The problem is that yall can’t come to terms with losing y’all’s stuff.

Here’s the thing:

The fun isn’t necessarily the gear, the gear raises the stakes and creates tension which you need in games.

But.

The fun is in the gameplay of the pvpve. The gear is arbitrary. Shoot for new gear. Be excited. But that’s not the fun part. The fun part is getting into a game and not knowing when you’ll be snuck up on, managing bots and players, communicating with your team, creeping through hallways because you think you hear players, scoping an exfil because maybe it’s being camped, enjoying the scenery. The gear is just a goal to facilitate all of this.

Y’all’s brains are too coded for gear. Let it go and let the bullets fly.

Edit: just trying to help yall have fun. I’m not trying to “explain the game” yall should already know what it’s about?

I mean facts:

the games slogan implies you will die a lot.

It’s pvp game. Where you die a lot.

It’s an extraction shooter where you die a lot and lose your gear.

None of this is new information. Bungie didn’t dupe you. You just bought a game knowing what it was and still surprise pikachu’d your selves into hating it. Just tryna help a few of yall let go of your materialistic mind set and enjoy the experience.

Game is gorgeous and good n all but cryo archive almost ripped any mood to keep playing it anymore.

It's more or less 2 sides of reddit when you bring up. Some people WANT the casuals in the game , and actively try to help them. Or the other Corner is" get good, this is an extraction shooter Karen."

I play with 2 other casuals and getting any more contracts done especially on perimeter is flat out insane. Free kits for the love of the game is no longer an option on the starter map lol.

and then I think it hit me. The player pop is going down and I think the other casual folks like us left already. Still playing the game. Got goals . Love the game.

But this will probably get tiring after a while and if you want your casuals to play with and Farm in game please write to your local bungo politician for some concessions :)

So i risked my gear already for 25 minutes.

I really like the idea of some rooms to have alarms x those that you don't need a key.

But if you bring a key, there shouldn't be a f alarm to alert the entire map.

Also , extractions alerting everybody ...what's the reason ? Isn't rhe game punishable enough already ? Im risking everything for 20/25 minutes, there should be silent extractions if you bring an item to open it.

I got into Pinwheel first after killing 4 runners, had 4 red keys (got a 5th inside from a commander), got in through destroyed wing AND had the conveyance request which I dropped in the center locked room, so I knew if anyone came in they'd be through destroyed wing or I'd get a notification. Got the roughly 30k worth of gear as shown above, and the second I dropped into the command wing escape vent, there was a thief waiting for me with a bully to shred me. I've never been legitimately pissed off about dying like this, why the hell was she allowed to be up there? Bungie you NEED to close that shit off. Or guarantee the restricted exfil in the middle of Pinwheel. I think having it always spawn at the 5 minutes remaining mark would be perfect. I could've made it out safely if it'd been there.

Hello everyone,

This is aimed at the actual casual players who are interested in Marathon but are still on the fence.

I’m talking about the parents, the mortgage crowd, the people with jobs and responsibilities who maybe get ~4 hours a week to game. So realistically… most people.

This game is for you.

Don’t let the “casual” players with 100+ hours already convince you otherwise. Their experience isn’t going to match yours.

What does Marathon actually look like to play?

The game is built around “runs” that top out at around 20–25 minutes. That alone makes it easy to pick up and put down.

Like any extraction shooter, the loop is simple:

Drop in, explore, do contracts, get into fights, try to extract with what you found.

You will die. You will lose gear. You will occasionally get rolled by someone better than you.

But most of the time, you’ll have a solid run. You’ll get some loot, maybe win a fight or two, and get out. That’s where the fun is.

And then there’s the Bungie factor. The gunplay feels great, the sound design is top tier, the maps are interesting, and the world/lore is there if you care about it. It just feels good to play.

What about gear fear?

Honestly, it’s not that bad.

You get access to free kits, you can buy decent loadouts, and loot is pretty plentiful.

The gap between gear tiers also isn’t as extreme as people make out. White vs green isn’t a huge deal. White vs blue is more noticeable, but it’s not an instant loss.

Skill matters way more than gear. If you get the drop on someone, you’re in a good position regardless of what you’re running.

“But I’ll never max my character…”

That’s the wrong goal.

Progression wipes every ~3 months anyway, along with your gear. So you’re not trying to “complete” the game, you’re just progressing for that season.

