Marvel Rivals has adjusted its ranked surrender system, allowing players to more easily escape matches that have been ruined by troublemakers. Currently in its second season, named Hellfire Gala, Marvel Rivals recently added Ultron to the game's roster as the latest support character. The mechanical villain followed in the footsteps of mutant Emma Frost, who was brought to the game earlier in Season 2.

Recently, Marvel Rivals ranked players have been experiencing rampant issues with other players who are ruining the fun for everyone else. Smurfs, high-ranked players who create alternate lower-ranked accounts to destroy more casual players, have been a big problem in Marvel Rivals, as have throwers who deliberately sabotage their own team when the match isn't going their way. Developer NetEase has attempted to mend the issue in the past by softening the penalty for losing such matches, but players have found the solution untenable.

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Now, in the back half of Season 2, Marvel Rivals' imminent June 26 update looks to provide a better solution to its smurf and throwing problem. The update reworks the game's surrender system, requiring fewer players on a team to vote for a surrender in order for the match to end early. It used to be that the majority of players on the team had to vote for the surrender to get the forfeit, and that if a team had five players remaining in the match, the forfeit would require all five votes. Now, the number of votes needed to surrender scales with the number of remaining players, so, for example, a Marvel Rivals team with four players left only needs three votes to end the match early and avoid the loss penalty.

Marvel Rivals Makes It Easier to Surrender

While this is likely to be a solid solution for teams whose matches have gone haywire due to smurfs and throwers, lowering the bar for surrendering matches may lead to more teams opting out of a losing match too early to try to avoid the hit to their ranks. It seems that there should be some sort of balance struck in terms of how easy it is to surrender and cleanly get out of a match, and if it's too easy, teams could end up taking advantage of it for the wrong reason. As the change goes live in Marvel Rivals tomorrow, this tweaked surrender system will hopefully discourage players from smurfing and tanking in the first place, as some of them may just be doing it for attention.

It'll take a few weeks to see whether Marvel Rivals' ranked surrender change is effective in getting players out of ruined matches unscathed without encouraging teams to take advantage of a lower bar to forfeit. In the meantime, Season 2 of Marvel Rivals should be winding down over the coming weeks, with news to come at some point soon about what's new in Season 3.

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Third-Person Shooter
Action
Multiplayer
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Systems
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Top Critic Avg: 78 /100 Critics Rec: 84%
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Released
December 6, 2024
ESRB
T For Teen // Violence
Developer(s)
NetEase Games
Publisher(s)
NetEase Games
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WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
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Engine
Unreal Engine 5
Genre(s)
Third-Person Shooter, Action, Multiplayer