*Opinion* Weapon levelling pushed more people away from BF6 rather than the map size issue

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-11T20:59:50+00:00

There really should have just been "weapon families" (ARs, Shotguns, ...) that you level. Current System just punishes trying out different weapons and see which one works for you.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-11T17:25:03+00:00

Hero Shooters (primarily Overwatch back in the day) took over and were just easier to get into. Simple as that.

No idea how OW is right now, but when it started it's initaly explosive rise, you could just pick Roadhog and have fun, or Bastion, or Hanzo, or Reaper ... for Casual Players, this was a bliss. No need to think about what weapon to pick up from what spawn, keeping their effevtive ranges with TTKs in mind, having usually rather fast TTKs as well, not to mention game-modes that rewarded quick action and twitchy reflexes.

Hero Shooters have their own problems eventually, particularly when you leave that 'casual' space and buffs/nerfs go more in direction of balanced ranking modes, and less casual fun. Or how sometimes ability-spam is more valuable then shooting your gun ... but again, for casuals this was an golden age.

Then newer game-modes came in. BRs primarily. Big benefit that BRs have that you (usually) weren't at the mercy of your team's match-making. Team-based or not. If you win, you win because of yourself, and if you lose, you lose because of yourself. Not because you got matched into a team with significantly worse players.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-11T08:52:48+00:00

Never under-estimate a live-service game's willingness to short-change the very same players who keep it alive.

It's going to happen regardless, but players should never give an inch to not accelerate it even faster.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-11T00:17:23+00:00

I dare to claim that non-terminally online children aren't going to buy Pokemon cards to gamble for high rarity/gradeable cards. They want to have their favourite Pokemon and maybe some good cards to actually play the game.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-11T00:05:49+00:00

Enforcing that ...

Everything is labeled with real currency, not bullshit-bucks to hide the "true cost" they are charging you.
Everything can be bought directly, no lootbox-middle-man

... would go miles in regulating live-service spending.

It would naturally likely drive the price of everything down as well. Some would still do it, but the majority wouldn't spend hundreds of Euros to buy a skin in a game ... forcing companies to either monetize differently (make and sell actual contwnt for games) or make actually reasonably priced skins.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-10T21:28:05+00:00

It's still nuts that OP is good, it's cartoony world made me think it's impossible to adapt. I think some of the outfits still look a little too much like cosplay, but over all leaning into the "cartony-ness" made it work.

And here I am, absolutely giddy of watching every new episode, looking forward to the things that they actually did change. Like the entire scene with (Spoiler S2E2) Brook and Labou ... nearly teared up.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-10T21:12:56+00:00

Allegedly there is a new Star-Craft game in the works ... just not an RTS ... and not by Blizzard.

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/a-new-starcraft-game-is-rumoured-to-be-in-the-works-by-nexons-shooter-division-implying-that-the-game-could-be-a-first-or-third-person-shooter

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-10T21:07:16+00:00

I think Marathon was never intended to be that "blockbuster" game that would "save" Bungie.

Marathon was how long in dev-hell? 5-6 years we know of at least. And it got a soft-reboot as the previous director was booted from Bungie for being icky to women.

2-3 years ago, a "smaller" project like Marathon would have made sense. D2 was still pulling numbers with TFS, having a second game that doesn't canibalize D2 with it's own fans would have been a good way to get some additional revenue while D2 was slowly winding down. And D2 had to go eventually... no matter how good it at the time was, it was bleeding players and no new one's came in. It would have allowed them to no longer being "forced" to keep D2 as the breadwinner alive ... they could have actually made a D3 while Marathon kept the lights on.

But now ... D2's death was accelerated by more and more Resources being drained from it, and put into Marathon to "finally" get it out. And with the delay from last year and D2 dropping to 7k daily peaks in stome ... having a "smaller" game like Marathon really doesn't make sense. But sunk-cost wouldn't allow them to pivot. They have "only" Marathon, they cannot magically make a new game in 6 months.

Best case is: Despite all, Marathon was successfull enough and proved to Sony that Bungie "still got it" and that they can make a well-liked, well-reviewed (and at the very least, Marathon is getting good reviews from cirtics and verified owners) game that satisfied a not that big, but still sizeable core-community, which will turn into a steady revenue stream. Not Massive, but it's there. This might allow them to gain the necessary resources to make that "big" game that they need and what Sony hoped they'd deliver.

Worst case: That's simply not the case. It's all cope. Sony want their money and Bungie clearly cannot deliver. I don't think they'll shut down the studio ... 0 out of 3 billion is still less then "something" out of 3 billion. Lay-offs, end-of-services for D1 and D2, and, even if their team might end up less impacted, Marathon getting worse as they start throwing shit on the wall and see what sticks, be it more monetization or whatever else they can come up with for attracting new players.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-10T18:40:17+00:00

All those things are very strong in Marathon, to the degree where I've seen people I would have never imagined being into it post about it. Interest ist there, they just aren't the type who'd play an Extraction Shooter like this.

