.jpg?resize=1920,999999 "Marvel Rivals Made Me Quit Competitive Gaming")
A number of weeks in the past, after one more irritating match of Marvel Rivals induced me to energy off my console and loudly deride the sport and its gamers, my boyfriend requested what number of hours I had performed. The sport launched shortly after my segue into the world of freelancing, and I had numerous spare time on my palms. When my boyfriend, who usually performs after I do, informed me he had logged 16 hours to this point, I conservatively guessed “no less than double that.”
Once I checked out my stats, I almost threw up. I had spent greater than 16 days within the NetEase hero shooter’s ranked mode (I do not play the rest) since its December 2024 launch. That is over 400 hours, and for many of that point, I used to be pissed off, irritated, or “tilted,” as the youngsters say–desperate to succeed in an arbitrary objective I had set for myself earlier than I might correctly take a break from the sport.
These stunning gameplay numbers, coupled with an unceremonious rank tumble after the Season 3 rank reset just a few weeks in the past, made me notice one thing.
I’ve an issue, and it is aggressive matchmaking.
So I stop.
Marvel Rivals is not the primary recreation I performed competitively. As a excessive schooler, I might play spherical after spherical of SWAT in Halo 3 to attempt to attain the coveted degree 50. I did the identical factor years later with Gears of Struggle 3, grinding matches to succeed in degree 100. Later, I hung out on ranked Apex Legends, preferring it to the informal modes.
However for years, my recreation of alternative was aggressive Overwatch. Of the almost 1,500 hours I’ve devoted to the sequel alone, virtually all of that point has been spent in aggressive play. For some time, I used to be a globally ranked Moira participant on console. I solely stopped enjoying Overwatch 2 after I had grown too uninterested in the grind and Rivals glittered on the horizon.
Each recreation that I play competitively, I play alone, queueing up for ranked matches solo and, in hero shooters, as a help character. That is extensively thought of a Unhealthy Thought: Solo queuing means you get a brand new crew each match, which implies no squad chemistry–and help gamers are sometimes the least appreciated and the primary to get yelled at when one thing goes awry.
With Rivals, my high quality as a help participant by no means felt like sufficient to hold a crew to victory, and my fruitless efforts to rank up whereas enjoying essentially the most thankless position started weighing on me.
So after I caught wind of a rumor that prompt NetEase’s hero shooter is baking the unhealthy expertise into the sport with its matchmaking system, I perked up. Possibly the issue is not me…perhaps it is the sport.
Matchmaking is a complicated and hotly contested matter on this planet of aggressive gaming. I’ve written extensively about skill-based matchmaking (or SBMM), a system utilized by video games like Name of Obligation and Apex Legends to find out which gamers populate in-game lobbies. Although the precise numbers that go into these techniques often range by recreation or developer, the core logic is easy: Gamers are matched with equally expert gamers, whether or not that is based mostly on kill/loss of life ratio, hours logged, or complete wins.
Since implementation of those techniques varies from recreation to recreation, there are cases wherein gamers have grown more and more extra pissed off with a selected studio’s tackle SBMM. In January 2023, Overwatch 2 addressed “community pain points with competitive matchmaking” and made changes. Later that yr, Call of Duty fans flooded a Reddit AMA for Modern Warfare III, begging and/or demanding that Activision rework its SBMM system.
However SBMM is not the one system multiplayer video games use to create matches. A 2017 paper from a former Electronic Arts intern discusses EOMM, or engagement optimized matchmaking, laying out a framework for an ideology that prioritizes engagement over equity. EA patented this idea, however so far as I do know, there is not a recreation in its portfolio (which incorporates Apex Legends and the Battlefield franchise) that makes use of it.
Marvel Rivals players are convinced, however, that NetEase is using EOMM in its matches. Although the corporate did publish a 2020 academic paper about a matchmaking system called OptMatch, which emphasizes participant engagement, the system doesn’t seem to worth engagement greater than equity.
However I get it. Rivals utilizing EOMM (or some model of it) would definitely make so many people pissed off by the rank climb grind really feel a bit higher about our skills, proper? I am not caught in Platinum as a result of I suck; I am caught in Platinum as a result of the Rivals matchmaking system decided I wanted to go on a dropping streak, get fully tilted, after which hand me a win to maintain me from embedding my controller within the tv.
It simply does not appear to be the case, guys. In response to the rumors, NetEase just released a statement on X on August 12, stating, “We wish to reiterate that Marvel Rivals doesn’t use EOMM. We’re at present engaged on a video to display our developer insights on the matchmaking and rating system, which is predicted to be launched subsequent week.”
Although the matchmaking debate piqued my curiosity once more for a bit, it doesn’t matter what NetEase tells us about their matchmaking system, it will not deliver me again. The embarrassing information of the time I’ve invested in Marvel Rivals is now ceaselessly part of me, embedded within the sinews of my muscle tissues like an ever-present ache.
These numbers helped me notice that a lot of my time as a gamer has been spent attempting to excel in first-person shooters, that are largely male-dominated areas which might be constantly and persistently hostile for folks like me. I believe, subconsciously, I’ve spent the final 20 years attempting to be good at aggressive video games as a option to undeniably show that I need to be on this area, that I am simply as a lot of a “gamer” as the boys screaming slurs at me.
Rivals broke that spell, snapping me out of my single-minded quest to be one of the best. Even when my unhealthy time is due to a questionable matchmaking mechanic, does that negate all of the frustration I’ve felt? Affirmation that there is some form of mathematical components making certain carrot-and-sticking me so I keep round longer does not change the truth: These sorts of video games are unhealthy for me.
Are you aware what’s far more enjoyable than attempting to heal a raging DPS participant who simply demanded I fellate him? Dropping into Fortnite as Girl Gaga, head-shotting Peely, and popping the A$AP Ferg “Socks” emote earlier than driving away in a yellow Corvette blasting “Juno” by Sabrina Carpenter.
Goodbye, aggressive gaming. I might say I am going to miss you, however I will not.