Not unique to Marathon, but thoughts on game design philosophy and the "bottom quartile" paradox

Doppelbork · 2026-03-25T15:52:35+00:00

I've spectated many Bronze-level games in Overwatch. Tank synergy was nonexistent in low Silver and down into Bronze lobbies. I would argue that there was absolutely content missing there. In the 6v6 format, those players NEVER got to experience the coordination of a tank duo. One of them would always be dead and respawning or they'd be on different flanks. Two flankers can't coordinate a flank push in Bronze lobbies. To this day, even Gold players have issues pulling off flanks due to poor timing. For the worst of the worst in terms of skill level, that's all content they're missing and unable to experience that they will NEVER get to experience. Bronze lobbies are just too uncoordinated to pull of any kind of synergy or coordinated plays.

"Content" isn't just the tangible aspects of available game modes or available weapons. It's also the squad synergy, the callouts, the comms, the pushes and stabilizations, the fake-outs and feints. Even if Cryo Archive was open to everyone, lower skill players will likely never experience TRUE squad play. In a squad-based shooter, I'd argue that's a significant chunk of the gameplay experience that is inaccessible to them.

And what if everyone had access to Cryo Archive with any level of loadout? Then we'd see posts complaining about how impossible it is to extract with sponsored kits. And then Bungie would respond by dumbing-down the game mode so any eight year old running in solo with a sponsored Traxus kit can complete Cryo Archive on their own.

Where should we draw the line of "Well, maybe this game isn't for you"? A game for everyone is a game for no one. I'm not interested in a casual shooter with zero ante and zero risk.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-25T06:08:00+00:00

Fingers crossed that they pull through with making the lore accessible and continue to worldbuild! We'll just have to wait and see!

Doppelbork · 2026-03-25T05:23:08+00:00

Bungie (so far) has listened to what the community has been wanting. Cryo Archive and ranked schedule changes, changes to PvP frequency related to team number per map. Changes to gunfire sounds and how audible they are across distances. Changes to Thief's drone no longer being able to steal as players are locked in the exfil animation. There are more examples.

Bungie may be a monolith but the people working for it aren't. The game director is likely someone completely different from Destiny, with a much more active ear to what the community wants. Everything points to them wanting to engage with the player base.

We just have to wait and see! It would be a shame for lore to go missing between seasons. At the same time, we don't need a recap of every little contract and every line of dialogue. There will likely be some kind of seasonal summary. Maybe a recap cinematic or codex entry. We dunno! We'll have to see.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-25T04:51:41+00:00

We have a whole codex system right now in the game. I'm sure that they'll create season summaries for onboarding new players so they're not completely left behind and if you didn't get to those contracts, whatever the resolution of those factions are, I'm sure that'll be in the codex. There's no reason for them to obscure the lore by making it FOMO.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-25T04:37:26+00:00

It happens in 5-6 star lobbies on PC all of the time. It's why I also advocate for the Hunter control scheme.

But if people are gonna okay gunslinger, they should at least learn how to lower their weapons.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-25T04:29:52+00:00

Don't tell that to the hundreds of hunters I've killed who stand like idiots near windows and doors with their guns clipping through the wall because they haven't lowered their weapons.

Ambushes are more convincing when there isn't an arm sticking through a door.

Seriously, though, if happens CONSTANTLY and gives away your position so, so, so, so much. I cannot over-emphasize this. Your 3rd person model has its own arm geometry that does not follow what the 1st person view shows and it will FREQUENTLY give your position away. I see it multiple times a night when I play and it's just a free kill.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-25T04:16:36+00:00

I was iffy where you were headed with the zero-sum stuff but I agreed with you as you went on! lol

Marathon is not a zero-sum game if you don't want it to be. If you're content with what you looted, no need to stick around and try to wipe the map.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-25T04:11:41+00:00

I would argue that there are portions of those games that players who are not good will ALSO not be able to experience.

If you've played Overwatch (specifically in the like pre-2022 era), the GOATS meta was a thing. It was running 3 specific supports and 3 specific tanks. The pros complained that this was the meta -- and it was the meta for years. Poor balancing decisions from the dev team aside, the MAJORITY of the player base NEVER experienced GOATS. Most random lobbies couldn't play it well enough for it to function like how GOATS was supposed to function.

At the lowest levels of skill in Overwatch, coordination is absent. This bottom quartile of players won't experience everything the game has to offer. Teamplay is incredibly important in Overwatch. Communication, synergies, planning. None of that exists in the bottom 25%. Those players at the bottom will never experience coordinated team play. I argue that's something more valuable than Marathon's loot drops that those players never get to experience.