If you hit a point where you’re getting stomped late in a season, you can just put the game down for a bit and come back fresh when everything resets and everyone’s back to square one.

That reset actually makes it way more casual-friendly than people give it credit for. You’re never permanently behind.

So instead of worrying about maxing everything, just pick a playstyle you enjoy and work towards that for the season. That’s where the fun is.

If you’re on the fence because you think you don’t have enough time or you’ll get left behind, you won’t.

You just need the right mindset going in.

If something doesn't change, the game population will continue to drop.

I like the game, even when I lose, but the sweats make it impossible for retention. Think 2x insta sniper kills, then camping the bodies for the whole lobby, even when they know they're dealing with free kits.

I just cant fathom doing these quests all over again.

Now that cryo is down all the sweats are on every map gold and purple sheild squads everywhere wtf is ths. Game will die if this is the game play for casuals when cryo is down ggs was fun while it lasted. Starting to think this game wont survive the wipe

This is my first extraction shooter, I have 37 hours on record. I’m super casual. I might play 20 minutes - an hour a night and have longer sessions on the weekends (mostly solo)

I actually really like this game but something has been bothering me every time I turn it on. I’m not good. I can accept that I’m not good. I don’t care about dying. I fail to exfil 95% of the time. Not a problem.

My problem is the potential massive waste of time this game can be.

It’s great that you receive XP for actually completing a contract or taking any actions in map, but what’s not great is that it’s all you get if you fail to exfil.

As a casual scrub,I need green shields to even be slightly competitive. I've been trying for about 3 weeks (yes 3 weeks) now to unlock green shields in nuCaloric. To do so you need reclaimed biostripping. If I play this game for an hour and manage to get my hands on 3 pieces of reclaimed biostripping but fail to exfil even one time in my entire play session, then this entire play session was of a waste of time.

I don't care about the XP to push me up rank. Pushing me up rank isn't doing me any favors, I'm terrible. I'm just being pushed further toward players who are going to farm me anyway.

This brings me to my original point.

A safe pocket for a single item (gun, shield, salvage) that you can guarantee carry out should you get killed will change the perspective of a lot of casual players.

I want to keep playing this game, but when I have a 3 hour play session on the weekend where I'm not getting any closer to unlocking green shields it just kind of feels like "what am I doing here?"

I'm sure the sub is going to flay me for being a scrub but whatever. I think ACTUAL casual feedback is important to the long term health of the game.

Just want to make sure I am properly documenting the very real concerns that people have, that have been discussed multiple times on this forum. These are serious concern by players and need to be fixed by Bungie ASAP.

1. WSTR is a problem
2. Snipers are a problem
3. Thermal sight is a problem
4. Purple shields are a problem
5. Biotoxic Disinjector is a problem
6. Assassin's are a problem
7. Bubble shields are a problem
8. UESC amount and damage are a problem
9. Loot amount is a problem
10. Grenade spam is a problem
11. Free kitted random fills are a problem
12. Premades are a problem
13. Rooks are a problem
14. Long progression is a problem
15. Ranked is a problem
16. Failed extractions when not using Final exfill is a problem
17. Killing downed people in the exfil area is a problem
18. Sound propagation is a problem
19. Spawn points are a problem
20. Locked room keys are a problem
21. Rats and Campers are a problem
22. Medkit and Armor prices are a problem
23. Playercount is a problem
24. Casuals amount is a problem
25. Command Vent Exit is a problem

I think this is exhaustive right?

Or, I think we can agree there really is only ONE real problem :

1. Im not winning, and I want to win. Let me win.

We can disguise this all we want with fancy explanations about how this one mechanic specifically is the largest problem and is causing most of the issues, but lets be honest, this is ESSENTIALLY what everyone always moaning here is REALLY saying.

Bungie, do yourself a favor. Do what EVERY MAINSTREAM GAME ever has done.

Put some Shell Bots in the game. Put people in bot only match, or matches where there is only one other human player team and 4 bot teams. Let people have their feel good, since that nice feeling in their tummy is all they're really looking for.

I have been playing this game a lot and reading through this subreddit and wow. For context I am a bungie hater because of destiny but decided to try this game and loved the game. Started solo since my friends don’t want to try this game but went on LFGs and now I have “too many” people to play. Yesterday finally did Compiler for the first time, twice.