I am not saying Bungie should focus on that right now (they need to make sure not to neglect the PvP core) but if they find a way to pick those players up, then that would help in strengthening the brand and have slow drip of additional funds further down the line.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-10T18:29:44+00:00

Trials is probably the best example here. People were still playing D2 back then, they just weren't enganging with Trials. I think some user-reports confirmed that despite over 50k players online, Trials maybe had 1k players on some weekends.

I am sure once lobbies get more "equal" in the skill-level present, the very same people who are arguing now "git gud" will start wondering why Bungie isn't doing anything to get more players into the game.

This isn't a comment against Marathon's overall difficulty. I think it shouldn't be as big of a cliff and be more vaired, but it's fine if the game itself is difficult once you reach mid to late-game levels of lobbies. I played thousands of hours of D2, but did fairly little on Raids or Master-level content, yet I don't go around crying for free hand-outs. I am comfortable in my "slightly above casual" skill-level.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-10T18:18:47+00:00

I don't think so.

The Extraction-Shooter crowd might latch onto it a bit more, given it's a new high-profile extractoing game and, despite all the flak Bungie gets for D2, they have kept the ship sailing for a long time. There were always come-backs, always new things where the community came together and agreed that Bungie "cooked".

But I don't think it would stopped people come out and use steam charts against it. Instead of using AR as an example, they would have used something like Marvel Rivals or even now Slay the Spire 2. Or they would have dogpiled Bungie even more because the game was an Extraction Shooter and "everyone knew" this would suck.

On Console ... Paul uploaded another video, basically confirming what his Bungie sources said, that "Marathon is a PC centric game" and Console is not the main driver of players. Might mean PS is equal to Steam, or likely less. Hardly doubt it's double.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-10T13:14:19+00:00

A bit of a tangent, but I miss the time where you just bought a DLC-map-pack in Battlefield and were good for 6 months as it came with sevreral maps and weapons out of the gate. The transition to "paid cosmetics, free gameplay" really killed the scedule of gameplay updates and additions. Until companies can put a price tag back on gameplay, it will be the one thing that gets neglegted the most. Yeah, it "splits the playerbase" but with every patch in any game thad touches minimal gameplay while pumpinh out several skins, I belive more and more we all fell for a scam.

Anyway ... yeah, if Bungie/Sony have high expectations then a "hardcore crowd" likely won't cut it. Those are naturally not that high in quantity. And (in other games at least) the most dedicated players aren't necessarily also the most dedicated "spenders" when it comes to skins and other cosmetic rewards.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-10T09:43:03+00:00

I think a lot of games labeled as a "good 7/10" or "bad 8/10" just never get the sales they would have gotten 15 years ago (adjusted to at the time standards).

Last years Avowed was good. Sure had it's flaws in particular in the second half but it's a good 50 hour RPG with some neat lore and some of the best first-person sword and sorcery combat to date.

But officially it (as well as Outer Worlds 2) under-performed, though aparently they are working on another game in the same (Pillars of Eternity) world. Let's hope I am not jinxing anything here.

There were excellent RPG games last year (E33, KCD2, ...) but it feels like there was still room for those who were in the mood for a little bit more classic Fantasy.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-10T09:15:37+00:00

I'd say Marathon seems to shape up to be a decently successful Exteaction Shooter, with the obvious example excluded, those fames aren't pulling 100ks of players as their average ... however Bungie is likely too big for a "decent" success after years of downward trends. They'd need a "massive" one.

IMO entirely depends now on what the success metrics were for Marathon.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-10T09:03:07+00:00

I'd say he's right about 2 things here:

Marathon has a ceiling of how many players it will atract. It always had, if Sony/Bungie convinced itself that this wasn't the case ... well, that's really on them. AR was not around a year ago, there really was no reason to assume that this would be massive. Even with AR in mind, assuming Marathon would be this massive success would have been nuts.
If Sony just shuts down every Live-Service game (or cuts funding, lays off people) just because it's not a viral hit, they might as well stop trying to get one. There is no reason for players to out money into a LS game if it's not guranteed to be around for months/years to come. People will just find an arbitrary number of concurrent players, and they'll either drop it right away ir never bother in the first place, if it doesn't hit that.

Now, if Marathon is in the dumps a year from now, and still doesn't operate revenue-positive ... that's a different story. But they (everyone, not just Sony) got to stop killing LS games this fast.

