The competition has been organized by NetEase and Marvel Games and the announcement of the Marvel Rivals Season 5 Livestream Incentive Event winners has also been made inviting the community content creators to celebrate. The event, which was promoting daily streamings and highlights, aimed at drawing more player-generated content into the superhero team-based shooter and, thus, alive. An official image held the complete list of winners and explained the rewards that could be claimed via a link provided. On the other hand, this news also means that the developers have been putting a lot of effort into keeping players engaged with interactive events. Still, the announcement was accompanied by significant player feedback on game balance and feature requests.
Hence, the lights are on, the stream is live, and Marvel Rivals just proclaimed the winners of their grand Season 5 streaming event. The same event where the players were somewhat intended to be the hype machine, they had to stream daily drops, and create those epic highlight clips. And it’s cool, right? They thank the community for sharing the battlefield and all that good stuff. But if you go down to the replies on their tweet and it’s a different battlefield down there, oh boy. It’s like the devs are giving trophies but half of the room is shouting over the health bar of Spider-Man.
To start with, the winners should be really congratulated. You streamed, you were present, you received the prizes. That’s awesome. Memi is very enthusiastic about this, “That’s meeeeeee 🦋”. Kes is enjoying his two months in a row, which is fantastic. And there is also a bit of international love from a person who congratulated the streamer in Portuguese. But then… the other comments are revealed. And it is an avalanche of, let’s say, passionate feedback. Mainly coming from one very devoted, very upset Spider-Man main, who goes by the name Buggimaaaan. This guy went on a complete rampage.
What a masterclass in gamer ranting we have here. Over 12 responses just coming one after the other in quick succession, “Where are the spider buffs?” “As a Christmas gift pls buff spider man.” “I only play this game hoping Spidey can get a buff, and maybe a new skin that’s actually good.” The main point is loud and clear and it is in every reply. He is accusing that the Spidey character gets nerfed only when other characters are granted “broken buffs” and “cool skins”. He is also pointing out the irony of a character who is restrained in comics having only 250 health in-game. He is illustrating hard matchups—swinging in as Spidey and then being “unkillable” due to “aim bot dagger” from Luna or getting combo-ed by Scarlet Witch/Doctor Strange. It’s all too real. You can feel the rage that grips the controller.
And it’s not just him, although he is the most… prolific. Other users are making major demands of their own. Someone is pleading for cross-progression or account merging and is calling the current system “ridiculous”. Another player straightforwardly asks, “Please remove resource rumble from the game, no one likes it.” There is a request for Zombies mode to be made permanent. And of course, the ever-present complaint of queue time comes up again: “10 min queue time in console lobbies… How’s this game already dead?”
The situation is marked by such a huge contrast. On one side, the official channel is celebrating with the rewards and community creation. On the other side, a significant part of that community is seizing the chance to voice some very fundamental complaints regarding balance, features, and technical issues. One reply even goes as far as saying that the incentive event was “pointless” and “biased for wannabe streamers,” which is harsh but indicates that some feel a disconnect. Another user simply posts a video with the caption “Fuck this game,” which is indeed not nuanced.
It’s the typical struggle of a live-service game. You want to host amazing community events and at the same time continue delivering content, but the players in the trenches are facing the daily meta. And at present, there is a vocal group that feels like that meta is purposely putting Spider-Man lovers in the corner. Buggimaaaan’s cries become more and more elaborate—he wishes Deadpool to be a character that is extremely hard to play so that he can then master him, he complains about “gooner skins” ruining his public image (which is a very unique issue), and he even requests a one-on-one with a developer to help improve the game. The commitment is almost worthy of admiration.
