Everyone has their theory for why this game is dying, I have another to add to the mix.

I was just called the n word over proximity voice chat and have no way to report the player. No match history to see which specific player it was, and no report option for abuse over voice comms. This is appalling for a game in 2026 and if it's completely unactionable is going to make marginalised folk steer clear of multiplayer interactions.

Bungie! I challenge you to a Trial by Combat! Send your best warrior, and let the Seven Sony Execs decide your fate!

I hereby challenge Joe Ziegler to do a streaming marathon of him playing... MARATHON:

1. On a fresh account
2. On a PS5 console with crossplay on
3. As a solo runner in autofill queue

That way we can all witness how the game was meant to be played from the guy who literally designed the gameplay loop. How the queue times are a 'hoax', how 'autofill actually works if you're good', and how we all just 'don't get Marathon's depth'.

But realistically, since even Bungie's QA engineers don't play their own game, maybe it's high time for its fucking Game Director to play it on public:

1. Joe gets to experience the user stories and prove them wrong
2. The positive publicity makes the market realize all the hat has been Chinese propaganda, and millions of people will flock to Marathon.

So what say you, Bungie? I mean, what have you got to lose, considering playing Marathon is literally your job?

I LOVE GETTING CHASED ACROSS THE WHOLE MAP BECAUSE I SHOT A VANDAL WITH MY TACTICAL SIDEARM AS A ROOK!!! THEN I SHIT MYSELF BECAUSE HE HAS PURPLE SHIELDS AND NOW I AM RUNNING AWAY FROM COMPLEX ALL THE WAY TO GREENHOUSE!!! YES DUDE!! CHASE ME!!!! I TOTALLY HAVE SO MANY VALUABLE THINGS ON ME!!! DOESN'T MATTER THAT I JUST SPAWNED IN!! CHASE ME FOR LIKE 5 MINUTES AND CALL ME THE N WORD!!! THIS IS SO WORTH IT WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!! LITERALLY DIDN'T EVEN PICK UP A SINGLE ITEM!! ENJOY YOUR 50 ARACHNE REP!! YOU DESERVE IT MY GUY!!!

What the fuck is with your PvE community? Holy yikes dude I'm sorry you all have to contend with that.

The original post on one of the 'good faith' subs was so corny and obvious of Marastan mentality, the OP was pressured to take it down, as soon as they realized they couldn't farm karma off the hive mind.But the NuColonic data aNaLysts have managed to restore the original transmission for your enjoyment.

https://preview.redd.it/c6ltvc54rv5h1.png?width=1824&format=png&auto=webp&s=7fc5cbc391213d43b1bc1a2c4215dde899ed484b

========================================================================

[UESC SECURE DATAWALL // INTEL REPORT: 994-OMEGA-7]

SECURITY CLEARANCE: LEVEL 3 (COLONIAL MANAGEMENT)

SOURCE: INDUSTRIAL INTELLIGENCE SECTOR // TAU CETI IV

========================================================================

## SUBJECT: THE 'MARASTAN' PHENOMENON (RE-INDEXED)

CLASSIFICATION: Synthetic Neural Defect / Corporate Symbiosis

THREAT LEVEL: Minimal (Combat-wise) / Extreme (Colonial Propaganda)

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Recent data sweeps of rogue Runner networks have identified a dangerous psychological condition spreading among synthetic mercenaries on Tau Ceti IV. UESC tactical units have labeled these affected units as "Marastans."

Unlike normal corporate scavengers who display basic self-preservation and hunt for physical scrap, a Marastan operates under a state of total corporate indoctrination.

They do not view themselves as disposable mercenaries. Instead, they view their corporate sponsors as perfect, infallible deities. When their corporate gear fails, or when a basic UESC security bot effortlessly wipes them out in a routine firefight, the Marastan's neural processor completely rejects reality. They will aggressively defend the corporation that just got them killed, no matter what.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[INTERCEPTED AUDIO: CATALYZING DATA DISK // PERIMETER, SOUTH RELAY]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

<Marastan_01>: "Bro, the new CyberCuckme weapon isn't broken. The fact that it jams every three shots is actually a high-skill mechanic. You just don't understand the vision. They are cooking something big."

<Sec_Unit_04>: "Target is standing in the open, refusing to take cover, and shouting corporate slogans at our automated defense turret. Fire at will."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. CORPORATE SYNDICATES AND GLAZING BEHAVIOR

Marastans align themselves with specific corporate brands, adapting their entire personality to defend the financial interests of these mega-corporations. Our administrative logs highlight four major factions:

> CyberCuckme (Subsidiary of CyberAcme)

These units operate the absolute lowest-tier, broken frames. When CyberCuckme accidentally deletes half their neural cells during a routine network update, Marastans flood the public data-streams to praise the move. Their go-to line is: "This is a good thing for the economy. It filters out the casual trash who can't handle a real challenge."

