Marvel Rivals is just about the hottest free-to-play game short of the eternal Fortnite right now, drawing over 20 million players in just two weeks, and developer NetEase must move quickly to retain them. According to a fairly conspiratorial report, bots are allegedly being added to Quickplay matches, on the down low, to make players feel good after a string of losses and more likely to spend money on something like the game's Battle Pass.
Community member ciaranxy posted a handy guide on the game's subreddit to help you spot bots in Quickplay, which they allege to have spent the past week testing (thanks, MP1st). Bots are not present in Competitive, they claim, and two Quickplay losses in a row means there is a high chance you will be placed in a bot lobby.
A bot lobby will consist of four human players and two bots against a team of six NPC enemies. You will be penalised for leaving these matches; bot accounts are Level 1, and profiles will contain "restricted access" (as opposed to "limited access" for human profiles). The idea here seems to be to potentially retain players by giving them a confidence boost and thus keep playing. The longer a player spends with a free-to-play game, the thinking goes, the more likely they are to invest in the experience by spending real money. ciaranxy suggests that NetEase has anticipated all of this and will patch the bots out only when and if the community kicks up enough of a stink.
MP1st spoke to Marvel Rivals content creators who agree with these botting claims (but wished to remain anonymous) and has contacted NetEase for comment. Admittedly, multiplayer games are not this scribe's speciality, but we don't necessarily see the issue here, except one of transparency. We'd want to know whether we were facing real foes, but if it's just in Quickplay, then it seems the developer has done some research to back up this behaviour, and attempting to make a game more engaging (allegedly) doesn't seem like the end of the world.
What do you think? Have you encountered robotic behaviour in Marvel Rivals' Quickplay playlist? Do you have an issue with bot players in multiplayer games, whether they are included surreptitiously or not? Proceed to Push Square's finely-tuned Turing Test in the comments section below.
[source reddit.com, via mp1st.com]
Comments 15
Competitive play in Rivals can be toxic and anger-filled when you have a losing streak and drop ranks. Quickplay is for learning how to play with characters and utilizing them when you do go into Quickplay. I have no problem with bots being in-game because it's great practice to play with new characters to prep for competitive mode and if you just play for fun. I don't use Quickplay often but when I do, it's not often that I lose more than one game in a row. Quickplay is more of a relaxed and less tense gaming match for Rivals where there's no risk of losing rank or players being enraged at you.
Yeah this is pretty common nowadays
I’m in Diamond and the game is all of a sudden basically unplayable because of toxicity. Genuinely disheartening how vitriolic it gets. Hero bans make the gameplay slightly more interesting but the increase in toxicity ruins it.
It's fairly toxic in quickplay too. I tend to mute everything when I play multiplayer games solo. Mobile MOBA's everyone seems to have something against "Turks".
Pretty sure Fortnite has the same system in place for beginners. I think it's a fine idea but only for the first few matches (and to replace people who have disconnected).
Based on my Playtime with this so far people are pretty toxic but what else is new. Admittedly my interest in the game which by itself is pretty decent is falling sharply.
There's just nothing fun or satisfying about playing and winning against bots. The point of a competitive mp shooter is that you want to come out on top against other real people. I didn't realize they did this with quick play so that's a shame. But if I choose comp they make it console players only. I'd rather play with all players regardless of how much of an advantage pc players have
@SillyBoyJudas but that's what the vs AI mode is for. Players should know if they're playing against a bot or not. It's kinda dystopian to make everyone think they're doing great and intentionally making the usernames look real. They should at least label the bots, like how they they already do in the vs AI mode.
@nessisonett It is that sweaty in high ranks? Even without angry comments it's hard to picture the gameplay being fun when it's that competitive and you're playing against people with a lot of time to sink into the game. That's why it's important to keep QP bot-free, so it can always be a fun mode that guarantees real people.
Bots should only exist in the Vs AI mode, which they already implemented! I have seen some bots in low-ranked competitive mode too. You can partially confirm by looking if they appear in your recent players list, which they don't.
I cannot agree with tricking people into thinking they're playing real people. It also hurts your ability to learn and actually get better.
"Competitive is toxic"
Only if you actually communicate with teammates, which I don't. It's mic off for me 😁
this really irks me , i play pvp to play against other people & the fact that they add penalties in quickplay so you have to stay vs these bots is next level trolling
@KoopaTheGamer bots ruin pvp games
if someone quits - backfill with another player; if it’s competitive & someone quits - end the game & give the winning and losing team point compensations while penalizing the leaver with rank reductions. anything’s better than playing with bots
@z0d15g0d like Turkish people? Or is that a euphemism for something? Jesus I understand the internet less and less every day, but somehow that feels like a good thing…
@DannZan Yea unfortunately it's for Turkish gamers as their connections tend to suck so players lash out at them and seeing as words like "noob" are banned they just call players who suck "Turk"
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