u/DraconicSun

Look, I'm not gonna lie. I don't give a fuck about SBMM, I'm fairly okay with playing with people of my skill level. I don't want to get streaks on people that can barely shoot back, I want to win games by my own merit. But I simply am not built for trying to win against a six-stack of CDL wannabes playing like they're gonna win a million dollars (seriously if you play like that and don't get money out of it what are you doing with your fucking life) against my entire team of random potatoes that keep feeding them infinite UAVs and HARPs.

Mercenary Moshpit should be a permanent game mode like Black Ops Classic became, and I don't even care that it's Open, that's just a cherry on top for me. I just don't want to deal with parties, especially when the game decides to put TWO parties on the enemy team against my entire team of solos. The current matchmaking is pretty bad, but adding parties on top of it just sours the experience even more.

Please, Treyarch, do this one favor for us, if only to keep the game alive for us solo players.

Vou botar aqui uma história extremamente engraçada que aconteceu comigo recentemente.

Basicamente, eu tenho um headphone Hifiman HE400se e não estava pegando toda a potência dele, usando um HA400 genérico e um mixer Fifine SC3. Pequeno contexto: minha placa-mãe antiga tava com o áudio onboard quebrado, então eu tinha que basicamente usar um DAC/mixer para poder ter som. Enfim, recentemente eu fiz uma cagada com a minha CPU AM4 (derrubei ela no chão, um dos cantos amassou, e vários pinos entortaram: eu consegui desentortar todos e ela funciona mas um dos canais de memória falhou por completo) e troquei para Intel LGA 1700, comprando uma placa-mãe Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X DDR4 e um i5-12600K.

Depois que uns colegas de um discord de audiofilia disseram que o meu HA400 não era suficiente para o meu headphone, eu comecei a procurar por um outro amp para ele e estava a ponto de ir comprar quando eu pensei "hmmm essa placa mãe tem um chip amp-up... talvez eu possa testar o áudio onboard dela", e fiz isso ontem.

Cara, se vocês tivessem visto a cara de bunda que eu fiz quando eu toquei um som no PC e estava muito mais alto do que o meu DAC sequer sonhava em fazer, vocês teriam se cagado de rir. Eu fui olhar as configurações da Gigabyte e o fajuto do áudio onboard pode subir a frequência e a taxa de bits para 192khz e 32 bits. Meu DAC suporta um máximo de 16 bits e 48khz. Eu estava usando um negócio nerfado esse tempo todo quando a minha placa-mãe nova tinha folga mais que suficiente pra ele.

Enfim - eu basicamente não sabia que áudio onboard estava tão avançado assim, especialmente sabendo que essa placa-mãe é de 2022. Talvez eu ainda vou comprar um amplificador (estou pensando num Douk U3), mas até agora o áudio onboard está muito melhor do que qualquer tentativa que tive de usar o meu mixer. Acho que vou sinceramente vender ele pq não tem mais uso além do meu microfone, que já tem um cabo USB e portanto não precisa de um XLR para funcionar.

I've played a good amount of days since the launch of the season and I'm feeling like we've turned into beta testers or lab rats being forced to run through experiments made by mad scientists. Every day the matchmaking feels different. Aside from the disbanding lobbies, it's a completely different game every time I play it (and my ping improved massively after I changed my motherboard, idk why). Sometimes it's like I got put in the CDL despite having no business being there, sometimes it feels just like before, sometimes it feels like it's piss easy...

I also feel like they're doing this for future PR. Considering all the interactions with the community they've been having, them being radio silent on this feels weird. I did hear that there's a theory floating that they're waiting until CoD Next to probably announce something like "no SBMM on MW4" to put all eyes on the game and bring a fuckton of people to the beta, which wouldn't be out of character for them to do.

