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Marathon approaching 15k CCU low (sponsored by coachmcguirk91 - still having a blast)
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
This is, hands down, the best commentary I've seen on the game. If you want to know why Sony is pushing more resources towards Marathon, this should help you.
Game will do wonders when they simply include proper solo and duo modes.
T4keD0wN
Member
Tams
Member
CCU watching this slow motion train wreck is a much better 'game' than Marathon.
Zacfoldor
Gold Member
I'll watch it today, thanks!
Kronark
Member
After year 5-6 or so Bungie did abandon it, but during the first few years when Bungie was trying they were just missing the mark constantly. Problem weapons would exist for 4+ month windows without being addressed, despite the community being very vocal. The launch of Beyond Light with stasis was an absolute joke. People had been worried and expressing concerns for months before launch about how freezing players in PvP seemed like it would be a problem. Sure enough it was a complete shit show for months after launch. On the other hand if a beneficial exploit or economic glitch was found, it was hot fixed within 6-12 hours.
It's not just PvP either, they're just insanely slow at processing any kind of feedback or problems. For example, one of the early issues players had was that shaders were consumables and lower rarity shaders created massive stacks of like 2000+ shaders. The only way to delete these to free up inventory space was to delete them one at a time by holding the delete action key for like 2 seconds per shader. Obviously this was a painful process and the shaders still kept dropping. People begged Bungie for a delete stack button and Bungie promised they were hard at work on a solution. It took them a full year and their best fix to address the situation was that a specific vendor would let you delete 5 at a time instead of 1... It's fucking painful to watch in comparison to the Crimson Desert devs and how fast they moved to implement quality of life improvements within days of launch. They addressed inventory issues with private storage chests nearly immediately.
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Kronark
Member
This video is terrible, he's just presenting his subjective opinion as objective fact. It's not even a positive well built argument from the ground up for why Marathon has great design, it's a bunch of excuses for the criticism. His key arguments are:
- If you're not having fun, that's on you and you need to learn to have fun.
- The grind is terrible, so don't even try.
- It doesn't matter if you don't like the art, because actually I say it's objectively good.
- It doesn't have social interaction and that's good, because lore reasons.
- Are you losing fights to sweats? Git gud kid...
The achievement progress argument is especially moronic. Achievements are not linear for multiplayer games, they are generally average time based. It doesn't mean there was no falloff of players after the Jackpot achievement, it means all those achievements took around the same amount of playtime on average. It's possible for a player to get the 23% completion objective without having the 26% completion one. Imagine thinking this game isn't bleeding out because a few achievements have a similar completion percentage, lunacy.
The sweats deserve the dumpster bin this game is becoming if this is their actual attitude about it.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Kronark
Member
I'm not even making a claim about Marathon being good or bad with that post. I've maintained that my position in this thread is that I hate Bungie specifically and am happy to see them fail as a studio.
I'm just saying his video and arguments are awful. His claims are either baseless, dismissive, or highly subjective. Marathon could be the perfect game you claim it to be and that video is still an awful case for it.
Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
Bro his replies arent even reality anymore we just all need to pass on this dudes fake obsession with marathon.
But yea everything you said was spot on, it's funny this games sweaty player base is gonna just one of the reasons this game will fail.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I think you're reality is clouded by an illogical emotion.
You "hate" Bungie, which is strange.
Therefore...
You did not like the video calling Marathon a masterpiece.
1+1=2
That video reveals the magic of Marathon to people who are more open.
Guilty_AI
Gold Member
The best thing this video taught me is that other popular shooters like delta force and arena breakout have bots, which, once again, confirms everything i and others have been saying from the start.
Unknown Soldier
Banned
Imagine a world where this web site actually chose different colors for each line instead of nearly identical shades of green and blue
falconhoof
Member
I remember back in around 2014 after the DayZ mod had really popped off and we were seeing studios start to make their own take on the concept, which included "fixing" problems that DayZ had. The result for the majority of these projects were that they came and died and DayZ just kept on trucking. The "fixes" studios made where for things like progression and story and other elements often seen in other games and which DayZ didn't have; which was usually attributed to it being a quickly put together mod that lacked the time to develop its own full feature set. Which was likely true, but because of that fact (intended or not) allowed it to become something different.
