Marvel Rivals Devs Promise To Explain Matchmaking System After Player Backlash

By Elijah Gonzalez  |  August 13, 2025 | 12:36pm
Video Games News marvel rivals
Marvel Rivals Devs Promise To Explain Matchmaking System After Player Backlash

If you’ve been following Marvel Rivals as of late, you’ve likely noticed that there’s one common complaint about the superhero-themed multiplayer game: accusations that it uses something called “EOMM.” In many players’ view, this is a system that essentially “rigs” matches by putting them in a lower-skill lobby so they can get an easy win after a losing streak, or putting them in a higher-skill lobby so they lose when on a winning streak. These perceptions have gotten so bad that the studio has had to publicly deny using EOMM multiple times and has scheduled a video for next week to explain the game’s matchmaking system in detail.


EOMM, or Engagement Optimized Matchmaking, is a type of multiplayer matchmaking algorithm that seeks to match players based on “engagement,” instead of purely pairing players with those of the same skill level (Skill Based Matchmaking or SBMM). Engagement can be defined in multiple ways, but as defined by the 2017 research paper that coined the term EOMM, it can be measured as limiting “churn rate,” or the number of players who stop playing for a week or more. The authors of the paper, who were employees at EA, go on to state, “equal-skill based matchmaking is actually worst among all matchmaking schemes, as its goal to create close matches contrarily minimizes the overall player engagement.”

There are several reasons why players are convinced Marvel Rivals is using “EOMM.” There’s a paper by NetEase Games employees (the publisher/developer of Marvel Rivals) about a matchmaking algorithm called OptMatch, which sounds somewhat similar to EOMM in that it aims to maximize satisfaction and reduce churn. However, the paper specifically mentions that player skill is a significant factor in the algorithm, among many others.

Players have also cited another paper by NetEase employees on something called EnMatch (Engagement-oriented Matchmaking). Again, though, this system doesn’t boil down to being as simple as intentionally placing players in unbalanced lobbies to increase “engagement.” One of the only elements that sounds vaguely similar to this is that the algorithm rewards high-skill “carry” players by trying to help them avoid going on long losing streaks after they repeatedly overperform. Basically, all of the algorithms use complicated modeling systems that involve many factors beyond intentionally manipulating matches towards a specific outcome.

However, while those accusing Marvel Rivals of EOMM are likely wrong in a semantic sense, as EOMM is a technology patented by EA that NetEase probably isn’t using directly, it’s fair to say that many fans are convinced there is something “funny” going on with matchmaking.

Personally speaking, many matches in Marvel Rivals often end in blowouts in either direction. This ends up feeling even because brutal losses are particularly felt in team-based games like this one, where it is very difficult to have a good individual performance if your team isn’t working together to heal and cover each other.

On the one hand, it’s possible that the game is using a matchmaking system similar to EOMM, and that players’ complaints are at least partially justified, even if they’re most likely incorrect in calling it EOMM specifically. In this case, perhaps NetEase’s assumptions about their matchmaking model are incorrect, and something closer to pure SBMM would be preferable for most players.

Or, it’s possible that Marvel Rivals is just a game where the difference between crushing an opposing team and getting crushed is fairly narrow, making it easy for games to go in either direction due to design decisions, like how healers that aren’t being pressured can basically keep a team alive forever, while supports that are getting pressured won’t be able to do their jobs, causing the team to crumble. Maybe it’s a combination of the two. While it’s probably unlikely we’ll get definitive answers, it will be interesting to see if NetEase is able to at least partially defuse the situation when they put out their upcoming video explaining the matchmaking system.

 
Join the discussion...