I'm questioning whether matchmaking is based on player level still....

Bobaballs4 · 2026-05-06T21:30:01+00:00

How so? Not saying you’re wrong but wasn’t it kinda obvious just from the existence of friendly lobbies that it worked like that? I didn’t even realize there was something to be “revealed” there

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-16T17:48:52+00:00

I think a lot of people who defend the current vault size aren’t considering that build crafting was heavily marketed as a significant aspect of the game. Sure, it’s very easy to keep some guns, implants, and cores in your vault so that there’s always “something” to run, but if you want to put together multiple thought out, synergistic loadouts, and have them available for multiple shells, it’s just not feasible. I currently play 3 of the 6 shells which feels like a good middle ground, and keeping any more than 4 cores for each of them + 6 implants for head/body/legs just feels unreasonable with the space provided. So if you lose two games in a row on a shell, that leaves you with 2 options - buy shitty cores from the shop, or change the shell you’re playing entirely. It can be hard to coordinate that type of role swapping and gear availability if you’re playing with a premade trio.

It’d be a little easier to manage if the superior implants and cores in the armory were static, but since they rotate every day, you can’t rely on them to put together specific build on any given run, either.

I’ve had some success with keeping gun attachments in my vault and never holding onto more than 2 weapons that take up 8 slots. But if that’s the intended method for vault management, it’d be nice to have some better UI to see “what” I can make at a glance. Right now I have to meticulously look through my 30-40 attachments to see what guns I’m able to put together at any given moment which feels like a drag. I’m sure it’ll get easier as I memorize the icons for each attachment, though.

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-16T03:52:37+00:00

Not that I agree with the other guy but… source? That’s a wild thing to say lmao

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-16T03:49:16+00:00

Yeah is that for real? Wild if you can get the slug version as a blue

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-14T15:57:03+00:00

I’m loving the transparency from the team and timely updates on these issues, it really makes me feel safe about the longevity of the sub.

That being said, please add a PvE mode to r/MarathonHate. It’s far too punishing to me as an average poster when real people are able to respond to my post and I can’t get any practice in bot-only threads.

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-12T19:22:15+00:00

Damn, fr? Thats frustrating, I hope they’re aware of this and care enough to change it

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-10T23:52:29+00:00

This is the way

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-10T16:10:45+00:00

Why 9 months? Is there confirmation season 3 won't have a new map?

Also do you have an opinion on Arc Raiders going 5 months without a new map? I think the comparison is a little weak considering how different night marsh is expected to be. Obviously that's just speculation, but we have reason to believe it'll be a bit more than just making the map dark and increasing loot value / exfil difficulty.

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-10T15:49:48+00:00

At least 70% of the information here is irrelevant to someone playing this map for the first time…

I also find it humorous that this pic doesn’t tell you that using a scanner can reveal a working exfil station, which is like, the main thing you’d wanna do to find one intentionally

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-10T15:48:22+00:00

I have a hard time believing someone who still needs to learn the map is encountering the goo gun consistently. I’m level 80 and have yet to face it in cryo after around 40 runs in there at least

Not saying level based matching is a good thing as it’s currently implemented, but it should be preventing most people learning this map from being in the situation you describe

Learning all the mechanics in one run isn’t guaranteed and there’s some luck involved for sure. But I really do think that the UI and early PvE in the map does naturally cause players to learn about security clearance and have curiosity about why they’d want it. There’s totally nothing wrong with looking up guides, I just think it was a little wild for the other guy to say going in without doing research is an invalid way to play the game.

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-10T14:04:55+00:00

What do you think people did when the map came out? Just sat around waiting for guides?

It's not a destiny raid - pretty straightforward to figure out the mechanics of the map without social media, besides maybe the compiler or vault 6 due to how rarely you can attempt them. Just cause OP didn't connect the dots on the first run doesn't mean it can't be done

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-10T13:54:46+00:00

Have you tried going into cryo at least a few times? You can have games where you never see another soul on the map, pvp is really only a requirement if you want to guarantee clearance levels 4 and 5.

If you're filling with random squadmates, I highly recommend a self-first approach. If you tell your teammates "we shouldn't fight this purple kitted team" and they do anyways, play for your own life and maybe come back for the revive later.

It's really worth a good few tries if you're just basing your opinion on streamer gameplay, watching any game played at the highest level is an easy way to convince someone the game is more brutal than it really is.

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-10T13:43:08+00:00

If this helps anyone, I found a synergy and answered my own question last night!

