Marvel Rivals Aims to Tackle the Growing Issue of ‘Lord Farming’

Season 6 of Marvel Rivals kicked off last week, bringing Deadpool into the mix along with a fresh battle pass and a host of gameplay adjustments. A significant part of this update is the overhaul of the hero proficiency system, which allows players to earn cosmetic rewards for their characters. While the revamp introduced new rewards, it also inadvertently sparked a rise in “lord farming.”

The new system alters how players gain proficiency. Instead of a tiered approach that involved both universal and hero-specific challenges, players now progress through a linear system based solely on universal challenges, meaning every hero levels up in the same way, regardless of their role. There are now 70 levels to climb, with rewards at various milestones, and players earn proficiency at a faster rate per minute of play. A detailed breakdown of these changes is available.

This overhaul has led to an increase in players farming for cosmetics by remaining in spawn and spamming abilities to quickly level up in the new system. Those who engage in this practice are often labeled as lord farmers, creating unbalanced matches by effectively being AFK throughout the game.

This situation echoes a point made by Civilization designer Soren Johnson in a 2011 blog post, where he noted that many players approach games as optimization puzzles, seeking the highest rewards with the least risk. Given the chance, players will often optimize the fun right out of a game.

Fortunately, the developers are aware of this issue and are taking steps to combat it. They acknowledged on social media that some players are exploiting matches by staying stationary and farming stats for hero proficiency points, which disrupts normal gameplay and negatively impacts the experience for others. To tackle this, they plan to implement a combat behavior detection system, with potential penalties for offenders ranging from warnings to account bans.

While the timing of this countermeasure remains unclear, and it’s uncertain whether it will prevent lord farmers from creating new accounts after being banned, some players are already taking matters into their own hands against these offenders.

Although the upcoming detection system may help curb lord farming, it doesn’t tackle the underlying game design choices that encourage such behavior in the first place. Only time will reveal if further adjustments to the hero proficiency system are on the horizon.