or maybe they’ll spend so much time expressing their frustration that it’ll be yet another way to differentiate between bad matches. Either way, Marvel Rivals remains a game with passionate players that aren’t ashamed to state what they want to be working on.
