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Marathon approaching 15k CCU low (sponsored by coachmcguirk91 - still having a blast)

Secondly, you underestimate how much the people actually playing the game really enjoy it. The player numbers are not great, but there is a die hard fanbase that is there. Presumably, it will get big updates for a couple years before any major decisions are made

It should sell another another few million copies over time. Marathon has improved so much since the Alpha last year. I find it hard to believe it won't keep getting better, which should bring more players into trying it out
People enjoying the game means nothing to sales and CCU. Steams review score has Marathon ranked at over 4,200th. You got no name indie games with 100 CCU with higher review %.

The rest of your comments are pure guesswork assuming the game will be supported for years selling another million copies. Technically, every game will have more people trying it unless a game has literally zero people in the future never trying it.

More importantly is the small gamer base and downward trend. So for any new gamers buying the game daily the peak Steam CCU is actually going down. So they are losing more gamers than buying and sticking around. Even after the patch and Cryo info, the Steam CCU still dropped 5% today like it did nothing to help aside from it helping it yesterday at +1% CCU. Today is back to the daily trend of -5%. So whatever patch improvements it did yesterday did zero effect.
 
People enjoying the game means nothing to sales and CCU. Steams review score has Marathon ranked at over 4,200th. You got no name indie games with 100 CCU with higher review %.

The rest of your comments are pure guesswork assuming the game will be supported for years selling another million copies. Technically, every game will have more people trying it unless a game has literally zero people in the future never trying it.

More importantly is the small gamer base and downward trend. So for any new gamers buying the game daily the peak Steam CCU is actually going down. So they are losing more gamers than buying and sticking around. Even after the patch and Cryo info, the Steam CCU still dropped 5% today like it did nothing to help aside from it helping it yesterday at +1% CCU. Today is back to the daily trend of -5%. So whatever patch improvements it did yesterday did zero effect.
Show me a GAAS game with over 30k reviews and a Steam User Score over 85% that failed? People enjoying the game is what spreads good word of mouth. It is how GAAS games over time can succeed, even with poor launch CCU's

And pretty much all GAAS games lose players after its first two weeks. That is the norm. Saying otherwise is completely disingenuous. Marathon's numbers are not catering by any means
 
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Show me a GAAS game with over 30k reviews and a Steam User Score over 85% that failed? People enjoying the game is what spreads good word of mouth. It is how GAAS games over time can succeed, even with poor launch CCU's

And pretty much all GAAS games lose players after its first two weeks. That is the norm. Saying otherwise is completely disingenuous. Marathon's numbers are not catering by any means
If it's such a good game, why is it still trending down 2 weeks after launch?

I never said all GAAS games trend upward after launch. But an example which it shot up was PUBG. It started early access, shot up, and by the time it released the final version it was up to 2M+ CCU 9 months later. PUB's early access launch had almost as many gamers as Marathon's final release. ARC looks like it started at 260k CCU. Two weeks later it was about 400k peak CCU.

Most top shooter games go up from launch. and for any that didnt, I dont think too many after two weeks are going to be down -40% already from launch peak like Marathon. It launched at a peak of 88k. Now its daily peak is barely above 50k. And it's only been two weeks.

If you want a successful game, you want an uptrend, not a downtrend.
 
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Show me a GAAS game with over 30k reviews and a Steam User Score over 85% that failed? People enjoying the game is what spreads good word of mouth. It is how GAAS games over time can succeed, even with poor launch CCU's

And pretty much all GAAS games lose players after its first two weeks. That is the norm. Saying otherwise is completely disingenuous. Marathon's numbers are not catering by any means
Splitgate and Multiversus (on EA release reviews) come to mind. There was also Paragon, which didn't have a steam release but it was both critically acclaimed and had a decent player base.

We all know being good isnt enough for a game to get returns. For live service games even more so as they cant just rely on getting people interested, they also need to retain a good amount of players over a long period of time and get those players willing to invest even more money into the game, at the very least to proportions that justify its ongoing development and maitanance costs.
 
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The realization that its going to take longer.

F4rYy8dvH3jyNMAE.png



More talk about Bungie just unlocking the map anyway.

Either way it's a bad look.

