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- Life Lessons Marvel Rivals Gave Me
I’ve been playing a lot of Marvel Rivals recently.
This is pretty big as if you know me, you know I don’t really play games.
I’m a huge believer that everything in this world can teach you.
You can gain new perspectives from anything.
This is a collection of life lessons Marvel Rivals has taught me. Some are reminders of stuff from the past. Others’ build upon something I already knew.
Some are completely new thoughts.
Some of these lessons hurt more than others.
1. Wolverine and Purpose
Purpose is something I’ve thought about a lot.
Wolverine is a character I picked up because I liked his moves even though the entire player base hated on him.
Turns out Wolverine was insane. Problem was he had one use. He was a tank buster.
Wolverine isn’t adaptive at all.
If there are 0 tanks, Wolverine isn’t a good pick.
If there are tanks…
Wolverine cleans up the entire team by removing the strongest character in seconds.
Wolverine hides and tries to get behind
Wolverine uses his damage reduction and jumps forward into a tank
Wolverine grabs the tank and leaps them into his team
After all that Wolverine has the strength to kill the tank easily.
No one else can do this.
Wolverine made me reflect on purpose. Some things in life have one use, and they’re very good at that one thing. It doesn’t mean they’re bad. They just have a place.
2. Dr Strange and Making Space
Dr Strange is a tank in Marvel Rivals.
In Marvel Rivals different classes have different skillsets.
Tanks find/make space for their team
Duelists take advantage of that space to dominate the enemy team
Supports make sure tanks and duelists can perform at their best
See everyone has a different skillset and no one class is above another.
Ask any of those three classes which is the most important part of a team and they’ll say the class they play…
The thing is this split of skillsets is something that exists everywhere.
Some people spend their entire life discovering/inventing/reaching into a new frontier they’re called geniuses.
Some people enter that new frontier and dominate they’re called experts.
Some people support those two they fly below the radar
Regardless of any preconceived beliefs of which is the most important, don’t do any of this for other people.
It doesn’t matter what someone calls you, or if someone acknowledges you.
It matters if you want to use your skillset, to achieve the outcome you want.
Find out what best suits your skillset and do all you can to fulfil/upskill your role. If you don’t like your role, build a new skillset.
3. Shooting and Neural Adaptations
In the past I’ve only really played one type of game.
I’ve played shooters.
I’ve spent thousands of hours improving my mechanical aim. I’ve built countless neural adaptations to help that. Yes this is the first physiology life lesson 🙄
In reality this isn’t a lesson I was taught, it was a reveal that the concepts I talk about aren’t exclusive to sports.
Of course I always knew that…
It still is cool to think about though.
See every single time I played a shooter in the past I was improving my mechanical aim. These neural adaptations don’t cost much to maintain, so they stay. Albeit a tiny bit will be lost.
When I hopped into Marvel Rivals and played a character that is pretty much the same as a shooter, my insane aim was still there.
It’s been years since I’ve played a shooter.
I’m still insane if I hop onto Star-Lord, Punisher, Winter Soldier. They’re just all aim.
Neural adaptations and coordination is something that stays for a while, it’s a low cost adaptation and has a lot of carryover to different tasks.
4. Neural Adaptations Come Quick
The character I play the most is Dr Strange.
He has a projectile where you have to predict the position the enemy will be in.
What’s the distance/speed it’ll have to travel?
Where are they going to be moving in the next few seconds?
Where’s the place where the position they’ll be in and the projectile will line up?
This is not something you know automatically.
I now have the adaptations which allow me to consistently predict this though.
See you pick up neural adaptations very quickly. Literally in hours you’ve quadrupled the level of the skill with a character.
Sleep on it, and that skill will almost double.
Any character you try out comes with an understanding that the first few minutes will be awful.
As each minute passes you’ll improve at the character very quickly.
Of course the more similar a characters’ mechanics is to other coordination adaptations you’ve acquired, the quicker it’ll be.
Time spent learning a character is progressively less efficient, it’s very quick to pickup neural adaptations, especially if you have similar coordinative pathways built.
5. Win the War Not the Battle
This is a lesson Marvel Rivals has beaten into me more than any other game.
I think the reason for this is because of how much it punishes focusing on battles compared to other types of games I’ve played.
