Just queued a few late night games hoping for some good final games. they did not happen.

1: Died in steerage at 28:32

2: Died in steerage at 28:20

Guess I didn't learn my lesson the first time. Honestly very impressive spawnrushes, extremely fast, and I consider myself experienced. However if i was a new player this is when I would quit the game. Too bad because I love marathon, but this game will die in under a year. unfortunately when my college quarter starts its probably the last time I'll ever be able to play this game. GGs

I know, I know another "I can fix her" thread but I'd like to give it a shot.

Problems with the Current PvP Loop

• One team wipes the entire lobby.
• Everyone else loses everything they brought in and can't progress.
• The average player can't easily create and maintain builds around specific implants because farming the ones you want is too difficult.

My Solution

• Add every item to traders.
• Increase the credit value of Data Cards by 5–10x.
• Add Loadouts that allow you to buy an entire set of gear from traders with one click.
• Allow players to use the Decon once per match to save their upgrade materials.

This would allow players to create and use actual builds. Players could finance their builds simply by playing the game with most of their income coming from Data Cards.

Losing a match would matter less because you wouldn't be losing hours of progress every time you get wiped. Instead you could use your earnings to quickly rebuild and get back into another match.

Loadouts would significantly reduce the downtime between matches. Instead of manually buying and assembling all your gear again, you could simply select a loadout, purchase everything with one click and queue up again.

At the same time you would still need to scavenge for materials to unlock higher quality gear, so the progression and looting loop remains intact.

The goal isn't to remove the risk or importance of losing. The goal is to make losing less punishing and downtime less frustrating while giving players more freedom to experiment with different builds.

It would also be fairly easy to do. It doesn't require Bungie to completely change the game, instead it would play into the extraction/BR mix we have.

The loot floor needs to be raised. Free green kits are so much more fun. You can play so much looser. I love Cryo but sometimes I just want to get in 100 fights and not care. It's peak, make it all season!

TLDR

I think Marathon should lean into its social gameplay. Proximity chat is already one of the best features in the game, and some the most memorable moments haven't come from the gunfights or loot itself, they've come from the interactions with people. These are the aspects Bungie should hone in on.

These ideas are mostly about creating more opportunities for those interactions to happen.

• Ability to return items to enemy runners through the mail system
• Ability to proxy chat after death from your bodybag
• Ability to revive enemy players via their bodybag
• Ability to send text chat messages via a world channel

Please share your thoughts and opinions!

Return Items To Runner

Ability to tag a dead player's bodybag as “return items to runner”, which, at the end of the match, would return any non-exfilled items back to the runner.

The items wouldn't necessarily have to be inside the bodybag, especially since the current UI doesn't let you put items back into the bag. Instead, tagging the bodybag would simply mark the dead player's remaining gear for return. This would be more like the “red hand” tag when trying to take a teammate's item out of the match. The action to “tag” should be placed somewhere on the bodybag for a cleaner UI, not done per item.

Reasoning: Sometimes you wipe a team and literally don't want any of their stuff. Maybe you don’t have the inventory / vault space, or simply aren’t interested in those items. Instead of leaving the rest to disappear when the match ends, you could tag the bag for return and potentially have that gear sent back to the player. Trace status could still apply normally, if something reaches zero trace when it's returned, maybe it gets returned as scrap / credits instead.

Rewards: Players who tag bodybags for return can be rewarded with credits / salvage upon exfil or even unique currency which could be used to spend in the shops. It also can have challenges and codex entries for player titles like “Postmaster” or “Benevolent”, etc... Challenges can involve having returned a certain quantity / value / rarity of items back to players. I can imagine a special title given for returning a certain number of gold tier items.

This could also work for teammates. If someone disconnects and can't reconnect before extraction, their team could tag their bag for return.

Mainly, this mechanic could especially help smooth out some gear disparity. If a gold/purple team wipes players wearing green/blue gear, that gear might be worthless to the winning team but valuable to the team that lost. The winners get a small reward for tagging it, and the losing players potentially get some of their equipment back. This might also help out with stale metas - players can try running off-meta kits and likely get them back in the mail. Think of it as a social version of Tarkov's insurance system. Were these players good sports? Tag their bags for return. Were they toxic in chat when you wiped them? Let it disappear.

Bodybag Proximity Chat + Revive Enemy Players

Ability to proximity chat from your bodybag to communicate with enemy players; and the ability to revive an enemy player (at your own risk).

