Recently,Marvel Rivalshas changed their decision to reset competitive Ranks halfway through Season 1. Originally, the halfway mark through the game’s first season was scheduled to drop every player’s Rank by four divisions, resetting their placement to refresh their experience. Through constructive feedback, however, the developers of the game have reverted this choice, allowing players to keep their Rank for longer.
The backlash to the Rank reset caused developer NetEase toerase the possibility of ranks declining in as little as one day. This is a huge surprise, as most competitive hero FPS titles take far more time to roll back design choices. Thereverse of the half-season rank dropmay only last until the end of Season 1, but it does give players more time to achieve higher milestones.
Marvel Rivals Changed Course Quickly On Rank Resets
Fast Response To Feedback Means Devs Are Listening
The first announcement of the mid-season Rank reset was on February 11th, 2025 through a Dev Talk posted on theDev Diariespage of the officialMarvel Rivalswebsite. The Seasonal Rank Adjustment discussed in this post talked about the halfway point of Season 1 arriving on February 21st, 2025. At this point,Ranks were to lock in and resetthe following day after each player dropped by four divisions.
Marvel Rivals De-Rank System Causes Some Major Issues According To Fans
Marvel Rivals’ first seasonal reset has players upset about their diminished ranks, causing imbalanced matchups and lots of frustration.
Many other players, including myself, were confused about this reset, as it had only been a few weeks sincea similar reset took place at the start of Season 1. Following this post, a large collection of players spoke about how the higher rank they earned at the beginning of Season 1 would no longer matter, as they would have to grind for it again so soon.
Another announcement in the first rank reset post was that players would only receive an exclusive Invisible Womancostume inMarvel Rivalsif they had gotten to Gold Rank or higher by the time the halfway point of Season 1 had come along.
Thankfully, the abundance of feedback seems to have reached the developers fast, asNetEase reversed the decision to reset Ranks on February 12th, 2025. This decision came less than 24 hours after the 10th Dev Talk, shifting the atmosphere surrounding rank resets almost instantly. The post is shown below, which outlinesDev Talk Vol.11, which is the message the development team sent players regarding the rollback of rank resets:
As you may see, the development team cites community feedback about the pressure to reach higher ranks before the reset as a primary cause for the change back. Now,there is no rank resetat the halfway mark, allowing players to earn rewards and reach new ranks over a much longer period. While seemingly the obvious choice to make, the speed at which this decision was made is nothing sort of astounding.
Balance Patches Aren’t The Most Important Responses
Marvel Rivals Prioritizes Game Feel Over Balance
Other titles likeOverwatch 2have taken years to slowly revert changes that alienated their communities, whileMarvel Rivalshas kept good favor extremely quickly with the reverting of the rank reset. This reinforces what I, and many other players, have felt - thatthe team behindMarvel Rivalshas opted to prioritize game feel over balance patchesto make the overall experience fun.
The only major balance patch for the game took place at the beginning of Season 1. Even so, the amount ofbuffs and nerfs in Season 1for some characters did not make characters too strong or underpowered, only more adjusted alongside everyone else.
Ever since the game’s launch,Marvel Rivalshas only made very slight adjustments to characters, allowing many to be strong. Under the right circumstances,a majority of the game’s roster can feel overpowered, especially with good teammates. For example, Duelists can score eliminations incredibly fast, while some Vanguards can feel like immovable walls that form the cornerstone of a team.
AlthoughMarvel Rivalsstill has no role queue(and frankly doesn’t need one), thefewer balance patches allow characters to remain strong and consistently fun to play. The overall power fantasy of playing as your favorite Marvel heroes and villains is retained through the greater strength of specific characters.
While there will inevitably be fine-tuning for characters down the line,focusing less on balance patches allows the developers to prioritize other issues. Alongside reverting the rank reset, the development team will be able to respond faster to cheaters, fix bugs, or introduce new content rather than constantly worrying about balancing every character in the game.
Immediate Community Responses Can Keep Marvel Rivals On Top
Listening To Unified Feedback Will Keep Players Invested
What makes the fast response from theMarvel Rivalsdevs regarding the rank reset so important is how in tune the game’s creators were with the community. While issues like role queue, balance, and many other aspects of the game have divisive opinions,knowing what everyone agrees on can help developers make more changesquickly.
How Marvel Rivals Can Solve The Three Support Meta Without Role Lock
Marvel Rivals triple support meta has brought back the role lock argument, but this problem can be avoided with proper developer changes.
For example, let’s say down the line that there is a game-breaking bug involving a new map. Hopefully, after the developers have proven they are always listening to the community, they will recognize this issue, tell players they are working to fix the problem immediately, and have that map working in a short time following community feedback.
As long as NetEase keeps paying attention to what issues people are unified on, they can fix problems before they become too aggravating to players.Immediate responses to the community will foster good, long-lasting relationshipswith players who feel they can trust NetEase with issues that come up in the future.
While the developers ofMarvel Rivalswill want to respond well to community feedback to changes made to the game, such as the rank reset, they should also be careful not to be reactionary to complaints that misunderstand certain issues.
If anything, the swift response to the Season 1 midpoint rank reset change bodes well for the future. While it may seem likeMarvel Rivalsis shifting its decisions a little quickly, it proves that its development team wants to keep players happy with the best experience possible and is willing to roll back on changes that the community behind the game dislikes.