Get people to work on killing enemies so they get to see a part of the game that's meant to be core to this whole thing.

Players fail to do so.

Release the map anyway.

jk shouldn't have worked so hard stupid players.
 
This mechanic makes it seem more like work than a game.

If the content is so good that it's the thing reviewers just have to experience before they are allowed to release reviews, they should probably let people play it.
 
I dunno, this whole thing is like comedy central.

1. Focus on maps that basically force PvP
2. Foster a community of hardcore PvPers who are happy with the game
3. Drive away more casual players who may like the PvE side a bit more
4. Tease a new map that requires a decent amount of completion, investment and a load out of certain value - knowing that there is a 70% extraction failure rate in the base game
5. Lastly, drop a community based PvE goal that is insane - basically 'Seriously 2.0'

Who tf is overseeing this car crash
 
I dunno, this whole thing is like comedy central.

1. Focus on maps that basically force PvP
2. Foster a community of hardcore PvPers who are happy with the game
3. Drive away more casual players who may like the PvE side a bit more
4. Tease a new map that requires a decent amount of completion, investment and a load out of certain value - knowing that there is a 70% extraction failure rate in the base game
5. Lastly, drop a community based PvE goal that is insane - basically 'Seriously 2.0'

Who tf is overseeing this car crash
OaMjF61NvSrdAJPO.jpeg
 
This mechanic makes it seem more like work than a game.

If the content is so good that it's the thing reviewers just have to experience before they are allowed to release reviews, they should probably let people play it.
In their head it made sense because they thought millions of players would buy the game. Interest is dropping day by day and this grind to give players a new map after offering them only 3 shitty ones is an extra ego move.
 
Looks like tonite we will be finally contained below 50k ccu, which means there is high chance weekend bump will be contained below 60k ccu, and game is only 2 weeks on the market :D
 
Currently down 1k players from this time yesterday.

Bungie has Twitch/Youtubers going to their studio. Last week they did the competition. They've got this ARG thing going on. All trying to sustain and lift the curve but nothing has made that shift.

I wonder how much time they have.

- Anthem made an attempt by giving a team some time to try and create a 2.0 relaunch.
- Final Fantasy XIV succeeded in their step back and relaunch, as did No Man's Sky.
- Others never got the chance and were shut down or just left to die.

I don't know if Marathon has already been considered having that chance given the delay. It's somewhat a case of looking at how much more they consider they'd need to spend to get it to where they feel it solves all the current issues that's stopping this game from lifting.

It's not just financial costs either, it's brand. Anthem did a big hit to BioWare, who already weren't running on a high. Bungie aren't on a high right now either given the sentiment over where Destiny 2 landed. They dealt with some in the past, though not at this scale. The Peter Dinklage VO at launch was something they had to jump on, also the spawn cave. Those were minor in reflection, but were both subject to wide spread negative attention.

Killing a product hurts more than money. Halo/343/Halo Studios or whatever it's called is in that place now. It'll be real bad for Bungie to be the current day Marathon and current day Destiny company, with something like Destiny 3 being so far away they'll have no way of correcting that brand status for potentially 5+ years.

If they were to do a 2.0 revamp, adding:
- a campaign story (solo/coop play) or simply a chain of some very PVE scenarios that better sells the world and story, gets people pumped for the PVPVE mode.
- Find a way to span out the PVP from the PVE to help broaden the audience from just the sweat bois, the above is part of that.
- Keep things tied together to get some of those generally more comfortable in the PVE to shift over to the PVP spaces.

I could see this lifting the numbers without compromising the core thing they've hit with that PVP vibe that are keeping the current core playing.
 
I dunno, this whole thing is like comedy central.

1. Focus on maps that basically force PvP
2. Foster a community of hardcore PvPers who are happy with the game
3. Drive away more casual players who may like the PvE side a bit more
4. Tease a new map that requires a decent amount of completion, investment and a load out of certain value - knowing that there is a 70% extraction failure rate in the base game
5. Lastly, drop a community based PvE goal that is insane - basically 'Seriously 2.0'

Who tf is overseeing this car crash
90% positive user reviews is a car crash? People playing it like it. Word of mouth has been positive. Wish fulfillment scenarios of the game dying aren't happening.
 
