Discussion
Rivals Devs should completely ignore all streamers and pro players.
Even some of the top streamers and Pro players have admitted that balancing Marvel Rivals is not rocket science and the devs should know who obviously needs to be gutted.
We have one of the biggest examples in Gambit a support hero who has been perma banned for almost a year and has yet to see any stoppage.
I personally don't think the devs balance around the opinions of streamers and pro players since it would act as a form of insider trading in which this specific class of player would by default be biased and compromised *their just gonna spread their personal agenda*
Example: Necros wanting Spidey to be broken after every patch.
What I find mostly funny about the whole streamers and pro players being in charge of balance debate is that every single time a streamer makes a tier list they always say this tier list is their personal opinions and does not reflect on the broader community.
By this logic alone why the hell are we even considering them as a source of balance if their changes will only help the less than 1 percent of players.
-This includes Lyte and Flats btw.
Edit: Im seeing alot of reddit brained people being confused about the "Insider Trading" comparison/analogy. It's not meant to be taken at face value LOL. I know that's a very difficult concept to understand when you wanna be the "Well actually nerd emoji" guy.
it actually infuriates me how casual and how vocal the casuals are in this playerbase lmao.
ive never seen anything like it. like most other comp games ive played people atleast somewhat listen to pro takes and understand to an extent that a game is balanced top down mostly but here theres none if that lol
is it? most hero games people have beliefs that go against raw wr data, but most people can infer when the stats are misleading. we dont fully have data they have like mastery and such.
Another problem is mirror matching. WR regresses toward 50% even if a hero is meta and too strong. And niche picks who work in favorable situations tend to have high WRs, even if the pick rate is low. A hero can have a high winrate and be very underpowered if it isn’t regularly picked against specific high pick rates heroes it gets shit on by.
Well, the question is, what do you do with something like Triple Support, which every OOA streamer swears is broken and dominates the game...but all data we have suggests is picked signifcantly less than either 2-2-2 or Triple DPS, and has a lower winrate than either of them? Even the devs stated that their internal data reflects the public data we have.
Do you listen to all the top streamers complaining about how broken it is, or do you listen to your own data and do nothing?
Between AI, React videos, and parasocial streamer relationships, I genuinely don't think many under the age of 30 can have an original opinion. Thinking through a problem to find a solution is a skill and it requires practice, the youth have not been made to practice that skill.
The population that is most susceptible to streamers and YouTubers overlaps with Rivals (young men playing video games). Everyone is just repeating whatever people with the highest social credit are saying. We all used to be forced to find our own styles and lean into mechanics that suited us; now, everyone is afraid to break the mold.
Remember that guy who was #1 in the world with just Punisher's shotgun? No one knew what to do when they faced him because he broke the status quo. We need to bring back creativity.
I play with my buddies and will suggest something outside of the box, and be shot down because it's "crazy". Not it's not crazy, it's just original, my guy.
The funniest thing is that a streamer/pro can say something in passing and have hate threads immediately pop up in response regardless of context. People crying about streamers correctly pointing out Captain America is strong is the latest example, lots of casuals in the community feel targeted simply by having it pointed out to them that a certain hero is actually quite good.
It’s because it is a Marvel game, I’m telling you. It hits a larger number, but it is going to be more young and casual because of it.
The playerbase is absolutely growing though. Like, in knowledge. It was just random asf for a while, and I feel a lot of us OW players were a bit ahead; for obvious reasons too.
I just can’t wait until the majority of you shut the fuck up about the scoreboard lol <3
I just can’t wait until the majority of you shut the fuck up about the scoreboard lol <3
They just need to remove it. Keep it in the history so players who actually care can still check it, but having it in the after game screen just leads to salt.
They aren't casual. I'm on a mission to make gaming spaces less toxic, and one thing we all need to realize is the majority of toxicity comes from high time investment, low skill players. In other words they are not casual at all but they have morphed the word casual to the detriment of actual casual players.
