Marvel’s Avengers has not had the smoothest game experience. There were issues that fans had with the game from the earliest trailers, such as the way characters looked, but some of that can be chalked up to extremely high expectations — this is The Avengers IP after all.
Unfortunately, not only have those expectations not been met, but they’ve frequently found a way to fall below the bar. While most fans have said combat has been fun, the process of leveling up characters and unlocking cosmetics has been extremely frustrating. Of course, players can buy the battle pass, but certain characters have separate passes which means anyone that doesn’t want to pay has to grind it out through level ups. This became more difficult when XP was changed to make leveling up take longer.
Despite all of that, players were still logging on to grind out as much as they could. Then it was announced that, if players wanted to level up faster, they could simply purchase XP boosts in the shop. This was the final straw for many of the game’s long time players. They had put up with all the issues the game had thrown at them to that point, but seeing such a gross example of microtransactions thrown in their face as they were grinding out every level they could was too much. They unsurprisingly started pushing back on the choice to add XP boosts, and less than 30 days later, developers of the game announced that they are removing the feature.
We have decided that by the end of today we will remove Hero’s Catalysts and Fragment Extractors for purchase. pic.twitter.com/8am9nSstP2
— Marvel's Avengers (@PlayAvengers) November 2, 2021
Earning player trust back is going to be the big thing. There were a lot of fans that genuinely enjoyed the game despite its flaws, so seeing the developers blatantly exploit them like that must have felt like a slap in the face. On the plus side, the developers recognized that and eventually removed the XP boosts. That is a good step and maybe this game can finally start moving forward with some positives instead of constantly being overshadowed by its own mistakes.