Marvel Rivals fans have taken policing the game into their own hands, but attempts to stop griefers only seems likely to make things worse.
If you’re unfamiliar with what a griefer is, it’s someone who joins online multiplayer video games with the sole purpose of ruining things for everyone else. They’re not there to legitimately play the game but just annoy other players.
They can do this by attacking or getting in the way of teammates, deliberately killing themselves, or by doing nothing, essentially throwing matches to the opposing team.
It’s a long-standing problem in all sorts of games and Marvel Rivals is no exception. A new website, though, boldly claims to offer a solution: pay people to grief in response to the griefers.
Founded by one EchoRivals on X, who describes themselves as a ‘former pro player,’ website Intlist went live earlier this week and lets people contribute to paid bounties against any players they perceive as deliberately throwing matches.
Other players can then join matches with those griefers, throw the match in response, and then (as long as they provide proof) claim the bounty. Although the website specifies that you’ll only earn 80% of the pool, with the rest going to payment processing fees.
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EchoRivals cites Intlist’s creation as entirely being the fault of developer NetEase, blaming it for not doing enough to punish griefers or getting rid of its EOMM; something NetEase has denied using.
What is EOMM?
EOMM stands for engagement-oriented matchmaking and rather than pair you with players of a similar skill level, is a system designed for maximising player retention.
So, for example, losing too many matches in a row will result in you being paired against less skilled players or with more experienced teammates to ensure you’re more likely to win and keep playing. Likewise, winning too often will see the opposite happen.
‘Marvel Rivals won’t fix EOMM. They won’t punish griefers. They won’t protect your ranked games. So we did,’ reads an X post. ‘Remove EOMM and actually ban throwers? [as in throwing the game – GC] We’ll gladly shut down. Until then, we’re not going anywhere.’
We can’t confirm if the site is actually paying people their promised bounties, but the real issue here is that all it’s doing is encouraging further griefing and making things more annoying for ordinary players.
A post to the Marvel Rivals subreddit calls for NetEase to get involved and is full of frustrated comments from players. ‘It’s so insanely stupid that this even exists at all because it’s a minor annoyance at worst for the thrower and rage inducing for anyone randomly matched with them,’ says Cryocian.
‘I see a lot of throwers in general now who die a couple times and then say they’re just playing for the vibes while AFKing or throwing,’ says JoanOfSarcasm, adding that this made them stop playing the game.
JRex922 also correctly points out that this website is ripe for abuse since people can put targets on innocent players for petty reasons: ‘Could see someone getting mad that they got dunked on by an enemy Spider-Man and wanting revenge.’
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The site is already being abused since, according to players, the people getting bounties placed on them aren’t even known griefers but either Twitch streamers or high-ranking players.
We’re unable to corroborate this, but that’s only because the website is currently down for maintenance. Although according to Kotaku, EchoRivals admitted in a Discord server that the site ‘detected unauthorised access’ and a ‘limited number of email addresses tied to bounty posts were exposed.’
So, not only is the site being used to harass people (since targets have identifiable info such as Twitch usernames) and make an already toxic online environment worse, but it’s also risking peoples’ privacy.
Fans would much rather NetEase simply ban players guilty of throwing matches, but it remains to be seen if the studio will issue any sort of response to Intlist.
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