Marvel Rivals has been on an absolute tear since it launched last month, with no signs of slowing. The game has maintained a shockingly huge active audience, with Steam player counts only dropping off by ten percent. In fact, it broke its concurrent player record on Steam just this week after the season one update arrived.
Yet despite its popularity, there are plenty of pain points, and players aren’t shy about highlighting them in hopes that developer NetEase will address them. Among the most common complaints are that there’s no role queue, and no plans to add one either, in order to priorities player freedom and experimentation. Another issue is the lack of balance, which naturally turns some characters into absolute killing machines. There’s also no cross-progression across platforms, which is really annoying.
But one issue that players have raised time and time again is that Rivals will matchmake you with bots if it sees you aren’t doing well. This isn’t actually confirmed, as NetEase has never addressed it, but it’s pretty clear that this is happening. I would know, because I’m very bad at Marvel Rivals, and I get unceremoniously tossed into bot lobbies all the time.
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These matches serve to keep players engaged by giving them an easy win, stopping them from rage-quitting during a losing streak. Overwatch 2 players have long suspected that this tactic is being used in that game as well. I personally don’t care all that much, because I’m mostly just playing to hang out with my friends and not to win, but other players dislike them because they teach you the wrong lessons when you’re practicing a new character, or just because they feel insulted.
Because I’ve had so much exposure to these bots (again, I’m terrible), I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying when I’ve won a match just because Rivals put its thumb on the scale in my favour. So, here’s how you’ll know.
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Invisible Woman Will Break The Other Team’s AI
Invisible Woman is one of the newest characters to be introduced in the hero shooter, and hilariously, she’s also become a surefire way to see if you’re fighting against bots or not. Reddit user barky1616 shared a video showing a player going invisible and standing by a staircase as members of the enemy team approach.
After bumping into her and running haphazardly, the opposing team just… stops in its tracks. They jump a little and run in her direction, seemingly trying to move through her, but make no effort to just change direction and take the stairs from a different angle. It’s incredibly obvious that these aren’t real players, because real players would just move. They’re definitely bots, and fairly stupid ones, at that.
Jeff the Landshark Will Be Very Stupid
There’s a surefire way to tell if your opposing team is made out of bots if there’s a Jeff the Landshark on your team. If you’ve encountered a Jeff, or read anything about Marvel Rivals, you know that the most common Jeff play is the player using his ultimate, swallowing a bunch of enemies whole, then moving to the edge of the map and either spitting players into the void or jumping into it themselves, killing all the consumed players at once.
Note:
Blessedly, his ult has been nerfed in Season One.
But the bot doesn’t know how to do this. You’ll still get swallowed up and chomped on, but instead of going after a big group of enemies, Jeff will likely only chow down on one player, maybe two. He definitely won’t make a beeline for an out of bounds area – he’ll just move in circles and chew. If you get a Jeff like this, it might be a noob, but it’s probably a bot.
Check The Profiles
If you’re not sure if the win you just secured was against a real team or one made of bots, check the player profiles. According to Reddit user ciaranxy, bots will always be at account Level 1, and they’ll have restricted access to their profiles. If every member of your opposing team has these traits, and they also all have weird usernames made of two names spliced together in some configuration… bots. Definitely bots.
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