Marvel Rivals hero balancing leaves community impressed, here’s why

The Marvel Rivals community was pretty impressed with how the developers handled the balance changes in Season 1. They were delighted at how several characters were fixed without completely destroying their usage.

A user named DazZani took to the r/marvelrivals subreddit to share his views on the matter. They primarily talked about the Hela nerf in Season 1, mentioning that even after multiple complaints against her entire kit, the developers only gave her an HP nerf, which ultimately resulted in her being completely balanced in the game. They called it a calculated nerf, saying:

“What they did was amazing, a calculated nerf that kept Hela fun to play for those skilled with her, didnt sacrifice the fantasy of playing her, but made her less oppressive by making her easier to be killed.”

Hela's season 1 Nerf was the best handled nerfs ive ever seen in a competitive multiplayer game byu/DazZani inmarvelrivals

It was welcoming to see how the balance changes were handled. Usually, developers inflict heavy nerfs on powerful characters, ultimately making them unusable, but that was not the case here. A user named Grary0 claimed they liked how the balance changes were handled with a "light touch," saying:

“I really like that they seem to be taking balance changes with a light touch, instead of big sweeping changes that can swing characters from one end of the spectrum to the other they did relatively minor changes.”

Hela was not the only hero talked about in the thread. Players were even happy with Hawkeye’s nerfs. User knotatumah replied that Hela and Hawkeye were not nerfed ‘that bad’ but it kept people from playing them simply from a psychological point of view. This stopped players from understanding how balanced the heroes actually were.

Comment byu/DazZani from discussion inmarvelrivals

However, not all players were happy with the current state of some of the heroes — especially Moon Knight and Storm. User PhoenixKing14 said that even though Hela and Hawkeye were perfectly balanced, Moon Knight, Wolverine, and Storm were not. They commented:

“They handled her and Hawkeye well, but they overbuffed Storm, Wolverine, and Moonknight. Ah well, you win some you lose some”

Finally, user ParetoVita also agreed with the fact that the balancing team did a pretty good job. They went on to add that they would like all the characters in the game to be equally strong. This will lead to intense and competitive games, which will be much more enjoyable than using the same overpowered heroes.

Comment byu/DazZani from discussion inmarvelrivals

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Should other games take a leaf out of the Marvel Rivals handbook?

Yes, other games should definitely follow in Marvel Rivals’ footsteps and adopt similar patterns while balancing characters. The way NetEase Games handled Hela and Hawkeye should be a lesson for every game developer out there. For example, in the case of Hela, the developers simply decided to make her more squishy instead of nerfing her abilities to the ground.

The term “balancing” should be kept in mind when making changes, and heroes should not be made completely useless or extremely overpowered, which is usually what happens in most games.

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