When I first heard about the upcoming Tarkov, I saw that as being another attempt to fix the DayZ problem. It's game loop was too long and meandering. The gear collection could be tightened and put into a more structured loop meaning that people could play the game for thirty minutes and tick all those boxes, where as with DayZ you could go for hours with nothing happening.
I noticed in that video it spoke about other games in the OmegaGenre that lacked or had features that Marathon didn't and presented reasons why Marathon was the better choice (with bias), but it sort of came from the same style of thinking. And yet, I find that I'm still looking at this OmegaGenre as an effort to create itself from the bones of what was felt as inefficiencies in the DayZ system. TTK, tighter game loop, more familiar game concepts such as defined quests and progression markers. Where the reviewer was praising Marathon for the lack of guard rails on this, I'm still seeing it as a heavily guarded process when compared to the free form experience of DayZ, where quests are player designed, progression is player designed, PVP is closer to an opt in, rather than these spawn rush antics of Cryo.
I can certainly see a more polished and for the masses game working and not having the sharp edges of something like DayZ, but that doesn't seem to be Marathon right now. In terms of raw numbers, DayZ is still trucking along in an extremely healthy state 12+ years after release (more if you include the mod). Arc is doing better numbers, so perhaps has found the ways to round those edges off to appeal to a wider audience.
Anyway, just a thought for a Saturday afternoon.
When I first heard about the upcoming Tarkov, I saw that as being another attempt to fix the DayZ problem. It's game loop was too long and meandering. The gear collection could be tightened and put into a more structured loop meaning that people could play the game for thirty minutes and tick all those boxes, where as with DayZ you could go for hours with nothing happening.
I noticed in that video it spoke about other games in the OmegaGenre that lacked or had features that Marathon didn't and presented reasons why Marathon was the better choice (with bias), but it sort of came from the same style of thinking. And yet, I find that I'm still looking at this OmegaGenre as an effort to create itself from the bones of what was felt as inefficiencies in the DayZ system. TTK, tighter game loop, more familiar game concepts such as defined quests and progression markers. Where the reviewer was praising Marathon for the lack of guard rails on this, I'm still seeing it as a heavily guarded process when compared to the free form experience of DayZ, where quests are player designed, progression is player designed, PVP is closer to an opt in, rather than these spawn rush antics of Cryo.
I can certainly see a more polished and for the masses game working and not having the sharp edges of something like DayZ, but that doesn't seem to be Marathon right now. In terms of raw numbers, DayZ is still trucking along in an extremely healthy state 12+ years after release (more if you include the mod). Arc is doing better numbers, so perhaps has found the ways to round those edges off to appeal to a wider audience.
Anyway, just a thought for a Saturday afternoon.
Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
Waitin for someone to say the dayz numbers are just Chinese botsI remember back in around 2014 after the DayZ mod had really popped off and we were seeing studios start to make their own take on the concept, which included "fixing" problems that DayZ had. The result for the majority of these projects were that they came and died and DayZ just kept on trucking. The "fixes" studios made where for things like progression and story and other elements often seen in other games and which DayZ didn't have; which was usually attributed to it being a quickly put together mod that lacked the time to develop its own full feature set. Which was likely true, but because of that fact (intended or not) allowed it to become something different.
When I first heard about the upcoming Tarkov, I saw that as being another attempt to fix the DayZ problem. It's game loop was too long and meandering. The gear collection could be tightened and put into a more structured loop meaning that people could play the game for thirty minutes and tick all those boxes, where as with DayZ you could go for hours with nothing happening.
I noticed in that video it spoke about other games in the OmegaGenre that lacked or had features that Marathon didn't and presented reasons why Marathon was the better choice (with bias), but it sort of came from the same style of thinking. And yet, I find that I'm still looking at this OmegaGenre as an effort to create itself from the bones of what was felt as inefficiencies in the DayZ system. TTK, tighter game loop, more familiar game concepts such as defined quests and progression markers. Where the reviewer was praising Marathon for the lack of guard rails on this, I'm still seeing it as a heavily guarded process when compared to the free form experience of DayZ, where quests are player designed, progression is player designed, PVP is closer to an opt in, rather than these spawn rush antics of Cryo.
I can certainly see a more polished and for the masses game working and not having the sharp edges of something like DayZ, but that doesn't seem to be Marathon right now. In terms of raw numbers, DayZ is still trucking along in an extremely healthy state 12+ years after release (more if you include the mod). Arc is doing better numbers, so perhaps has found the ways to round those edges off to appeal to a wider audience.
