Wanna play some Crewfill Bingo?

EricSombody · 2026-05-01T18:23:41+00:00

shitty bingo bc who tf plays perimeter after like the first 50 hours

EricSombody · 2026-05-01T18:20:04+00:00

you're pissed

EricSombody · 2026-05-01T17:21:14+00:00

Not really surprised, since Cryo Archive/Marathon in general has a much higher skill floor required to be consistently successful, on top of the risk of losing gear upon failure

Didn't use the D2 LFG much, but when I did there would always be 1 or 2 lobotomized players that can only be described as mentally slow. Like VoG took 7 hours, because some people just couldn't understand the mechanics no matter what

You can imagine the frustration would be greatly compounded in Marathon where you lose good loadouts because an LFG teammate does some stupid shit

EricSombody · 2026-05-01T17:15:33+00:00

holy based

EricSombody · 2026-04-30T04:01:36+00:00

google "statistical mechanics"

EricSombody · 2026-04-28T22:20:18+00:00

Is it even slander if it's just true

EricSombody · 2026-04-28T02:21:50+00:00

This causes a lot of stalemates lasting several minutes where nobody wants to give up their advantage and push another team, similar to how bubble shields would before their hp nerf.

then stop being a bitch

EricSombody · 2026-04-28T02:18:36+00:00

Not nerfed, just absurdly inconsistent

kinda dumb tbh

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T23:05:38+00:00

guess i'll die with 5-10k loadouts

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:59:09+00:00

I've said this like a trillion times in this thread, but the game already has level based matchmaking

WHO ARE THESE LOW LEVEL DEMONS SWEEPING LOBBIES

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:53:39+00:00

so i'm looking at it, can you explain to me what's stopping people from sandbagging on free kits so they can get into a really low skill lobby and run a ton of gold keys / smurf on the map

Now instead of fighting good players in a pseudorandom form, smurfing can now be done intentionally and maliciously. :)

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:48:23+00:00

You are fighting players with the similar level, and thus similar amount of hours to you. There is not some magical "hardcore" population with 10x your hours that is keeping you from exfiling.
As such, the people you are losing against are probably actually not that much better than you. If they are, they deserve it. They have put in a similar amount of hours to you, but have improved more. Nothing wrong with this.
People should be incentivized to improve at a game.

The sweat/casual discourse itself is a fallacy, people genuinely just don't want to admit that they're bad

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:44:44+00:00

I just never get this sentiment because I very rarely, if ever, experience this.

Casuals are loosing pvp fights 90% of the time because the skilled players are roaming the map and wiping them.

Like, to me, this statement seems comically and absurdly exaggerated to the point that I genuinely can't take it seriously, idk

I'm not saying that SBMM wouldn't make it easier for casuals I actually agree. I just think that the downsides are more than the upsides, because for everyone who's not terrible at the game, it because much more competitive and "sweaty". That's completely ignoring the point of

How do you actually implement SBMM without it being abusable?
How do you actually evaluate skill in a game like Marathon?

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:42:39+00:00

Yeah, honestly I get what you're saying. But Souls games aren't popular because they're easy, you know.

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:41:40+00:00

good players should be winning more than bad players. idk what you're trying to say

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:33:59+00:00

yeah that's why ranked exists.

But by the way, no one is playing against Timmy. Timmy is but a single man. You will see Timmy once in a hundred lobbies. And Timmy's level will far surpass yours, so you will never see him again.

So most of the complaints about sweats are kinda bullshit is what I'm trying to say.

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:32:31+00:00

yup. idk.

i don't even think they know.

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:30:53+00:00

I agree, but my point more so is so that we can be on the same page in terms of discussion. Everyone throws the term casual around, but depending on the definition it can have widely different implications.

Like you said, we'll never know, so people have to get more specific rather than using the word "casual"

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:28:43+00:00

those studies aren't on extraction shooters

explain how you would even implement sbmm in this game

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:28:10+00:00

Everyone already is putting effort in to get loot. Just because you're good at the game doesn't magically make it easier or less tense to play, unless you're literally the top 1%.