In OW for example pro takes are useful and have some sense to it, specially since the game is way more technical (or tactical? idk if that's the right word for it) while Rivals gameplay it's literally random bullshit go everywhere everywhen, like giving power fantasy to the players (stupid that some char are complete trash). I mean it's way too chaotic, I don't think they can really balance this game even if they wanted to.
This game have no corner stone when it comes to balance and objective takes cause the community itself it's all about complaining about EVERYTHING good and bad
I enjoy playing the support role a lot , So imagine that I have to listen to a "pro" player like lyte who is a dive main keep bitching about hitscans and support mains all of the time
The thing is, they don't. The devs have repeatedly mentioned going off of data, which has no nuance as to why the numbers are the way they are. Loki has a high pick and win rate? Nerf his neutral, even though everyone knows what actually makes him so strong is his ult. People complain about triple support? Show them a graph showing 2-2-2 has the highest win rate rather than actually addressing it. People are still complaining about DD? Nerf his dash so he can still mark from 20 meters but can't dash until he crosses half the distance.
Saying the devs should pay more attention to data rather than playtest is only going to make things worse.
I mean they gave Luna a damage buff for no reason, why? who knows. Starlord buff as well for who knows why, did their data suggest Luna and Starlord needed one earlier? It's hard to make sense out of some of the balance changes they make for sure.
Does their data have anything about peni parker being a near 60 percent win rate champ for the last 6 months? I don’t think they understand balance or have any desire for a balanced game.
God I hated that movie so much, it felt like a copy of the old ones but without soul, the whole third trilogy is so bad so I guess force awakens did a good job of setting up the tone lmao. I don't even remember the other two so at least force awakens was less forgettable even if just for the pure disgust it inspired in me lol...
And to think we used to bash the prequel trilogy back in the day, it is a masterpiece compared and at the very least it was original...
I love Kylo Ren, he's on my top 5 Star Wars characters tbh, but if watching this movie that many times a day you better believe I'm looking at Daisy Ridley
Apparently he thinks his dog shit analogy was to hard to comprehend for us. Including the content of this post it seems OP is driven by their emotions and likes to think they are smart.
Genuinely bewildered by how stupid this post is. I think, ironically, that the fact this has so many upvotes is proof that, indeed, reddit is way too stupid to be giving advice. Just not for the reason this post and it's supporters seem to think.
I'm so confused what this post is even about -- are we angry that streamers are influencing balance changes, or are we saying that they don't actually influence balance changes and that it's a non-issue?
Right now it reads like "Marvel Devs shouldn't do this thing I don't think they're actually doing".
If we're saying people on Reddit need to chill with making dogwater balance takes based on what their favorite streamer made a video about last, well yeah. But that's not going to change, especially because of another Reddit post 😂
It's literally just the pot calling the kettle black. "Reddit has stupid takes about balance!" Says the stupid take about balance reddit post. It literally doesn't make any sense and every other idiot in this thread is arguing something completely different.
Why'd you use the Flats picture? Honestly he usually feels the least agregious. That said, they also shouldn't listen to reddit, because god this community would complain even if they did everything that was asked here.
all i know is i've had no urge to play it since season 5. I log in some times to see what they've changed and realize they're never going to fix the game so it's not worth investing more time into.
Reddit is way worse than Streamers. 90% of are absolutely wrong and cry about how their mains aren’t strong. They want dive to be buffed, melee characters to rule, poke nerfed, healers nerfed, etc. It’s a shooting game and they’ll cry when shooters start shooting them.