Currently down 1k players from this time yesterday.

Bungie has Twitch/Youtubers going to their studio. Last week they did the competition. They've got this ARG thing going on. All trying to sustain and lift the curve but nothing has made that shift.

I wonder how much time they have.

- Anthem made an attempt by giving a team some time to try and create a 2.0 relaunch.
- Final Fantasy XIV succeeded in their step back and relaunch, as did No Man's Sky.
- Others never got the chance and were shut down or just left to die.

I don't know if Marathon has already been considered having that chance given the delay. It's somewhat a case of looking at how much more they consider they'd need to spend to get it to where they feel it solves all the current issues that's stopping this game from lifting.

It's not just financial costs either, it's brand. Anthem did a big hit to BioWare, who already weren't running on a high. Bungie aren't on a high right now either given the sentiment over where Destiny 2 landed. They dealt with some in the past, though not at this scale. The Peter Dinklage VO at launch was something they had to jump on, also the spawn cave. Those were minor in reflection, but were both subject to wide spread negative attention.

Killing a product hurts more than money. Halo/343/Halo Studios or whatever it's called is in that place now. It'll be real bad for Bungie to be the current day Marathon and current day Destiny company, with something like Destiny 3 being so far away they'll have no way of correcting that brand status for potentially 5+ years.

If they were to do a 2.0 revamp, adding:
- a campaign story (solo/coop play) or simply a chain of some very PVE scenarios that better sells the world and story, gets people pumped for the PVPVE mode.
- Find a way to span out the PVP from the PVE to help broaden the audience from just the sweat bois, the above is part of that.
- Keep things tied together to get some of those generally more comfortable in the PVE to shift over to the PVP spaces.

I could see this lifting the numbers without compromising the core thing they've hit with that PVP vibe that are keeping the current core playing.
None of that is needed. Adding just PVE would not work for this game, it would just be a destiny lite-like game. You need the pvp element for this to work.
 
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Bungie again proving they put too much faith in their own community and then get surprised when the reality of the numbers don't match their projections. Many times in D2 where we had live events that bungie had tweak the number or tickrates for completion, otherwise it'd take too long for reach certain goal. Fellwinter's lie quest was like that. Guardian Games had to tweak the numbers in favor or Titans and Warlock because there were always more Hunters everywhere (not to mention that the time they tweaked hard in favor of Warlocks, they still lost it). Oh, and can't forget the time people couldn't for the love of the game find the final step to solve the Niobe Labs puzzle and Bungie had to just give up and open the door to all players.
 
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Bungie again proving they put too much faith in their own community and then get surprised when the reality of the numbers don't match their projections. Many times in D2 where we had live events that bungie had tweak the number or tickrates for completion, otherwise it'd take too long for reach certain goal. Fellwinter's lie quest was like that. Guardian Games had to tweak the numbers in favor or Titans and Warlock because there were always more Hunters everywhere (not to mention that the time they tweaked hard in favor of Warlocks, they still lost it). Oh, and can't forget the time people couldn't for the love of the game find the final step to solve the Niobe Labs puzzle and Bungie had to just give up and open the door to all players.
Wasnt something wrong with the Niobe Labs puzzle. Like they coded something wrong, lol I forgot. I mean yeah they made mistakes all the time in Destiny/2. Marathon by contrast is a much smaller scope game, the game launched in considerable good shape compared to more recent Destiny releases.
 
Wasnt something wrong with the Niobe Labs puzzle. Like they coded something wrong, lol I forgot. I mean yeah they made mistakes all the time in Destiny/2. Marathon by contrast is a much smaller scope game, the game launched in considerable good shape compared to more recent Destiny releases.
I don't really remember if the Niobe Labs puzzle was bugged, but it felt lame for them to just open it at the final step because it was holding down the rest of the playerbase as there wasn't much content to go by as Niobe Labs was the last piece of it in that season. Bungie never tried anything too complicated in Destiny 2 after that. Well, maybe corridors of time.
 