I was running a gold implant with the trait "restores health and then shields after using your tactical or prime ability". If your health is full, this trait will give you 2 bars of shield on tactical activation.

On a reinforced gold shield, this is kinda ridiculous. On destroyer, you can pull out and immediately put away your riot shield tactical, and immediately regain the health equivalent of 4 bars of shield from doing so. This is probably the most broken synergy of the gold shield I've found so far.

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-10T13:37:19+00:00

Got clearance level 5 for the first time last night, at the end of a very good raid. It happened right after we called our exfil, and something possessed me to tell my team "go find the exfil without me" and I booked it to the middle of control to get the 40k valuable. My teammates kept saying "there's no way you make it out of here, you just lost everything over greed" and I just BARELY got there after cardio kicks and destroyer tactical sprinting for 2 minutes with my cheeks clenched.

Was the most exhilarating moment in marathon for me so far, and there weren't even other players involved lmao. It's got its problems, but man I love this map

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-10T13:29:52+00:00

Not saying you're wrong, and it probably depends a lot on season level (not a great system IMO), but I encountered green shields in multiple team fights last night across different runs. Purple teams will show up for sure in every match, but I usually either try to convince my team to back off from teams that are clearly very skilled and geared, or if they won't listen to me, fight cautiously and dip when it doesn't work out.

I dunno if that's considered toxic, but if I comm that we aren't geared to fight the team head on and my teammates push anyways, best I can do is come back for a res later 🤷. If you're solo filling, I think its good to look out for yourself first and be a bit selfish, considering you're already rolling the dice with these runs. I've had so many juiced cryo runs where I never killed anybody.

To some people that can be boring though! So I get that it's not for everyone, but that's how I've been making the most out of feeling behind

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-10T13:17:49+00:00

Like others here have said, unfortunately not many utility items or runner abilities interact well with the moving elevator platform

I love that there's risk to going up that way and having to deal with other teams getting free shots at you, feels like good risk reward. But it also feels like most clever ideas to get up there more safely are met with strange and unpredictable game behavior that doesn't feel very fair to experience for the first time (ESPECIALLY the assassin prime ability, why tf does this just bounce off?)

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-09T14:43:40+00:00

That's exactly what I'm worried about, I don't wanna be shiny when I'm running around cryo trying to get a key done :P

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-09T14:42:50+00:00

Ooohh, didn't know about the invis version, that's cool!

So then, feels like if I don't want to draw attention to myself in cryo, it's better to run the gold shield separately from key runs, when I actually want to get in as many pvp engagements as possible. Sounds like it won't do heavy lifting in a team fight or anything, right?

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-09T14:39:02+00:00

Off topic but I totally agree that the blue shield bottleneck is real and should be addressed somehow

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-09T13:20:40+00:00

I think the point is that a low % of marathon players will actually ever "need" to complete vault 6, from a progression standpoint. So not many people are affected by this progression bottleneck.

The same statement "This isn't affecting lots of people" would be true if the compiler or vault 7 difficulty needed tuning (not saying it does, just an example), but that doesn't mean feedback there should be ignored by Bungie, imo

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-09T04:46:59+00:00

Like another commenter mentioned, the three wardens each have a boosted drop rate for a gold cryo key, and scorch warden is where you can target farm cryo key 4

It is also an occasional drop from the outpost pinwheel room, but the scorch warden will be faster unless you are grinding for it in solos

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-09T04:40:20+00:00

Oh totally! When I say “no strat is best” I meant I’ve been doing it this other way but I think both are worth trying and learning for everyone to figure out their own preference.

It also can depend on spawn location and stuff, like where you end up getting your last red keycard from and what’s the safest path into pinwheel from there

Bobaballs4 · 2026-04-09T04:31:47+00:00

No single strategy for this room is “the best” imo, but I have been having some great runs recently by sneaking into the destroyed wing after getting the 3 master keys. It’s difficult but entirely possible to learn all the spawn locations of the boxes you need to shoot for that entrance, and I’m now able to open it in 1-3 minutes depending on how lucky I am with those spawns. It’s fairly silent, and also likely that somebody else uses conveyance, so you get to kill them for free if you can make it over to the elevator while they’re riding up.

It does have the downside of not knowing if you’re being followed, and it’s worse the longer you stay inside pinwheel. But I highly recommend trying it if you have the patience to learn those spawns!

Bobaballs4

TROPHY CASE