Marvel Rivals has released a public statement promising to punish players for artificially inflating character proficiency points. Read on to find out more about the latest on the hit hero shooter.
Marvel Rivals Devs Speak Out Against Lord Farming
Levelling the Field Against Lord Farmers
Marvel Rivals’ development team promises to penalize players who repeatedly participate in "Lord farming," or the act of remaining stationary in matches to farm hero proficiency points. The official Marvel Rivals Twitter page has posted a statement acknowledging the ongoing issue and has planned several penalties for repeat offenders.
According to the tweet, Marvel Rivals will implement a combat behavior system that detects Lord farming behavior, such as stalling match progression to perform actions that raise hero proficiency. Players caught will be punished through warnings, short-term suspensions, long-term suspensions, or permanent account bans.
While Lord farming has always been a present phenomenon in the Marvel Rivals community, it has only become more prevalent with the recent changes to the game’s hero proficiency system, which has been expanded to include more rewards, including in-game currency.
Marvel Rivals’ Hero Proficiency System, Explained
Marvel Rivals has rewarded players who achieve a measured level of skill with specific characters through their hero proficiency system, with the highest attainable level being "Lord." Reaching Lord with a character grants special icons, known as "Lord Icons," which are publicly displayed during a match and seen as a signifier of skill throughout the community.
However, this system has been overhauled as of Season 6, which introduced a brand-new hero proficiency system that raises the level cap for all heroes and lets players unlock more rewards with their proficiency points.
These rewards include animated Lord Icons and a handful of Units, which can be purchased with real-life currency and used to purchase in-game skins and cosmetics. While hero-specific proficiency points have been removed, getting the proficiency rewards requires fewer points overall and makes them faster to unlock.
The Issue with Fraudulent Lords in Marvel Rivals
Lord farming has already been a problem before the changes to the proficiency system because it requires players to disrupt the natural flow of a match to inflate their damage and healing statistics. This would make matches last much longer than normal, negatively affecting player win rates, especially in Competitive matches, and has been a point of contention within the Marvel Rivals community for a while.
Unfortunately, with the new hero proficiency system, Lord farmers will now also be able to gain free skins by playing in a disruptive manner, something that the Marvel Rivals devs would understandably want to discourage amongst players.
The efficiency of the combat behavior detection system, which will be implemented in an upcoming update, remains to be seen. However, Marvel Rivals’ development team’s awareness of the issue is at least good news for players who are tired of Lord farmers in their lobbies.
Marvel Rivals is out now for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. For more on Marvel’s multiversal multiplayer hero shooter, read our article here:
Sources:
Recently, we’ve noticed that some players are exploiting matches by remaining stationary and repeatedly farming stats to gain hero proficiency points. This behavior disrupts normal gameplay and seriously affects the match experience of other players.- @MarvelRivals
Season 6: Night at the Museum // Dev Vision Vol. 13
