Marvel Rivals

[John Price]

 

[JaegerDice]

Finally got to Platinum. Had some really frustrating matches where nobody wanted to play Tank or Strategist, so I was basically doing my best to keep 4 or 5 people alive all by my lonesome as they bounced around the map. It went poorly.

Finally LFGed on the official Xbox club, got a proper team together and we went 10-0. Psylocke is just sexy Genji, and I am HERE for it.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Played it a bit at launch, didn't jive with it at first. Gave it another go and i fell in love lmao.

They absolutely nailed the art style for starters. Most, if not all their designs for the characters are clearly taken from each hero/villain's most iconic look but with enough of their own spin on it where it stands out.

Gameplay is solid since to me, it feels like it captured what made overwatch incredibly successful in the early going in the sense no hero really plays the same. You have your basic "shoot things" DPS like Punisher and then hyper complex heroes that require a lot of effort (maybe a bit too much given burst is usually king in hero shooters) to utilize like spiderman. Supports are actually fun to play here. Tanks i'm not super big on at the moment but they even have something for me as a long time Reinhardt player in Doctor Strange. There are a couple design choices that i do admittedly find a bit head scratching. Certainly not bad but a bit..odd. Winter Solider having a pistol as his primary fire and having it be projectile rather than hitscan is a bit weird. Spiderman being probably the most popular character out of Marvel's catalog and having him be uber difficult to play.

Other choices i applaud, like having Black Widow being almost entirely useless. All the overwatch players were afraid of her being broken because the majority is tired of playing against something that goes so against the game's core design. Thankfully she's not so that's a big plus in my book.

I also surprisingly don't hate the lack of a role queue. At first i was a bit concerned, but it seems like the dev team actually did a decent job with their claim of "we see multiple comps that work well." at least for now. I've seen 3 DPS/1 tank/2 healer, 2/2/2 and 3 tank/3 healer all work relatively well. I think the only true non-negotiable part of this is you need at least two healers since it certainly doesn't feel like anyone is built to solo heal here. Whether this holds as people learn and optimize the game remains to be seen, but so far good job.

Only in silver right now but the two buddies i play (as am i) are long time OW players that ripped through bronze winning 10 of our first 12 matches in comp so i imagine we'll probably settle in around gold/plat once we have more time to put in.

 

[JaegerDice]

Played it a bit at launch, didn't jive with it at first. Gave it another go and i fell in love lmao.

They absolutely nailed the art style for starters. Most, if not all their designs for the characters are clearly taken from each hero/villain's most iconic look but with enough of their own spin on it where it stands out.

Gameplay is solid since to me, it feels like it captured what made overwatch incredibly successful in the early going in the sense no hero really plays the same. You have your basic "shoot things" DPS like Punisher and then hyper complex heroes that require a lot of effort (maybe a bit too much given burst is usually king in hero shooters) to utilize like spiderman. Supports are actually fun to play here. Tanks i'm not super big on at the moment but they even have something for me as a long time Reinhardt player in Doctor Strange. There are a couple design choices that i do admittedly find a bit head scratching. Certainly not bad but a bit..odd. Winter Solider having a pistol as his primary fire and having it be projectile rather than hitscan is a bit weird. Spiderman being probably the most popular character out of Marvel's catalog and having him be uber difficult to play.

Other choices i applaud, like having Black Widow being almost entirely useless. All the overwatch players were afraid of her being broken because the majority is tired of playing against something that goes so against the game's core design. Thankfully she's not so that's a big plus in my book.

I also surprisingly don't hate the lack of a role queue. At first i was a bit concerned, but it seems like the dev team actually did a decent job with their claim of "we see multiple comps that work well." at least for now. I've seen 3 DPS/1 tank/2 healer, 2/2/2 and 3 tank/3 healer all work relatively well. I think the only true non-negotiable part of this is you need at least two healers since it certainly doesn't feel like anyone is built to solo heal here. Whether this holds as people learn and optimize the game remains to be seen, but so far good job.

