Marvel Rivals is now well into season one, and the game should feel improved by the latest content drop and the first round of balance changes, but the reality is that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Competitive in season one of Marvel Rivals is an absolute chore following the drop in tiers at the end of season zero. Every player dropped by seven tiers, a massive relegation for players that has left the current tiers completely unbalanced.
With the vast majority of players being put back into Bronze and beginning the grind all over again, every match in Marvel Rivals is a complete slaughterhouse—with one team running wild for a comfortable victory while the other gets wiped out with ease.
I’ve experienced both sides of this, and neither is particularly enjoyable. Matches are either a complete breeze and provide little challenge or are the opposite, where you face an almost impossible task to overcome the opponent. I genuinely can’t remember the last time I had a close game.
Dropping tiers at the start of a new season is an approach I understand, as it gives you something to work towards again, but dropping everyone back to Bronze feels excessive—resulting in lobbies where you could now have players from the higher levels of Bronze, or even low-tier Platinum, against somebody who is playing Competitive for the first time.
To add to the frustration, these situations have resulted in me seeing more players leave mid-match in the first week and a half of season one than in the entirety of season zero. If your team is down a player, the chances of victory are near impossible, yet the number of ranking points you lose at the end of the game does not show any reprieve.
The biggest problem right now, however, is there isn’t an immediate fix. NetEase could reduce the number of tiers you lose at the end of the season from season two and onward, though that will mean nothing for the next few months.
It should settle down the progress, with players returning to their true level, but the damage is already done by that stage. If you luck out and get a strong team against inexperienced players, you can fly up the tiers and then find yourself in a rank that isn’t an accurate reflection of where you truly are.
Add to these issues a fresh bunch of overpowered meta characters, who will surely receive a nerf when the mid-season patch gets deployed, resulting in an incredibly disappointing experience—which is a far cry from how I felt a few weeks ago.
At the end of season zero, I was delighted with the game. While there were definitely improvements to be made, I was optimistic about season one. Now, playing Competitively feels more like a chore, but Quick Match doesn’t provide the same fix, and I’m wondering what on earth I should do.
