Recently, the data for the amount of compiler kills, among other things, was released for Vaultbreaker.

The numbers are interesting, but mostly it's difficult to judge much without a frame of reference. Well, apart from in one case, as no frame of reference can really alter the cold hard truth.

There were two solo compiler kills in the trios mode. Usually, this is the sort of wacky statistic you'd see with, I don't know, solo kills while playing with a radio controlled joystick or some shit. But no, this isn't a obscure challenge run or anything. This is, and I want everyone to turn their minds back a few weeks to the discourse when the mode released, how solo players were expected to play the mode.

"Oh it's just a different experience so what if it's a little harder" I CAN COUNT ON MY FUCKING TESTICLES HOW MANY TIMES THIS WAS CLEARED SOLO! This isn't a thought out, well considered different option, as some people were claiming, this is a clown mode which was beaten twice by the entire playerbase. We're in Beating-DS1-With-A-Guitar-Hero-Controller levels here, or a rung or two further down from there.

I think sober reflection is required at Bungie HQ after this. Was this ever even tested with solos? I can't imagine anyone on the dev team beat it, that's for sure. How does this make it to prime time.

I think more attention should be drawn to this sort of blunder, so, god willing, for S3 they give solos some thought.

Please bring back vault breaker.

I usually play solo because my gaming friends and I have kids and can almost never line up our schedules to play together. The gunplay and robot pew-pew in Marathon has been some of the most FPS fun I've had in ages but I simply can't keep up with the PvP. The new PvPvE is already kicking my ass. Other runners see me long before my old eyes can, and by the time I ADS, I'm already downed and they're sprinting over to execute me. I've already accepted I'll never level up Arachne and that's fine, but at least solo Vault Breaker was a ton of fun. I even managed to crack vault 2 a couple of times with my creaking joints! Or I'd just drop in for a run to shoot the waves of mobs.

Vault breaker was the most fun I've had with a video game in ages and I'd really like it if it came back as a permanent game mode.

Okay, here's my fucking issue with Marathon. There's too many consequences tied to PvE and almost no systemic consequences for initiating PvP. That's just it.

When you shoot your gun, that's a dinner bell. When you

shoot ads, that's a dinner bell. When you hit a POI, that's a dinner bell. When you open up a security room, that's a dinner bell. When you hit extraction, it's a dinner bell. People come running at you saying, “I'm gonna take your shoes.”

That can honestly stay, but it needs to be on the opposite side too.

There needs to be a reason to stop and think, “Hmm, do I really wanna engage in PvP? Is it really worth it?”

There needs to be that type of fucking tension in a PvPvE game instead of just running around killing everybody on the fucking map. You can do that, but there needs to be something in place for what happens afterward.

So here's what the fuck I mean by forced PvE.

If a team gets wiped or extracts, the environment should become more hostile to everybody.

Case in point: the dumbass husks that are on Dire Marsh Night. Instead of them just being giant ticks, make it where when you kill a runner, they come back as an anomalous husk that actually engages you in melee. Every time a team gets wiped, those runners respawn as husks.

The USEC? Make them more aggressive to everybody.

Make it so there's a reason for somebody to go, “Oh shit, do I really wanna do this?”

Another part of this is, since the enemies become way more hostile, they should drop more and better loot. Why the fuck not? If you're deciding to stay when things are getting worse, you should be compensated for that.

But at the same point, if you decide, “Hey, I'm gonna kill everybody on the map,” well, for one, people should know where you are.

If you drop two teams, you should show up on the map every now and then. Why not? If you have the balls to go and wipe a team or two then people should know where you're coming from.

The second part of that is, just throw a fucking indicator up whenever a team gets wiped or extracts. You don't even have to say which one it is.

It would really help because now people have to weigh their options.

Do I wanna finish this contract? Do I really wanna finish this team?

It works on both sides. It creates fucking tension.

Another thing too, to prevent people from just wiping teams and fucking leaving—because yeah, people can do that. You could be a roaming asshole, wipe two teams, and then just leave.

Make it so once you've wiped enough teams, you can't use a normal extraction anymore. You have to use a guarded extraction.

And take it a step further. Make that extraction cost Matterweave or some other material to activate.

Actually, fuck it. Spawn a Warden on the extraction.

You have to kill it to leave. And make that extraction loud as hell.

Why the fuck not?

You went around wiping teams. Nobody stopped you from doing that. I'm not saying turn down the dinner bells or prevent you from PvPing. You wanted to wipe two teams? Cool.