I don't really remember if the Niobe Labs puzzle was bugged, but it felt lame for them to just open it at the final step because it was holding down the rest of the playerbase as there wasn't much content to go by as Niobe Labs was the last piece of it in that season. Bungie never tried anything too complicated in Destiny 2 after that. Well, maybe corridors of time.
The Vault on Last Wish raid race will always be one of my funniest memories.

RE: Niobe Labs

"But the reward for solving level six was level seven, with an even more obscure clue (which turned out to be missing some information due to a bug, a fact revealed when Bungie just dropped the missing clue into a forum thread)."

 
90% positive user reviews is a car crash? People playing it like it. Word of mouth has been positive. Wish fulfillment scenarios of the game dying aren't happening.

I think it's basically this if I had to sum it up, the user scores I believe are genuine given it's the fans of the game playing and enjoying it

Like for example let's say a tofu restaurant opens up and it has 97% reviews, I think it makes sense given most likely they're all fans of tofu. Which I'm sure the non tofu fans will probably not partake, but if they did they'd probably score it less obviously but the fans are happy with it.

I think that's all fine, it's just a matter of can enough people keep both this and the tofu restaurant analogy, afloat. That's what it'll come down to.

Despite any ribbing I've done I am fine with Marathon existing I'm just bummed as that takes bungie out of the equation for a good while with anything else, I feel destiny 3 would've catered to everyone better but it is what it is
 
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I think it's basically this if I had to sum it up, the user scores I believe but in the context of fans of this game which is fine.

Like for example let's say a tofu restaurant opens up and it has 97% reviews, I think it makes sense given most likely they're all fans of tofu. Which I'm sure the non tofu fans will probably not partake, but if they did they'd probably score it less obviously but the fans are happy with it.

I think that's all fine, it's just a matter of can enough people keep both this and the tofu restaurant analogy, afloat. That's what it'll come down to.

Despite any ribbing I've done I am fine with Marathon existing I'm just bummed as that takes bungie out of the equation for a good while with anything else, I feel destiny 3 would've catered to everyone better but it is what it is
But more than 2/3 of the Studio is still focused on Destiny content. Bungie really grew the last 6 years before the layoffs started. They still have a large team working on Destiny.
 
Noon hour completed hour. Another -3%. About 30k down to 29k. Last night's low looks like under 17k again.

Yesterday's peak was 51.7k. Will be really close today to break under 50k.
 
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But more than 2/3 of the Studio is still focused on Destiny content. Bungie really grew the last 6 years before the layoffs started. They still have a large team working on Destiny.
I dunno man I just don't feel they're on it like they used to be "on" it and I don't think destiny is in a good spot.. I know it changed for my liking years back and the things I see now it just doesn't feel they have enough on it to really give it that gusto it once had
 
There Their mistake was as most have said, hanging onto D2 for too long and not moving to a d3/d4, D1 was perfect base game and 3 expansions.
 
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No GAAS game in history considered closing shop or drastically changing course with daily Steam CCU's hitting 50k after two weeks. A bunch of idiots up in here
 
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If d3 was out and marathon landed and d3 was getting the normal love, I'd have zero issue with Marathon honestly.
Yeah that was the problem they didn't have clear direction on where d2 was going, but thats been clear since D1. I remember Luke Smith saying they had no idea what the darkest was even was when they first started talking about it. LOL
 
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I dunno man I just don't feel they're on it like they used to be "on" it and I don't think destiny is in a good spot.. I know it changed for my liking years back and the things I see now it just doesn't feel they have enough on it to really give it that gusto it once had
Oh they really have to go back to a fresh start, d2 is just tired. Fully agree.
 
None of that is needed. Adding just PVE would not work for this game, it would just be a destiny lite-like game. You need the pvp element for this to work.

Perhaps I wasn't being clear. I wasn't proposing to JUST add a PVE mode, I was proposing a way for them to create an onboarding solution that guides players towards the core.

Even fans of the game are saying that the first 10 hours or so are rough and a jumping off point for most. Rabid fans have proposed ignoring people's review of the game if they have a play time of <10 hours.

This video from a Tarkov vet talks about how within that first 10 or so hours they were ready to bounce from the game.



The game has an onboarding problem. Rabid fans can cry GITGUD SCRUB all they want. I'm perfectly fine with games being tough, but you've got to accept that there's a set audience for that.