Anyway, just a thought for a Saturday afternoon.
CentralScrutinizer
Member
Title should be renamed "Men_in_Boxes trying to gaslight GAF 24/7"
Guilty_AI
Gold Member
The main difference between DayZ and all these other games is the presence of self hosted community servers. They allow players themselves to control the experience instead of leaving everything to the devs. From my readings the majority of DayZ players prefer those over the official ones.I remember back in around 2014 after the DayZ mod had really popped off and we were seeing studios start to make their own take on the concept, which included "fixing" problems that DayZ had. The result for the majority of these projects were that they came and died and DayZ just kept on trucking. The "fixes" studios made where for things like progression and story and other elements often seen in other games and which DayZ didn't have; which was usually attributed to it being a quickly put together mod that lacked the time to develop its own full feature set. Which was likely true, but because of that fact (intended or not) allowed it to become something different.
When I first heard about the upcoming Tarkov, I saw that as being another attempt to fix the DayZ problem. It's game loop was too long and meandering. The gear collection could be tightened and put into a more structured loop meaning that people could play the game for thirty minutes and tick all those boxes, where as with DayZ you could go for hours with nothing happening.
I noticed in that video it spoke about other games in the OmegaGenre that lacked or had features that Marathon didn't and presented reasons why Marathon was the better choice (with bias), but it sort of came from the same style of thinking. And yet, I find that I'm still looking at this OmegaGenre as an effort to create itself from the bones of what was felt as inefficiencies in the DayZ system. TTK, tighter game loop, more familiar game concepts such as defined quests and progression markers. Where the reviewer was praising Marathon for the lack of guard rails on this, I'm still seeing it as a heavily guarded process when compared to the free form experience of DayZ, where quests are player designed, progression is player designed, PVP is closer to an opt in, rather than these spawn rush antics of Cryo.
I can certainly see a more polished and for the masses game working and not having the sharp edges of something like DayZ, but that doesn't seem to be Marathon right now. In terms of raw numbers, DayZ is still trucking along in an extremely healthy state 12+ years after release (more if you include the mod). Arc is doing better numbers, so perhaps has found the ways to round those edges off to appeal to a wider audience.
Anyway, just a thought for a Saturday afternoon.
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falconhoof
Member
I think that's part of how DayZ isn't trying to control player fun. It's such an anti-game in that way, similar to Minecraft I guess. The lack of forced features ends up to be a strength. So with the community servers people further get to tune that "fun" factor. Some do crazy weapon spawning, others push harder on survival, or trade, faction building, etc...
It's interesting when looking at the developer comms for Marathon. These constant tweets about knob twiddling to try and discover that special balance that pleases more people. DayZ's approach was fuck it, make your own servers and tweak your own knobs till you find what you like.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
The job of the community manager is to tweet about the game
Guilty_AI
Gold Member
That was the approach of most old games, its why also you can still find unreal and quake servers.
Many modern multiplayer games dont do that because their games are designed to have its play monetized. Give players control and the first thing they'll do is focus on fun instead of things that'll get players into a payment pipeline, not to mention mods that make stuff like paid avatar skins irrelevant.
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Bernardougf
Member
There's no video grounded in reality that can paint marathon as any kind of masterpiece, it will always be a delusional subjective opinion or just a fans opinion in something he loves (probably both), in fact having our own highly delusional boxed men recommending the video should be enough.
CrustyBritches
Gold Member
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
This is the greatest #OmegaGenre skeptical post I've read here. You show a high degree of logic with zero "It's bad because I don't like it" energy. Bravo. This was a unicorn in a sea of donkeys.
I think what you say above here is correct about Marathon today, but will likely be considerably less so by Season 12.
I've tried linking Extraction to Star Trek repeatedly here to illustrate where I think the genre will blossom, but perhaps I'd be more effective if I linked it to Roblox, or "Roblox for harcore gamers".
Marathon currently gives you 3 PvP maps to farm on and one end game map. The 3 farm maps play a little differently, but are largely "Kill players, grab loot, extract". I think there's a good chance that Marathon (and the genre on the whole) starts exploring map design as completely new experiences.
For example:
A solo only map designed to test out the games "temporary alliance" systems.
A PvE only map where two teams of 3 have to coordinate against AI.
A puzzle based map that forces you to split up and talk on coms.