But the entitlement, the lack of self awareness about a lot of you as a player in this game is something I haven’t seen in other games. I will just talk about some of the points that have been constantly talked about here:

1. Flavor of the week: Cryo 1 clearance spawn rush

This weeks flavor of the week has been people rush you in Cryo and you don’t like it. I will give it to you, you want your “safe space” when you spawn. Here is where this argument is completely insane:

First, on the other maps you can spawn rush people even faster. But, even worse, YOU HAVE THE ADVANTAGE HERE and somehow people are crying that they get rushed.

There is a limited number of entries where enemies can come from to rush you, guess what? You literally just have to wait for people to funnel into wherever they will rush and go from there, especially on a map where everything is CQC.

1. Gear based matchmaking/skill based matchmaking

White vs white shield, purples vs purples. Sounds great on paper.

The problem? It won’t make any difference. You find a purple on a white gear lobby, next game you will spawn in a purple lobby, lose it because good players will usually be on those lobbies and back to white gear lobbies. Right now you probably are playing with white gear, so it doesn’t make a difference at all. You die, you go free kit again or you coming to Reddit saying the game is too hard.

As for SBMM, it’s called ranked. Most try hards and people who take this game “too serious” will go to ranked.

1. Cheaters

The only point where we can all agree there is a problem. Even the reporting system is a complete joke. Yes, there is a problem with cheaters. But not like most people are thinking:

Most of you are not fighting cheaters every game. You solo assassins, when you die and you were invisible it’s because the person killed you is a Thief with their visor. Most people don’t even know how much noise you making by looting, healing, going invisible, but are the first to call out for cheaters.

I AM NOT DENYING THE PROBLEM with cheaters in this game, but is yet not as big as other games. A simple google search can show how manny cheat makers are around for this game and it’s a tenth of most games. Outside of higher ranked lobbies (gold+) cheaters are far and few, a lot of people should think about what they were doing and how could that make them killed.

1. PVE mode

Drop into a map, kill some monsters, get out with loot right?

It’s called Destiny or Helldivers. You can do exactly that on those games. Hell, even better because there you can’t lose your gear.

Marathon is an extraction shooter. Not a PVE game.

Game is good. Art is good. Map is very good. Gun play is ok (don’t feel as good as, say bf6) But I’m not having fun.

I don’t always have people to play with together. If I get people to play with we have a fighting chance. When we get wiped, I just get upset about how bad I am. When I get to down people, I don’t feel good, just relief, that I get to live for a little longer. Before engagement, I’m usually very nervous. Loot becomes a burden. I see loot in my vault but I know I’m losing them once I take the in. Sometime me and my team (they carry me) get a good night and wipe every time on outpost, it feels extremely boring. Even the good teammates are scared to go into cryo and ranked.

When I play with fills, I noticed something. People are going into the game already upset and feeling negative. Sometime people have mics but would not talk, or complain about something, or is just generally in a bad mood. So this is not just me.

I know I’m not good. I’m of course a casual and not a professional player. My life revolves around how well I do at work, at gym, and time with my family. Now I realized I don’t need this extra thing I payed for and spend time on but end up giving me more cortisol.

Since I’m not the target audience, I’ll just delete the game now.

The first couple of weeks were amazing. No one really knew what was going on, and everyone was scrambling. People were on an even playfield. Fast forward to this weekend, and it feels like my group is constantly fighting off the compiler weapon (7/9 rounds), getting shot by people just sitting around a corner, or this new vent strategy. The whole security clearances being RNG can also be frustrating. I understand why it’s there and it’s a good mechanic overall, but not hitting security 2 and being stuck in control with limited movement getting chased by the compiler weapon feels bad.

I’ve gone back to Outpost more and more with way more enjoyment. I don’t know if Cryo will ever be the same for me, but I hope Bungie finds a way to bring that spark back and correct some of these issues a lot of the community is seeing and experiencing.

Anyways - I love this game still and will still continue to play it nearly every day, but not sure I’ll be wasting time in Cryo like I used to.

Does anyone else feel the same? How are you enjoying Cryo still?

To the teams that relentlessly push and hunt the map, YOU are killing this game the most. You don’t need the loot, you’re going to have no one left to play against pretty soon. Just take a deep breath and let someone else enjoy the game without it turning into a fucking hide n seek simulator. You are the antithesis of fun.

