When I booted up the Marvel Rivals preview build for Season 3 for the first time, I was, of course, dying to try out Phoenix right away. New heroes are always the stars of the show, and that's no different here. However, after hours of hands-on with the anticipated update, including the Season 3 patch notes that bring some much-needed balancing changes, I've actually been appreciating the mundane tweaks much more: an overhauled challenge system and new end-of-match interface, most of all.
With seasons being crushed down into a two-month affair from Season 3 onwards, cutting down the time you have to complete a battle pass by a third, I was worried the battle pass grind would get worse. After all, the more time you have to dedicate to playing one live service game, the less time you have for any competition. Thankfully, my worst fears didn't come true this time, and there have been some pretty sweet changes to accommodate this faster pace. I'll probably continue to play every day, but that's not the point...
Firstly, daily missions are no more. They've been snapped out of existence, and their Chrono Tokens have been redistributed to other weekly missions and challenges. Similar to changes made in Season 2, this tweak relieves a bit of the pressure to play every day in order to keep up. I have a life outside of playing Marvel Rivals, including a full-time job, so it's nice not to have to worry about efficiently grinding Chrono Tokens. And before you say that battle passes don't expire in Marvel Rivals, I know, but I doubt most have time to complete a new battle pass alongside finishing off a previous one, especially with two-month seasons going forward.
With the removal of dailies, weekly missions have been upgraded across the board. Not only is each one worth more now, but unfinished weekly missions now roll over week-to-week, and can be completed until the mid-season refresh. Unfortunately, yes, these don't stack all the way up through the entire season like Overwatch 2 does, but a maximum of four weeks of challenges rolling over is still significantly better than none if you miss a few weeks.
My favourite change is actually the new (and removed) mission types, so it all feels like less of a slog to complete. New missions have been added, like one tasking you with completing three matches where you spend at least 50% of the game as a specific class, such as Duelists hero. Yes, any hero of the given class; NetEase has finally wiped those god-awful challenges to play as specific heroes out of existence.
You don't have to cross-reference tasks to figure out which hero you should play to tick off multiple in one go or play someone you don't want to anymore. Hallelujah. It's much easier to quietly chip away at challenges naturally, and it makes for an experience more focused on playing for the fun of it, rather than completing an arbitrary task.
All these great changes come together in a lovely new end-of-match overview screen (and a slightly modified main menu for better challenge tracking). At the end of a game, you can see at a glance how much progress you made towards hero proficiency, the new accessory points system, any active events, and battle pass challenges. It's quick, it's simple, and it's clean, which is something Marvel Rivals' user interface often lacks in favour of style.
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