In Valorant everyone’s health is the same and everyone’s’ done a team wipe before, you start to think that solo plays is a “i’m bad if i lose this” scenario
In Minecraft PVP you pride yourself on being able to defend against an army, there is no sticking around and retreating or waiting, you win or lose, and if you die you respawn
In Marvel Rivals if you focus on the battle, or stagger your team, you’ll get destroyed.
The tanks will absorb the damage. The supports will heal the tanks back up to full HP. The duelists will be removing all your health.
You’re not allowed to prioritise on the battle.
Prioritising the battle before the war is a decision filled with ego, it’s not logical, it’s and a guaranteed way to lose it for your team.
6. Just Blame the Healer/Tank/DPS
It’s in our nature to find excuses.
You’re always going to try and pin your own shortcomings on something else.
Imagine I’m a tank who’s not paying attention to my team
I let some of the enemy distract the supports behind me
I’m trying to focus on the fight in front of me and don’t get any heals and die
I’ll probably end up blaming the fact my supports aren’t healing me.
I was the problem.
At the end of the game I might even confirm my false belief by looking at the scoreboard and seeing that they did no healing.
The weak link of the team was me. I wasn’t looking behind. I wasn’t protecting them.
You should never blame others for something that happened to you unless you’ve done an autopsy.
If I went into a replay of the match and watched the game I’d see people sneaking behind and distracting my team. I’d realise I’m not being perceptive. I’d realise I’m the problem.
Instead of focusing on other people’s shortcomings and creating excuses based on their actions focus on what’s in your control. Oftentimes you were the actual problem. As you can’t change other people, focus on you.
7. Marketing to Interests
Who’s heard of Overwatch?
Do you see the similarities to Marvel Rivals?
Yeah, they’re somewhat similar. I’m very into Marvel Rivals. It’s fun.
I played Overwatch for like 20 minutes.
I stopped, it wasn’t fun.
But as I look back onto getting into Marvel Rivals I realise at the beginning what made me think it was fun wasn’t being good at the game, it was playing with characters I liked.
I had a personal investment with these characters.
If you market to someone’s interests you instantly win. If you can get them buying two things at once you beat the person who’s selling one thing. Overwatch was a similar game but missed the characters.
You see this everywhere in the fitness space.
it’s so easy to borrow an audience and slap on your niche
The amount of people who will watch creators like Bald Omni-Man because he always brings anime into things, are super high.
Pay attention to what you’re buying into, is it the product itself, or something else?
I’m not saying this is inherently bad, it’s just something you should be aware of.
I’d hate Marvel Rivals if it didn’t have characters I’ve spent decades learning about.
But it’s because of the characters that I like it in the first place, this is a positive thing.
Sometimes it’s negative. If I make a ton of videos talking about how to get all the avengers physiques when I have no value, and then borrow their credibility; I’m harming you. Be aware of if the borrowed credibility is making poo look good, or good look great.
Pay attention to what something is using to motivate your buying power. Learn to differentiate marketing from whether or not something is actually good. Don’t buy into something you don’t truly understand.
8. Low Queue Times Are Incredible
Who has patience?
What price do you put on convenience?
A few years ago I tried to get back into CS:GO. I’d ride the hype and nostalgia of my past and launch the game. The queue times would be like 3 minutes and I’d never end up playing.
When you add a super long queue time you’re making a game inconvenient.
Games should be consistent playing.
This sucks…
I didn’t stick around CS:GO for long.
Convenience is powerful in everything. My gym is right next to my house. I go.
Find out how to make things more convenient.
Find out how to reduce the barriers of entry into something.
You’ll instantly reap the benefits.
Humans are inherently lazy and spend willpower to do things. They’re picky and have high standards. Reduce barriers where you can, make things convenient, and they’ll be done.
9. People Focus on Kills Over the Objectives
a character i play with a huge ego 🙄
At the ELO I’m currently playing in I’ll see people running away from the objective to try and get as many kills as possible.
Ego.
Wanting to get MVP or the most kills is emotional. Putting the kill count above a win is illogical. It’s a sign of having no discipline.
When I play a game changing character like Wolverine, I can do half the damage of a healer and be the most important character.
I could have 3 kills and all were taking out their most important tank.
I could spend 90% of the game waiting for the right moment to do this.
I’m the most important piece of this win but none of the statistics would show this.