> Nu-Colonic (Subsidiary of NuCaloric)

These runners use over-priced, toxic synthetic muscle mods. When the mods malfunction and melt their own chassis, Nu-Colonic glazers will blame the planet's atmospheric pressure before they blame the company. They actively boast: "The developers at Nu-Colonic are literally geniuses. If you don't like getting your consciousness wiped due to a server error, go play a kids' game."

> Sekigachi (Subsidiary of Sekiguchi Genetics)

The elitist corporate brand. Sekigachi Marastans are notorious for defending hyper-predatory micro-transactions and high gear-loss rates. Their favorite lore-defense line is: "This is a big boy extraction job. You are supposed to lose everything and smile about it. Stop crying and just buy more Sekigachi stock."

> The Arachcells

These units are completely blind to corporate greed. When corporations raise the prices of basic synthetic ammunition by 400%, Marastans will physically fight other runners to defend the price hike. They generate endless data-loops claiming: "The corporate executives need to feed their families too. Supporting the brand is more important than your individual loot count."

edugraph(lookup=edugraph(code="""

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

import io

import base64

labels = ['Defending Million-Dollar Corps', 'Making Excuses for Bugs', 'Actual Useful Combat Data']

sizes = [75, 20, 5]

colors = ['#ff0055', '#ffaa00', '#222222']

explode = (0.1, 0, 0)

"""))

3. ADVANCED COUNTER-MEASURE: THE STEAM-DB THERMAL FLUSH

Traditional kinetic projectiles are useless against Marastans because their corporate masters will just clone their brain-states into a new synthetic body.

To permanently shut down these corporate apologists, UESC Tactical IT has developed a brilliant network exploit: The SteamDB Metric Injection.

When a squad of Marastans is cornered, UESC officers do not shoot. Instead, they use a network jammer to broadcast rapidly plummeting colony population and corporate stock charts directly into the Marastan's active HUD visor.

Upon seeing a chart that suggests their favorite corporate game is "losing players" or "dying," the Marastan's brain processor experiences immediate, catastrophic panic. They will freeze in place, completely dropping their weapons, as their CPU attempts to process thousands of excuses to prove the charts are fake.

This massive spike in processing power triggers an immediate Gluteal Core Meltdown (Technical Term: Posterior Exhaust Hyperthermia). The intense heat completely melts the synthetic rear plating of their CyberCuckme or Sekigachi shells. The resulting thermal dump completely fries their neural link, rendering them completely dead on the floor before they can even type a response.

Would you like to know more?

========================================================================

[STEAMDB INJECTION CODES: EXECUTED]

[POSTERIOR VENT HEAT STATUS: CRITICAL FLUID MELTDOWN // 500°C]

[TARGET HAS CEASED LOGICAL FUNCTION]

[DISCONNECTING TERMINAL... 0000 06.07.2893]

========================================================================

Alright, so I don't expect anyone to take my word for it, but I was actually one of the real sweats in S1, playing in pretty competent competitive stacks flocking from other extraction shooters, CoD and Apex. We quit ~ 1 month into S1 because:

– It got boring for us: no leaderboards, lackluster end game content and ranked

– It got boring for the audience: most people I played with would stream for a living, and admittedly the audience wasn't very excited to watch them steamroll autofill lobbies with only occasional decent firefights happening in Cryo.

Overall, from my observations, most extraction shooter sweats and streamers quit Marathon for the exact same reasons: there was nothing to grind for, and the competition wasn't consistent enough to entertain the viewers.

I mean, take it or leave it, I'm just providing this disclaimer to – hopefully – provide some insight into where I'm coming from with my feedback, i.e. a player who has rather comprehensive knowledge of the game, and whose grudge is with Bungie's poor treatment of Marathon, not Marathon itself.

So here's my SUBJECTIVE feedback based on my first day in Season 2. It's a reaaaally long read – I've tried my best to segment and format it, so you can just skip through the headers and read any bits you might be interested in, and then get back to it to read the other bits. I've also left some TL;DR 'quotes' for every section of the text for your convenience if you just want to skim it. Or skip this post altogether – that's cool too.

Would also be great if someone decides to chime in with their feedback without the fear of being swarmed by glazers or banned for 'bad faith'.

1. The Good

1.1. The Cradle

I'll bite back the 'this is how it should've been from the very start' comment. But Cradle is a massive improvement for two main reasons:

– It disentangles character progression from the tedious grind fest that was Season 1: where you had to farm rep and resource to unlock shell upgrades that affect your game dramatically.

