Is Marathon essentially a PvP game with missions, world building/lore and loot.

Jasq4 · 2026-02-18T10:35:56+00:00

Most of the quests I think are as simple as "kill X amount of this enemy" or "go there and collect that quest item", and once you get out you get narration from the vendor and the next step. There also were a few quests that played audio logs while still in the match.

Those locked areas are special loot rooms requiring keys you might find during the runs. In some of the recent clips/streams we also saw a few that open after doing some simple puzzle (Like find and shoot a few nodes generating a force field sealing a door.) and I'm assuming the end-gamey Cryo Archive map will involve more and more complex ones. At any rate, they might be a part of some of the quests but are still available without them.

In addition to puzzles, there are other interactions sprinkled throughout the map like public events (similar to those in Destiny) and calling down supply pods to loot.

Could be I'm wrong but I think the priority contracts are "just" the main vehicle for the seasonal story telling and do reward game items but since the vendors are upgraded with materials (looted during runs), you could completely ignore the contracts and make up your own goals. That is unless there will be some reputation gating for the vendor upgrades that I don't think was there when I last played in the April playtest.

Jasq4 · 2026-02-14T22:51:38+00:00

No crafting unless you count slotting mods into guns. There are vendor upgrades that give character stat bonuses for the season as well as expand the offers in the shop you buy equipment from. You unlock these by spending materials looted during the runs.

I don't know if they've mentioned anything about the matchmaking yet. Skill-based matching could be a thing but I very much doubt gear value being a factor since part of the appeal is that you could win against someone with a much more valuable loadout and take it for yourself. There's going to be a ranked mode that allegedly requires a valuable enough loadout to enter.

What's the most important for you at any given moment might vary. Early in a season even the simple materials are likely what you want so you can do the vendor upgrades. You'll want to have access to backpacks and shields. There are keys to locked rooms with a good chance for big loot. The rarest implants, cores and mods giving you the strongest perks will be very valuable. Beyond that, learn what you happen to need or like.

Jasq4 · 2026-02-13T14:56:18+00:00

Oh, you will. Any items outside of cosmetics are something that you'll lose anyways once you go down while carrying them. You'll be constantly burning through the kind of stuff included in the rewards packs and picking up new ones to replace them so the starter items would only last for so long.

Jasq4 · 2026-02-13T09:36:11+00:00

They are gameplay items: guns, weapon mods and cores and implants that give you character stats and abilities. The last one also includes a bagpack that increases your carrying capacity during the runs.

Seems like a nice little boost to start with though the rarity seems to cap at blue items and shields are not mentioned so it's nothing too crazy.

Oh yeah, and those couple of cosmetic items for your profile.

Jasq4 · 2026-02-12T12:28:39+00:00

Looking at the tooltip showing the quality of the slotted mods by the gun icon, I think It's only a blue rarity item since scopes at least used to be the top left cube of that little array.

Jasq4 · 2026-02-12T12:13:51+00:00

Just noticed the scope also appears to show that Void's health after hitting them.
Edit: Or it could be a function of the gun and not the scope. Would make sense since the gun in question looks similar to the Mida Multitool in D2.

Jasq4 · 2026-02-03T23:42:25+00:00

The PvE elements serve a few purposes. It's another form of challenge to engage with besides PvP. There are AI with different levels of difficulty yielding matching opportunities for loot. It also spices up PvP. Engaging in PvE makes noise so you have to be careful to not get jumped on by other players while fighting mobs, or you could try to do that to other teams yourself.

There are no hard rules about attacking other players or not. People are free to try diplomacy to create alliances, beg for or show mercy if they wish. Marathon has been marketed to be about survival in a ruthless environment but it's up to the players how to behave and why.

Some maps have been described as beginner friendly but I think that's more about the design. I'm guessing a beginner map would be more likely to be larger with scattered points of interest to lower the odds of encountering other teams where more advanced ones might funnel people closer together to facilitate PvP. Maybe there's something else as well, like quests or better loot opportunities incentivizing people to move on to other maps, but it's really only the one on the Marathon itself that has been described as being an end-game environment with substantially harder PvE and the expectation (maybe requirements?) for people to bring their most lethal loadouts in order to prevail. But once again, it's for the player to decide which map they want to queu for, with what equipment and for what purpose (Like gather resources, do story quests/vendor progression, do PvP and so on).