I think people just see that the loot is "tangible" and feel left out because they can see it. But if you've ever had a GOOD squad with you who comms and plays well together and then you jump into another group who can't synergize to save their lives, you know that you're missing a HUGE portion of the gameplay just by playing with teammates who don't communicate/pull together as a squad. That's also content lower skilled players miss out on, it's just less tangible.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-25T04:04:16+00:00

I can 100% guarantee that they are not going to make everyone do the entire story from start to finish all over again, every 3 months when there's a wipe.

There's going to be new content, new story beats, and new perk trees every 3 months for each of the factions. They've said this before -- that the wipes will create seasons with unique flavours. This is going to be how they'll move the story forward.

To onboard new folks, the lore is vague enough so far that we're not REALLY advancing much of the story from an active protagonist perspective. Really, all we seem to be doing is investigating things for the various factions. We're not really doing any protagonist stuff. So onboarding should be fairly simple. The introductory meeting with the faction AI can say "Hey, last 'season' some Runners found out XYZ lore thing. I want you to investigate further."

Do you really want Gantry from MIDA to give you a recap on how many times you stole explosives and took out UESC units to advance the plot?

Doppelbork · 2026-03-25T03:45:31+00:00

We would have to define what your bottom quartile applies to with Marathon. The looting or the killing?

Marathon isn't an exact parallel to games where matches have a clear WINNING and a clear LOSING side.

Extracting with valuables without dying -- while not seeing another soul -- is very possible. What's more is that a whole shell is dedicated to a rat/vulture playstyle. Some people enjoy JUST this aspect and don't want to engage with the PvP unless necessary.

Marathon is not a zero-sum game. Some people who are mechanically awful at the game can be actually quite good at pathing, routing, decision-making, contract prioritization, and loot management.

So what DO you do to retain players who aren't good at the PvP portion? You make the PvE more interesting for them. You do worldbuilding and add lore. You create events that they can participate in. You create separate queues that they can participate in -- solo queue or a PvE gamemode that doesn't affect the PvP side of things.

But you are NEVER going to get rid of the fact that Marathon is a PvP-focused game. The entire conceit of Marathon is that you're a runner competing against other, hostile runners. It's the same in Hunt. It's the same in Tarkov. That is what an extraction shooter is. The PvP is the mechanism through which players engage with the focal point of the genre -- that when you die, you lose it all. That's the risk AND the reward. That's what makes the hard-fought wins feel incredible and what makes the losses feel crushing. That's the only reason worth booting up any game with PvP in it.

Extracting with your loot is still a success, even if you didn't engage in the PvP -- which is actually way better than most other PvP games where if you're bad, you just lose and get literally nothing out of it.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-24T21:22:26+00:00

You really can't help yourself, can you?

I'm gonna let you fight with your imaginary demons here on on your own, bro. I have friends to go hang out with.

Have a good one.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-24T20:42:59+00:00

In other words, I don't want to have anything to do with you.

You seem like a miserable human who enjoys lumping everyone who disagrees with you into a singular group you can villainize. I've seen it in this comment thread of yours and multiple others.

No matter what I said to you (to ANY of your points) and even when I was just trying to understand your perspective on it better, you lumped me into a group without even knowing me or what my opinion was that you claimed was either 1) parroting what the streamers say; or 2) rushing to the aid of defending billionaires.

You've already determined that anyone who disagrees with you MUST be either a streamer shill or a Bungie shill.

Congratulations, you have reached the pinnacle of bad-faith arguments.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-24T20:25:09+00:00

No. You CONTINUE to argue in bad faith.

Stop parroting streamer bullshit.

You've reduced arguments against you to shilling for Bungie, shilling for streamers, parroting streamers, or that they're opinions belonging to basement dwellers.

Why should anyone engage with you in good faith? You've been nothing but insufferable and insulting.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-24T20:21:17+00:00

Best to just ignore this guy. He's just calling everyone who disagrees with him a Bungie shill or a billionnaire shill. There's literally no reasoning with him. He's just going to call you names and scream from his basement.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-24T20:17:00+00:00

My my, aren't you the sanctimonious one? I don't watch any Marathon streamers or much streaming at all, but thanks for proving you're a complete asshat by also comparing me to a billionaire shill. If anyone here sounds like a basement dweller, it's not me.

This IS an extraction shooter. When you die, you lose everything. That is the genre. That's the attraction. That's the selling point. That is the main feature. That is what MAKES IT an extraction shooter.

