"Recently, there's been some debate in the community regarding the use of mods and configs. Our stance is clear: Marvel Rivals is a fair competitive game. Any use of mods or configs to get an unfair combat advantage is unacceptable, and we will take action against it. This is our bottom line.
"These forbidden modifications include altering maps into minimalist 'potato' models, amplifying footstep audio, removing screen shake, and so on. Furthermore, some of these modifications employ memory injection. Since this behaviour is functionally identical to using cheats, we will handle them accordingly." via a dev diary.
How far would you go to achieve decent frame rates? Well some Marvel Rivals players have been breaking the rules to try and give themselves a better shot of having a sort of salvageable in-game experience.
Sure, a lot of players using mods and configs are doing so to give themselves the "unfair combat advantage" that Guangyun Chen talks about, using it to dial down the map detail so enemy players stand out more or heightening environmental tells like footsteps. But that doesn't account for absolutely everyone within the community, with some changing their configs to try and remove the stuttering that can plague Marvel Rivals games.
Marvel Rivals has always had an issue with its performance. I shrugged it off as teething pain at first but it's been almost two years since release, and not much has changed. Five months ago NetEase released an "experimental feature" to try and dial down the game's insatiable appetite for RAM, and while it reduced the frequency of game crashes, it didn't solve stuttering.
Then the decision was then made in July to enact some changes that could help with the visual clutter players experience during games. It was brought on by the addition of Jubilee, who had particularly messy VFX. I didn't notice much of a change; team fights are still as chaotic, messy, and confusing as ever.
The biggest change for good happened a few months ago when Marvel Rivals managed to shave an impressive 40GB off by completely repackaging its assets. But by and large things haven't improved fast enough, and Guangyun Chen even accepts that players messing with configs for better performance do have a valid point.
"We also recognise that a core desire behind players using mods or tweaking configs is simply wanting better framerates and a cleaner visual environment," Guangyun Chen adds. "We are actively working on this. In season 11, thanks to the hard work of our programming team, we'll be rolling out an optional, experimental optimised client.
"This optimisation targets the logic load on the CPU during matches. When toggled on, it will provide up to a 10% boost in CPU performance and significantly reduce mid-combat stuttering. You can download the corresponding DLC on PC and then enable this experimental feature directly in the game launcher."
The Marvel Rivals team is also testing a "clearer competitive" VFX setting which sounds like it will essentially do what some are accomplishing with mods and configs right now: "tweaking the visual effects" for every hero to make fights more legible for players. I am, however, not yet convinced. I've been waiting for huge improvements in Marvel Rivals for so long now that I'll only believe it when I see it.
