Marvel Rivals Needs To Get Rid Of Bot Lobbies In Quick Play

Marvel Rivals is a great game. Having been a big Overwatch player back in the day, I can confidently say it’s the most fun I’ve ever had with a hero shooter. It’s a fantastic power fantasy that lets you control heroes and villains from across the Marvel universe, each one distinct with their own strengths, weaknesses, and playstyles.

When you’re really cooking with gas, Marvel Rivals is brilliant, but when you’re on a losing streak, it is one of the most frustrating games I’ve ever played, and it’s all down to the horrible bot lobbies.

Marvel Rivals Quick Play Is A True Hellhole

Before Season 2’s big rank reset, I was dangerously close to dropping a rank, so I decided to jump into Quick Play for a few days instead of risking it. I could practice with some new characters that I’d always felt too nervous to use in ranked, and with dive being so powerful on console, I gave Psylocke a go. She’s super fast, fun to play, and an absolute menace for backlines to deal with. I wanted to be that menace.

After a quick trip to YouTube to check out her optimal combos, I queued into Quick Play, knowing full well I’d be placed in a game with the most diabolical team compositions I’d ever seen. I understand this mode is essentially the Wild West of Marvel Rivals, and more often than not, you’re probably going to be teamed up with 8-year-old Timmy who loves Spider-Man and just wants to do his daily missions. I did not go into this session expecting to win many matches, if any at all, given I was playing as a character for the first time.

I’m unsurprisingly splattered across the floor by The Thing, burnt to a crisp by Iron Man, and sliced to ribbons by Magik in two successive games, which naturally meant my third game was going to be against bots.

Please NetEase, Stop Sending Me To Bot Jail

For some reason, whether it be to stop people from feeling too bad about losing streaks, or to try and trick people into feeling a sense of accomplishment, if you lose two matches in a row in Marvel Rivals, the game will put you up against bots with a couple of other real people and let you go wild. You can’t control or stop this, and leaving the game doesn’t help either. You’ll just be thrown into another bot game or given a penalty. You’re essentially trapped in bot jail until you win another match or quit the game for the day.

Leave too many bot matches, and you’re given a five-minute ban from Quick Play. I guess you must have hurt the bot’s feeling or something?

I have no problem with the concept of playing against bots. They’re great for letting you test out certain characters, can help you grind out achievements, or help you blow off steam if you’re getting tilted, but if I wanted to do that, I’d go to the Practice vs. AI mode that Marvel Rivals already offers.

Instead, I’m forced to fight against robots masquerading as real people, emoting and running around spawn shooting at walls until the match starts, in what I’m increasingly convinced is a creepy display of NetEase seemingly collecting data on player behavior to make its bots seem more realistic. I’m already uncomfortable, and the match hasn’t even started.

Once things get underway, the enemy, bot-filled team is pinned back into their spawn by a handful of human players that are far too good to be playing against AI. I don’t get to practice with Psylocke because the enemy never leaves their spawn enough to actually have a backline to torment. I switch to my main (Scarlet Witch) to get things over with as quickly as possible, rack up over 30 eliminations, and never die. All I gain is a deep sense of dissatisfaction and lose five minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.

After mindlessly murdering bots, I switch back to Psylocke, unsurprisingly lose back-to-back matches, and the process repeats. Occasionally, you’ll be placed in an ongoing game with real people for the final ten seconds of a match that can’t be salvaged, which will then go down as a loss, and then you’ll be thrown into bot jail once again. It’s a vicious cycle that does nothing but waste my time and makes Quick Play impossible to practice in, as I’m constantly switching to my mains, desperately trying not to lose two games in a row.

I don’t find stomping on bots for five minutes enjoyable, and even if I did, I’m not queuing into Quick Play for that purpose. I want to play proper matches and get some practice in against real people with a character I barely use. Even losing 20 matches in a row would be preferable to sitting in one bot match for five minutes, because I can at least learn something from a loss. I gain nothing from a match against bots, except the desire to walk off a cliff.