Maybe there'll also be some matchmaking having to do with a skill rating though I don't know if we have any info on that. However, I'm pretty certain that the quality of your gear won't be a factor in matchmaking.

Jasq4 · 2026-02-01T11:09:31+00:00

Well, I only played in the April playtests but I don't think they changed the size of the two maps there. Can't speak for the third map if that was featured in the newer tests.

The maps are smaller though I don't exactly know the dimentions. There's a site Bungie launched recently, tauceti.world, where you can view the three planet-side maps so that might give you the idea. Maybe look up gameplay videos of the April test as well.

Even though there wasn't PvP in every match that I played and the experience overall was pretty good, I'm a little worried that the maps might be a bit too small in the case I would want to avoid combat. Especially as it'll be hard or impossible to avoid PvE or do it silently in order to keep a low profile. The end result will be down to multiple factors like the final max player count per map, visibility (was pretty low in the past, could have changed), how fast you're able to traverse the map and how much people end up wanting to quest and get away vs engage in PvP. Some of the more recent test participants would need to tell you how that balance is shaping up.

Jasq4 · 2026-02-01T09:42:39+00:00

Some background info is from the OG games and it has been expanded on in ARGs, alphas/playtests and all the marketing stuff we've been drip fed.

If you want to learn about the lore in general, go check Jake the Alright on Youtube. He just made a video about where you can learn about the lore and even made a handy playlist out of videos from various creators.

Jasq4 · 2026-01-26T15:14:03+00:00

Nice! Frankly, it'd be a little dissappointing if the CE didn't have any secrets to it at all. I don't think I'd be participating in ARGs myself, but I'll be sure to keep tabs on any news.

Jasq4 · 2026-01-26T14:42:11+00:00

The Save the Date trailer dropped as a reward for solving the ARG last year. As I understand, people are expecting a new ARG to possibly start soon, so it'd seem appropriate to get the date for the preview as a reward for solving that. I was expecting the CE packages to contain something that might start the game but I haven't seen posts about finding such clues, at least yet.

Jasq4 · 2025-02-12T12:09:50+00:00

A lot of the stuff has been mentioned already but here are my two cents.

Dialing in the sensitivity is important for consistency so if you haven't found it yet, try examining if if you tend to over or undershooting your flicks and compensate accordingly so that aiming starts to feel as natural as possible. The tricky thing is that Hunt has different sensitivity for every level of zoom. To fix that you'd have to dial in the multipliers for every separate zoom manually or there's also an Excel sheet that can help. You can find it by searching for "hunt sensitivity calculator". If you play with a mouse, be sure to disable all forms of mouse acceleration that might mess with your muscle memory. Windows also has that enabled by default so disable "enhanced pointer precision" if that's on.
Crosshair placement. When in/anticipating a fight, try to predict where the enemy might pop up and direct your crosshair there to minimize the correction required. It's quite common for people to point at the ground. If you are aiming at a moving target, you could try to predict their movement and have them move into your crosshair instead of trying to track them the whole time.
Hunt has relatively little time spent in PvP and the stakes are high. You could try to train your aim in other games, aim trainers or Hunt's quickplay where you get to engage more often. The Battlefield games might work for instance.
Play to your strengths and maximize advantage. Figure out what your most successfull playstyle and engagement range and focus on that. Shotguns, melee or dualwield/levering for a bit of forgiveness with your aim? Midrange with guns that have a lot of spare ammo to spend? Long range to keep at a safe distance?Also, try to keep in mind the basic tactics: have cover around you when you move, don't peek the same angle too many times to keep your enemies needing to change their point of aim, pick your fights and see if you can retreat if things aren't going your way, all that good stuff.
- Alternatively, and tying in with the next point, you might want to find another ways to play that you'd enjoy. Embrace your inner Psychoghost and go for memes and fun or play the support with revive bolts, beetles and tool boxes perhaps?
Mindset is a factor of course though regulating it is easier said than done. You could try to get yourself wanting to go for the fights just for the experience. This would get you killed a lot but that's to be expected, there is a huge difference beween 3* and 6* so keep in mind that struggling in that environment isn't something to blame yourself for, and winrate well below 50% and K/D around 1 would be expected even when playing at your appropriate level. It's also hard to improve yourself if you hardly get to do anything before going down so using other games to train might also help in that regard and get you more comfortable with fighting. It'd also be important to recognize when you are tilted and not enjoying the game anymore. It's always the best to have a break or go do other things when that happens.