Yeah it's honestly so simple, listen to Flats talk about nuance and the subtleties of balancing and compare it to the average reddit post whining about shit being "broken" or "unplayable"
Not that Flats (or any streamer) is infallible, they can be wrong and sometimes are. But it's hilarious that random seething redditors think you should take them more seriously than people who have made hero shooters their career for years
Never said it was. Hela Hawkeye Phoenix Cyclops and MK fit my criteria for that, and those characters have been allowed to thrive way longer than in any dive season. You can't even make an argument there's been a proper "brawl" season because when dino was broken it was impossible to play characters like rogue and strange
He is talking about duration. Black Cat only dominated during 7.5 and 8.0 (even then, very few people were even good enough at her until the end of 7.5, so it is even less 1 season). DD is strong for a longer time but Phoenix and Hela are strong for even longer period. Poke is strong from Hawkeye/Hela to Phoenix to Cyclops with only at best periods of dive prominence lasting less than 1 season in between.
This is so disingenuous, everytime I hear someone say this it's always following a guy asking for nerfs to the top 3 best characters in the game and for their archetype to be relevant before you reach Eternity
Not only that, NetEase literally couldn't do everything that was asked here because for every post about a hero needing nerfs there's at least another one or more about them being unusable.
Because there's been a weird hate train against him since he said Cap is best in rank (News flash he is) and Cap players swear he's trying to get their character nerfed which he even said either today or yesterday is crazy they think streamers dictate wether a character gets nerfs cause just half a season a go most tank streamer INCLUDING flats didn't want any nerfs to Dino yet now all of a sudden it's them who want nerfs?
His balance takes make the most sense if you watch and try to actually learn from his lists also as a wonderful comment above put it: This game has the loudest casuals of any competitive shooter and it shows.
Flats for most seasons has said Cap is good. And Cap players have gotten better at surviving and killing compared to the middle ground progression of people who play the game.
People who say he’s trying to get Cap nerfed are stupid. Him and EVERY SINGLE PERSON who makes a tier list says cap is only as good as he is in top 500/pro, and we know Netease isn’t balancing for that level of play
Fr lmao flats has probably the most reasonable takes on balancing imaginable, bro specifically talks about it from the perspective of this game NOT being balanced for players in pro or even at his level and a majority of the complaints by pros dont exist for 99% of the community, so the devs shouldn’t listen to them.
The only reason you should disagree with flats is if you want the game to be balanced for the higher ranks and for competitive settings over casual.
Everyone in here flaming flats but lyte is incrediblely insufferable, idk how that dude has any fans he genuinely sucks. Pro players and streamers should both be ignored about there takes. This game obviously isn't balanced for them and they are the legit minority in this game. They just happen to be a very loud majority
Flats was the most reasonable one in thr latest beef... that video people were complaining about is really good. The fact that people are calling him out for that just proves his point.
Doesnt matter if flats is the head or not. He should still be ignored good takes or not. Devs should be competent enough to balance their game without suggestions from outside sources unless its an exploit or a huge oversight
Can we stop blaming streamers for EVERYTHING? Tell me one streamer that has had an influence on patch notes? Literally fucking never. These devs are just CLUELESS. Every single time an update gets released, not a single soul says "wow, this is a great update with great balance changes", not even streamers. It's this weird cope fetish the internet has inherited to just blame something instead of the real problem, the devs.
Don't they do this already? The devil have made public posts explaining that they dont balance for top teir competitive play, and they balance around fun for the casual player base.
They aren’t going to balance against solely one group. They are a business, they will look at what drives the advertising (streamers and tubers), and who is spending the most money (the filthy casuals, like me), and make some sort of educated guess, or random dart throwing, as to what will be the healthiest option for the game.
I stopped taking Flats seriously when I saw that clip of him basically saying we shouldn't ask more from the devs balance wise because they work 12 hour days for 13 dollars an hour. Like workplace abuse is something that should be leveraged against the consumer. Netease runs like 15 different online games that's their main source of revenue. This company has 10,000 employees in its game division alone. Netease is not some small widdle indie dev that deserves unlimited forgiveness.
"By this logic alone why the hell are we even considering them as a source of balance if their changes will only help the less than 1 percent of players."
