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Marathon |OT| A Shell of its Former Self.

Men_in_Boxes said:
It's not about players. It's about game design.

Marathon is a game where losing is often a miserable, unsatisfying experience. There is often no story to be had, no "dance", no tension in Marathon...just instant deletion.

ARC Raiders was designed in a way that made losing frequently exhilarating. It would often leave you thinking "If only had had done X, Y, or Z instead..." Instant deletion is not satisfying.
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Its the opposite for me honestly.
 
Cryo Archive has been pretty disappointing for me. It doesn't feel like a "reward map", it feels like punishment. Shooting things for extended periods of time and frantically looking for loot & doors is the opposite of what I'm looking for in an Extraction Shooter.

Bungie, why would you do this to me?
 
Had another great chance at Cryo with randoms, wiped one crew, triggered the guarded exfil but on the way there another squad took us out. C'est la vie. It's more than possible to do with randoms and I'll get it done. Opening every vault and fighting Compiler though? That's a different story, think you definitely want a mic'd up squad for that.

Yesterday I did 3 solo runs in a row on Outpost using the conveyance elevator method to get into Pinwheel, each time with sponsored kit, each time coming out with stuff like this:

7CfjHmz6TaYq9Zus.jpg


Twice I had the place to myself, third time I heard the alarm below of someone breaching, I patiently waited by the elevator entrance behind the wall, knife out. Vandal comes running by without a care in the world, I quickly ended their Pinwheel Dreams™

Interesting reading people's thoughts on Cryo. Many of us praised Bungie for making such a hardcore, uncompromising game in today's day and age, did we think the "endgame" content would be anything less than that? But that doesn't mean it's beyond reproach:

- should be available any time. This isn't a job Bungie "grind all week then blow your load on the weekend!" No, let me decide when to lose my best gear lol

- absolutely no reason why there isn't a solo option. If you just want to go in, grab great loot along the way and exfil it doesn't require any sort of coordination with a team, not sure about vaults but clips I've seen suggest no difference

- I love PvP, I love the tension of knowing another player/squad could be right around the corner, I believe it's a big reason why this game is so special. However, it would be a shame to let such immaculate gunplay, such an immersive world, such astounding presentation go to waste for those that suck at it but otherwise love the world. Even if it's a limited timed event, 1 week, beef up the enemy troops to balance difficulty. Would split player base though so they won't do it

- I have 85 hours clocked, I have yet to find purple cores for my Assassin, not fucking once, have a couple for other classes. Don't know what the RNG algorithm is but it should take into account how often a player uses a certain class and adjust drop potential accordingly

- battle arena to test out your weapons, only weapons you have in your vault. Filled with enemy AI, much more useful than a shooting range

- I'll say it for the 4th time, new enemy types and new events ASAP. There needs to be a new non-Cryo map soon too but that won't happen

Still madly in love with it, met some cool people playing with randoms and in solo too. Truly want it to succeed and I know Bungie has been attentive, just wonder if it's enough. Oh, very close to hitting Cyber Acme VIP, then I'll just need to hit level 100 to plat 🥳

Edit: oh, and sponsored Cryo kit once a week, any more would be too generous, throw the dogs a bone Bungie.
 
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I gotta say, after we turned off crossplay the game's been a lot of fun (again). Marathon really needs input-based matchmaking. We're dodging our PC friends right now, cause PC-lobbies are flooded with tryhards
 
8BiTw0LF said:
We're dodging our PC friends right now, cause PC-lobbies are flooded with tryhards
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lol, I've been playing with crossplay on from day 1, it's always satisfying to smoke PC bros and matchmaking is much faster. Maybe...git gud? Poking fun of course, play however you want to play but steel sharpens steel.
 
8BiTw0LF said:
I gotta say, after we turned off crossplay the game's been a lot of fun (again). Marathon really needs input-based matchmaking. We're dodging our PC friends right now, cause PC-lobbies are flooded with tryhards
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Hey I'm on PC and I ain't a tryhard bro! Yea we've been playing crossplay since day one too because I'm on PC and my two squad mates are both PS5.
 
