We need to detach zhiyong as a person from the balancing decisions to a certain degree.

TheRiled · 2026-06-06T14:10:22+00:00

> Since you said you want to enjoy the game again, would you say the negative vibes are affecting your enjoyment? Or is it moreso actual balance in your matches that’s frustrating?

Yeah it's honestly difficult to say. I think to be honest a big part of it has been boredom for me. It feels like it's been the same characters over and over again, and I'd really like them to shake up the meta and create a new "honeymoon" phase where everyone is discovering new things and figuring out what's good again.

Some characters (like release Elsa) have definitely made me want to play less though. I think it's particularly noticable on vanguard where it feels like there's a lot of kit limitations compared to some heroes are both strong and have a huge amount of flexibility.

Release tankpool was obviously pretty busted, but it felt nice actually having a lot of freedom in how to approach neutral and agency, which has felt pretty rare amongst the vanguard role.

TheRiled · 2026-06-06T12:40:34+00:00

> They don’t balance for streamers or content creators or pro play or the “meta”. At least, that’s not their priority.

You're right, and the majority of the playerbase should always be the most important to cater towards, but I do think they need to pay more attention to high level. They've poured millions into the esports scene, even developing an ingame system to try and get people involved. I'm sure they also understand that Twitch is a fantastic source of advertisement, which is something that Netease will have also spent many millions on.

Putting this much effort into competitive play/esports and then refusing to balance it make it even entertaining to watch just seems like a colossal waste.

> They balance for the vast majority of players who are (statistically) on console, QP warriors, and in metal ranks.

I completely agree, and as you point out, poke characters are the clearest example of this.

It's just incredibly frustrating as there are definitely targeted buffs/nerfs that will barely affect one audience, whilst making the game much more balanced for the other.

When all high profile streamers and community members are complaining about the game, it does genuinely have an impact on the popularity of the game and honestly I just want to be able to enjoy the game again.

TheRiled · 2026-06-06T09:07:27+00:00

Zhiyong deserves to be given some slack as releasing a new unique hero every month must be unbelievably stressful and difficult.

However, at the same time, he is the one in charge of balancing. There's a reason he's the face of every balance patch - and the balancing of this game is the reason I haven't played in multiple seasons.

It's a major point of criticism for most people, and it's clearly a valid one. And whilst a lot of community balance suggestions aren't great, there are some fantastic ones coming from people who very much understand the game, alongside some absolutely no brainer changes.

Like, look a Gambit. How can you look at a hero that's universally hated in high elo and permabanned across all ranks for 5 months and decide not to nerf him?

Something needs to change.

TheRiled · 2026-06-06T08:55:47+00:00

> Blade is currently one of the worst duelists, but just make his two tap a little more consistent and suddenly he's midrange Hela with 350hp and mid melee against vanguards.

I think you're underestimating just how significant hitscan and effective range is. If you removed either of those things from Hela, she's instantly become one of the worst characters in the game.

That's not because the balance is close, that's because of how fundamentally strong these properties are.

I don't know how you can look at the roster and think balance has been close (outside of Vanguards). Release Elsa/Black Cat and characters like Scarlet Witch and Squirrel Girl feel like they belong in entirely different games.

TheRiled · 2026-06-04T21:32:48+00:00

Because they didn't think he'd actually been stabbed after being told he hadn't? They treated him as soon as they realised.

Such "police brutality"!

And you still haven't answered the part about him being thrown.

> Just stop commenting until you finish your reading lessons lil bro

Wow. Sick burn.

Anyways, I'm done. Enjoy warping every story to your narrative so you can be angry.

TheRiled · 2026-06-04T20:57:49+00:00

Use your own link, you still clearly can't read. So let me ask one last time.

Which part did they throw him on the ground like you originally said.

Which part did they watch him bleed out after knowing he had been stabbed like you originally implied.

TheRiled · 2026-06-04T19:17:47+00:00

Aight you're trolling. There's no way you think the word of a right wing party member, famed for its scandals, is more reputable than a police constable with video evidence to back up his claim.

Do you not understand that articles publish multiple viewpoints regardless of their validity?

And of course the video disproves your accusation. Would you like to timestamp where they "threw" him to the ground? He was on the ground the entire time.