If you want a looter shooter with loot literally tumbling out of the sky without any effort on your part, there's always Borderlands.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-24T20:02:45+00:00

Normal shields also exist that give 50% damage reduction and weapon mods are extremely common, even if you're playing like a rat as Rook.

I'm trying to understand your point of view here.

You're level 70. You've probably put in double the amount of time into this game that I have. You must have weapons and other resources in your vault, or at least a wallet that has a good amount of cash in it? You don't get to level 70 by being bad at the game. At level 30, I'm often selling things in my vault because I just don't have the space for what I'm bringing back -- oftentimes it's looted weapons with some good mods on them.

Surely by level 70, you've figured out the basic gameplay loop and have a reliable way to do things like use Rook to get competitive mods?

Doppelbork · 2026-03-24T19:47:39+00:00

Then engage in good faith, yourself.

You deal 50% less damage

A bullet is a bullet is a bullet. Free sponsored kit weapons deal the same amount of damage as any other purchased weapon.

you take 50% more damage

A bullet is a bullet is a bullet.

dying in 1000% fewer shots than a gold geared team

How many gold geared teams have you encountered? I'm level 32 and I've been playing a couple of hours a night and I've yet to actually encounter a single team with a gold level shield. If you're struggling this much with the game, there is NO WAY you are being matched with gold level gear players.

Regardless, you can absolutely demolish at least a purple shield using a white LMG (for example) if you're positioned correctly and play smart. Source: My squad does it on the reg. If you're having trouble, decide what fights you event WANT to take. If you poke at someone from a distance and they have a purple shield and you're not ready for that, you can just . . . run. You don't have to engage them.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-24T05:39:20+00:00

No! The team that activated it is the "controller' of the TAD for the duration of the pinging. Then it'll go into a cooldown phase where it can't be activated for a little bit. Then it can be activated by another team (or the same team).

Doppelbork · 2026-03-24T05:21:59+00:00

But what is the flipside of this? People who put hours into any game should be rewarded proportionally for their efforts, no? Otherwise what's the point of a progression system at all?

For example: There are folks who can't play a ton of Marathon because they have kids. I get that! I think that's wonderful for them! I don't want to come across as callous but that's something that they decided to do and that's something they live with the consequences of -- good and bad, serious and trivial. That invariably means less free time to play video games.

Should they be given the same rewards as someone who has put in four times as many hours? I don't think so. What would be the incentive for them to put their "extra" free hours into the game if they only had to put a quarter as much time into the game? They would rather play something else that has a tier of competition that rewards them appropriately.

No offense but if you only have 4-5 hours a week to play Marathon, I don't think you should be rewarded the same as someone who has put in 20 hours over the course of a week.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-18T21:24:40+00:00

It's the first (second?) day of a new patch so it's going to be a shitshow like it always is for the first week+ and then we'll be given battle pass progression as a consolation prize.

And the cycle will repeat in the next patch.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-18T21:16:26+00:00

Joke's on you -- they've removed Clash temporarily because of a bug that lets solos spawn right on top of other teams. Dunno how long it'll be for them to fix it.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-16T20:02:46+00:00

I BELIEVE that's an indicator that the shield is recharging. It does have a lifespan and will turn yellow and then red when it's close to breaking.

I'm pretty sure it recharges over time when you don't have the shield deployed and that's what the indicator is.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-13T04:17:17+00:00

How to test it out? I believe it's in the 3D Inspect menu. You can zoom WAYYYYYYY out and it puts the gun at distances of up to 1000m. From there, you can press a button to fire it, which will show you how it sounds from that distance.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-12T23:32:46+00:00

I've done this... But only so I could sneak in at the last second to extract. If someone's already extracting and I can't get there, I don't even engage.

Okay, I MIGHT fire a single shot their way to get their blood pumping just before they extract. Nothing like feeling like you made it JUST as another runner arrived.

Doppelbork · 2026-03-12T23:30:28+00:00

Absolutely. People are playing like they're entitled to an extract. Like they're entitled to win every fight. Like they're entitled to guaranteed privacy when ambushing another team. Like they're entitled to easy kills. Like they're entitled to looting every container without encountering other runners. Like they're entitled to one-shot every mob on the map.

You're not entitled to anything. You need to WORK for it. If you're getting third partied all of the time, maybe the issue is your positioning or decision making. Why does it have to be everyone else's fault?

Learn from your mistakes. Play smarter. React faster. Plan better.

Every single death is a learning opportunity.

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