– Flexibility: you can redistribute upgrade points for free to adjust to map conditions, your shell, or just experiment with builds. This is refreshing.

– It Solves the 'Hoarding' problem: selling gear wasn't really feasible in S1, but now you can covert pricey gear that you don't like, or strategically 'invest' the gear you like, into upgrade points.

We are yet to see how it works in terms of 'balance' and scaling, but credit where credit is due – the Cradle is, hands down, the best character upgrade/progression system I have seen in an extraction shooter.

1.2 The Sentinel Shell

Sentinel, the new shell, is a healthy person's Recon, and what the game desperately lacked – a crowd control and area denial class that allows your crew to lock in and say, 'Fuck off my property!'. It's like Jaeger from Siege had a passion baby with Wattson from Apex, and stole the iconic motion tracker from Aliens.

The only major downside – one I can't really attribute to the class itself, but rather the 'trio synergy' game design – is that Sentinel relies heavily on coordinated teamwork. The only way you can relay the motion scanner's readouts is via the voice chat, and his entire kit revolves around strategic positioning and patience – something you usually don't get with mute autofill troglodytes. It's totally viable for a solo run though, although not as 'hot' as Thief or Assassin for obvious reasons.

>TL;DR: Ultimately, like I said the drawbacks listed aren't the drawbacks of the Sentinel design, more like side-effects of the game's flaws. As a Shell class – this is by far the most interesting one, but most importantly – it will definitely upset Season 1's endgame team fight meta.

1.3 Night Dire Marsh

Many people, myself included, initially downplayed the Night Marsh as a 'duh, no big deal', citing that every other extraction shooter had 'night versions', and it was more of a default expectation in the genre than a feature. But there's a twist!

One unprecedented thing Marathon had in spades, much owing to its masterful visual and sound design, was the eerie suspense somewhat reminiscent of survival horror – one you can enjoy especially well in otherwise lackluster solo runs. Sadly, Season 1 didn't really take advantage of that 'feature'. But the Night Dire Marsh plays up to that 'survival horror' creepy vibes massively.

>TL;DR: The new mode is not just the 'same map, but dark, and enemies slap harder' formula you see in Delta Force, Arc Raiders or Hunt. It's more of a genre flip: the layout is different, the objectives are different, and the environmental hazards – both the NPCs and the feral Rooks – are so bad it naturally incentivizes a more cooperative (or at least avoidant) play style between runner crews.

1.4 The New PvP-Lite Mode

Honestly, this new PvP lite mode that places just one player crew in the Night Dire marsh, and then adds solo Rooks as late spawns, is not just a step in the right direction, but a massive leap:

– A viable alternative to the 'winner takes all meta': whether it was Bungie's plan or not, the most viable Meta in Season 1 was playing the small maps like a 'zero sum' battle royale: gambling to wipe out other teams before switching to PvE objectives. This wasn't neccessarily a bad thing, but it certainly subverted the genre-defying expectations for the majority of players, and got old real fast for the death squads mopping the lobbies too. This mode kinda allows you to experience Marathon via the 'slow burner suspense' filter of Hunt and Tarkov, rather than a fast-paced free for all 'all or nothing' shooter.

– The thrill of curated PvP: it's not entirely a carebear PvE mode, since you have the looming threat of player-controlled rooks spawning late into the run.

On the one hand, the rooks serve as wildcards: they can be shitty target practice dummie, or apathetic opportunistic scavengers, or they can be killing machines stalking you in the dark. They can run solo or they can team up to swarm you. That's the thrill.

On the other hand, the 'safe' component of this mode is that it gives you and your crew more agencies in stacking odds in your favor: you have better shells, you can choose to bring in better gear (well, you can't NOW that it's an experimental sponsor kit mode, but maybe in the future – that would be a factor), and you are, in fact, a team. So whether you start the run at a massive PvP advantage or serve as each other's handicap is entire up to you – and this is great for autofill dynamics

– Bunny slope: considering that you kinda have an advantage as a runner in this game mode, this mode could serve as a sort of 'live training' for players to build their PvP confidence under conditions that might not be more forgiving than the classic modes, but at least in PvP-lite the outcome of every PvP engagement is primarily your merit... or fault. But never a matter of bad luck or random chance, because in this mode you have the agency as the runners.

>TL;DR: It's a great 'PvE with the suspense of PvP wildcards' mode for building PvP confidence, learning teamwork, and experiencing Marathon through the classic extraction shooter 'slow burning thriller' pacing pattern.