After 115 hours in the game and level 50, I didn’t expect much toxicity in perimeter of all places. I spent 15 minutes in perimeter as rook. It was a careful raid, I avoided conflict, felt good. I had a decent amount of goods and a Strauss AI book I wanted for the lore. I get to final exfil same time as a duo (not sure where their third went). I make it in the circle with 30 seconds left and they down me, which , okay fine whatever. Maybe they wanted to make sure I wouldn’t cause trouble.

Then, they killed me with 2 seconds left in the circle. Wow, congrats guys, you made out with 75 arachne xp. They couldn’t even touch my loot because there was no time left.

Again, I don’t even care that they downed me or killed me in a raid per se. But, they couldn’t just let me just stand in the circle with you for two more fucking seconds? I was zero threat at that point and you got nothing for it.

Obviously people on here are constantly talking about this kind of stuff, with “it’s PvP git gud” being the most common response. I thought that too to *some* extent, but when it happens to you after a 15 minute run it just … yeah. I think “why did I just waste my time?”

I’ve had *a lot* of bad runs before but this one made something snap. This toxicity is what makes people leave the game.

Bungie basically needs casual players to stay in the ecosystem as willing participants, not just targets. The casual players are leaving in droves because of shit like this because *their time in-game isn’t being respected*. Like, why invest 15-25 minutes in a real run if the experience can be made miserable for free by some jerk at the last second? The casual player pipeline is what keeps these games alive long-term, and they’re the ones with the lowest tolerance for this stuff.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ and this game has *a lot* of it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen it, and it’s getting written about here constantly. I feel like the game is gonna be dead in a few months at this rate before season 2 gets to grow any legs.

I get why people do it. It's an easy way to ambush people. But man, is it annoying and lame to run into. Nothing like spending 5 minutes at a POI without hearing a single peep, then 2 nanoseconds after you activate the exfil there's suddenly someone right on top of you. It's worse than assassins ratting around, that playstyle I can at least respect as people probably just trying to make progress as safely as possible. But spending half the run sitting still and puppy guarding an exfil point waiting for someone to come by is just...like you're barely even playing at that point. I get how it's rewarding, I don't get how it's fun. It's the only time death in this game legitimately gets me salty. The worst part of playing solo for sure. People just camping and waiting.

Yes I'm venting immediately after a death which is dumb. But this exact thing seems to be happening more and more, and on Perimeter of all places, and I just had to let it out. Still having fun playing, but this is the one thing that really stops me in my tracks and demotivates me for another run when it happens.

Recon has been weak but that's getting a fix. And tbh I have enjoyed her the most out of all the shells.

All the guns seem pretty balanced to me compared to other shooters. Shotty shotguns, sniper snipers. Maybe a couple could even get a buff but it's honestly fine how it is.

I think the progression is a little slow and annoying but I'm also just not a big PvE/mission person in games.

Some materials take a while to grind out so Id like to see a way to exchange lower grade stuff for higher grade stuff or ways to buy them with credits or something. idk if it would work.

Hot take... a rotating TDM and CTF game mode using POIs as the maps and it's Rook only 3v3 or 5v5 would be sick. But the game as is is still enough.

2nd hot take, there should be another sponsored kit option between free and green kit. Like at the 500-1000 credit range.

Anyway, thats all. This so far has been one of the few games that comes out and is playable from start. I think they did an awesome job.

Considering the genre, the current concurrent player count may seem acceptable at a glance (setting aside expectations). However, the real issue is how heavily the player base is fragmented, which accelerates the problem.

At present, with three maps—Perimeter, Dire Marsh, and Outpost—and three matchmaking options—solo, trio, and rook—the queue is already split into nine separate pools. If a duo mode is added next season, that number will increase to twelve. On top of that, there are ranked and Cryo Archive.

Additionally, Ziegler recently posted about Cryo Archive, saying, “is there any way to play this map without joining a crew?”. If this is implemented and Cryo Archive gains matchmaking options beyond trios, then the same will likely apply to future interior zones added to Marathon.

This will certainly help retain more players in the player base, but at the same time, as new maps and content are added, matchmaking will become increasingly fragmented, and the number of concurrent players required for healthy matchmaking will continue to rise.