Now your extraction is a dinner bell.

You've got a Warden plus other ads to deal with, and you have to actually fight your way off the map.

And one more thing: when that team hits their extraction, everybody on the map should get a message:

“HOSTILE TEAM IS EXTRACTING.”

Fuck it. Why not?

Everybody else gets dinner bells for what they're doing. You open a security room, people know. You fight certain enemies, people know. You activate an extraction, people know.

So if you've been running around wiping teams and now you're trying to leave, everybody should know that too.

You still get to leave. You still get to keep everything you took if you successfully extract. But now you've got your Warden, you've got the ads, you've got your loud-ass guarded extraction, and everybody left on the map knows a hostile team is trying to get out.

You wanted PvP? Well, here's some fucking PvP.

You can still wipe people. Nothing I'm suggesting prevents you from doing that. But you don't get to wipe everybody and then casually walk out.

Good lord I'm waiting to hear the sweats complain about this

From the mouth of the man, the myth, the legend himself, JoeZ. thanks dude, all the best! these are some quotes from his awesome blog post in S1

Season 3:

• Full on permanent PvE mode
• … we’re working on improving our onboarding experience to make it less overwhelming for new players.
• … we’ll be making changes to the contract system to improve how you interact with Priority and other contracts.
• … we're planning to introduce a lot (and I mean a lot) of revisions to our early experience, including:
  • big updates to Perimeter
  • a new Runner shell
  • additional (no spoilers) content.

Season 3 and Beyond:

• A new zone that leans into more alien elements and mind warping debuffs.
• New enemies from Tau Ceti and beyond, big and small alike.
• New weapons that fill out the battery side of the arsenal.
• New ways to exfil that create interesting tradeoffs between how much loot you carry versus how safe they are.
• [we’ll be] testing the waters around other mechanics (such as perhaps a more purely PVP-focused mode)

Season 4:

• …we're focusing on building more depth into the existing extraction loop.

Season 5:

• ...we're looking at bringing the whole ecosystem of (PV(P)VE) play together and evolving our weird sci-fi world in new ways.

These new changes to loot in ranked are absolutely exactly what the game needs, and I think this is the way for the future as well.

Loot is legitimately buffed quite a bit, and players in ranked are treating the game like an actual extraction shooter now instead of a Battle Royale. Loot the POI you spawn at, maybe rotate 1 more time to another POI, complete any event that's available in your area, and then look to get out. Because the ground loot you pick up is actually good enough you dont really need to go hunting teams.

Sure, PVP still happens and should happend if/when you do come across another team. But its a lot less rare as everyone is legitimately focused on looting an area instead of just hunting.

I think this should honestly be the future of the game not just for ranked. Ranked needs to be absorbed into the normal way we play the game, loot needs to be buffed significantly on all maps to the same Cryo logic being applied right now, and then your rank in the game can also opperate as a way to filter matchmaking and protect the worst players from the best players over time in a season.

With all the complaints I saw people were up in arms about the event.

“Need to wipe the lobby before getting the gun”

“We don’t need to play it first, we know how keys work and play”

“Another map event that will get me killed by trying to interact with it”

Anyone willing to retract their statements now that the event plays nothing like what people expected?? So much complaining for nothing.

I'm gonna play another 200 this game is fire.

I think like a lot of other people, when I read the premise, I wasn’t impressed, all that work for a gun seemed silly.

But actually getting into the mix and playing it. Pretty nice!

Almost all UESC units being rewarding to kill has been a lot of fun, even recruits no longer being fodder but part of the accumulation of loot is pretty nice. Let’s you play suuuper aggressively and not feel like a waste of ammo.

Then there’s the templates, most of them are much more reasonable than expected. Kill some stuff, loot some stuff, it’s nice being able to balance doing its requirements with both your teammates contracts and your own as it’s always a passive sidequest.

So it kinda becomes kill, loot uesc, loot template, do objective whilst looting more UESC, and you end up with a cool gun in the foreground that can killl and loot even more uesc, meanwhile you have picked up so many UESC-bucks that you can fasttrack cradle or cryo prep.

Is it a gamechanger? No. But it’s a nice little flourish that I wouldn’t mind getting similar versions of every once in a while during quiet parts of a given season

Obligatory NO AI USED disclaimer.

TLDR: Marathon has lots of great and intentional designs that end up contradicting each other. More distinct modes is a good way to allow more players to have fun, and I really hope they manage to salvage this imperfect masterpiece.