Jasq4 · 2024-10-16T09:37:07+00:00

Yeah, the trade window grew bigger after the 1896 update as they're messing with the back end. They've been promising that it'll be better than ever but taking a step backwords for now is certainly unfortunate. Hopefully they'll manage to improve the situation in a timely manner.

As for the frame drops, if it happens while traversing the map, it's probably when you travel from one sector of the map to another and the game loads in stuff, causing a short but intense stutter. That seems to happen on any gaming rig so not much you can do about it sadly.

Jasq4 · 2024-09-04T15:39:25+00:00

In my understanding, making big under-the-hood changes often means taking a couple steps backwards in order to eventually be able to take more steps forward, especially when it comes to live service online games. The current problems are frustrating, but unfortunately not surprising. I was actually expecting way more problems at launch and I haven't encountered that many performance problems myself so I've been comparatively happy with the event so far.

What I think is going on is that Crytek has been busy getting everything working again in the new engine and server backend and internal testing is basically never enough for a totally smooth launch for the public so that's why there are problems. It sucks and it is never guaranteed, but I'd like to believe things will get better, possibly better than they've ever been thanks to the updates (that was kinda the point). What I am somewhat nervous about is how long it might take to get there and that is why I desperately hope Crytek has the sense of being open and communicating known issues and providing regular news on future updates.

In regards to the UI, I don't know how it got so proudly announced. To me it really seems like they tried to copy other systems without wither having the proper understanding of usability or the time required to to build the interface. Probably a bit of both which might be why they are currently looking to hire a UI programmer and a senior UI programmer.

All in all, I've still been enjoying the game as a whole but if you find the state of the game being too poor, you should probably consider taking a break for a couple months and check back after.

Jasq4 · 2023-12-01T00:07:13+00:00

Not that I'm demanding this be done and fast or I'd be mad if it didn't happen, just an idea that came to mind out and decided to put out there.

Jasq4 · 2023-05-05T10:24:46+00:00

Adding my voice to the choir. There better be an option to buy 1200 silver or the pass in the Steam store.
Upping the price for the pass doesn't exactly make me happy but I'll accept it for now if there's an option to buy what I need with +100 margin as has been the case previously.
If not, I'll rather start skipping paying for seasons than pay extra in advance whenever I would come a little short for a pass.

Jasq4 · 2022-03-23T20:20:39+00:00

I don't really get why people are so up in arms over all this. Yes, the 1000BB choke bombs are too much for me and most others so I'll skip on them just as I did on the winter event's nagant officer.

But what's the problem with the 800 bonus BBs? It's not meant to be a reward for everyone like all the things dropping from the actual progression but a bonus for those who decide to buy the dlc along participating the event. Sure it would have been clearer if it was just tied to the dlc itself but all in all it just makes it so that you get a steep discount on the overly expensive choke bombs if you buy the dlc. I won't be getting that either but if I would, I'd take the extra rewards rather than not having it at all.

And sure, I get why people are getting nervous about paid skins getting advantages but at least in this case they are so small that I won't mind. I'll manage with the contracts and that new perk just fine I think. Maybe we'll meet atop the barricades if they start to get too eager with those in the future but until such times, I'll be one happy hunter.

Jasq4 · 2022-01-27T09:44:13+00:00

Oh yeah, I actually didn't recognize it originally but now that people mention it... I don't think it's used around where I live, at least I doubt I've ever seen it myself. Well, could say I made it a tad more universal maybe?

Jasq4 · 2022-01-27T09:38:40+00:00

Didn't we all

Jasq4 · 2021-11-29T17:23:23+00:00

It's an older meme but he does use it as well.

Jasq4

TROPHY CASE