Marvel Rivals reached 40 million players recently but that’s not gonna stop people from complaining about the game. Tyler Blevins, better known as Ninja, recently went on another rant about the game. This time he aired his frustration over players who refuse to switch characters mid-game despite being countered.
Marvel Rivals lets you switch characters at any point in the game, so this allows for mid-game strategy adjustments. But why do some people just refuse? The answers range from sensible to questionable, to plain ego. But does it really matter if the game is just trucking on to more and more success?
You need to switch characters mid-game in Marvel Rivals
Ninja’s comments don’t seem to be about just individual performance. The streamer is talking about how stubborn players can drag an entire team down. He pointed out that in Marvel Rivals, locking in one character for the entire match is a losing strategy. Because what if your enemy switches characters to counter you? What then? NetEase did make every character free for a reason.
Ninja GOES OFF on players who refuse to swap heroes in Marvel Rivals
“you can not just sit there, lock your character, and then stay in the entire time while the enemy team is changing comp to counter you…you will LOSE” pic.twitter.com/xFNWonmnYF
— Marvel Rivals Intel (@RivalsAssembled) February 23, 2025
I agree with him. If your character is getting hard countered and you only know how to play that one character, the game starts to feel like a 5v6 etc.
Being able to counter the enemy team comp makes matches feel a lot easier
— Frankie (@reaperreapzz) February 23, 2025
Ninja is 100% right about this. If you have melee heroes and you won’t change because you “like wolverine,” yet the other team is farming you and countering. You’re the problem. Learn how to play MULTIPLE heroes.
If you’re that guy, your the reason why ranked is tough. Every…
— Kreeped (@Kreeped) February 23, 2025
Many players agreed, saying that sticking to one hero when the enemy team is adapting makes the game feel like a 5v6 battle. People replying on X/Twitter were sharing their own experiences of how they’ve had teammates who refuse to switch, only to end up performing horribly. This unwillingness to adapt may be what costs you one of your ranked games, so watch out.
While this makes sense, not everyone agrees that players should be forced to switch heroes. There is an argument that allowing mid-game hero swaps in ranked matches is a problem in itself. A few players believe hero selection should be locked for the entire game, forcing teams to coordinate better from the start rather than adjusting on the fly. But we’ve already been dealt the cards. That’s not how the game works, so what can you do?
It helps to be versatile in these games
And if you’re wondering why this even happens, there are some simple reasons. The first is that most people just don’t have a deep hero pool. Many players only feel comfortable with two or three heroes and when they get countered, they don’t know how to adapt. And the other reason is just that they’re stubborn and won’t switch out of ego.
Then there’s the strategic reason which is the loss of ultimate charge. In Marvel Rivals, players retain up to 50% of their ult charge when switching, but the conversion varies between characters and their ult costs. If you have 50% ult charge and switch to a character with more ult cost than your current one, you’ll inevitably be at a lower charge for the new character. This is why people wait to get their ult and switch.
But this hasn’t really been a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Marvel Rivals is still massively successful. NetEase recently announced that the game has reached 40 million players, and it’s proof that the fun first mindset the devs have towards game balance is working. Maybe we’ll see players get more serious once the meta really settles down. But who cares, it’s all fun and games.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