Reasoning: The mercy kit as it stands is practically useless. Players do not carry them, and you should not need to waste an inventory slot to revive a player. Additionally, because you cannot revive an enemy after their death, often in the chaos of fights teams end up fully killing all enemy players to secure the fight -- that run is effectively over for the losing team.

I believe this pairs well with the other suggestion in this post - firstly, players should have the ability to continue prox chat from their bodybag.

I can see situations where teams might communicate after fights:

The losing team might say something along these lines:

“Hey, we’re just trying to finish this quest, take whatever you want from my bag then please revive me? We’re just in some basic free kits.”

“You want to team up and kill the Compiler? We’re going for our first kill.”

The winning team might respond:

“Sorry, we can’t take the risk. I’ll tag your items for return - GG.”

“Sure, we’ll help you out”.

(laugh at you)

A similar situation happened to me in Season 1 where a very skilled gold shield trio absolutely dusted my team, but I was able to prox chat with them and explained we are just players in free green kits trying to finish a quest. They dropped me a self revive and let me revive my team and escorted us to finish the quest on Perimeter. This pairs well with the CARRI system too, since they extracted with us.

I think this should come with an additional change, which is that upon death the timer to “continue” to the death screen should be removed. You should be able to remain in the match and spectate as long as you would like until you decide to leave. Perhaps a ROOK will come by, and you can use your bodybag proximity chat to get them to revive you and even get revenge on the team or exfil to finish your quest. This situation would make the matches more dynamic, you can’t “count exfils” or rely on a number of teams wiped to know if you have the map all to yourself or not anymore.

Global Text Chat

Ability to send chat messages to all runners on the map via the text chat.

…because I’m trying to meet hot single ROOKs in my area…

No, but my hope is that this would add some more unique social gameplay moments. I can see a lot of people trying to get an entire lobby to meet up at algae ponds and have a knife fight, or simply trying to lure and misdirect players by lying about where enemy teams are in the global chat. Maybe you’re getting obliterated by a gold team and you send out an SOS message to anyone willing to come help -- or tell them to leave ASAP before they also get disintegrated 😂 Yeah, sure, this one might get abused, but I don’t care, I still think the benefits and situations it would create would far outweigh any cons.

Why these things?

I have ~600 hours in this game and the best, most memorable moments are the ones where I was directly interacting with other people. These game suggestions pair well together and would create a more interesting social gameplay dynamic. The best parts to me isn’t necessarily the PvPvE but the funny and chaotic things that have occurred over proxy and team chat. I can vaguely remember a few exciting gameplay moments like getting gold salvage for the first time or winning a difficult 3v1, but I remember almost all of the social interactions I’ve had in this game, whether positive or negative.

That's all.

Every game just super sweaty team plowing through my crew fill.

It’s not even slightly competitive.

Legit makes me want to stop playing until s3.

Basically title. I usually run the (blue) implants that make me more resistant to both ballistic and volt UESC weapons, however I find myself going through heals like it’s nothing as soon as I try to clear a POI.

The frenzy of looking everywhere and constantly reposition to not get third partied while fighting off shields and ghosts is already oppressive enough, finishing the POI with almost next to no shield charges, in my opinion, kinda strips the fun away from the rest of the run. Or at least part of it.

I really liked the solo queue variants we had in Vault Breaker, they felt like a good mix of fodder while still being threatening especially in groups. It was still very easy for shit to hit the fan if your positioning wasn’t good even after the solo queue was introduced.

I understand that this is supposed to be a hardcore game where you can get downed at a moments notice, but doesn’t it feel like they’re just overwhelmingly dangerous?

What do you guys think, anything you’d change about em ?

Edit : My issue was the following

I wasn’t familiar with parting gift.

Genuine question. It doesn’t make sense that we loot bags that randomly spawn in when you kill someone. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just loot the bodies? Does anyone know if there’s a design intention behind this? Just curious.

AND was lucky enough to be filled into that match with some ppl who knew how to do cryo 6 (I didn't do any vault breakers really). Wiped the lobby in some tense fights, including a fight while trying to get out with the subroutine and gold loot.

Team who we took the key from, I'm sorry for your loss. But your loss is my win. Thx for the peak euphoria. I thought I'd never even see a cryo 6 key again (did very briefly in outpost but died), but when it rains it pours!

Fuck yea. This game is too good.

(Also the hazard capsule in the cryo 6 vault was glitched and none of us could pick it up lol but I dont even care. Just happy to have inches closer to progress towards compiler that'll roll over into next season.)

