It doesn’t take long until Marvel Rivals‘ launch, and there’s a lot of excitement surrounding this particular hero shooter, especially after its successful closed beta test. Thanks to the power of Wonder universe and a mighty budget, it appears to be the first hero shooter to truly challenge SurveillanceThe monopoly of the genre, with stylish visuals, chaotically fun gameplay and a wealth of popular characters. Something that will help the game move forward is its free-to-play model and like almost everything, apart from cosmetics, it is completely free, moving away from the MOBA-style model.
Recently, through YouTube, Marvel Rivals released a content roadmap, revealing what players can expect from the full launch on December 6thand there is much to enjoy. There are eight Quick Play and Competitive maps, a new Practice Ground, a Conquest Map, and thirty-three characters at launch. The closed beta started with a whopping twenty-one characters, with Thor and Jeff the Land Shark being added during the beta to bring the roster to a total of twenty-three characters, and even this was a large collection of characters for a hero shooter. .
Marvel Rivals has many heroes
Not all of them have been announced yet
At the time of writing, thirty-three characters were announcedwith Moon Knight being one of the most recent characters to join the colorful roster. Thanks to the expressive artistic style, the characters often maintain their classic style, Wonder designs in spirit while also looking unique, especially compared to their live-action appearances. So far, the characters are all fun to play, fit the different roles well, and all have great designs. There is no reason for this list to remain at thirty-three characters.
With the Wonder universe as a setting, as well as a suggestion of multiverses with a Spiderverse map and two Doctor Dooms from different timelinesthere are a wealth of characters that have not yet been announced in the roster. It will likely continue to grow as time goes on, and if the game does as well as many think, becoming not just a rival to Surveillance but your usurper, a League of Legendsa full size list may not be far off. There is enough Wonder characters to do this, from the famous to the obscure.
Interestingly, there are some important omissions so far in Marvel Rivals‘list, despite its size. Of course some are yet to be announced, but some of them WonderThe most famous heroes, such as Wolverine, Deadpool, any member of the Fantastic Four, Black Widow, Hawkeye and many others are not yet on the list, but if Rivals goes well, it wouldn’t be surprising to see all of these characters join the cast eventually. As the roster continues to grow, however, balance will be an issue in the future, especially if characters are released quickly.
Balancing a huge list is much more difficult
Overwatch found this out the hard way
For context, Surveillance 1 launched with twenty-one characters and was reasonably well balanced at launch. That balance went down the drain as more characters were added, leading to the infamous GOATS comp. GOATS omitted DPS, commanding three supports and tanks, becoming so dominant in competitive play that the DPS role became useless. Surveillance then added the role queue to try and fix this, but by this point the game’s balance had been irreversibly damaged because of its still-growing roster.
With Marvel Rivals launching with a massive roster of thirty-three that eclipses SurveillanceWith the launch roster of twenty-one, balance could be an issue at launch, let alone later on as the game continues to grow. While the closed beta can be dismissed as not being the final product, it did present some balancing issues that need to be resolved before full release. Marvel Rivals will launch with a competitive modeand although it is an impossible task, any competitive game benefits greatly from proper balance.
Another hero shooter that has enjoyed prolonged success is Team Stronghold 2with the series being famous for starting the genre. TF2 has nine classes, has a relatively small roster for a modern hero shooter, and it doesn’t get much attention from Valve, but it still has some balance issues. Having a balanced hero shooter experience will help Marvel Rivals shine in a genre known for having little balance, but that becomes more difficult as the roster grows, and Rivals It’s starting out pretty big compared to many of its competitors.
How Marvel’s Rivals Can Avoid Previous Hero Shooter Mistakes
Serving the many at the expense of the few will certainly help
Since Marvel Rivals receives continuous updates of NetEase games, this will largely avoid the problems of Team Stronghold 2as many of its balance issues can be attributed to Valve’s negligence. There is also the budget and creativity behind it to eclipse many other free-by-default hero shootersas Paladins and 3D Pixel Gunalong with one of the biggest IPs in the world to maintain interest. If the game is as fun as the test suggests, Marvel Rivals will begin, but maintaining popularity will be the difficult part.
One of the problems that Surveillance had, what Marvel Rivals can avoid, it’s an excess of attention to the ESports side of the sport. Blizzard pushed SurveillanceESport is having a hard time with the now defunct Overwatch Leagueand the game balance began to cater to the higher level of play rather than the recreational level where most of the player base is. Since Marvel Rivals provides its balance for the many, not the few, who play at a completely different level, and properly testing new heroes, can avoid this problem.
Unfortunately, balancing with a game as expressive and chaotic as Marvel RivalsEspecially in the hero shooter genre, this is much easier said than done. Even with its resources, Blizzard was unable to properly balance its innovative hero shooter and ultimately retreated to a launch version of the game with Overwatch 2 Classic. With the roster the game will have at launch and what it will grow into, Marvel Rivals You’ll have an extremely difficult task staying balanced, but if you can do that, you could find yourself at the top of the hero shooter genre.
Source: Marvel/YouTube Rivals