It's Star Trek, Roblox, or Mario Party where each map provides a unique gameplay experience. If / when they push in that direction, it'll solve a lot of the issue you bring up above.
Player A spends most of their time farming on maps 2, 5, 6, and 9
Player B spends most of their time farming on maps 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9
Right now, Marathon has trouble providing different paths for different players. Each new season should help with that.
Remember, DayZ has been getting steady updates for 12+ years. Marathon is only 7 weeks old.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
These hockey playoffs are awesome, esp all day weekend games!
Another Sat which is worse than Friday. Unusual since almost all top played games have weekend peaks as the best peak. Marathon also trends down on Sun about 5-8% vs Sat, so tomorrow should be about 19.5k (assuming -6%). Monday's drop about -10% now, so Monday peak should be about 17.5k. The nightly lows will drop below 5k within the next handful of days.
11 pm completed hour CCU. Peak reached at 20.7k
All time peak was launch day 88.3k. Today's peak at 20.7k is -67.6k or -77%
Today vs yesterday: 20.7k vs 21k (-0.3k or -1%)
Yesterday's low 7.7k. If the rate holds, low tonight will be 7.6k
Sat vs Sat: 21k vs 24.1k (-3.1k or -13%). Much better than historic -20%
Alternate method to estimate peaks and valleys (ballpark ratios)
On normal weekdays, 3.3:1. For example, a peak 20k will have a low of 6k. For Fri/Sat, gamers stay up playing so the ratio is 2.5:1
Steam Rankings
Daily Active Users 108
Global Top Sellers 65 (-20% sale boost this week)
Weekly Top Sellers 81 ending Apr 21 (was 67 last week)
Top Rated Games 5,813 (84.17%)
Another Sat which is worse than Friday. Unusual since almost all top played games have weekend peaks as the best peak. Marathon also trends down on Sun about 5-8% vs Sat, so tomorrow should be about 19.5k (assuming -6%). Monday's drop about -10% now, so Monday peak should be about 17.5k. The nightly lows will drop below 5k within the next handful of days.
11 pm completed hour CCU. Peak reached at 20.7k
All time peak was launch day 88.3k. Today's peak at 20.7k is -67.6k or -77%
Today vs yesterday: 20.7k vs 21k (-0.3k or -1%)
Yesterday's low 7.7k. If the rate holds, low tonight will be 7.6k
Sat vs Sat: 21k vs 24.1k (-3.1k or -13%). Much better than historic -20%
Alternate method to estimate peaks and valleys (ballpark ratios)
On normal weekdays, 3.3:1. For example, a peak 20k will have a low of 6k. For Fri/Sat, gamers stay up playing so the ratio is 2.5:1
Steam Rankings
Daily Active Users 108
Global Top Sellers 65 (-20% sale boost this week)
Weekly Top Sellers 81 ending Apr 21 (was 67 last week)
Top Rated Games 5,813 (84.17%)
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falconhoof
Member
Duking it out.
This makes me want to extract the numbers from SteamDB to build out a DAU number estimate.
In the DAU charts Marathon is 107 and Tarkov is 174 so there's a clear difference outside of the peaks and troughs of the CCU
ChorizoPicozo
Member
Video Summary: The Decline of Marathon
This video provides a critical analysis of the performance of Bungie's Marathon following its launch. The creator argues that the game is on a terminal trajectory based on Steam data and industry trends:
Player Count Collapse: Since its peak of 88,337 concurrent players on March 6th, the game saw a 78% decline in just six weeks, dropping to 19,331 by April 20th (0:23 - 0:34).
Engagement Metrics: Beyond just player counts, the creator highlights a drastic reduction in average session length, falling from 2 hours and 40 minutes at launch to just 52 minutes, suggesting players are losing interest mid-session (0:53 - 1:10).
Industry Comparisons: The author compares Marathon to other failed extraction shooters like The Cycle: Frontier and Babylon's Fall, noting that Marathon is following an almost identical failure curve (1:20 - 1:56).
Bungie's Posture: The creator posits that Bungie's recent communications (anti-cheat, mid-season updates, and retention-focused mechanics) indicate that the studio is in full retention mode rather than growth mode, effectively
Angry_Megalodon
Member
Hiring a 6-figure salary brand manager will do the trick, because the other 800 people at Bungie are not enough.
Nuke this shit from orbit and move along.