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clarky said:
I play on pc with controller, no issues here.
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To be fair these kinds of games see their fair share of cheating on the PC side but since Bungie said permabans for life to cheaters I don't think we'll see much, I haven't experienced anything suspicious thus far so it's cool, if you're going to win beat me fair and square.
 
ill be on all day if anyone wants a game. Me and CowboyLou CowboyLou had some great games yesterday, and some bad ones. Lost some stuff, won some stuff. Good times.

Certainly made quite a few errors. Need to rebuild and learn Outpost.
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
Cryo Archive has been pretty disappointing for me. It doesn't feel like a "reward map", it feels like punishment. Shooting things for extended periods of time and frantically looking for loot & doors is the opposite of what I'm looking for in an Extraction Shooter.

Bungie, why would you do this to me?
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What if I told you Bungie has treated Destiny players this way for years? What if I told you they weren't the great designers you think they are?

laurence fishburne GIF
 
clarky said:
Got some real life stuff to take care of first, then I'm free all day.
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Got some runs in with dudes I met the other day, killed 3 runners in a previous solo game and one had Algae Ponds office key, found a purple shield in there and shared the rest of wealth, good times. Wife home, going to the cinema, maybe I'll catch you guys later.
 
TheDarkPhantom said:
lol, I've been playing with crossplay on from day 1, it's always satisfying to smoke PC bros and matchmaking is much faster. Maybe...git gud? Poking fun of course, play however you want to play but steel sharpens steel.
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Not a problem in solos. In trios pc lobbies we have a 40/60 win rate. On PS5 it's a 80/20 win rate. It's just more fun to win against dudes sitting on their couch than lose to sweats who can pinpoint your head in a split second 😂
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
That's what I mean.

You go from low excitement / low tension to instant deletion around 10% of the time.

You can spend 10 - 15 minutes of "work" in Marathon (looting, running, equipping gear, messing with your vault etc) to instant deletion a non meaningless percentage of the time.
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This right here is why I just can't do it with extraction, I get everyone has lives mostly but it's a genre where you can and will have many fruitless sessions and I just get past that. To spend any amount of time just to lose it to me is something that if I were younger I'd enjoy because time isn't as precious as it is now even at 47, there's so much to play and choosing a game where loss and losing is I'd say a good 30 40% of it.

Anyways been just reading, wanted to add to this as it sums this genre up... I don't think there's a genre I could dislike more with BR a close second

Anyways carry on 👍
 
Hollywood Hitman said:
This right here is why I just can't do it with extraction, I get everyone has lives mostly but it's a genre where you can and will have many fruitless sessions and I just get past that. To spend any amount of time just to lose it to me is something that if I were younger I'd enjoy because time isn't as precious as it is now even at 47, there's so much to play and choosing a game where loss and losing is I'd say a good 30 40% of it.

Anyways been just reading, wanted to add to this as it sums this genre up... I don't think there's a genre I could dislike more with BR a close second

Anyways carry on 👍
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Those issues you have with extraction games are completely valid. If I was to recommend an extraction shooter to you it would be Hunt showdown, as it has non of the gear fear that other games in the genre have. It rewards game knowledge and aim, but it has a steep learning curve with loads of depth. (y)
 
Hollywood Hitman said:
This right here is why I just can't do it with extraction, I get everyone has lives mostly but it's a genre where you can and will have many fruitless sessions and I just get past that. To spend any amount of time just to lose it to me is something that if I were younger I'd enjoy because time isn't as precious as it is now even at 47, there's so much to play and choosing a game where loss and losing is I'd say a good 30 40% of it.

Anyways been just reading, wanted to add to this as it sums this genre up... I don't think there's a genre I could dislike more with BR a close second

Anyways carry on 👍
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I get what you're saying, but I think it's not about the result, but about the journey.
Yes I could spend my 5 hours of gaming time a week with a much easier game, making tons of progress.

