Marvel Rivals' launch was impressive. Straight out of the gate, we got 33 heroes, seven maps, three game modes, and tons of fantastic comic book-inspired costumes. At the time, it felt as if NetEase had prepared a grand feast for players who had spent years being drip-fed by other hero shooters. But now that the dust has settled on Season 1.5, I'm starting to feel like my eyes were too big for my stomach.
At first glance, 33 heroes doesn't seem out of the ordinary, bearing in mind that Overwatch 2 has a roster of 42 heroes and Valorant has 27 agents. However, both of these games added the majority of their characters over several years and have, therefore, had plenty of time to balance and rework abilities. Marvel Rivals started out with a gargantuan 33 heroes and has since promised to add two more heroes every season from here on out.
A Marvel Rivals season lasts around three months, meaning eight new heroes per year. At that rate, NetEase will double its roster in just four years. By the time Marvel Rivals is as old as Overwatch is right now, it will have bulked up to 105 heroes, an increase of over 200%. While Marvel's impressive catalog of over 7,000 comic heroes means NetEase has no shortage of eligible roster additions, that's a lot of characters for players to learn and an increasingly hefty balancing job.
"We have invested a lot of resources into developing upcoming content, including new characters, new maps, new modes, and more," Guangyun Chen, game director for Marvel Rivals, told PC Gamer in a recent interview. "The content for Season 2 is ready and set to go. The designs for Seasons 3 and 4 have also been completed and are currently under intensive development! Overall, everything is progressing smoothly."
I have no doubt that the devs will be able to keep the rate of new content up. I'm just worried about how large influxes of heroes will impact the game's competitive balance.
We're only in season 1 and Rivals' latest duelist, Human Torch, is already having a negative impact. Not only has he recently been buffed, but he's also got a monstrous team-up ability with Storm which turns her ultimate into a fire tornado that hits so hard it can chew through any support ult. So unless you can zip out of its path with a movement ability (running away doesn't count) or get up to high ground at a moment's notice, you're pretty much dead meat any time Storm pops her ult right now.
However, Marvel Rivals has never been too preoccupied with perfect balance. Otherwise, it wouldn't have started out with 33 heroes with the promise of adding two more every season or dismissed demands for role queue. There are more than a few "broken" characters. Luna Snow and Cloak and Dagger's ultimates both essentially grant their team temporary immortality, Storm can damage and speed-boost her whole team without worrying about the restraint of cooldowns, and Punisher can deal a horrifying amount of damage.
But only a few heroes feel truly unfair to play against because of how many powerful characters there are on offer. Instead of each hero having a line of direct counters to keep them in check, there are just a ton of ridiculously powerful abilities spread across the roster. The fact that Jeff the Land Shark's ultimate ability, which gives him the chance to swallow and kill everyone else in the game, isn't the most dangerous ability speaks volumes about how deadly some of these other heroes are.
We hope to fulfil players' fantasies about Marvel superheroes and consistently deliver new experiences.
GGuangyun Chen, game director for Marvel Rivals
It would be easy to get bogged down with fine-tuning hero balance, but it seems like the overarching goal for Marvel Rivals will continue to be fostering a fun and slightly chaotic game. If everyone's overpowered, nobody is, I suppose?
"On one hand, we will consider interesting gameplay mechanics that can bring about new environmental changes from the perspective of the game environment lineup and the characters' own experiences, as well as unique and novel experiences that have not been seen before," Chen says. "On the other hand, we will also take into account the progression of narrative writing and the new themes we want to introduce. Overall, we hope to fulfil players' fantasies about Marvel superheroes and consistently deliver new experiences."
But this isn't to say the devs are just going to throw hero balancing out the window. While the primary objective is to create a fun and engaging game, the devs will still monitor hero balance to prevent things from getting too wacky, especially as more heroes enter the roster.
"First, we will closely monitor key metrics for heroes across different modes," Chen says. "For example, in Quick Match and Competitive Modes, we will analyze data such as win rates, pick rates, damage, healing, damage taken, and final blows for heroes at various ranks and in different tournaments. This data serves as the foundation for our balancing efforts.
"At the same time, we will analyze the composition of hero lineups and their win rates within the aforementioned modes, which will be crucial references for our overall balancing direction. Finally, we will pay close attention to the player community as one of the bases for our balancing decisions."
Another feature that'll help NetEase keep Marvel Rivals roughly balanced is the team-up feature. Despite this being responsible for some truly heinous game-breaking abilities like Storm's Flame Tornado or Winter Soldier and Punisher getting an increased rate of fire and unlimited ammo from Rocket Raccoon, it can also work as a way to boost weaker heroes.
"Team-Up skills are dynamic," Chen says. "Starting from Season 2, we will introduce new Team-Up skills with the seasonal update and adjust some existing ones. Together with seasonal overall balance adjustments, this will create a new combat environment and experience for the season."
I'm not sure what Marvel Rivals will look like in a few years, even after just 20 or so additional heroes are added with extra team-up abilities and new terrifying ults for us to get to grips with. But instead of getting entangled trying to predict how the devs will balance all of these new heroes, I'm just going to enjoy the ride until there's too much going on for my poor brain to handle.
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