The primary issue I think is that Embark is too lenient on cheaters. I was mauled down yesterday on top of control tower when my trio had high ground advantage ready to fire on targets. Dudes pulled up on us, we were in a standoff, they had a barricade down low and they were waiting for us to peak. Eventually they got bored with their position, tossed a smoke nade, all 3 of them tumble roll into the smoke nade and all 3 of them from the smoke land anvil 4 headshots on us... chirping the whole time from mics. They really dont care to be caught even, its dreadfully obvious when it happens (tumble rolling about 50m away while landing anvil headshots mid roll).
The cheating by virtue of using an aimbot is something I'm willing to just -deal- with but what frustrates me even more than that is when people are LITERALLY BUYING ITEMS from marketplaces for pennies on the dollar. You can get like 5x fully kitted vulcanos or tempests or whatever for $2.50 on some of these sites, you'll know them when you see them because they'll have a kinetic converter on a vulcano with every blue mod imaginable and the purple grip. You see an item like that that gets dropped in a shallow tacticless pvp match? That person BOUGHT that item guaranteed. Couple that with the aimbotters? Whats the fucking point.
Skip past all the cheating and purchasing of power, what about this fucking roadmap was content delivery? This was supposed to be a major content drop. We got one new mediocre-at-best map, nerfs across the board to weapon durability (which ultimately just increases the amount of grinding you have to do in this game), and if you want to play a specific game mode like Close Scrutiny then you need to clear your whole day for the once-a-day time slot.
Oh but what about the new ARC, the Turbine! OUR SAVIOR! Oh yeah? what if I told you the turbine randomly spawns in any match by the time people are leaving, and since every trio match is basically a pvp lobby (because the playerbase for this game is at a critical low point) that the matchmaker has to take about 6 minutes to get into a Blue Gate lobby... So you know, NO ONES BRINGING IN SHIT TO KILL TURBINES AND NO ONE ENGAGES TURBINES because everyones still just freeloadie into the domes, and by the time you even loadout with your custom loadie, you're getting into a match that has 19 minutes left (even though Embark SWEARS they made a change so that custom loadies get favored into fresh raids, but if you're naked you get 30 mins remaining in match).
Not to say Marathon is doing any better... if the execs are truthful from Bungie then 70-80% of their playerbase is on PC and those numbers are available on Steamcharts.... they're hovering around 10k DAU. This shit is a joke.
But I truly believe the reason why I'm uninstalling this game today is because its obvious to me that the developers are doing what they can to appeal to streamers and influencers. There are streamers literally saying "I wont play this game unless Embark pays me" but thats just airing the dirty laundry. WE KNOW YOURE BEING PAID TO BE HERE not because a game is good but because you have some sort of intangible clout. And that clout transmutes itself into the fucking photoelectric cloak being nerfed into obscurity.
Embark is losing control of the playerbase, and the playerbase remaining is just here for bloody pvp so embark releases a patch to cater to pvp'ers and streamers to save a dying fanbase and make their DAU relevant again (it wont be that easy though). Game has turned into a dumpster fire of a sinking ship and I want off of Mr Toad's wild ride after 800 hours.