The smurfing problem in Marvel Rivals has gotten so bad for some that the community has come together to think up ways to fix it and improve the experience for everyone involved.
A “smurf” is a high-ranked or high-skilled player making a new account and stomping out lower-ranked players as they make their way through the Competitive ladder again. It’s become a big issue for some players in Marvel Rivals, especially low-rank players trying to climb and only meeting those who should be in much higher ranks.
In Rivals, players only need to be level 10 in order to play in the Competitive mode. Every account begins at the same rank and can then climb—or that’s the theory, as some players complain they hit a wall by being matched up with or against smurfs, turning every game into a stomp in one direction or the other.
“The problem is that all accounts start in Bronze 3,” one player opined in a Feb. 24 Reddit thread, and called for NetEase to introduce placement matches that other games currently use in order to put players in their appropriate skill tiers as opposed to just lumping everyone at the bottom of the ranks. They noted how people intent on smurfing can still get around this, but they argued that smurfing is just “too easy to do” right now, and measures can be put in place to curb the phenomenon.
The current method of placing everyone into the same rank sounds nice, but it’s clearly creating a smurfing issue where players are having a miserable time trying to climb out of the starting ranks while they get matched against players who should be grinding through Platinum or higher.
“This is a problem caused by the (bad) design of the ranked system and the onus is on the devs to fix it,” one gamer replied. “Any new account of a skilled player will become a smurf whether that was the intention or not because they all start in Bronze 3. Overwatch pro playing Rivals for the first time? Bronze 3. Top 500 Jeff one-trick wants to learn a different hero? Bronze 3. Little 8 year old Timmy who has no idea how to play the game and just thinks Spider-Man is cool, and pressed the ‘try competiitve’ button on a whim? Also Bronze 3.”
So how is this fixed? Many gamers came together in the thread to outline ways to fix it, including adopting some ideas from other games with ranked systems, such as Overwatch or even a top battle royale title.
Another player suggested NetEase take a page out of Fortnite‘s book. The player noted how there’s an initial placement match, but consistently performing well after that match will cause players to rank up “exponentially” rather than in a standard growth curve. It propels smurf accounts out of the lower ranks faster, as someone good enough to win or place high consistently in the lower ranks will inevitably get out of those ranks anyway. This reduces the pain point for lower-ranked gamers just trying to get some experience and improve without being hopelessly overmatched in their own skill tier.
Placements would seem to be a quick fix for the problem, although it’s unclear how long it would take for NetEase to deploy a placement match system. This doesn’t completely get rid of smurfs altogether, but it would at least begin to alleviate the issue at first.
If any competitive changes were to be added, it would likely not be until season two is set to begin some time in early April, so now is the time to let your feedback be heard by the devs.
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