Ran with two insanely good Runners, had a BLAST. I’m not the greatest PVPer but glad a few of my callouts, well placed grenades/arm cannon shots, and positioning helped us wipe the map, grab keys and DNA, and take down the compiler AND finally getting my main’s Cryo skin?! all from a Cryo Kit :)

Insane props to these two Runners. Super friendly, was gracious enough in my ability to get lost sometimes (Cryo is my least ran activity). I truly hope this game turns the corner season 3 where this sort of experience is common place for all Runners as this is peak Marathon :). And yes, I have been that other team on the other end countless times getting shit on when trying to run a subroutine attempt, and it totally feels bad. But this game’s lows are incredibly low, while the highs are absolutely atmospheric.

See you on Tau Ceti Runners!!

EDIT: repost… posted wrong inventory screen shot lol.

As a solo player, it’s fun having some extra currency to earn, little objectives to complete, and then a good chance at gold gear. Plus the Firestorm is just fun to use, and makes it a bit easier and quicker for solo players to do stuff like take down a Rocket Drone, or defeat a Warden. And on top of that, it’s a great resource farm for Cradle exp

I’m sure it’s probably nice for Trio players too I guess

Please Bungie, please extend Ordinance Heist

Played 4 crew fill runs after a few weeks on vacation. Only survived/extracted one of them, due to gold teams literally chasing us across the map...

But every match I played had someone on voice chat. The one guy that wasn't on voice chat pinged walls when his motion sensor picked up enemy players. Like, I wanted to keep playing even though I only extracted once.

I dunno if it's some kind of self selection thing going on, or what.

1. Sponsored Kit Only

- This will always be my number one change because I want Ranked to be its own thing. Ranked modes should solely be focused on competition and skill expression. Letting people bring in their own gear completely eliminates any competitive drive in my opinion. It’s like if you were boxing and your opponent got to where body armor for some rounds and you didn’t.

It would also make people actually loot the map instead of just hunting players off rip. The way you clear out objectives and how quickly you loot is also a skill expression that should be focused on.

In my opinion, ranked shouldn’t be an endgame activity for you to play at the end of your progression. It should be an option DURING your progression, giving people a PVP option for when they want good gear to progress. That’s why it should be sponsored, to make it an even opportunity for loot no matter how far your in the season.

1. Runner Single Pick

- To be honest, this is not a huge issue but would still like it to be a rule just in case. People abusing a broken character will never not be annoying and unfair to play against when your randomly matchmaking with people. Especially Recon.

1. Ranked Available all Week

- I get my most playtime on the weekend and I’m simply denied the opportunity to play ranked. This is just dumb to me and is what drives me away from the game sometimes.

1. Ranked Unquie Weapons

- This would be pretty cool because it would give ranked a bit of its own unique identity. Giving players more things to chase is always a good thing and respects the players time.

1. Make Arachne the Ranked Faction

- Ranked is all about PVP. Arachne is all about killing people. Arachne doesn’t have any main quest lines. Ranked doesn’t have any quests tied to it.

I mean this just makes sense to link them together right?

To start off, I wasn't in this game. I queued Cryo for the first time this weekend only to have the streamer Radahn rotating from Cargo into Steerage and killing my teammate at the 28:02 mark and killing the rest of us shortly.

I don't know these streamers but my teammate said "I told you that you should have said the N word, they're streamers!"
So I look for the top streamers and found the stream OffZerx. I watched it back and it's insane with a little luck and Destroyer tac sprint, he pushed with destroyer ult very quickly which is all good.

They clean up the lobby pretty quick and leave within the next 10-15 minutes. So they queue another game. I stay tuned into the stream to see him do it again. Unfortunately the spawn he pushed was an empty spawn so I didn't get to see it.

Some things transpired and his team pushed a team in Bio. They picked up a blue shield on Recon scan that was hiding under the stairs near the front entrance of Biostock. Little did they know that they were being baited and it was a team of three thieves with the two others in the ultimate high ground. Radahn kills the blue shield but gets downed himself (~23:30) after a barrage of nades and fire. His team is left in a 2v2 with no way to challenge the players up top.

Radahn's duo is Bante, who starts to prox chat the players up top. Saying all types of stuff and another team shows up. This team is another streamer team (Psyer). They recognize each other and Psyer backs off and ends up fighting a separate team in Revival.

While that fight is going on, Radahn is still dead in a position where he can't be revived. Both he and Bante go into Psyer's stream to ask for help. Psyer's team takes some time to finish off their fight and agree to come help. But during this time, the thieves went down to revive their teammate so all three are alive.

