Free-to-play hero shooter Marvel Rivals has quickly become one of the most popular competitive games available, bringing in big bucks to Chinese publisher NetEase. The company has kept the game fresh by continuing to add new characters at a steady clip since the title released late last year. However, the latest changes proposed to the game’s ranking system have not gone over well with players, forcing the publisher to backtrack.
NetEase detailed the planned changes in one of its “Dev Talk” blog posts, explaining to players that their ranking would be reset midway through the season with an upcoming update. This immediately brought backlash from players, leading to numerous furious posts across social media, with many players stating that this change would flatline their desire to continue playing in the game’s ranked mode.
Fortunately for the fans, NetEase has quickly acknowledged the feedback and released another blog post about how it’s modifying those plans. Players’ rankings will no longer be reset at the halfway mark during the season, and it will only be necessary to participate in 10 ranked games after that point in order to receive season rewards. Of course, each new season will still bring a ranking reset, but that was the plan all along.
This quick change in direction has been universally praised by the player base, with a thread on the game’s subreddit entitled “what an absolute W from the Rivals devs” clocking in at over 35,000 upvotes as of the time of this writing. The most popular reply is from a user who posted “very impressed to see how they handled the criticism, I’m honestly shocked.”
With such a quick response, NetEase is showing that it’s capable of being nimble and flexible when it comes to players’ feedback, which bodes well for the game’s longevity in such a crowded market. The midseason update will rollout on February 21 and bring The Thing and Human Torch from the Fantastic Four franchise into the roster alongside the usual balancing changes.