Nuke this shit from orbit and move along.
cormack12
Gold Member
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
falconhoof
Member
Ok, it's Sunday and I started noodling on extracting the data from SteamDB so I could run calculations on it to see if I can get estimates on DAU.
This is what the Marathon data looks like based on the idea of an average session being 2 hours with a data range of (1.25 - 3) for wider capture.
Gonna play around a bit more and see what else I can create from this.
This is what the Marathon data looks like based on the idea of an average session being 2 hours with a data range of (1.25 - 3) for wider capture.
Gonna play around a bit more and see what else I can create from this.
HRK69
Member
DayZ had to invent the rules of the genre through years-long trial and error
Bungie didn't have to invent the wheel. They had years to study Tarkov, Hunt, and Rust before writing a single line of code. When a studio drops a game today with a decade of blueprints already out there, they don't get a free pass for missing basic features or fumbling the economy
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Guilty_AI
Gold Member
You completely missed the fact DayZ has community, player-hosted servers and thats where the majority of the game's population is.
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Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
Haha wow I never looked at tarkov before, I'm here thinking the way people talk about it it's some high and mighty game with monster player base and reviews.. Lmao game is shit, 47% reviews? Only 10k on currently?
Duking it out.
This makes me want to extract the numbers from SteamDB to build out a DAU number estimate.
In the DAU charts Marathon is 107 and Tarkov is 174 so there's a clear difference outside of the peaks and troughs of the CCU
Yea that proves to me that fucking genre is so shit, only arc had what I'd consider a slight boost and even that's dropping.
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falconhoof
Member
Ok, so I went a bit ham and converted the setup into a browser (FireFox) extension so it can inline add the extra info to the SteamDB.info page and pull the data directly.
I called it Omegtrics after our favorite genre.
The extension has been submitted to FireFox for approval so hopefully it'll be something people can install. I don't know if the numbers I'm generating are realistic but at least they enable comparison using the same formulas so will at least be an indicator of difference between two games at a better level than just comparing peak CCU.
I called it Omegtrics after our favorite genre.
The extension has been submitted to FireFox for approval so hopefully it'll be something people can install. I don't know if the numbers I'm generating are realistic but at least they enable comparison using the same formulas so will at least be an indicator of difference between two games at a better level than just comparing peak CCU.
Spyxos
Member
Tarkov wasn't available on Steam for years. It's only been there recently. Very few people would buy the game again.
Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
Still tho what terrible user scores overall.
Spyxos
Member
I didn't play it, but I've heard multiple times that most players have a love-hate relationship with this game.
falconhoof
Member
ChorizoPicozo
Member
Is that the second peak, or are we still waiting for it? Either way, that brand manager better hurry the fuck up to change the narrative around MenInBoxe´s GOTY .
rm082e
Gold Member
falconhoof
Member
Is that the second peak, or are we still waiting for it? Either way, that brand manager better hurry the fuck up to change the narrative around MenInBoxe´s GOTY .
Still waiting for it. The second peak didn't start till 00:00 UTC yesterday which is in two hours. I suspect we'll see a further bump this evening though it might not go above 20k
Conflict NZ
Member
Barring some
Sundays always have a second peak lower than the first as Cryo is closed. It has been that way since Cryo opened.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Currently tracking at 18.4k euro peak. Sundays for this game do not have a US peak at 10 pm hour like every other day.
If the 18.4k holds it'll be tied with this past weds for 18.4k all time low peak, which tomorrow should be about 16.5-17k (assuming -10%).
If the 18.4k holds it'll be tied with this past weds for 18.4k all time low peak, which tomorrow should be about 16.5-17k (assuming -10%).
falconhoof
Member
Good point, forgot about 25% of the game going offline.
Moridianae
Member
Let's not discount that ARCs big update is this week alongside a Helldivers 2 Warbond and possibly an update there.
The latter may not make as much of a dent, but the former most likely will affect Marathon retention for sure. Whether it's permanent or temporary will have to be seen.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
That's true, but Marathon has relatively strong fundamentals. They're just starting a bit lower than they should be. The worst version of Marathon is the one you can play today.
falconhoof
Member
I'm thinking that Marathon was a better game to people in its first few weeks because it had the freshness of discovery about it before it became a massive sweatfest and hive for cheats and meta game antics.
Based on that evaluation, I believe the game is going to get worse and tweaking the grenades isn't going to turn that tide.
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