Marvel Rivals hit the ground running at launch with 33 heroes, seven maps, and even a tournament section on the home page. Before long, NetEase had already set up and hosted an in-game tournament, and it looks like this is only the beginning of Marvel Rivals’ journey to being a more seriously competitive shooter.
“We’ve actually been thinking about this on a broader scale, looking at the picture as a whole,” Marvel Rivals director Guangyun Chen says in an interview with Metro. “We really hope that when we do the competitive modes or tournaments, they will co-exist with our quick play. That’s because we’ve been seeing a lot of other successful titles being able to pull off a competitive environment and a quick play environment both healthily at the same time. We’ll be taking a lot of references from them to ultimately let both player pools thrive.”
It’s true that pretty much every single successful shooter has an esports arm to it. Riot hosts the annual Valorant world championships, Epic puts on The Fortnite Champion Series, and who could forget Overwatch’s long run with professional esports? I haven’t, but that’s not really for the right reasons.
The golden age of competitive Overwatch esports was pretty great. I used to religiously watch the Overwatch World Cup and follow teams like the London Spitfires and Seoul Dynasty in the Overwatch League. But sadly, it wasn’t really meant to be. After years of budget cuts and tournaments that became less and less exciting, Blizzard finally gave up on esports for Overwatch.
There were plenty of issues to come out of Overwatch’s esports, but one of the most problematic was how the competitive scene changed and shaped the game for the rest of the playerbase.
As the competitive scene grew, Overwatch essentially became two games: one for esports players that made up a tiny fraction of the playerbase and the casual game that most players enjoyed. The best players in the world are leagues above your average GM or Diamond player, let alone the vast majority of the playerbase, which is in Platinum or below. So, anytime the game was balanced with the best players in mind, average players suffered and vice versa. There were some seasons in Overwatch where some heroes were far too strong for casual lobbies, but then there were other times when competitive tournaments were way too dull because heroes and metas had been changed to meet the needs of the masses.
All of this isn’t to say that Marvel Rivals will walk a similar path to Overwatch, but setting up a serious competitive scene for a game that has a large and dedicated casual audience is tricky. But even so, it seems, at least for the time being, the casual game will be the priority for the devs.
“The team wants every kind of player to enjoy the game in their own way,” the director says. “So instead of just zeroing in on either tournament results or quick play, we’re going to take a broader look at the overall balance data on all the heroes in all the modes.
“Moving forward, we will be looking at hero pick rates and win rates in different scenarios. Once we have some more detailed analysis and through thoughtful consideration, we’ll definitely make necessary balances and adjustments. It’s all about creating a good experience for our players. It hasn’t been that long since our launch, so we’re going to continue to monitor everything and make sure everything feels right.”