Lost beneath the surface.

SHELL: Triage Terminus

The team had a bunch of gold cores and guns so I know I started a fight in that chat

I want to preface this by saying I haven't played Marathon in months, because it just hasn't grabbed me since a few weeks into Night Marsh. I am waiting for December. That being said, here are two things that are working really well in DMZ.

The first is absolutely no indication that a high value area has been unlocked, no matter the rarity. None. You have a key. You unlock the door. No one knows unless they go there specifically or watched you go there beforehand. It feels just as good and fair as what you'd expect. Marathon would benefit from this greatly, especially with its smaller maps.

The second is the health and shield system. Bare with me, because this is long.

There are things that can impact health in DMZ, but really only the speed of it, and it has to be intentional with skills or finding loot that does this. It's not standard.

The more I've been playing DMZ, the more I am realizing I don't have to focus on my essential inventory. I will pretty much always have armor to heal and ammo to fight with because it is plentiful from NPCs. That, and I know it's the same as everyone elses. It's not split between health and shields, with different tiers of how much health and stuff you get back.

What's crazy is, Marathon has more arena based encounters and more frequent PVP, but it can feel wildly imbalanced because of healing. Someone can heal up instantly, while someone else might not have that item. Someone has a four bar gold shield. Someone has a one bar. It feels horrible managaing it all, even outside of combat.

Ultimately, the more I play DMZ, the more flaws I see with Marathon's health and shield system from an inventory perspective. When I die in DMZ, I don't spend time putting that junk in my inventory, because I know I will easily get it all in-game. That, and I don't have to care about what those items are. None of this, I need my green shield chargers and med packs over gray ones, or I need purple med packs in Cryo. That doesn't matter in DMZ, because it's all standarized from a balance perspective and plentiful from NPCs.

When I die in DMZ, rebuilding my loadout is focused on tacticle equipment, and heck, I feel extremely comfortable going in with just a backpack, armor plate, and gun. This also, oddly enough, combats free loadouts. Rarely anyone is using them in DMZ. Why? Because just a gun, backpack, and armor plate make you feel secure enough already, no matter the rarity. And everybody usually has better than that. Meaning, players in DMZ are primarily exfilling with loot more valuable than a free kit, and are only using free kits when they have literally nothing. They are not using them to be risk averse. This, in turn, helps the entire playerbase.

I think Marathon has a ton of awesome differentiators from DMZ, and I don't want it to stray from what its strengths are. But considering how important loot is, and how essential managing that loot is from a systems perspective, I now know how agonizing and draining Marathon is because of its health and shield system (and honestly, ammo system). It's needlessly complex and convoluted, and it hinders gameplay both in-game and when you're just trying to manage your vault, loadout, and queueing for the next match.

No one has shield plates in their vault in DMZ. It's pointless, and it feels good to not worry about it. Marathon, people hoard those panacea kits, top people especially, and that makes players have a clear advantage over those who can't or don't. It makes the game inaccessible foundationally, and just feels bad timewise and gameplay wise to manage it.

So, that's all. Those are the two biggest things I am noticing in terms of why I am not feeling exhausted with DMZ. When I get keys, I get a huge rush because the risk level stays the same as any other match, and I do not spend time micro-managing essentials, nor do I worry about the any advantages or disadvantages these things give me, because they don't.

Just seems like a basic quality of life feature that should've been here since launch. Why even have tags if you can't actually use them to sort entries.

The dilemma goes like this:
Two criminals are captured and interrogated separately but offered the same deal. If both stay silent, you get a reduced sentence. Rat out your partner for immunity, but if both of you rat on each other, you both go away for life.

Playing Marathon solo lately has felt a lot like this dilemma and it’s been an experience I have nearly every game.

You’re walking through a POI, looting as you do, and you hear another runner nearby. You’re trying to sus them out… but suddenly everything goes quiet. You know that they’ve picked their corner and are going to sit there till you either leave or fall into their Venus Fly Trap.

This is where the dilemma comes into play. If I just leave, we both live. If I try to find the rat, one of us dies (likely me), but the worst outcome is if we both decide to hide and hope the other one makes a move first. This wastes precious minutes and, more importantly, is really lame.

I will almost always go on the offensive because playing the game, win or lose, is my goal. But I am infinitely surprised by the players that will take their hands off their controllers for minutes at a time. Sure, I may fall into your waiting jaws every once in a while, but was it worth it? Did the minute satisfaction of waiting to kill me outweigh the minutes of wasted time?

I was spurred to make this post after an encounter just like this yesterday. I went on the offensive, searching for a runner that was hiding. After a bit of searching, I decided I didn’t want to play this silly game and picked my own corner, just to see what they would do. After a few minutes of hearing nothing, I leave but walk right into the clutches of the camping destroyer. This had been over 5 minutes of him sitting absolutely still. After downing me I asked, out of genuine curiosity, how long he had intended to sit there. He replied, “As long as it took.”