Two things can be true. Do I wake up every morning, brimming with excitement to get in an extra game of Marathon before my kids wake up? Yes. Is the game barely hanging by a thread while the devs desperately try to resuscitate it? Also yes.

Not here to name faults or offer yet another idea on how to "fix" the game, but after 300+ blast-having hours in both solos and trios, I wanted to highlight why I think Bungie's own intended goals makes it very hard for them to get everything right. A lot of the game's design decisions seem to be directly in conflict with each other:

1. Tension vs PVP curation

https://preview.redd.it/werlwp0ypakh1.png?width=1606&format=png&auto=webp&s=d0a741341816e2df97752d911ff6a9a840f96cf3

There is a lot of great tension intended in Marathon's sci-fi horror vibes and stealth mechanics, but PVP is designed to be all but guaranteed. Z himself stated that he wanted it to be about when, not if, you'll run into another team. There's value in curating PVP, and people have complained when the lobbies feel too empty, but curation kills tension, and there's no horror when you know that if your enemy is not around this corner, they're around the next. Lots of spawn rushing tactics also stem from this intentional density.

2. Complex combat vs. extraction gear loss

https://preview.redd.it/gyn0j7vypakh1.png?width=1607&format=png&auto=webp&s=fff5d3129d4fcec7fe77223f81b5ebd91bfa1f05

Marathon's trios-based combat has a carefully selected TTK that both enables and requires you to make a dozen decisions mid-fight, sometimes literally within a one-second window. That's a high skill ceiling, and in a good way. Simultaneously, extraction gear loss mechanics help reinforce the game as a punishing survival shooter, where losses hurt and wins are hugely rewarding. This makes it very hard to learn and practice combat. Have you ever found a shiny rare gun for the first time, only to lose it without firing a single shot? The result is that players who have either the time or skill to grind it out are allowed to get better, while the rest who don't have either (most of us) will feel completely locked out.

3. Rogue-lite death loops vs. crew fill unpredictability

https://preview.redd.it/zxcxu110qakh1.png?width=1606&format=png&auto=webp&s=7dc199a5ad3c8f223ac55978381f2f1e70d47f34

Die, learn, repeat. Rogue-lites are some of the most successful game loops these days, but each death needs to feel like you've learned something, or progressed in some small way. The game's trios-based crew fill matchmaking is designed to maximize emergent player stories, but too many death loops end with no meta-progression because of this, e.g. "my teammate just ran in and died". Nothing to learn from. This IMO is the biggest reason that players bounce off the game.

4. Exploration vs time crunch

https://preview.redd.it/v1ignsx0qakh1.png?width=1606&format=png&auto=webp&s=ad608acbcbdd6d2df62e51954777619379f30ec6

Marathon's maps are amazing labyrinths to explore and solve. There's a huge sense of mystery in the derelict colonies you're tasked to investigate. Simultaneously, sub-25-minute matches make it easier to schedule playtime and reset bad runs. But the time crunch disincentivizes exploration. We end up having to either skip the sightseeing or effectively forfeit precious gear and loot as "payment". This is why many players will tell you that the atmosphere and tension play out way better in solos, where PVP is less forced and you're not as rushed. But the incredibly fun and complex trios combat is wholly missing there.

5. Contract-based onboarding vs. trios design

https://preview.redd.it/jipsqjo1qakh1.png?width=1607&format=png&auto=webp&s=f1e367f0f024cc31f35d5639b6e281ad3556ca3a

Priority contracts are a decent tutorial for learning the basics and maps. But tutorials are inherently a solo endeavor. With almost everything in the game designed and tuned exclusively for trios, there is no easy way for players to onboard at their own pace. Some of us might've had the foresight to do contracts in solo and learn the ropes before diving into trios, but you can't rely on self-discovery for people to figure out just how to get started with a video game.

With all that said...

Why am I still in love with this game? Despite the conflicting designs, I think the parts of the game that the devs got right, they got them very right. My guess is that the players retained are ones who found a way to learn the mechanics of this sandbox with minimal handholding. Those of us who prioritize tension converged in solo, whereas those who enjoy high-adrenaline combat stayed in trios.

A lot of this may be a reflection of the clashes between Marathon's original pipedream and the now ex-director's PVP direction. Leveraging the good bones to create more distinct game modes is probably the simplest path to allowing conflicting design goals to coexist. In this sense, I think S3's focus on new player experience and more chill ways to explore content are good bets. Whether they can pull off the execution remains to be seen, but I wish Bungie the best of luck on turning this game around. The remaining player base is counting on it. Long live Marathon.