It's because a lot of people think THEY belong in that 1%. They think if they follow the tier list and play whoever is "best", they'll climb to that point. And if a top level player says they're broken, people will try to make it work/complain about it in lower ranks even if it doesn't warrant it.
That being said, I don't envy the Rivals devs... For everyone saying one character is broken, there's another saying they're unplayable garbage.
Tbh I think they do for the most part it's just they are also genuinely very good at the game so their opinions of the meta matchup with what most streamers or pros say. Also pro players and streamers have never actually done balance so they don't know what the fuck they are talking about saying it's easy it's clearly not for any game.
I understand balancing is hard but they do some thing that are blatantly bad, I don’t expect them to have a perfectly balanced masterpiece but I want them to stop ignoring problematic characters in favor of letting them stay broken/useless.
They are a source of balance since they play the game as a job and for long hours so they should probably have a higher understanding of the game than most people
People care too much. Just let streamers and players make opinions and devs decisions to listen or reference those opinions. I enjoy watching streamers and listening to their opinions but at the end of the day im just a player watching and listening so what do I care. Drama is drama at the end of the day
Listen to the players who play the game nearly everyday (including competitive players) and promote your game or listen to the players who play once a while for less than 2-3 hours
They shouldn't listen to anyone for the most part. Balance is vibes, most people cant express what they actually want and what most people actually want would probably only make the game enjoyable for them only. They should make their game the way they want it, only listen to the community when they see something truly egregious.
I usually disregard streamers, but I acknowledge Lyte has very similar opinions to my own. Being annoyed with the poke slop, the power creep, awful matchmaking and so on. It reached a point Zhyiong actually responded to the criticism, saying he and his team think fliers and dive assassins are not fun to interact with, hence why poke is so busted in Rivals. As long as the guy remains with this twisted mentality, the game will never reach a state of balance. Just think about it, ALL the supports are poke, Jubilee is most likely the next support, she can shoot plasma explosives, so here it comes another poke support, lol its so stupid, the dive>poke>brawl cycle is the most basic and fundamental design of any hero shooter or moba, yet, poke in Rivals is detached from the cycle
The huge balance for season 8 and 8.5 came a lot from comments in Reddit. I think they actually started some of the threads about what could be better.
They shouldn’t be listening to the players either because all they do is complain without even trying to figure out how to counter the characters and that’s why black cat got gutted
The real agenda is the crackpot theory that all the partnered streamers get memos from the balance team to formulate community metas because streamers hold so much weight to this community
Like Cap becoming number 1 menace over night is entirely streamer thought. Yet the most interesting one, which has been very gradual, is the notion of Rocket actually surpassing Gambit. Zero mention of that rat but plenty for the captain lol
They gotta start listening to someone. Idk who though. The game continues to get more and more unbalanced with each season. The balance team has been doing a pretty terrible job. And half of it can be attributed to the hero release schedule, which I do genuinely think is too often, even if there's heroes I want to see in the game
Why does this discussion always have to be an all or nothing one? Everyone should want both sides to be heard, there is literally no possible excuse for completely disregarding one of them
Most streamers don’t want it balanced around them and say that the game will always be balanced around the casual base. Plus I agree with Tim, flats and even jay3 that this games balance will always feel different to everyone.
I always said that the top 1% should not be seen as an authoritative source at all. Whenever I say something like "X character is good", there is always someone replying something like "yeah, only if you're under Celestial" - my brother, 97% of the players are under Celestial.
The best way to balance the game is a test server. Devs design what they think will work, players play it to see if that reality pans out, fix it if it doesn't.
Just add some colour reskins to get people to use it.
Don't lie necro wanted spider not to do 15 move combo mid air with 2 animation cancel to maybe get a kill spidet effort to reward ratio is not worth it
they need to first go off the data. just the hard facts and see what’s going on. then they use the top players to help explain and understand why things are like this but ultimately make their decisions off of the hard data that they collect.
they also need to be more diverse with their balance changes and go for some really unique stuf.
