Marvel Rivals Made Me Stop Aggressive Gaming

A couple of weeks in the past, after yet 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 recreation launched shortly after my segue into the world of freelancing, and I had a variety of spare time on my palms. When my boyfriend, who typically performs after I do, instructed me he had logged 16 hours up to now, I conservatively guessed “at least double that.”

When 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’s over 400 hours, and for many of that point, I used to be pissed off, aggravated, or “tilted,” as the youngsters say–desperate to achieve an arbitrary purpose I had set for myself earlier than I may correctly take a break from the sport.

Those surprising 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 give up.

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 stage 50. I did the identical factor years later with Gears of War 3, grinding matches to achieve stage 100. Later, I frolicked on ranked Apex Legends, preferring it to the informal modes.

But for years, my recreation of selection 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 bored with the grind and Rivals glittered on the horizon.

Every recreation that I play competitively, I play alone, queueing up for ranked matches solo and, in hero shooters, as a assist character. This is broadly thought of a Bad Idea: Solo queuing means you get a brand new staff each match, which suggests no squad chemistry–and assist 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 assist participant by no means felt like sufficient to hold a staff to victory, and my fruitless efforts to rank up whereas enjoying essentially the most thankless function started weighing on me.

So after I caught wind of a rumor that instructed NetEase’s hero shooter is baking the dangerous expertise into the sport with its matchmaking system, I perked up. Maybe the issue is not me…perhaps it is the sport.

Matchmaking is a complicated and hotly contested subject on this planet of aggressive gaming. I’ve written extensively about skill-based matchmaking (or SBMM), a system utilized by video games like Call of Duty and Apex Legends to find out which gamers populate in-game lobbies. Though the precise numbers that go into these techniques normally differ by recreation or developer, the core logic is straightforward: Players are matched with equally expert gamers, whether or not that is primarily based on kill/loss of life ratio, hours logged, or whole wins.

Since implementation of those techniques varies from recreation to recreation, there are cases during which 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 12 months, Call of Duty fans flooded a Reddit AMA for Modern Warfare III, begging and/or demanding that Activision rework its SBMM system.

But 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. Though 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.

But 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’m not caught in Platinum as a result of I suck; I’m caught in Platinum as a result of the Rivals matchmaking system decided I wanted to go on a dropping streak, get utterly 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 want to reiterate that Marvel Rivals does not use EOMM. We are currently working on a video to demonstrate our developer insights on the matchmaking and ranking system, which is expected to be released next week.”

Though 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 carry me again. The embarrassing data of the time I’ve invested in Marvel Rivals is now eternally part of me, embedded within the sinews of my muscle tissue like an ever-present ache.

Those numbers helped me notice that a lot of my time as a gamer has been spent making an attempt to excel in first-person shooters, that are largely male-dominated areas which are persistently and persistently hostile for individuals like me. I believe, subconsciously, I’ve spent the final 20 years making an attempt to be good at aggressive video games as a technique to undeniably show that I should be on this house, that I’m 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 the most effective. Even if my dangerous time is due to a questionable matchmaking mechanic, does that negate all of the frustration I’ve felt? Confirmation that there is some sort of mathematical system guaranteeing carrot-and-sticking me so I keep round longer does not change the truth: These sorts of video games are dangerous for me.

Do what’s far more enjoyable than making an attempt to heal a raging DPS participant who simply demanded I fellate him? Dropping into Fortnite as Lady 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’d say I’ll miss you, however I will not.