Marvel Rivals lead combat designer Zhiyong just hosted an almost 20-minute lecture diving deep into how the shooter approaches matchmaking (Warning: there's a lot of math involved), but players aren't totally buying the developer's reasoning for why it can't adopt a role queue system similar to Overwatch 2.
The biggest nugget of news from the vlog is that, contrary to popular belief, Marvel Rivals apparently doesn't use engagement optimized matchmaking (EOMM), a system that artificially engineers win streaks and lose streaks by purposefully putting players into games against lower/higher ranks foes to keep people chasing those sweet victories.
We’ve heard your feedback on matchmaking and ranking in Marvel Rivals, and your voices matter! Check out our Lead Combat Designer, Zhiyong, as he shares our developer insights on the matchmaking and ranking system. Watch the full video to see the systems behind the game! pic.twitter.com/OmErw2WMgUAugust 21, 2025
Marvel Rivals instead attempts to calculate every player's skill based on numbers and calculations that are hidden in-game, but explained in detail by Zhiyong in the clip above. And to alleviate frequent problems with matchmaking queues, the devs are also restricting teams of four or more from queueing together in higher-ranked games.
Zhiyong explains that, while the devs are still looking into other measures, matchmaking isn't perfect because it depends on a lot of variables. Bigger teams are harder to balance, and many players might not be playing the heroes or roles they're most comfortable with, which will obviously throw the whole thing off.
So, why doesn't Marvel Rivals adopt Overwatch's role queue system, which has players choose to lock into one class for an entire game?
"We believe that allowing players the freedom to play as their favorite superheroes and team up with others to create diverse, creative team comps encourages more varied strategies and gameplay," Zhiyong says, though Overwatch does also support open queue games. "Second, adding role-based matchmaking would significantly increase queue times while still failing to fully eliminate skill discrepancies between matches."
Zhiyong also says that roles with fewer players would have lower competitive score thresholds and vice versa, so the team is working to create "more interesting" tanks and supports, maybe opening the door to role queue in the future.
Many players across online forums weren't convinced, though. Placement matches are still commonly requested, and complaints about Chrono Shield items that protect against rank losses are still everywhere, too.
"To counter the dev's points, you can't say stomps are due to people filling roles they are uncomfortable with and in the same breath say that role queues wouldn't help with this," one comment reads. "By definition of role queue, you would avoid people filling roles they aren't comfortable in especially if each role has its own rank for an individual."