I've personally never been into the extraction genre, to me it's a concentrated version of the DayZ style survival game. And I much prefer the experience of DayZ. Though I know a lot of players from DayZ went to Tarkov because it got them into the action quicker. DayZ has a wider gap between PVP and PVE, where you can avoid it but never completely leave it. This is more like what I was proposing. Not a separate game for a separate player base.
 
How many people will be playing Death Stranding 2 in 2 weeks? And DS2 is a big AAA game. This is not the own you think it is
Not a lot, as with most single player campaign games.

Look if you think Sony and Bungie will be happy with the kind of numbers Marathon is pulling, then all the power to you.
 
Perhaps I wasn't being clear. I wasn't proposing to JUST add a PVE mode, I was proposing a way for them to create an onboarding solution that guides players towards the core.

Even fans of the game are saying that the first 10 hours or so are rough and a jumping off point for most. Rabid fans have proposed ignoring people's review of the game if they have a play time of <10 hours.

This video from a Tarkov vet talks about how within that first 10 or so hours they were ready to bounce from the game.



The game has an onboarding problem. Rabid fans can cry GITGUD SCRUB all they want. I'm perfectly fine with games being tough, but you've got to accept that there's a set audience for that.

I've personally never been into the extraction genre, to me it's a concentrated version of the DayZ style survival game. And I much prefer the experience of DayZ. Though I know a lot of players from DayZ went to Tarkov because it got them into the action quicker. DayZ has a wider gap between PVP and PVE, where you can avoid it but never completely leave it. This is more like what I was proposing. Not a separate game for a separate player base.


The mechanics of the items and interactions between them take time to learn. It the same issue with Destiny which is menu heavy for a fps. I don't think it's a matter of "getting good", it's just getting familiar with everything. The game has varying levels of complexity so other than experiencing it, it's a hard problem to solve in a tutorial.
 
No GAAS game in history considered closing shop or drastically changing course with daily Steam CCU's hitting 50k after two weeks. A bunch of idiots up in here

And which way is this CCU trending?

Bu Bu Bu games always lose some players in the first few weeks.
Bu Bu Bu show me a game that did x with these specific criteria.

Aside from probably a few random posts, the general view is that no one wants Bungie to shut down. Many of us don't want Marathon to fail. Go check my post history in this thread. Many of my posts have looked at ways Bungie can improve their position. "MAKE NUMBER GO UP" if using fewer words helps reach inside your smooth top.
 
The mechanics of the items and interactions between them take time to learn. It the same issue with Destiny which is menu heavy for a fps. I don't think it's a matter of "getting good", it's just getting familiar with everything. The game has varying levels of complexity so other than experiencing it, it's a hard problem to solve in a tutorial.

So don't add a tutorial.

This is just spit balling, Bungie have a problem, there are probably many ways to solve it.

I guess for some people in here the first step though is admitting Bungie have a problem. No point in brainstorming solutions if that can't be admitted.
 
This mechanic makes it seem more like work than a game.

If the content is so good that it's the thing reviewers just have to experience before they are allowed to release reviews, they should probably let people play it.
Reminiscent of Destiny 2 all of their shit was like this. So obtuse and difficult to figure out what to do.

In Destiny 2 it really hurt the game. Because in an MMO onboarding new players is kinda important.

In Marathon I think people think it is just them being mysterious but actually I think they just have issues with quest design. They also had these as a group bullshits and I just try to avoid interacting with it as much as possible in D2.
 
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Tell me you are a Marathon shill without telling me.


The realization that its going to take longer.

F4rYy8dvH3jyNMAE.png



More talk about Bungie just unlocking the map anyway.

Either way it's a bad look.

Get people to work on killing enemies so they get to see a part of the game that's meant to be core to this whole thing.

Players fail to do so.

Release the map anyway.

jk shouldn't have worked so hard stupid players.
It's basically the map will just come out on its own.

Currently in game there is bot ships in the sky, more bots to fight, etc.

It's just the number needed is an absolutely retarded number. 500 million with this small of a community? Come the fuck on.
 
I think it's basically this if I had to sum it up, the user scores I believe but in the context of fans of this game which is fine.

