Marvel Rivals has only been out for a week, but despite its success, it can’t help but encounter a few issues reminiscent of its inspiration, Overwatch.
It was just a matter of days before hero shooter fans worked out that Overwatch’s notorious GOATS meta – AKA three healers and three tanks per team wreaking slow but steady havoc on their opponents – was also effective here. On the opposite end of things, it’s quickly become apparent that many, many players are fully committed to playing the DPS-focused Duelist characters, and don’t want to compromise with any other role even if their team is already full of them. History has a way of repeating itself, I suppose.
Like Overwatch for its first three years of life, Marvel Rivals doesn’t have a role queue. Anyone can be anything, which sounds like a motivational quote out of context, but in NetEase Games’ hero shooter, it means there are no limits on how many Duelists there are on a single team. Even though the devs made it clear that they “wanted to move away from Vanguard, Duelist, and Strategist just being names for the quintessential understanding of Tanks, DPS, and Support,” obviously, a full team of DPS characters might find themselves struggling with no dedicated healer.
This has left players on Reddit frustrated, although there’s no clear consensus on if role queue is the answer here, as some have pointed out, “Statistically more people play DPS so I guess there will be a lot [of] people who [are] against this.” What sounds like a good compromise instead of forcing the game into rigid 2v2v2 matches is a role limit: “What I am asking for is some sort of flex queue by limiting a maximum of three DPS players matched together in a team.”
“A role lock with 1-1-1 and three flex players would be really good,” one player suggests. However, it might still not be perfect: “I think role minimums might work, but it would also encourage more insta-locking not discourage it,” argues another.
“Role limit is a worse idea because people are gonna be queuing to play what they want to play, most don’t play this game to flex, it’s just how it is,” another says.
In a way, this was to be expected. After all, the game itself currently has more Duelists than Strategists and Vanguards combined. Mercifully, NetEase Games has teased that more Vanguards and Strategists might be arriving in Season 1, so we might not be waiting too long before the other roles have more heroes to choose from.
Be sure to check out our guide to the Marvels Rivals characters to see our tier list of the best heroes.