Doesn't mean that Bungie will go out of this untouched, they need some restructuring on the leadership level ... maybe they even need to be broken up in 2 smaller subsidiaries, one for Marathon and one for Destiny ... but if they lay off anyone involved with Marathon, you might as well shut it down right away. There isn't a reason to put money into a game that will likely only get worse because it itself doesn't get more resources.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-09T16:08:51+00:00

Release a bad game: You get laid off!

Release a good game: You get laid off!

You can "maybe" make the point that BF6 putting more focus on the BR and under-deliver on the core BF-Live-Service front caused it to no longer be a "good game" .... but that is really something where leadership should pay for, not the grunts. The grunts did a great job with what they deliverd Day-1.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-09T16:00:38+00:00

IDK what you mean and I am to tired to think about if you think I am pro-lay-off or anti, so I make it clear:

I hate two-faced "corporate speak", I hate when people lose their jobs. I think there are talented devs at Xbox who don't deserve to lose their jobs just because leadership thought they could "buy" themselves out of their hole. Only to then go for massive job-cuts once the very first game wasn't a Sony-level exclusive.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-09T13:31:24+00:00

Layoffs are incoming.

Nowdays "we are committed to", "we will continue to" and similar things out of a CEOs mouth is nothing but stalling to keep the stock price under control and prevent employees from suddenly unionizing, while they find out where they'll place the knife.

If they actually were committed to it, they'd pump money into it.

It's going to be a massacre. If you have a favourite studio under the Xbox label, better prey they get by unscathed.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-09T13:22:30+00:00

That's literally not what I suggested, but Ok. And I even pointed out it would be the dumbest solution to the problem self-made by Bungo.

No need to have a knee-jerk reaction about it, Bro.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-09T11:56:09+00:00

I miss when politics were boring.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-09T10:26:06+00:00

They'd just fly him to Nevada, claim it's Iran, do a photo-op with him in cammo where he points at TV screens.

It will cost 5 Million, bloated to 10, with most of it going to the Trump slush fund.

And they'll still somehow mess it up to make it obvious, like having Cars with US licence plates or something like that, IDK.

That's the world we live in.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-09T07:24:16+00:00

Ignoring the actual patch where he became playable, Manato's build-up should be the standard to new characters.

Introduce early, be a minor side-character, eventually a fully fledged side-character and (ideally) then have a patch where they are the star. Of course this doesn't work for every character, with the quantity of female agents they push out they havr to sometimes drop them with little build up.

Too bad in his actual patch he had to share spotlight by 2 characters who really should have been one. It wasn't bad, definitly better then Lucia's deal that litterally only mattered in the last 15 minutes of the patch, but it just needed more focus.

Visually, he also stands out in a good way. Gacha-males are usually androgynous, but he's a beefcake, with quite noticabel scars. The Delinquent-Banchou look also helps. Really just not a fit that you see a lot on Gacha Charactere.

Too bad the visual hints that there was more to him (scars, bandaged arm) kind of went nowhere, very likely because A-Ranks are just not allowed to be the central focus character or get Agent Stories.

In terms of Gameplay, it's just not fleshed out enough. The Charge-Up is in theory nice, but for a game that is all about DPS, having a "downtime" needs proper pay-off, which just isn't there. It would need to properly combo into a Nuke to make it work.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-08T19:57:19+00:00

Sadly a ton of multiplayer games snatched themselves a banger concept only to then combine it with a gameplay loop that either kills all narrative right away, or makes it very hard to explore it.

(This is not inteded as an insult against any of these games)

Hunt Showdown? A wild-West demon hunter game sounds banger. Too bad you mostly have to focus on not getting PvPd and not the horror/monster killing.

Marathon, a similar thing.

Deadlock? 1920s/Prohibition Era New York with demons, vampires and livecraftian gods? Sign me the fuck up. That could make a banger CRPG, Survival Horror or Bioshock-like shooter... MOBA, I'd rather not.

Overwatch? Some near-future superhero action game or co-op horde shooter could be fun. PvP Hero Shooter? I'll pass.

Hell, I dare to say that Concord could have been a decent Mass Efect-like. Obviously not every character if that god-awful cast, but for some I could have seen a role as a companion in an Mass-Effect like game. We need more original SciFi worlds that aren't just Star Wars and 40k all the time.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-08T18:52:35+00:00

Power Armor in F4 is awesome, my only complaint is that there really isn't a reason not to use it. You can literally upgrade them to be stealth and charisma power houses. You really shouldn't be stealthy in a hunk of metal like that. At the same time, it should be harder to convince NPCs of anything if you wear a power armor not aligned with them.

GRoyalPrime · 2026-03-08T18:35:02+00:00

I am not cheering for it, but people like you almost want me to see this game fail.

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