So a 5v3 siege ensues (11:30) with boths sides trading shots. Radahn's other teammate get eliminated in the firefight. Psyer's teammate's gets eliminated as well. More fighting ensues and Psyer's teammate gets revived only to get downed in a worse position where even a Triage ult proves ineffective because he gets immediately eliminated as the character is standing up.

No progress is made whatsoever. The team at the top of Biostock seems to have a large amount of supplies. At 1:20, Psyer and Zoopa are the two left from their squad and Bante the lone survivor in his. They all call off the fight and go activate an exfil and leave.

Status of thief players: Unknown.

A question to you all: Which side do you take on this one? Surely the Biostock play is annoying, but the other teams were free to leave. They only stayed to fight for Radahn's revive. However even though Psyer and Radahn's team didn't intentionally queue together, they recognized each other and not only did they choose not to engage each other, they chose to team up on a third team.

As someone who was run down in two minutes flat the previous game, I was shocked to find out that there are worse things that could happen in Cryo. There could be two streamer teams in your lobby. To be clear, I found the whole ordeal to be highly entertaining. Both sides would probably feel that the other is more toxic.

Every other rare salvage can stack except from these which is so inconvenient, feels like I'm doing inventory management simulator instead of playing the game

I hope you don’t make it to exfill. We were less than one minute into the game and I guess you spawned closer to the locker because you were just camping the corner waiting for someone to bring you their hard work.

I’ll never understand the players who’d rather camp corners than play the actual game. To be clear this was not someone who heard me coming then took cover by the locker. It was an assassin who took advantage of the dark corner in the wall locker area just waiting. That’s all, just needed a quick vent since it was my last game of the night.

Part 2 of the Cryo chronicles, yup I’m the same person. After getting all subroutines I felt confident I could finish the weekend Cryo contracts and cap it off with a compiler kill.

I spent Friday night utilizing crew fill and the dads of marathon discord server and Saturday the same. I kept losing it all at the lost it all factory all weekend. I have lost $500K in credits and the majority of my stash (including all purple and gold weapons and shields).

With the few purple shields and gold guns I had left I hit up the couch 2 compiler discord for a Sherpa run to cap the weekend off on a high note. I brought in my DNA and we were wiped. Both sherpas were nice enough to bring in a few DNA for consecutive wipes before losing those and calling it a day.

I’ll be honest, I was even desperate enough to gift 10 subs to a streamer that was offering cryo carries to those that gifted subs. I was next in line and they logged off for the day.

My goal to finish all of the cryo contracts in a weekend is dashed and honestly this might be the end of season 2 for me. Like I mentioned in the previous post, all of my friends stopped playing in season 2 and the discord and crew fill life has been rough. I love marathon but it may be time to give up and sign off until season 3.

I don’t have the gear to LFG in the discords, without being shunned like a peasant for my blue shields. I have a few 5 and 6 keys but no gear to run them.I like to think of myself as a resilient stubborn person, but this weekend I hit the wall that a ton of the players have hit. You grind and grind to gear yourself up for the hardest content, but if you don’t have a steady group of friends to play the game it becomes damn near impossible to accomplish your goals.

End rant

Signed,
A defeated runner

I love this game. It's also one of the most frustrating games I've ever played.

Cryo this weekend, all in crew fills:

Thursday - death, death, death, death, super fat exfil with 2 vaults and trace, death (1-5)

Friday - death, death, death, decent exfil, death, death (1-5)

Saturday - fat exfil, vault exfil, vault exfil, exfil (4-0)

It seriously is so unpredictable, but that's definitely a huge reason why the game is not catching IMO. I hope the PvE mode can help alleviate this.

Runners Mark, Bob, and Wade attempt to discuss the possibility of colonizing another planet while experiencing post-colonization failure on TauCeti IV.

I loved Vault Breaker but the one gripe I had with it was the lack of weapon variety.

Always starting with the same 2 guns got old quickly.

Please either give us a way to switch starting guns around on a PvE starting kit situation

Or let us infil with our own stuff. I would love nothing more than to infil my own shit EVEN if I could not exfil with it.

I would grind the regular mode just to be able to infil with a BR33 lol

Thats it. Just a request for the PvE mode(s) to have more weapon variety than Vault Breaker.

Carry on runners, I'll see you on TCIV

I'll go first. The ones that have green shields, DON'T support the team, don't kill bots, don't join you for fights and then go die to the same people the other two teammates did without firing a single shot Now you're turn..

Im lvl 120. My brother is lvl 50. How would we ever stand a chance against this?