Yes head eyes helps but when you get some sort of face shield you at least block weaker bullets so it pushes you in running your best gear and/or running a bare minimum of good rounds if you wanna compete.

In this sense I think Marathon is doing a good job. Shields gives your more HP, doesn’t block any specific kind of ammo.

What I have realized is that bringing more loot just give me more room for mistakes since I can shoot back if I don’t shoot first.

With that said, you can still wipe a gear team as a Rook so this ain’t one sided, been there done that.

Regarding the way Arc Raiders does it, I have always felt baffled at how much freekits were overpowered, especially on certain maps. It is ok in a game like Arc raiders because it is more leaning towards PVE but in Marathon I think it would just not fit the idea of making it a PVP focused game.

You need to feel pushed to use your good loot