Only in silver right now but the two buddies i play (as am i) are long time OW players that ripped through bronze winning 10 of our first 12 matches in comp so i imagine we'll probably settle in around gold/plat once we have more time to put in.

Interestingly, after mainlining Marvel Heroes for the last week, I have an itch to get back into Overwatch again.

I love the messiness and experimentation in Rivals, but there are times it gets.... really messy. When like, you have 12 characters in the battle, and the 3rd person view combined with the emphasis on CQC makes it feel kinda hard to follow and bit random. It's not bad, but I felt myself feeling like 'I kinda wish there was another playlist with role queue or character bans, just to kind of, slow things down and spread things out a touch'. If only for a bit of variety here and there between 'normal' matches.

But I haven't played Overwatch since like season 11, so I'm completely out of the loop as far as the meta. Are Tracer and Pharah still pretty good?

 

[Blitzkrug]

Interestingly, after mainlining Marvel Heroes for the last week, I have an itch to get back into Overwatch again.

I love the messiness and experimentation in Rivals, but there are times it gets.... really messy. When like, you have 12 characters in the battle, and the 3rd person view combined with the emphasis on CQC makes it feel kinda hard to follow and bit random. It's not bad, but I felt myself feeling like 'I kinda wish there was another playlist with role queue or character bans, just to kind of, slow things down and spread things out a touch'. If only for a bit of variety here and there between 'normal' matches.

But I haven't played Overwatch since like season 11, so I'm completely out of the loop as far as the meta. Are Tracer and Pharah still pretty good?

Pharah's kit has changed entirely. She's now more of a hit and run character that can no longer hover in the air infinitely if you know how to manage her jets.

Tracer still does okay in the middle ranks but for the most part the game's meta has solidified around burst damage. So characters like Ashe, Widow, Cassidy, Baptiste (because blizzard doesn't understand how to balance supports) and usually with a Mercy pocket. Absolute snoozefest of a game because the devs couldn't balance their way out of a paper bag.

In their quest to make tanks less centralizing, they made them overly strong in the start of OW2 then nerfed them multiple times to the point they are now irrelevant and exist only to explode in fights. Bad enough where a lot of the tank players got fed up (hi, i love rein but rein has been useless for eons) and either left, or in the case of a lot of the content creators, latched on to rivals because it doesn't feel like a waste of their time.

Unless of course you are a Zarya fan. Zarya for some reason has no legitimate counter and she either checks or counters most of the other tanks.

Supports are also grossly overtuned in a lot of aspects but while also being unfun to play.



Don't bother going back, keep the fond memories you have lol.

 

[JaegerDice]

Pharah's kit has changed entirely. She's now more of a hit and run character that can no longer hover in the air infinitely if you know how to manage her jets.

Tracer still does okay in the middle ranks but for the most part the game's meta has solidified around burst damage. So characters like Ashe, Widow, Cassidy, Baptiste (because blizzard doesn't understand how to balance supports) and usually with a Mercy pocket. Absolute snoozefest of a game because the devs couldn't balance their way out of a paper bag.

In their quest to make tanks less centralizing, they made them overly strong in the start of OW2 then nerfed them multiple times to the point they are now irrelevant and exist only to explode in fights. Bad enough where a lot of the tank players got fed up (hi, i love rein but rein has been useless for eons) and either left, or in the case of a lot of the content creators, latched on to rivals because it doesn't feel like a waste of their time.

Unless of course you are a Zarya fan. Zarya for some reason has no legitimate counter and she either checks or counters most of the other tanks.

Supports are also grossly overtuned in a lot of aspects but while also being unfun to play.



Don't bother going back, keep the fond memories you have lol.

Noooooooo, how could they do that to my girl, Parah? :

Thanks for the info. I'll hop back into Valorant if I need a more structured experience instead.

 

[John Price]

 

[John Price]