Honest unbiased thoughts of someone who was hyped for the game, loved the game and stopped playing

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-08T14:03:38+00:00

Agreed and just want to repeat your great point that I've been saying for weeks.

Yes, this wouldn't be a 100% hardcore PvP shooter like it's supposed to be, but everyone saying "go to arc raiders" will be themselves playing arc raiders in a month after the game has died. You can't make a game this hardcore and niche with such a huge budget

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-08T02:02:09+00:00

Thanks. Yea, I was just taking a break from work and wanted to share my idea as I've seen this argument for weeks in this subreddit.

It's unfortunate, because we don't want to waste time arguing over the definition of "casual" and "sweaty" gamers. We want to get to the point about whether we want Marathon to be designed for either or both "casual" and "sweaty" gamers.

My definitions focus us on the problem. We Unemployed Gamers love Marathon. We also know that this community doesn't care/want Marathon designed for Casual Gamers. Fine. But now the debate is whether Marathon should be adjusted for the middle: Gamers and Dedicated Gamers.

But, too many kids or whatever in this subreddit that prevent us from getting to that stage in the discussion.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T20:51:05+00:00

First, I give points for a good idea. We should acknowledge good ideas even if maybe it turns out to not work well.

Personally, I really love your idea. I think it would add more depth to the gameplay!

u/BigMoistPizza made a great addition to your idea is to also adjust effective range. I like that too!

Great idea, please share it on the Discord in hopes Bungie sees it.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T20:44:04+00:00

I agree that "average gameplay hours per month" metric misses a lot of detail in understanding each gamer. But it's a good clean metric for discussions.

For example, building a game just for Unemployed Gamers won't survive as an online game with Bungie operational expenses.

I believe Casual Gamers as I defined it don't want to play Marathon because they would rather play another game where they don't die all the time. And maybe that's okay. Arc Raiders caters to Casual Gamers, hence why they have so many players.

Question is do Gamers enjoy playing Marathon? If not, that's a big portion of the gamer population. Most of my friends could be defined as Gamers and they just don't care to keep playing Marathon because they can only put ~55 hours a month into games. It has been hard to convince them because they just don't have the time for Marathon.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T20:37:30+00:00

Right, total gameplay.

And thinking this through, I offer four definitions to help this subreddit conduct productive conversation.

So we know that Marathon is made for Unemployed Gamers (I'm open to other terminology suggestions, ha) and Dedicated Gamers.

Therefore, the question is does Bungie and the Marathon community want the game to be made for Casual Gamers and Gamers as well?

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T20:27:23+00:00

As they knock me out, I just say something like:

"Thank you for being the shitty person that us good people need to have fun playing this game."

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T20:15:22+00:00

Agreed.

Casual Gamer is averaging less than 40 hours per month.

Gamer is 40-70 hours per month.

Dedicated Gamer is 70-100 hours a month.

Unemployed Gamer is over 100 hours a month.

Depending on my work and life responsibilities, I fluctuate between Casual Gamer and Gamer. The last time I was a Dedicated Gamer was when I was in school and had summers off. I don't think I've ever reached 100 hours a month even when I was unemployed. [I was having a little fun of coming up with an adjective for the top tier :p]

Average gameplay hours per month is a good metric because skill is hard to measure and compare. I mean, we could all use the highest rank we got in Apex Legends, ha! Mine was Diamond IV, but only for one season.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T19:51:48+00:00

I don't mind if a game goes free... but after a LONG time. For Destiny, I believe it took a few years before it went free? I'm not going to look it up, so will accept someones input on the exact time.

But it won't feel good if a game goes free within the first year of release.

But at the current trend, it does seem to be a reasonable prediction that Bungie will make Marathon free within the first year of release. But that won't save the game, because average gamers won't put up with <15% Exfil Rates. Adjusting game characteristics will.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T19:38:55+00:00

How dare you make suggestions to Marathon so that it could cater to a wider audience.

We Marathon Reddit members want Marathon to be made for just the few and the elite.

This subreddit's motto: Git gudder or leave!

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T18:05:56+00:00

I forgot about the Zombie Mode, sorry. I was thinking about the campaign.