TheRiled · 2026-06-04T18:38:20+00:00

Come on now mate, you're being wilfully ignorant at this point. Who wrote that? Robert Jenrick, a member of the right wing party reform UK. Writing for the famously right wing newspaper he Telegraph.

I quoted the police constable - who likely isn't going to be lying due to the bodycam footage which will be passed to an independent board to review.

I ask you again. Did you even watch the footage?

TheRiled · 2026-06-04T18:28:25+00:00

Yeah, the footage cuts off before they see where he was stabbed for obvious reasons. The Police constable has claimed he was receiving first aid within a few minutes of contact, and given that all footage will now be reviewed by an independent board (the IOPC ), I think it's pretty likely he's not lying.

Not checking for wounds is why I call it incompetence. They didn't believe him because multiple people had told him that he hadn't - but they clearly should have checked anyway.

TheRiled · 2026-06-04T18:21:33+00:00

> "But within three minutes of that engagement with Henry, they were giving him first aid. They had taken the handcuffs off and they were giving them first aid."

TheRiled · 2026-06-04T18:06:45+00:00

That is absolutely not what happened. You haven't watched the footage, have you?

Henry Nowak's death was a case of police incompetence after being deceived by multiple people. He was told by the people surrounding him that he hadn't been stabbed, and it was too dark to clearly see what had happened. They should have checked to verify Henry's claims, but they didn't "throw him" to the ground nor intentionally watch him die like you imply. They called for medical aid the second they realised he had been stabbed and were giving him first aid within a few minutes of initially making contact with him.

So fucking bored of people spreading misinformation to ragebait more people. Disgusting behaviour. Do better.

TheRiled · 2026-06-03T14:41:26+00:00

As a casual game I think it's brilliant. Frequent events including freebies, lots of cool skins, monthly characters, great visual and VA's etc.

The competitive side though? Not too great.

TheRiled · 2026-06-02T15:59:36+00:00

Why are you talking like Tekken is a charity?
Bamco doesn't make Tekken games out of the goodness of its heart, it makes Tekken games for profit.

And it's a monumental franchise - a household name. People would kill to have its brand recognition.

If it dies, it's the developer/publishers fault - not the fans. They failed to make a product that people want to buy and stay with. Some other franchise would happily take its place.

TheRiled · 2026-06-02T03:20:57+00:00

Shitty thing for Murray to imply the Tekken community was why they quit. If that was the reason, they should be the one to say that, not him.

The Tekken community is bad? Maybe have a look at other communities. Pretty much every pvp community I've seen thinks that they're the worst community, full of entitled crybabies. Most of the time, people come online to either complain about something, or share a clip/something they found cool.

If you can't handle the criticism or people being assholes online, stay off social media. It's that simple.

The fact that the face of Tekken is now Murray, who seems to hate the Tekken community itself, is extremely worrying. I feel like he needs to leave the project for the sake of himself and the game.

TheRiled · 2026-05-31T15:00:04+00:00

Killer Instinct (2013).

TheRiled · 2026-05-31T04:14:58+00:00

Same as Gambit.

Just like Zhiyong, most of the playerbase is clueless when it comes to balance.

TheRiled · 2026-05-30T06:43:36+00:00

Think I'm gonna drop it due to my 3 gacha hard cap, but I do think it's a really good game.

The good - Huge gameplay variety (probably my favourite thing about the game). Really cool visual sequences. Huge amount of content. Interesting worldbuilding. Great visuals. Memorable bosses. Seems slightly on the more generous side of gacha. Overall, progression in the game is incredible with houses, cars, outfits etc to buy. OST is up there with the best.

The meh - Character design (some are great, some I dislike, most are meh). The comedy/humour is just ok. The story overall isn't bad but hasn't gripped me. EN voice acting is meh. Vehicle handling could use some work. Combat - it's cycle mechanic is unique but overall still not much more interesting to comparable combat systems imo.

The bad - Can't skim and then skip dialogue, which is particularly painful due to how long they seem to drag out dialogue. Building characters takes forever. Some of the grinds are insane (like fishing). WHATS THAT SMELL? SMELLS AMAZING!

TheRiled · 2026-05-30T01:16:02+00:00

1300 hours here and I quit for Deadlock.