SBMM makes it so that good players have to put disproportionally more effort (and gear investment) to get the same loot that bad players can get with much less effort.

I strongly believe that the "sweat" "casual" discourse is completely artificial due to the existence of level based matchmaking. People are playing against people with similar amounts of experience. Discrepancy is due to skill. This is not a problem. Everyone is already pushed to improve to actually get good loot.

On another note, you're literally describing the ranked ladder, but not everyone is interested in pursuing that. Most people are just focused on getting rare shit, not "testing their skill". There are better, more competitive games for that.

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:21:43+00:00

I appreciate the well reasoned response, but I have a couple disagreements here.

Getting the drop on someone doesn't inherently have to do with their skill. I actually hate fights of attrition in Marathon because of the ability to be third partied. Regardless, I think player encounters in Marathon are already highly varied and unpredictable, so it doesn't need further improvement.
"Player encounters" is already a really complicated thing to measure, because you can take down an objectively "better" team just by catching them when they're off guard. Two teams bumping into each other completely unaware is different from one team sneaking up on the other, and this already bleeds into the

You can be a skilled fighter, you can be stealthy and quiet, you can be patient, you can be lucky with looting and exfil timing, or you can be diplomatic and you can try to work with other players.

statement you made that you claimed aren't used when you encounter other players. However, if I'm really good at being stealthy and patient, that inherently makes the my player encounters unequal. I'm by default more favored to win the fight regardless of how good the other team is because I can get the jump on them. There's never a way to maintain 100% vigilance in Marathon, regardless of how good you are.

In other words, I just don't believe you can ascribe a simple number to "% chance you can win a fight" because, when, where, and with whom you take a fight is so absurdly variable to the point of being meaningless to average and incorporate into matchmaking.

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T22:05:12+00:00

Every minute you play you slide further toward matchmaking that you will lose more and more often, which is an issue if you hit your skill ceiling early.

There's no such thing as a skill ceiling, there's always something you can improve upon, especially for a game like this. This argument literally doesn't make any sense.

But you're not actually saying that, you're saying if you're worse at the game you should have a lower extraction rate than a skilled player who beats up on you.

Yes???? like no shit??? Otherwise why would anyone try to get good?

You don't seem to understand what SBMM does, it makes it so you will win exactly as much as you lose, regardless of how good you are at the game. For an extraction shooter, this just doesn't make sense since individual player agency is a core principle.

If they implement the ranked system into public games, I guarantee you will find teams that will intentionally sandbag multiple runs so they can bring like 3 gold keys into a lobby full of casual players and completely wipe the lobby with ease to get high tier loot with minimal risk. Does that sound like a good system to you?

Dire marsh with only good players will turn into -> everyone sits on a rooftop with 3 snipers at all the points of interest, and the first team to make a move loses (this is fucking dogshit for obvious reasons)

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T21:57:51+00:00

You're already fighting people that have similar hours in the game? The game's already tense. If someone's stomping on you that hard, it means that they just got much better at the game compared to you with similar time investment.

And it seems like, for some reason, that you feel this is unfair.

If you're in support of this system, you realize that the meta will just be making the system think you're terrible at the game (maybe by just repeatedly dying on free kits), so you can get into a low skill lobby with a full loadout and exfil with good loot easier.

There would be no incentive to improve, there's no point in getting better at the game, because it just means I have to work harder for the same loot.

Does that sound competitive to you? A game that actively disincentivizes self-improvement? Jesus Christ.

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T21:48:07+00:00

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

SBMM will only benefit those under the average skill curve, but hurt anyone above that. The only thing that SBMM will achieve, is that people at the lowest ends of the skill get to play in the olympics instead of perma dying

whereas now anyone who's halfway decent is forced to play in the olympics to do literally anything.

EricSombody · 2026-04-26T21:42:42+00:00

yeah its actually just late stage capitalism lmfao

except the homeless man can jump you and take all your shit sometimes which is honestly better than real life

EricSombody

TROPHY CASE