You have to find the perefect balance between objectives, and feel good numbers. Objectives require discipline, they’re what really matter. Feel good numbers make you feel good, they contribute to sticking to things to get the objective you want.
You cannot let those feel good numbers take over.
Instead of focusing on what feels good in the short term, align everything towards the objective. Use feel good moments as something that stacks momentum and increases your likelihood of reaching an objective, but never let them take priority.
10. Changing Character and Confidence
When someone changes their character in Marvel Rivals they’ve obviously got a reason.
This reason lives on two sides of the same coin, the reasons are complete polar opposites.
You change character as you have a lack of confidence on your ability to use the character
You change character as you have confidence another character will have a better ability to win
You could argue that the second option works for both, but you know what I’m talking about here.
There is a huge difference in stepping away from doing something as your mindset has become so weak that you lack faith in your ability, and knowing a different play would destroy an enemy.
Gaming, and working out, are highly psychological.
The second you start viewing yourself as worse, or weaker, your performance drops.
A lot of people need to work hard on their mindset.
They should be muting other people. Having a clear goal. Doing what it takes to win.
Of course, if you ever see a moment where another character would absolutely shred the team, that’s different. Don’t let yourself give up.
Remind yourself that another character would be a worse version of you
Learn from your mistakes
Take the lesson life is handing you to improve your ability to play a character
Build up your mindset and find ways to protect it. Don’t give in to a feeling of weakness and be confident in your abilities. Only let yourself adapt and change if you' know it’s the right move because it’s a better path.
11. I Hate Ground Up Matchmaking, but it makes sense…
Ground up matchmaking is disgusting.
If you hated smurfing (when someone plays in a rank below their skill level) this is like smurfing doubled over.
It’s a ranking system where instead of having a few games that assess where you should be ranked, EVERYONE starts at the very bottom and has to rank up.
Your journey ranking up could be playing against a team of Grand Masters who are guaranteed to win the game.
This actually makes a lot of sense. It’s just like life.
If I go and join a bodybuilding show, there will be masters.
Even in ameteur shows, there might be a master.
Or I could get lucky…
The world isn’t fair where everyone is on your level. I wish it was that easy.
Let’s pretend you’re on your local U21s American Football team.
You have a local championship that you’re able to win
You then have a regional championship that you’re able to win
Then a national championship
Then a worldwide championship
If you’re lucky you’ll qualify for the intergalactic championship
Do well there and you might join the multiversal championship
You might now be able to 1v1 me.
But here’s my point.
These events don’t remove higher skill level, they remove lower skill level.
Playing in your local championship could be facing a team that’s going to win the intergalactic championship.
It’s quite strange when you think about the fact that we single out higher ranks in a game like this.
Some of you don’t realise the true reason for this. Ranked isn’t the competition. It’s the practice.
You’re just not good enough at the practice to play the actual competition.
Tournaments are the competition… everything else just exists to give you better opponents for your practice.
Do you think Chess.com is where we decide who the best players off Chess in the world are…?
You have to earn the right to play in the big leagues, regardless of who you are. To try and get to the big leagues, you face everyone, regardless of if they’re more skilled.
12. You Can Change Your Hero at Any Time
In most games you pick a hero and you’re stuck with it.
You can’t change your skills/direction/approach.
Marvel Heroes defies that and lets you change who you’re playing at any moment. This is how life works. You’re adaptible.
Changing your hero might mean that you have no idea how to use their skillset, and that’s because you haven’t built up those skills.
At any moment in life you can press pause, and pursue a different path.
You can learn skills that are completely different from your current strengths.
Humans are the adaptable. They’re been built to be the most adaptable creatures on earth. If you want to pickup a new skillset, do it. You’ll be weak at first, then strong, then even stronger.
13. Cosmetics Provide Real Value
If anyone is old enough to remember when Minecraft banned microtransactions you’ll remember how hard cosmetics were pushed in the game.
Back then I remember thinking it was so stupid and that no one would ever spend money on changing something like that.
Oh boy was I wrong.
I even proved myself wrong through Fortnite, CS:GO, Valorant, and Marvel Rivals.
See there’s something about wanting a certain skin. Grinding for it through quests, wearing it with pride. Having all the hard work it took to get it be a part of this.
Even if you purchase it.
This is something I don’t actually see in gym culture much which is a shame.
Cosmetics are ways you can show your individualisation.