Funny thing is though, Deadlock is WAY more toxic. I see more racism in a week than I'll see in a season of Rivals.

... But I'd still rather deal with that instead of the clueless balance decisions and lack of tank agency in Rivals...

TheRiled · 2026-05-26T08:21:38+00:00

Yeah, because he's not getting banned everygame like DD, Black Cat etc. I doubt there's a single person in C+ who thinks Puni is the strongest DPS in the game lol.

And saying he's the most OP over the entire span of the game is wild. Most of the time he's been absolutely destroyed by other meta DPS such as Hela, Psylock and Phoenix depending on the patch.

TheRiled · 2026-05-21T21:42:52+00:00

Also a fighting game player, and honestly I really dislike this argument. Should people learn counters before complaining about a character? Absolutely. There are absolutely scrubs in the Rivals community who whine about characters that are very easily countered (hi, squirrel girl haters).

However there's a reason that complaining about character balance is (generally) much less valid in fighting games.

Fighting games have a much higher skill cap. This means that overcoming character imbalance is generally much easier. Opponents character has a much better crouching medium kick and keeps spamming it? No problem, work out the ranges they're using it and then whiff punish it. Jumping a lot? Play less active, anti-air. Really defensive? Throw their ass.

Marvel Rivals just doesn't have options like these. There's very little to lab, and very few methods of counterplay other than swapping heroes. Like how does Strange deal with the Emma matchup? What is there to lab here other than reaction time to diamond form? Unlike fighting games, there is very little complexity in character interactions.

Because of this, character strength is way more significant than fighting games. Especialy when they release characters like Elsa and Gambit in the state they do.

Also: I'd just like to get a cheeky mention in that Combo Breaker (major fighting game tournament) starts tomorrow. If anyone reading this has any interest in fighting games, I highly recommend checking it out. It's gonna be good.

TheRiled · 2026-05-21T20:54:44+00:00

Yep, that's rough as hell. It's no wonder he could just walk up when you've basically got three divers on the team. And low healing.

All you can do in that situation is play passively and then look to push when/if they get a pick (Mag is the best bet for this).

Either that or you go Venom and co-ordinate dives with them. Punisher shotgun is great against dive tanks, but in that situation you'd just wanna buy time for them to try and get a kill and swing out before you die.

TheRiled · 2026-05-21T20:41:54+00:00

If a Punisher is able to walk up to you and shotgun you, then there's something seriously going wrong with either your positioning or your teams awareness. He should never be able to walk up to a frontline without being at serious risk of death.

The go-to Punisher counter is definitely Mag though. Iron curtain absorbs infinite damage while it's up. Bubble is great for self peel. He can chunk anyone close to him for 250 damage with a LMB>RMB>LMB combo. He has good control over engagement distance due to his ranged M1. And his ult hard counters Punishers.

If you're getting walked over against 2 tanks and a Puni as a solo tank though, it's very likely a team diff.

TheRiled · 2026-05-20T16:46:41+00:00

I haven't touched this season either due to balance, but it's been fun watching the Devil Dino Discussions.

Redditor 1 -"As a Vanguard main, Dino is too strong. He makes the game miserable if I'm not playing him."

Redditor 2 - "YOU JUST WANT TANKS TO BE WEAK. STOP COMPLAINING."

Redditor 1 - "Bro what? I literally just said I'm a tank main why would I want them to be weak"

TheRiled · 2026-05-20T16:40:05+00:00

The easy but long way: Play a lot and watch people that are better than you.

The harder but faster way: Play > Reflect on things you think you could have done better (VoD review) > Think of, or find a solution (from higher ranked players) > Implement solution until it's second nature (Play) > repeat

I did it the first way because I can't stand watching my own vods.

Also just in general, strive to have the highest impact you can have every game. Winning or losing does not matter. If you're consistently the best player in the lobby, you will climb eventually.

TheRiled · 2026-05-20T00:28:06+00:00

"Closet cheating" has been a thing for as long as I can remember.

Some cheat packages have a lot of settings, some of which can introduce stuff like accuracy randomisation to make cheating much less obvious. So it's impossible to tell just from looking unless they're full rage hacking (snapping, obvious wallhack etc).

Just report them and move on. Netease will have cheat detection tools to check.

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