But I rather lose all my stuff and look back at a session filled with a whole range of emotions (I found some incredible incredible loot, almost got away with it, lost it all because I took too much risk, etc).

I could write pages of 'stories' from my runs.

Looking at my current equipment and storage: I'm broke as fuck, scraping by.
But the rare times things do work out are the more sweeter.
 
Hixxy said:
Those issues you have with extraction games are completely valid. If I was to recommend an extraction shooter to you it would be Hunt showdown, as it has non of the gear fear that other games in the genre have. It rewards game knowledge and aim, but it has a steep learning curve with loads of depth. (y)
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That's def more of what id go for definitely.

I just sadly have found the new wave of extraction and battle royale games to be catering to an audience that is ok losing most of the time like even battle royale I won a few times in fortnite when it first came out, a few times in warzone and that was enough for me because you literally spend most of the time losing. Extraction feels the same like sure arc has a great atmosphere but I just find the idea of extraction off putting
Johnny Concrete said:
I get what you're saying, but I think it's not about the result, but about the journey.
Yes I could spend my 5 hours of gaming time a week with a much easier game, making tons of progress.

But I rather lose all my stuff and look back at a session filled with a whole range of emotions (I found some incredible incredible loot, almost got away with it, lost it all because I took too much risk, etc).

I could write pages of 'stories' from my runs.

Looking at my current equipment and storage: I'm broke as fuck, scraping by.
But the rare times things do work out are the more sweeter.
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I get it man and I'm not disagreeing but for me personally that's just not the type of journey I want these days I think ultimately. I'd rather a game where I spend 2 300 hours with a character that's just jacked and the adventures and loot I have, and what I have to show for it rather a game where it's a journey of misery mixed with occasional happiness and excitement.. I'm sure it can be awesome man for those that seek it, just isn't for me.

I tried with arc raiders and then gave this a spin in the slam and couldn't get there. But see the thing about me is I was always known as the guy who loves everything back in the ign days haha I try to always find a way to enjoy but man extraction and br are the two genres I realize I hate so bad...it's a bummer
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
It's not about players. It's about game design.

Marathon is a game where losing is often a miserable, unsatisfying experience. There is often no story to be had, no "dance", no tension in Marathon...just instant deletion.

ARC Raiders was designed in a way that made losing frequently exhilarating. It would often leave you thinking "If only had had done X, Y, or Z instead..." Instant deletion is not satisfying.
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I've never felt miserable playing this game even losing.

If I die in Marathon it's generally because I did something wrong or I was careless. Not 100% of the time but I can say for certainty that 9/10 times I've died I can point to what caused it and it's always partially on me.

Me and my buddy played last night and got insta deleted by a team because we heard somebody hitting the care package drop and decided to bolt over to see if we could pick them off. We were careless and the other teams strategy of hitting it and watching from afar caught us off guard. That's on us not the game. That team was better then we weee in that moment.
 
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hououinkyouma00 said:
If I die in Marathong it's generally because I didn't something wrong or I was careless. Not 100% of the time but I can say for certainty that 9/10 times I've died I can point to what caused it and it's always partially on me.
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Have you noticed I keep saying "10% of the time"?

That percentage hangs in a delicate balance. We forgive a number of issues in the honeymoon period because we're learning and enjoying other aspects of the game. That 10% might not mean much at hour 40, but it might mean a lot more at hour 140...especially if 10% starts creeping up to 13% or 16%.
 
clarky said:
ill be on all day if anyone wants a game. Me and CowboyLou CowboyLou had some great games yesterday, and some bad ones. Lost some stuff, won some stuff. Good times.

Certainly made quite a few errors. Need to rebuild and learn Outpost.
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It'll probably be later when I get on, gotta take care of all the weekend chores and errands I neglected yesterday in favor of Marathoning for almost ten hours.
 
CowboyLou said:
It'll probably be later when I get on, gotta take care of all the weekend chores and errands I neglected yesterday in favor of Marathoning for almost ten hours.
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Yeah my wife is kind of over how much I play Marathon, that's why I logged off when I did yesterday 😂 I should be on later though... 👀
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
Have you noticed I keep saying "10% of the time"?