So uh! I saw a good amount of people with issues passing the Security Attestation despite updating their BIOS and everything. Currently, AMD boards with a TPM version of 3.x.0.x will always fail it, and most of those boards don't get BIOS updates anymore, leaving people hanging out to dry and having to buy a new motherboard... or so they thought!

Most modern motherboards have a TPM connector somewhere on it. It looks like a regular connector you'd use for your front panel, USB, audio, and etc, but its purpose is to install an external, updated TPM module in case the board's own TPM cannot be updated further.

You can find them on Amazon for less than 25 bucks a piece, with some even costing less than 15.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=tpm+module

To find out if your board has them, find your motherboard's box if you have it to see what the model is if you don't remember it, or, if you don't know the model and don't have the box, type "System Information" in the Start menu, click on the thing that shows up, and check "BaseBoard Product". Then type that name into google, go to the manufacturer's website, and try to find the motherboard's manual in there, or look at the photos of the board on the front.

You are looking for a set of connectors that looks like this:

https://preview.redd.it/yygite4bntch1.png?width=698&format=png&auto=webp&s=cb14743ca720a1677d65eaaba53129fa1c8ba6f9

(example being an Asus PRIME Z690-P DDR4)

I've seen a fair amount of reviews of those modules on Amazon reporting that they do indeed work with RICOCHET. Once you buy them and they arrive, simply open your computer, locate the connector (it is 13 pins and will likely be labeled), and plug the module into it.

I have no idea why Activision hasn't thought to tell people about this, and only recommend people to buy new motherboards instead or just essentially tell them to pound sand. This is a 2 minute, 15 dollar fix (delivery time notwithstanding) that'll allow you to game again.

So uh! I saw a good amount of people with issues passing the Security Attestation despite updating their BIOS and everything. Currently, AMD boards with a TPM version of 3.x.0.x will always fail it, and most of those boards don't get BIOS updates anymore, leaving people hanging out to dry and having to buy a new motherboard... or so they thought!

Most modern motherboards have a TPM connector somewhere on it. It looks like a regular connector you'd use for your front panel, USB, audio, and etc, but its purpose is to install an external, updated TPM module in case the board's own TPM cannot be updated further.

You can find them on Amazon for less than 25 bucks a piece, with some even costing less than 15.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=tpm+module

To find out if your board has them, find your motherboard's box if you have it to see what the model is if you don't remember it, or, if you don't know the model and don't have the box, type "System Information" in the Start menu, click on the thing that shows up, and check "BaseBoard Product". Then type that name into google, go to the manufacturer's website, and try to find the motherboard's manual in there, or look at the photos of the board on the front.

You are looking for a set of connectors that looks like this:

https://preview.redd.it/km0y55jsltch1.png?width=698&format=png&auto=webp&s=2b83ae8d5423cb3b9604d708fcab86eb8f9476fb

(example being an Asus PRIME Z690-P DDR4)

I've seen a fair amount of reviews of those modules on Amazon reporting that they do indeed work with RICOCHET. Once you buy them and they arrive, simply open your computer, locate the connector (it is 13 pins and will likely be labeled), and plug the module into it.

I have no idea why Activision hasn't thought to tell people about this, and only recommend people to buy new motherboards instead or just essentially tell them to pound sand. This is a 2 minute, 15 dollar fix (delivery time notwithstanding) that'll allow you to game again.

"I keep dying to people with purples and golds!" is what I've been hearing by a lot of people lately. Well, that's... not really the problem, is it?

The problem is people trying to challenge someone with better gear in a straight gunfight thinking they're going to do something and then complain when they inevitably get dropped. That's not how you win fights.

The first rule of extraction shooters and battle royales is the same thing generals in history have done: Never take a fight on the enemy's terms. People with purples and golds expect to walk over everyone by facetanking people's bullets. They are usually overconfident and will tend to W key other players - that's when you can catch them off guard by hiding in a corner, flanking them from another floor or room, using your abilities to soften them up, tag teaming each one individually with one (or both) of your teammates, or baiting them into a trap/claymores.

