Marvel Rivals Implements New Surrender System to Combat Smurfs and Throwers in Season 2 Update

Marvel Rivals, the popular online fighting game, has made a significant change to its ranked surrender system in an effort to combat the rampant issues of smurfs and throwers that have been plaguing the game. In its second season, Hellfire Gala, Marvel Rivals has added Ultron to its roster as the latest support character, following in the footsteps of mutant Emma Frost.

However, recent issues have arisen with players who are ruining the fun for others. Smurfs, high-ranked players who create alternate lower-ranked accounts to destroy more casual players, have been a major 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 address this issue in the past by softening the penalty for losing such matches, but players have found this solution unsatisfactory.

Now, in the back half of Season 2, Marvel Rivals' imminent June 26 update looks to provide a better solution to the 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. Previously, the majority of players on the team had to vote for the surrender to get the forfeit, and if a team had five players remaining in the match, all five votes were required. 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.

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.