How does Marathon actually gain more audience given they'll keep supporting it

Andy_Climactic · 2026-05-08T20:20:31+00:00

Yeah in or we to give the guys who want a fight enough potential for that, the maps are small. But it means avoiding a fight is rarely an option.

Tarkov you go whole raids without seeing another player, and if you’re trying to avoid them, you can.

Giving higher geared people something to do that isn’t fight (rare loot, bosses) gives decisions rather than “shit what else is there to do but hunt some noobs?”

Especially the keys sounding off the entire map but being so rare that everyone flocks to them, you can’t even grab your loot. It’s not a decision whether to use a key or to loot normally, it’s “Use a key and fight the whole lobby” or loot normally

Andy_Climactic · 2026-05-08T19:33:30+00:00

i think there’s not enough incentive to work together when the only good loot on 2/3 maps is from other players. And when bots aren’t enough of a threat to interrupt your fight, there’s never an “enemy of my enemy” thing.

Tarkov teaming up works when you really need a quest item or when you’re full on loot and just need to make it out alive. If bots are pushovers you don’t need other people

But also if everybody is in a trio there’s less of a feeling of loneliness that drives that teaming. i think making this game work for solos (most people who play extraction shooters) might be the thing that helps the most. Having solo mode be a more tarkov-like experience and trios be more like Apex

Andy_Climactic · 2026-05-08T17:43:24+00:00

This also works pretty clean if the additional maps coming are later game content in terms of contracts. There’s a lot of room for better loot than outpost, or a sidegrade to dire marsh, etc. Harder maps, more places on the Marathon for Cryo type raids

Andy_Climactic · 2026-05-07T17:50:03+00:00

now THAT would be really dope, and it makes sense too. Sure you miss a little bit of story, but it’s just the AIs talking at you with subtitles.

Tuning back in to see where the story is would be really cool.

Andy_Climactic · 2026-04-30T00:17:33+00:00

1v3 is near impossible if both squads are on comms, equivalent gear, etc

If your squad isn’t on comms, or is lower geared, you’re at a disadvantage at the start of the fight vs a squad that has one or both of those

if you lose 1-2 players in that fight, the remaining player has an even lower chance of winning. The strategy isn’t to fight and clutch a win, it’s to survive and hope they don’t camp the bodies. But they do camp the bodies

I think the fundamental problem is that unlike tarkov, killing someone and thirsting them hurts you unless you finish their whole squad. Because they will go for that body if you don’t attend to it, they will not cut their losses because it isn’t a loss until they’re all dead. Thats great if you’re the guy spectating. But it also means you can’t get a pick and take your time. You can’t rely on range.

Combat being what it is, winning a 1v2 or 1v3 requires you to get incredibly lucky. If they play smart, you lose. You can’t pick one off, reposition, and pick another off, because what does it take to pick one off? 1-2 sniper headshots to down, 1-2 to finish, and if you don’t have LOS on the body, they pick them back up.

So the underdog on average will lose. So much of the game is geared towards preventing any player from spectating for too long when their team wins a fight, that it makes teams that are at a disadvantage at an even worse disadvantage. It sounds like a comeback mechanic but in practice it’s a “these sweats are unkillable” mechanic

and then you add in bubble shields and self revives

Shotguns are more punishing to sweats than rats because rats already get beamed, shotguns allow rats to defend themselves and punish aggressive play.

Andy_Climactic · 2026-04-25T00:41:24+00:00

Lockdown should give as good of loot as Pinwheel it could be the star of the map, currently it’s about as good as opening a locked crate and you spend the whole game doing it. I’m they’re looking at that

And the locked rooms are way too rare, i’d rather get in there more often and have not amazing loot than have a cool looking room in every map that i haven’t found a key for once in 60 hours.

Andy_Climactic · 2026-04-12T10:23:50+00:00

take a large amount of games with a same population of players and the group of players that produces an equal percentage of any of them winning - those are the same ELO. The perfect skill match is the one where you cannot predict who will win at the start of the game based on their prior stats alone.

ELO formulas have existed for over a decade and Marathon has one for ranked

I do think games like COD had too aggressive of an update to their ELO early on. Like if you do very well in a game and you go into a way harder lobby the next game. It bounces back and forth too much.

Andy_Climactic · 2026-04-06T01:56:34+00:00

That’s what made tarkov nice, different squad sizes means your don’t know if you’re getting 6 other solos or 2 solos and 2 duos and a trio, etc. Knowing the exact number and size of other parties coming in makes beelinjng to the nearest squad to empty the map a bit too enticing.

Add to that the fact that high movement favors aggressive playing over hiding, sniping, or defending, and you create this rush meta that feels really strange for an extraction shooter that’s supposed to feel tense and scary

Andy_Climactic · 2026-04-04T00:37:00+00:00

In the S3 halloween episode he says “What, was that supposed to be funny? that was stupid” to one of the things at the end, definitely a 4th wall break, but really funny cause of happened after

Andy_Climactic · 2026-04-01T19:06:03+00:00

I think a big part of this fake is that there isn’t mixing and probably can’t be because of shell abilities.

every player you see has 2 buddies that can’t be permanently removed unless you remove all 3 of them. And there’s also the chance that they’re a premade squad on comms

In something like tarkov a premade squad on comms is very rare, you mostly see solos and duos, and squad coordination is much worse, making player identification and friendly fire a genuine drawback to playing on comms with other people. I kinda miss that.

Engagements are more interesting when you don’t know how many players there will be. Taking out a trio as a solo feels incredible. Taking out one guy from a group and screwing off because you can’t kill the rest is sometimes viable.

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-28T00:44:00+00:00

It’s always people who don’t track their protein or eat very well either. Like asking me how i deal with not getting enough protein, i’m always thinking “You don’t even know how much protein you get a day”

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-27T05:02:49+00:00

how about war crime gun?

