Marvel Rivals denies use of engagement-optimised matchmaking for ranked

NetEase Games has revealed how matchmaking works, denying fan speculation that Marvel Rivals uses engagement-optimised matchmaking (EOMM).

A video was posted on Marvel Rivals’ socials, where Lead Combat Designer ‘Zhiyong’ shared more details about performance point calculations, team matchmaking and more.

According to NetEase Games, Marvel Rivals considers several factors when players queue for Ranked.

Every player has a competitive score, or a measure of their skill level in the game, where wins cause an increase and losses cause a decrease. Similar to Overwatch 2’s matchmaking system, the game attempts to pair players with similar scores against one another.

Once it finds 12 players, it arranges the lobby to ensure both teams have similar average scores to make for a more competitive experience.

When a match concludes, a new score is calculated based on Base and Performance Points. These points are combined in different ways depending on rank, lower ranks (e.g Silver) weigh Performance more heavily, while higher ranks (e.g Celestial) lean more towards Base.

Base points are influenced by your chances of victory, whether you’re matched against a stronger or less skilled team, and points gained or lost will adjust depending on the result. On the other hand, Performance points are shaped based on a player’s impact throughout a match, judged through a ‘per 10 minutes’ value.

In Season 3.5, fans began to speculate that Marvel Rivals was using EOMM, a system that would manipulate matches to force a 50% win rate on players to keep them interested. However, in the video posted online, Zhiyong stated that no such system was in place.

“Recently, we have received a lot of feedback from the community,” said Zhiyong. “With many players believing that our matchmaking system employs EOMM. This would imply manipulating the matchmaking queue to keep players’ win rates around 50%, ensuring they remain engaged in the game.

“We want to be clear: Marvel Rivals does not use EOMM.”

Marvel Rivals developers provided insights into why matches may feel unbalanced. The lack of a role queue system in the game means that players who are proficient in one role may decide to play other characters they are less familiar with.

While team averages are very similar, there may also be individual players who are significantly more skilled than the rest of the lobby. Quieter times or less populated regions also mean the system has fewer players to pick from, creating less evenly-matched games as a result.

The video goes on to promise improvements to the game and system, saying NetEase Games is working on bringing ‘more interesting Vanguards and Strategists’ to balance out the game’s meta.