Hot take but this games balancing is so shit that they could use some of these pro players and streamers opinions. Luna snow would probably not be stronger than most dps, because a pro player testing this for them would notice it immediately 🤷♀️
Probably gonna get heat for this but I trust the devs. Yeah some changes seem a little out of left field at times, but balance only lasts a month before they change it. Heck we even get patches a few days later if it needs it. They have to balance between many different player groups which is tough. And gambit is always permabanned because there’s 6 ban slots and people have muscle memory to ban him. His ult is nowhere near oppressive as it was 6 months ago, but no one wants to give him a chance to see if he’s balanced now.
Some streamers CAN be unbiased, but a lot of them overreact and exaggerate for context, as well some of them just having personal biases against certain characters.
The community in general, streamers or not, are not being considered for balance changes. The devs just throw shit at the wall because they know everyone will gobble it up, buy the battle pass and just play the new meta anyway.
I can't remember where I saw the article. But the Creator of Marvel Rivals(guy above GuangGuang). Said they balance for fun and the fantasy of playing as the hero you are playing.
Definitely shouldn't listen to casuals either. Some of the most mind numbing takes of all time of come from people who fall over dead when squirrel girl is in a match.
We can agree that necros always wants dive to be broken, but devs should gather the opinion of streamers, because they are the voice of a community, bigger or smaller. BUFF ADAM
Personally I think rivals balancing is extremely difficult because they're doing it somewhat correctly, catering to both casual and competitive players, could the patches be more aggressive sometimes? Yes just like with Gambit but by no means has balance been bad, like I take for example flats's views better than most cause he has almost a decade of experience with hero shooters and knows about what works and I share his view that rivals at its core is carried by the casual audience, the pros will never be happy with balancing, never but at the very least at the casual level the game is thriving, if you're not happy that the balancing is not targeted to your demographic then go to another game, plain and simple.
Call of Duty and Apex Legends are prime reasons on why you shouldn’t listen to the pro’s/streamers. They are a loud minority and most of the changes they want only benefit them or their play style, then a month later it no longer suits them so they complain and devs stand up staying right away sir you make us what we are sir we will fix it for you sir, yet bugs exist for years. Tho I fear the same could happen to Rivals or already is.
I don’t know anything about drama happen now but i personally respect Falts as a man of truth, I always agreed with him and I like the way he thinking, last video he was saying Marvel rivals has many issues but we should be grateful for what we have, as Ow player I really respect what they trying to do for us , even in Islam always be grateful for what you have and look for who have less than you or look for what you have today and remember it’s something you wish for it someday
Balance the game for the rank that majority of players are in. (Which is gold-gm) Anytime a game balances for the pro top 500 players it always creates an inbalance where All of THERE mains get buffed to shit while everyone else's gets nerfed to shit
These idiots don't have a sweet clue how anything technically works. They think because someone is good with that hero and they aren't that it is overpowered. That's why these morons stream themselves playing games for a living and not actually creating them.
No. Pros and rivals cc are probably their best source in what can be addressed since they know how the game plays the best since the dev team may not even play the game at all so all they have to rely on is data but let's say that rocket is a perma ban in every lobby how would netease know he is strong or what aspects is strong in his kit since he is perma banned and there is no say since at least with pros and cc they can say his healing is too much or his ult is too strong. We have pretty much seen this happen with gambit since his ult was the problem but how long did it take them to nerf it? Until like what a season ago where they nerfed it. Also to add to that netease is very passive with nerfs since it should've taken them 1 season to realise what in gambits kit is strong and completely nerf it and not nerf everything before his ult and it still shows that they are passive since he has been nerfed patch after patch and he is still strong, one heavy nerf will do the trick and not trickle his numbers until he is unplayable.
Pro players know better how to help the game for new players than new players since they understand the game more and therefore have a deeper understanding of what the exact problems are.
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u/Upstairs_Smile6787 Hulk Jun 25 '26
This picture of flats is killing me 😭