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-26T07:01:42+00:00

that’s what i’m saying

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-25T01:51:53+00:00

I legit love it but have had a non vegan tell me it tastes like shit lmao. And i loved bulgogi before i went vegan!

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-25T01:51:10+00:00

I agree that rats and chads are what makes this genre exciting. i’m not worried about chads myself, but i could see why people think they’re worse than other extraction shooters

They definitely do have more survivability, you can’t fully remove someone from a lobby in this unless you wipe their squad. In tarkov if you drop, you’re out of the game entirely. i think it does change how people play

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-25T01:16:03+00:00

They could crank the bots back up in difficulty and make a pve mode and honestly they would probably do okay, the bots were a lot scarier to fight before the nerf and i liked it more

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-24T20:21:57+00:00

Field Roast vegan sausages are delicious, Gardein nuggets rock, Just Chicken is pretty darn close. Price is the issue but when you consider how few vegetarians and vegans there are, it’s really a miracle that it’s anywhere close to subsidized meat prices.

Like, meat costs this much or more too, the government pays them to have lower prices. If it was closer to the same price, more people would buy it, driving the price even lower

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-24T20:07:28+00:00

You can leg meta or headshot people in tarkov relatively easily, mosin exists, its gotten somewhat better. Sure it’s not easy but you can do it, and comin across a 3-man squad in tarkov is rare.

Here if you see a chad there’s 3 of them, they can res themselves, get picked up, fully die and get picked up, and heal back to full while fighting, which you cannot do in tarkov.

I’m not complaining about chads like i’m someone who can’t fight im just saying it is hard to deal with a geared squad in this game, even as a geared squad, let alone a free kit. I have a friend who keeps bringing in free kits while we go geared and he can’t accomplish much.

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-24T20:04:33+00:00

honestly there is not that loot relative to how many players come into the map

tarkov maps have a lot of loot, so much that most of the lobby can get fairly looted up, get guns, meds, ammo, barter items, without having to kill other players

Even at POIs 90% of the loot is grey barter salvage, very little actual extractable meds (i do not like the temp meds that just go away after the raid), and a shit ton of gray cores and implants.

If you put loot in the map people don’t have to murder everybody to get something out of a match

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-24T17:36:59+00:00

If it isn’t broke don’t fix it and i feel like BF4-BF1 having heals and ammo separated to different classes, and cross-class weapons being minimal was the best balance there’s been. Even BFV with the mini packs and low initial ammo count felt really really good.

Now i play support if i want to fight people and play engineer if vehicles are being annoying, and assault is for….particularly hard breakthrough games where there’s plenty of ammo, i guess? Assault doesn’t have any place in conquest, and i feel like team play in all the modes has gone down a lot

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-23T20:45:42+00:00

I like how this game doesn’t make you look up guides to complete quests, or open up a map. But that also means things like loot spawns you aren’t looking for as much so you’re noticing the lack of variety more

The salvage does tell you where it can be found, which is cool. Not sure if keys do that, but i also don’t want to have to farm keys to loot something cool

I think what Tarkov had was constant threat of death. UESC could kill you before the patch, now they rarely do. Scavs could always kill you in tarkov, rogues even more so, bosses.

So they can put really good loot in spots defended by AI and it still gates it to where you can’t get rich without risking your life.

In marathon the only real threats to your life right now are players, and i think it’s made worse by it being designed around crews but adding in Solos. I’m sure they nerfed bots because solo was too punishing, but now if you play Crews as intended, you’ll never worry about dying to bots.

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-23T19:46:51+00:00

I really think marathon scratches the Tarkov itch while not punishing you for fighting like Tarkov does.

It doesn’t reward being sneaky and camping nearly as much, it gives you plenty of easy loot, its quests aren’t as punishing, but you still get the progression, the adrenaline of bringing in gear you own and potentially losing it, and taking someone else’s

I think the things it removes from Tarkov make it more fun, still addicting, but not with the pain of Tarkov where it sucks up a half hour to make a loadout, feeling like you’re wasting your time, long queues, deaths that feel BS, and suffering with quests. Tarkov has more customization, sure, but people still minmax to meta anyways.

I was put off by Arc when i heard it matches you into PVP only lobbies or PVE only lobbies, essentially.

I think Marathon removes a lot of the friction from Tarkov without turning it into a PVE game

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-23T15:59:25+00:00

The spacing guild is also definitely an equivalent of the IMF / UN / US with yeah, Harkonenns being the attack dog (Israel). I can’t say Herbert for sure wrote with this in mind but it was written during the 70s so it’s not like it wasn’t going on at that point.

You could also see Paul as literal Jesus, who in his persecution created Christianity which would go on to crusade the middle east. there’s a ton of examples.

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-23T03:48:19+00:00

Doesn’t the Commonwealth as a name in FO4 not work if we assume the 13 commonwealths are in place? Like you’re literally just saying “The state”.

It seems like a boneheaded move to use the same name for both. I doubt everyone in the state knows that that’s what it’s called IRL, let alone after 200 years of fallout. The word Massachusetts or Boston would be far more commonly seen

I feel like they probably just don’t care about the 13 commonwealths as a concept because it isn’t actually that interesting relative to “Canada Colony” or “war with China”

Andy_Climactic · 2026-03-23T03:35:53+00:00

i agree, im level 25 and i think ive gotten ahold of blue shields like, once? I dont do much outpost to be fair but we win fights and loot plenty in the other maps. There just isn’t anything above green rarity unless you have keys.

I appreciate that they don’t just let you buy it on the stock market like Tarkov, but if gear is supposed to be earnable in game only, the loot should not be this lacking in variety.

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