Marathon is not a classic Treyarch Call of Duty game. You don't have the same health as other people. You can't force a win in a straight gunfight with lower health unless the enemy misses a lot, and people who are good enough to have purples and golds in their vault don't miss that often.

Against anyone better geared (or any player, really), you should never, ever take a straight gunfight. Be a rat. Get them through extremely unscrupulous means. Yes, it's boring, and it might be annoying, but you will be alive and they won't.

So uh, to contrast the constant doomposting, I'm gonna pull out some evidence that I found from some other redditors, namely Sekh765 in the thread about Liana talking how Bungie's life depends on Marathon now.

Basically: Most extraction shooters don't start out big and keep big numbers over time, but instead, they start at a moderate to low playerbase (due to its nature as a niche genre) and steadily increase in players over the course of several years.

And my proof? Hunt: Showdown and Delta Force (to an extent).

Take a peek at the overall Steam charts for Hunt since its release (and even before it).

https://preview.redd.it/pi62mfrnv27h1.png?width=953&format=png&auto=webp&s=88a2e1cbc679987879c8198d2fbc6ded6ff3d1cd

Notice how the game started really small. That peak at release is about 13.5k players. And Crytek has been completely reliant on Hunt to keep its doors open. Yes, that Crytek that made Crisis, so not a tiny indie studio by any means (they have about 405 people).

Now let's see the charts for Delta Force.

https://preview.redd.it/eoom8tvlw27h1.png?width=951&format=png&auto=webp&s=c000bc16ca6d4ef9f3a9c99d6f42c47073a2d580

Although, yes, the game has fallen off quite a lot, it experienced a steady climb throughout most of 2025, and the current 24 hour peak is still more people than it had on release. While Delta Force does indeed have a big map Battlefield esque mode (called Warfare), most people seem to be interested (and play) the extraction mode, Operations.

But, in both cases, both games had a steady increase in players over a long amount of time, albeit on DF's case it was temporary. It's still more popular than it was on release, however.

This brings me to one game that people tend to use as a counterpoint - Arc Raiders, which, for the most part, is an exception to this rule. Not a single other extraction shooter managed to do what Arc did. The game's popularity was born out of a freak possibility. Using it as a gauge that Marathon is doomed to die is silly. That's like thinking you can die from a freak vending machine incident and be paranoid about it 24/7 when all you need to do is to not shake the machine or avoid interacting with it.

What I think is going to happen is that, with the success of the last Destiny 2 DLC, they'll have enough footing to be able to start developing another game, and Marathon might go the way of Hunt and steadily increase in players and interest over time. Now that they have resources, they can start improving the game and making it more appealable to a mass audience.

A game doesn't need to be an instant hit to continue getting support. It can just exist and grow at its own pace, and I'm sure this is likely what's going to happen. It's not a sprint, it's a - get this - marathon. :D

Ideally, I think they should separate the characters into two factions, as they've always done. But, if Infinity Ward decides that isn't something they want to do, they could solve the issue the same way Delta Force did.

On Delta Force Warfare, at least in the beginning of the game (and a good amount of months into it), everyone's characters used their default palettes, and since it's pretty much a hero shooter, everyone could pick anyone no matter the team, and the only way to distinguish them was the red name/healthbars. This eventually got changed through player feedback. If you're on the GTI side (the good guys), your character will have their default palette, which for most of them is green. However, if you're in the HAAVK side (the evil corporate guys), your character's model will instead have a blue palette with HAAVK logos on it, making it much easier for both sides to instantly determine who's the enemy or not.

This way, every character skin would have a different palette based on the map's faction (or just two palettes as an universal thing), making them instantly distinguishable at a glance. While I do think this would probably be more work than just separating the characters by faction, it would work better with IW's current vision. But, given all the feedback they're readily accepting, I don't think they'll insist in not separating the characters.