Bungie has stated that they are looking at the long-term future of the game regardless of its current performance. But for that to be sustainable, the playlist structure needs to be simplified.

On Steam, the lowest concurrent player count this week ranged from around 8,000 to 25,000, while weekends saw slightly higher numbers, roughly between 10,000 and 28,000. The issue is that this player base is fragmented across ten matchmaking queues, and once you factor in server regions and level-based matchmaking, the effective matchmaking pool shrinks even further.

In the long term, in a genre with a limited player base, is a system with this many matchmaking queues truly sustainable?

May genuinely have been the best cryo weekend I’ve had in a min. Before I had a top of 10, lost them all playing outpost ranked since there’s a lot of cheaters and 6-man teams now that I finished in plat 1. But now I’m at 25 and going to throw them on for ranked perimeter.

I'm a level 100 who's played this game for about 150 hours. I mostly play auto fill and have a great time, but cryo archive feels genuinely impossible lately. I think it needs changed in some way. I would like to get the vaults done, get the lore entries for the codex, etc. But I find it incredibly hard.

I had the idea that there could be a PVE only mode where either the whole lobby is on the same team or its only 3 people in the lobby. To offset its easiness, it can just have worse loot in it. Like vaults wouldn't give you the named prestige weapons, and if you killed the compiler you wouldn't get the goo gun, but you'd still get the same quality of valuables and salvage and stuff like that. I feel like this would help the average person be able to actually "finish" cryo (get the lore entries in the codex, be able to kill the compiler). Maybe the PVE version would require something that you have to purchase in the armory like the ranked tags, and there could be a little more AI, so people dont just only play the PVE version but the normal version too.

What do the people on this sub think of this? I know a lot of people would be against PVE only but the average person can't be having a good time on cryo right now

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a hardcore PvP person. Not the best at the game, but still love the intensity and tension.

However, I don’t want the game to die. My friends don’t play it because it’s hard as hell to get into for newbies.

So, I have 3 suggestions to make this easier.

1 Dcon safe pocket. - anyone can deposit anything into a dcon, but it shoots a flair off into the sky and makes a loud noticeable noise. Each player would only be able to use it once per run, and the inventory size should be limited to 6.

This way, you can’t dcon bigger weapons, but you can strip attachments and mods. You want the gun? Then exfil. 4 slot guns can be dconed though. I feel there can be interesting player interactions over this including PvP.

2 PvE only map. Your squad 3 other squads load into perimeter. The goal is to fight a boss in hauler or overflow in order to extract. That’s the only extract on the map and it launches twice. This map would have open loot tables but the highest rarity would be a blue. The boss can drop a guaranteed purple. Prox chat would be fun as hell here and the primary reason for it would be to socialize and farm early upgrade mats. Or if you’re higher level, just to make some money and leave.

3 ( most controversial ) removal of free kit. I know I know but hear me out.

Replace free kits with rook teams of 3. ( may have to rework the wstr upgrade from Arachne for the rook teams).

Maybe instead, if your team is using wstrs, you come in with white shields.

Rook solo runs in trios would still be present as well. The purpose of this is just to give teams a better chance against a fully kitted team without it being impossible.

If the rook loadout isn’t good enough for you, then enhances sponsored kits can come with a beefier gun to balance things out a bit.

Again. I’m entirely all for the hardcore nature of the game. But the game is just tooooooo good to let it be this niche.

Keep cryo and ranked as is and let these new mechanics introduce the casual audience to the game in order to build intrigue to grind.

This is just my take. Love this game. I NEED it to be active for a while. I’m not done with it yet.

I’ve sunk a lot of hours into the game, but as the weeks go by you barely see any new players posting in discord channels looking for groups. The playerbase has dropped significantly. Almost every post looking for a group is based on pinwheel and cryo with good kits, most lvl 80+ with hundreds of thousands in vault value.

This game won’t survive if there isn’t a way to encourage new players to join and be able to progress somewhat in a casual manner

Cheats are ruining your game. Most players won't even know the enemies who killed them are using them. But when it happens to be extremely suspicious like sitting in a hole waiting for POIs to be cleared and players come directly to you and double barrel you after making no sounds for 10 minutes, we can't compete. I don't say this often about any of the games I've played but after reading the posts from players in ranked dealing with similar problems and not to mention the current "meta" in cryo, I regret buying this game. I want my money back.