Like for example let's say a tofu restaurant opens up and it has 97% reviews, I think it makes sense given most likely they're all fans of tofu. Which I'm sure the non tofu fans will probably not partake, but if they did they'd probably score it less obviously but the fans are happy with it.

I think that's all fine, it's just a matter of can enough people keep both this and the tofu restaurant analogy, afloat. That's what it'll come down to.

Despite any ribbing I've done I am fine with Marathon existing I'm just bummed as that takes bungie out of the equation for a good while with anything else, I feel destiny 3 would've catered to everyone better but it is what it is
For sure. Poll every person at a baseball or hockey game going to the game if they like the sport. Of course they'll say yes. Why go if you didnt?

But if someone likes the sport even if the stadium is empty, who cares. Just enjoy. I go to Jays games pretty much every year including the dead years where only 15,000 people show up. Big metro area and the dome holds like 45k people. And you got it only 1/3 full while a Raps game down the street will fill their arena at 20k even if the team is crap.

User reviews dont mean a lot sometimes since it'll be skewed to people who like the game, and some get purposely review bombed like every COD and FIFA game for a decade. I think some got bombed down to like 3/10. I think one of those Warcraft games got bombed down to 1.5/10 because the fans hated the remaster. And Big Rig Racing has lots of people purposely review bombing it UP giving it 10/10s for laughs propping up the score.

Who cares if a game is rated good or bad anyway? If you like it, you like it. GTA games get like 95% ratings. I hate them. Every time Ive tried them, I find the frame rate hitchy at 30 fps, too many cut scenes and clunky driving and shooting. I prefer first person to third person too. I'm not going to force myself to like it because every game site and gamer seems to buying up 200M copies. I like playing lots of card/board games on Steam which have almost zero CCU and hit and miss ratings ranging from 60-80%. Why does it matter? I like them.

Problem is people put way too much emphasis on what other people do or think.
 
And which way is this CCU trending?

Bu Bu Bu games always lose some players in the first few weeks.
Bu Bu Bu show me a game that did x with these specific criteria.

Aside from probably a few random posts, the general view is that no one wants Bungie to shut down. Many of us don't want Marathon to fail. Go check my post history in this thread. Many of my posts have looked at ways Bungie can improve their position. "MAKE NUMBER GO UP" if using fewer words helps reach inside your smooth top.

I want Bungie to fail. I don't actually have much to say about Marathon itself, I make no claims over the quality of that game. I just want to see Bungie burn for every fucking stupid thing they did to the Destiny community over the years.

Angry Season 10 GIF by Curb Your Enthusiasm
 
It's basically the map will just come out on its own.

Currently in game there is bot ships in the sky, more bots to fight, etc.

It's just the number needed is an absolutely retarded number. 500 million with this small of a community? Come the fuck on.
Reading up on the 500M, people speculate it's a bogus number anyway and Bungie will fudge the number to hit the release date they were aiming for regardless. So it's just a hoax to get people playing.

Also as people said, nobody ever said Bungie has to lock it behind 500M kills. They can always adjust it 400M or just release it anytime they feel like.

They got a certain target date to release it. That's why the whole time they even said the new map would release sometime end of March. So they already had a game plan before the game even released.
 
It would be good to see a consensus on here.

Is this:
- Fine
- Not Fine

JaoconPQ2PzqDtMY.png


If Not Fine then Bungie need to do something for the long term survival of this game.
It's definitely not fine.

Again. Love the game. 100 hours played. I'll keep playing until something else comes along, or Arc caters more to me, or this shits the bed proper.

The influx of players to this game is not going to come from its current course. It could get a small bump from ranked or cryo, but not 50k more.

I think 100k concurrent would be strong to have the game work until Destiny 3.

To do so would require:
-Adding a full blown campaign
-A pve mode like firefight
-More UI updates
-Multiple shells (classes) dropped at once.
-Much better in game events for seasonal content
-2 base maps a year and one raid map until it has a healthy pool without making matchmaking hard if it's too spread out

This above is a year to year and a half roadmap to success but requires considerable investments that Sony won't pay for, and Bungie won't do when it comes to their vision for this game(no campaign no pve mode)
 
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