That percentage hangs in a delicate balance. We forgive a number of issues in the honeymoon period because we're learning and enjoying other aspects of the game. That 10% might not mean much at hour 40, but it might mean a lot more at hour 140...especially if 10% starts creeping up to 13% or 16%.
Click to expand...

It's more likely that the 1/10 deaths that are unclear are due to being too inexperienced to know what went wrong. Unexplainable deaths should become rarer over time as you pick up mechanics and build game knowledge. I've not run into anything inexplicable myself. I'm only a bit confused by the short range and odd dispersion of footsteps.
 
LyricalShrike said:
It's more likely that the 1/10 deaths that are unclear are due to being too inexperienced to know what went wrong. Unexplainable deaths should become rarer over time as you pick up mechanics and build game knowledge. I've not run into anything inexplicable myself. I'm only a bit confused by the short range and odd dispersion of footsteps.
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Sound is weird depending on whether you're indoors or outdoors and whether the sound source is indoors or outdoors. Also has the problem that seemingly every game still has where it's impossible to tell if sounds are coming from a higher or lower level than you.
 
CowboyLou said:
It'll probably be later when I get on, gotta take care of all the weekend chores and errands I neglected yesterday in favor of Marathoning for almost ten hours.
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Should be on. Been Rooking Outpost today trying to learn the map. Managed to replace what we lost yesterday.
 
Going to be gone for work all this week and half of next week so I'll be unable to make any progress really or get into the swing of getting back loot.

Going to focus on hitting level 100 to get the platinum, and trying to max every node that of the tree that doesn't require the gold cryo items to upgrade.

I'll dabble in ranked but I don't see myself going back to cryo until it's got some solo solution by Bungie or people are going sherpa compiler runs or some shit.
 
I am going to hold off doing Cryo until I fully upgrade all my stats. No reason to rush through content at this point, 2+ weeks into the season. Having a blast with current gameplay loop
 
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Forth said:
Trying to find a solo game in Dire Marsh on PS5 but nothing is working.
Cross play is on.
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Wasn't PSN having issues?

I've been playing all day with crossplay on, on PC and have had no trouble finding a match in any hopper.
 
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Hollywood Hitman said:
I get it man and I'm not disagreeing but for me personally that's just not the type of journey I want these days I think ultimately. I'd rather a game where I spend 2 300 hours with a character that's just jacked and the adventures and loot I have, and what I have to show for it rather a game where it's a journey of misery mixed with occasional happiness and excitement.. I'm sure it can be awesome man for those that seek it, just isn't for me.
Click to expand...
I mean you are just starting on Crimson Desert. I think there are enough options out there nowadays for everyone to be satisfied.
 
Hollywood Hitman said:
That's def more of what id go for definitely.

I just sadly have found the new wave of extraction and battle royale games to be catering to an audience that is ok losing most of the time like even battle royale I won a few times in fortnite when it first came out, a few times in warzone and that was enough for me because you literally spend most of the time losing. Extraction feels the same like sure arc has a great atmosphere but I just find the idea of extraction off putting

I get it man and I'm not disagreeing but for me personally that's just not the type of journey I want these days I think ultimately. I'd rather a game where I spend 2 300 hours with a character that's just jacked and the adventures and loot I have, and what I have to show for it rather a game where it's a journey of misery mixed with occasional happiness and excitement.. I'm sure it can be awesome man for those that seek it, just isn't for me.

I tried with arc raiders and then gave this a spin in the slam and couldn't get there. But see the thing about me is I was always known as the guy who loves everything back in the ign days haha I try to always find a way to enjoy but man extraction and br are the two genres I realize I hate so bad...it's a bummer
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Once you understand you're just holding loot for the next guy until you die it'll all make sense.
 
Made it out of cryo first time ever.

Got really nothing worth a shit for loot but at least I exfilled lol.
 
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