NetEase Games started the week by announcing that its popular competitive shooter Marvel Rivals planned to reset player ranks halfway through Season 1. Less than 24 hours later, it issued another update stating that it wouldn’t be doing that after all, citing significant pushback from fans after the plan’s initial announcement. Players immediately applauded NetEase for responding to their concerns, but as plenty of live-service games have seen before, balancing planned changes with player feedback can be a perilous game for developers.
On February 10, NetEase announced some changes coming to Marvel Rivals for its mid-season update on February 21. Along with the welcome addition of the Fantastic Four’s Human Torch and the Thing, it said that players in the game’s ranked competitive mode would see their ranking drop by four divisions. The plan was for each season to have a similar rank drop in the middle, but NetEase noted that it could change exactly how that works, saying “We will tune this as necessary.”