They let a little bit of what makes you, you shine through the game. It lets you be different from everyone else.
You feel better using that skin than another one. You’re more motivated to play. You play better.
Watch any insane clip from a casual in CS:GO/Valorant and you’ll notice it begins with them requesting a skin from a friend/picking it off the game.
It puts them into this flow state which lets them perform.
A friend of mine said he wasn’t’ going to use a belt or low bar on the squat until he hit a certain weight on it. This got him to the weight quicker because he was more motivated.
Now that he uses the belt he’s reminded of the hard work that lets him wear it, and it motivates his sessions.
Wearing a proper put together dedicated gym outfit is going to make your sessions better.
Having a milestone of x strength, y bodyfat%, z LBM kg and making that unlock a certain accessory/cosmetic is complete untapped territory for most people.
You need to be taking advantage of stuff like this. You love rewards as a human.
Find ways to add rewards to actions to increase motivation. Something as simple as a new gym t-shirt can be a complete game changer. Cosmetics are more valuable than anyone realises.
14. Community Mods and Fun
Most games HATE community mods, they do what they can to remove it.
A mod that lets you have all Valorant skins without paying…
Yeah you’re getting banned 😭
Marvel Rivals have been really relaxed with community mods and it’s made the game much better.
It gives you autonomy, lets you feel like you’ve made a part of the game.
You stick to it.
You have more fun.
You’re willing to spend a little to say thank you.
You can literally change one of the players in this game to Batman.
moonknight is no more
Of course no one else sees these changes unless they have the mods too, but how fun is that?
It’s part of why when I made the workout skeleton for all you guys I let you pick your own exercises instead of forcing you to pick a certain one.
Autonomy lets you get better gains. Lets you have more fun. Lets you stay motivated.
I do things for reasons 🙄
It would have been so much quicker to just make a plan and tell you to follow it…
Autonomy motivates us more as you have a direct input into whatever it is. If something allows you to be more autonomous, it’s going to be better.
All Lessons
Some things in life have one use, and they’re very good at that one thing. It doesn’t mean they’re bad. They just have a place.
Find out what best suits your skillset and do all you can to fulfil/upskill your role. If you don’t like your role, build a new skillset.
Neural adaptations and coordination is something that stays for a while, it’s a low cost adaptation and has a lot of carryover to different tasks.
Time spent learning a movement pathway is progressively less efficient, it’s very quick to pickup neural adaptations, especially if you have similar coordinative pathways built.
Prioritising the battle before the war is a decision filled with ego, it’s not logical, it’s and a guaranteed way to lose it for your team.
Instead of focusing on other people’s shortcomings and creating excuses based on their actions focus on what’s in your control. Oftentimes you were the actual problem. As you can’t change other people, focus on you.
Pay attention to what something is using to motivate your buying power. Learn to differentiate marketing from whether or not something is actually good. Don’t buy into something you don’t truly understand.
Humans are inherently lazy and spend willpower to do things. They’re picky and have high standards. Reduce barriers where you can, make things convenient, and they’ll be done.
Instead of focusing on what feels good in the short term, align everything towards the objective. Use feel good moments as something that stacks momentum and increases your likelihood of reaching an objective, but never let them take priority.
Build up your mindset and find ways to protect it. Don’t give in to a feeling of weakness and be confident in your abilities. Only let yourself adapt and change if you' know it’s the right move because it’s a better path.
You have to earn the right to play in the big leagues, regardless of who you are. To try and get to the big leagues, you face everyone, regardless of if they’re more skilled.
Humans are the adaptable. They’re been built to be the most adaptable creatures on earth. If you want to pickup a new skillset, do it. You’ll be weak at first, then strong, then even stronger.
Find ways to add rewards to actions to increase motivation. Something as simple as a new gym t-shirt can be a complete game changer. Cosmetics are more valuable than anyone realises.
Autonomy motivates us more as you have a direct input into whatever it is. If something allows you to be more autonomous, it’s going to be better.
I hope my bad clips from random games I played didn’t stop you from reading 😭
I also really hope you learnt something from this.
If there was a 15th lesson for you it’d be this.
Let everything be a teacher in life. Keep an open and inquisitive mind.
See you soon!
Your Hypertrophy Hero,
Fletcher
P.S. If anyone wants to play Marvel Rivals with me reply to this email with your IGN and I’ll queue with you when I have the time
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