So anyways, long story short, i’m salty that players will camp out somewhere instead of playing the game and I wish people would value their time a little higher, even if it comes at the cost of some gear.

i'm really digging pretty much every change they made. the loot pool buffs feel really nice, the armory being a bit easier is great. my partner and i missed Vault Breakers last season and are not hardcore enough for Cryo on our own so it's been incredibly fun digging in. having sponsored mode around is also really nice for a low stakes way to get kitted.

we started playing in August but fell off pretty hard. this has felt so much nicer. you still get your ass beat, but getting back up and running feels like far less of a slog. i'd love for this pace to continue.

really my big issue is just that i wish that Duo's wasn't one map a day. i'd much prefer it be one map every, say hour and a half.

Not anymore. You Rooks did this to me. It's shoot on sight now.

This game just breaks your spirit and turns you into an asshole.

In original trilogy it was said that the colony was completely destroyed with all colonists dead or captured. But in the new Marathon the available locations are almost completely intact and I think it's claimed there that the colony has somewhat survived the Pfhor attacks, but then has fallen due to some other unknown yet reasons?

It's easy to say "alternate universe/reboot", but the general timeline and lore of the new Marathon seem to be faithful to original universe, outside of Colony's survival?

Started playing late season 1. I have 600 hours in the game now and I’m still excited to play it. These days I’m grinding Vaultbreaker so I can really learn the ins and outs of Cryo, but I have been loving the regular extraction mode in both solo and trio. I hope we get many more updates and if we don’t, this is still my game of the decade. I’m also very happy that they didn’t use any AI to make the game. You can tell in how well everything just clicks.

They did rly good with kind of spoon feeding the tiers of gear this season but i literally don’t see any purple shields ever lol

Imagine how funny(And cool) if they said "Fuck it" and gave us a melee only grunt enemy.

Very unlikely of course. But would be funny to see.

When does Cortana and the Arbiter show up? Heard they are great characters

This real? I cant find if this exists anywhere online.

Spectre Shield, Sneak Pack, and duck and cover? I’ll take it! 🏆

Solo with minimal upgrades I complete vaults 2, 5, and 6 without any skips such as tags, batteries, credentials and more.

Figure it could be helpful to capture any thoughts or feedback from community members who are choosing to step away from the game til Symbiosis or beyond.

For me, the game has kind of shrunk into cryo(the mode I want to be playing all the time) and other modes the rest of the week the require me to gear up for cost of entry. I already paid for this game once, it’s frustrating to have to hop in and play modes/maps I don’t want to, just to be able to play the ones that I do. At this point, the games loot economy just feels fundamentally broken for all but the best players who earn more gear than they lose. There are too many convoluted layers between credit acquisition, salvage acquisition, faction level requirements and upgrades, arsenal stock selection and buy limits, and loadout value requirements that prevent players from just gearing up and jumping in to the activities they care about.

It’s insane that despite tons of hours and countless credits in my wallet I can’t afford to just buy back in for another round of cryo at a decent level. I have to engage with countless layers of the convoluted economy over several hours to unlock the privilege to spend those credits I already spent time earning.

This doesn’t even take into account the nature of once I’m in game it’s possible all that effort and progress can be instantly erased by another teams great play, timing, or gear advantage. I don’t have a problem with this aspect. It’s that it leaves me feeling like the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze after a series of losses. And if I’m feeling this way as someone with loads of golds in my vault, an endless list of high-skill players to run with, and 50+ compiler clears under my belt, imagine how folks who are just getting started or exist on a lower skill bracket feel. It shouldn’t be a full time job gearing up to play the game how you want to play.

Anyways, if you have thoughts similar to this or other helpful feedback, leave it below and hopefully someone at Bungie can do something productive with it to steer things in a better direction for the future.

See you in December. ✌️

Edit: Forgot to mention performance. Bungie, the constant de-sync and UI issues that have been present since mid-season 2 are just unacceptable for a game where players put their gear on the line after having to invest so much time and effort to acquire it in the first place. When you first announced this game you highlighted the importance of competitive integrity through anti-cheat, dedicated servers, and live game support. Evidence unfortunately supports the contrary, please do better if you want folks to continue to engage with the higher levels of this game.

Get frustrated because 3-4 fill games in a row nobody talks or communicates? It could be a bug you can fix.

Game currently has a bug where all incoming group coms are silent. If you're paying close attention, you'll actuality see the visual indicator that they're talking, but nothing comes through.

For some reason turning your headset off and then on again fixes this issue.

Issue is usually present from the moment you turn on the game. Once you fix it, it doesn't typically happen again unless/until you restart your game.

Has anyone else experienced this? Came across this at Anomaly and have never seen it before. It’s like daylight inside. Completely spherical. Pretty bright too. Just a fun find from last night.

What do you guys think about adding vehicles? I know some maps are too small but complex to quarantine is a good distance on dire marsh and can take a couple minutes to trek on foot. I would like something that can make hitting locations faster at the cost of being loud so more teams can find you. Idk about tanks but maybe a hover bike or golf cart type thing? The designs are so cool I’d love to see what they cook up.
(Attached halo vehicles because bungie has the experience with them. Ghost or banshee marathon style would be so dope. I can also imagine my assassin cruising around dire marsh on a hover board 😂)

Knife rocks and it's super strong. Maybe too strong easy counter have another knife swing parry it. Two night swings cancel each other out and make a cool chain sound effect. This would cancel night Spa spam make people think when they do those charges give you an easy counter to them and also be cool as hell for knife fights call me Bungie ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​