2. The Bad

One thing: freebies. If you go for a 'wipe' – then stick to it unconditionally. Marathon's Season 1 was infamous for its 'snowballing' meta and the disparity between pre-made trios and autofill players, 'sweats' and 'casuals', and over the span of the season the problem - fuelled by a shrinking player base and lack of any skill/gear-based matchmaking – would become exponentially worse, and the division more stark, as one pluarity of players used the gear to quickly scoop the cream and fill their vaults with high end kits that allowed them to stearoll their counterparts on a regular basis.

Now, a lot of people might brush off the post-season rewards for >lvl 70 runners as a 'no big deal' and a 'it's just a purple shield man', but it is a big deal. Three purple shields on a coordinated team can take you to the moon and back after a wipe, shit, it took me far enough to stack my vault full of gear I had no business stashing on the opening day, and I played as a solo in autofill.

And after the 'server issues', Bungie made it worse by showering us with a shit ton of mid to high grade sponsored kits – a very unnecessary injection into the 'natural order of things'. Wanna guess where that 'good stuff' ended up when newbie players brought them on Tau Ceti IV's surface? Yup, in the vaults of 'sweats' who looted them off their corpses. I personally converted a shit ton of blue gear that I got from newbies who had no idea how to use it into Crucible upgrade points.

>TL;DR: I wish Bungie just gives up on gifting freebies and especially on the post-season purple gear rewards. Either that or makes wipes optional like in Arc Raiders, but they would have to work something out with the matchmaking first, because it just feeds the existing issues more than it solves the sting of losing gear.

3. The Ugly: Matchmaking and The Autofill Experience

I can't repeat this enough: the absolutely idiotic, nonsensical matchmaking system is Marathon's self-inflicted anathema.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely do not mind the lack of SBMM. Or gear-based MM/gear value limits/requirements per map/condition. Let alone the lack of ABMM (it's an abomination). But there has to be at least some sort of matchmaking curation in a game.

To cut a very long story short, Marathon – by design – relies extremely heavily on coordinated teamplay and at least some form of skill/gear parity within the crew. In everything: from how the Shell abilities are designed around the synergy idea to the short TTK that favors focus fire, to the in-game objectives/events and map design that revolves heavily around coordinated actions.

For a game that puts such a big stake on team cohesion, it is not just surprising, but outright shocking that Marathon does not allow you to curate your team experience as a solo player via a built-in LFG tool that would allow you to fill your team based on mic/objective/playstyle/gear preferences BEFORE you gamble your kit on autofill.

Yes, you can get lucky and reasonably successful in autofill if you end up with teammates that know what they're doing, even if they're not using the mics. It's not as good as a pre-made stack, but it's reliable enough. But you're just as, or even more so likely to end up with a clueless sponsored kit dumbass or someone nowhere near your skill/gear level. Worse still – you might load into the map with CONFLICTING contracts.

This isn't just a 'muh teammates bad' rant – trust me, it would be even worse if YOU are the clueless dumbass still learning the rope pressured by a solo sweat daredevil that spearheads you into the devil's asshole and expects you to pull through, while the third player is blasting gangsta rap through his mic and speakers combo saying he's just 'here to chill man, it's a game'. It's gonna be equally frustrating for the three of you.

Now, you can say, 'but you can use discord to find a group' – why should I have to go through that Discord LFG mummery, if I can do it in the game in, say, Delta Force, or – God forbid – Destiny 2?

Or you can say, 'But you can just add competent runners you meet in autofill to your friends list' – but dude, come the fuck on. I don't have the time to do blind auditions for 'proper teammates', and even if I did – why would I waste it on something like that, if there's a perfectly functional and field-tested alternative that exists in other games, including Destiny 2?

>TL;DR: the current matchmaking system leaves you NO AGENCY as an autofill player. None. What's worse is that it leaves Bungie with no agency in curating the game experience for the majority of players either. And if you can't curate it – you can't control the customer's expectations or influence/predict their satisfaction.

4. Summary

Now, all the 'changes' Bungie introduced in S2 – regardless of whether they should've been in the 1.0 version or not – are massive improvements in the right direction. So, as much as I still consider Ziegler as the game director to be Marathon's biggest obstacle on its way to the success it deserves, I place credit where credit is due. Season 2 is, objectively, a major progress.

If you counted the headers, you might have noticed that I've pointed more 'good' points than bad or ugly. But you also know that one spoon of piss can turn a whole barrel of honey into... well, a barrel of piss.

And the dysfunctional matchmaking system and lack of LFG functionality is a whole pitcher of piss that will inevitably sour the honey and – once again - cancel out all the improvements brought with the latest update for the majority of players.