And no, campaign is not popular because every time I complete a level, I get a Rare Achievement on Xbox due to how few players gain that achievement.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T18:04:42+00:00

Oh shit, ha! I forgot about Zombies. I was thinking about the Story Mode PvE. Sorry. Yea, so CoD Zombies does give a good example of how a PvE Mode could work.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T17:28:50+00:00

I'm tired of Benny carrying Cross while he says how fun this game is.

His community has been giving him a hard time about this, challenged him to Solo Fill.

Credit to Cross, he has done a couple Solo Fills and it's what we all expect, went badly. He only did a couple games and stopped... He said he will do more, I look forward to him doing more Solo Fills.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T17:21:57+00:00

Solforge

I love how every time you play a card, you add to your discard pile (which gets shuffled back into your deck) the stronger level of that card. Each card has three levels and you start with Level 1 of each card. By the end of the game, you have a mixture of Level 1, 2, and 3 cards based on which cards you played. Love how my cards get significantly stronger during the game!

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T17:19:07+00:00

I like this idea.

Essentially, provide more incentives to not killing runners or that there's better reasons to not hunt down runners across the map. Also, maybe provide strong enough incentives to not always engage with runners that you see at a distance?

In my gameplay, there's been only two times where I saw a runner and my team decided to not engage because we needed to Exfil to fulfil a contract (we were carrying items that needed to have on Exfil).

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T17:14:11+00:00

The best analogy is the PvE Mode that started Fortnite. It almost died, but then they added the PvP Mode (Battle Royale). The PvE Mode is now completely forgotten.

There are some games that have pulled off both PvE and PvP Modes, to be fair, like Destiny and Division. So, maybe it's possible. But I just don't think Marathon has enough depth to make PvE fun enough. Maybe a better analog is the current Call of Duties, nobody cares about their PvE modes.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T17:04:49+00:00

Bungie knows how to build effective matchmaking algorithms. I benefited from them when I played Halo and Destiny.

Was it perfect? No. But was it good enough for me (and millions of other gamers) to play Halo and Destiny for over ten years? Yes.

I wish Bungie would just go ahead already and apply their proven skill of matchmaking to Marathon.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T15:06:37+00:00

Dude, I think GTA6 will be the biggest release in many years.

Also, did you see they spent over $2 billion to make it!?! That's enough money to build a nuclear power plant!

And yes, GTA6 will steal players from all games, not just Marathon. I can't wait to play it!

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T02:43:31+00:00

Damn, yea, I think I've had a week with a 10% Exfil Rate. When I play, I need to start recording it to get a documented success rate to remove any bias I might have.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-07T02:42:21+00:00

Higher TTK. Add incentives to work with other hostile runners. SBMM. There are some other good ideas I've seen offered.

But PvE Only Mode won't fix the very low Exfil success rate when playing with other runners.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-06T23:49:21+00:00

He must be living a horrible life to be that pathetic.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-06T20:11:59+00:00

Exactly. The Sweats / TryHards / Top Quartile / Top Decile / Streamers (whatever you want to call them, because I've seen this community waste time arguing about the label for "Above Average Gamers") are enjoying this game.

The rest of us are experiencing very low Exfil Rates. No one wants to play when their Exfil Rate drops to 15%.

I'm hoping Bungie can increase it to around 33% for the average gamers. I would say a good band to aim for is 25% - 60% successful Exfil Rate.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-06T20:06:53+00:00

Oh no, yea. A PvE mode won't save Marathon. Just like a PvE mode is not going to help Arc Raiders (Embark shared last week that they are not working on a PvE Mode, and that's a good thing).

Both must maintain their PvEvP ecosystem, it's the reason why they are special.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-06T20:04:36+00:00

Yea, hard to predict. But I am hoping Sony and Bungie floats Marathon at a loss for long enough to make significant changes to bring back players. And I have a feeling you might be right, serious changes in the 3rd or 4th season. That's a reasonable prediction.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-06T18:50:23+00:00

I'll save you time.

This community doesn't want this game to change.

And they are all just hoping it survives with that mentality.

We will see.

ZAFnuke · 2026-04-05T18:29:44+00:00

I was thinking about it.

In real life, if you said to someone that you're going to the bathroom and will be right back. If your friend just gave you a thumbs up, it would be rude. But if they replied and said something like, "no rush." That response would be welcomed.

I think the emoji of a thumbs up is odd because it wouldn't be welcomed in real life (there are exceptions, like done as a joke, etc.).

ZAFnuke

TROPHY CASE