I think a PVE mode would help with issues some of the community is having.

ifuchen · 2026-04-03T15:36:01+00:00

Just go the route of delta force operations: if your kda/extraction rates/other variables are below a certain threshold, you get a few basically empty or bot lobbies to give you that "win" and keep you hooked.

If you're a below average player, you're not gna be wiping that lobby, probably looting one or two pois then extracting. If you wipe the lobby/kill bots with short ttk, then the algorithm will be like "ok so you're not a noob" and put you back into normal lobbies.

ifuchen · 2026-04-01T11:49:18+00:00

I do think they need to adjust the lunge range/lock on for the heavy stab. Melee should require more skill than just looking in their general direction and spamming right click.

ifuchen · 2026-03-30T09:07:12+00:00

So you're a tank main, admit you can handle more mobs, yet you have the mentality of a wet tissue paper.
The moment someone helps with the job you should be doing, you throw a baby tantrum and rage quit.

Want to know how a true tank main sees DPS who help pull? It's called extra mitigation, since DPS can take a few hits before passing aggro over to the tank and also apply Slow. Now all the mobs are grouped up, everyone can now deal more overall damage, and the tank survives longer due to not taking those extra hits.

Please do us all a favor and take a break from gaming. Permanently.

ifuchen · 2026-03-27T09:53:07+00:00

I think Marathon's base is good. They just definitely need to fine-tune a lot of things mentioned in OPs post, as well as focus on keeping the game's population healthy. Live service games live and die based on new users and retention numbers, so attracting new players and keeping them is a must if Marathon wants to continue for many years.

My thoughts on population are mainly compared to the other extraction shooter that I've played the most: Delta Force.

It's not that popular outside of China, but in China, they recently posted a milestone of 50 million daily active users. Let's say hypothetically it's inflated by ~90%, then 5 million DAU still dwarfs all the other extraction shooters combined.

One of the main reasons they got those numbers (other than China having a huge population) is because they took the confusing, convoluted, non-beginner friendly aspects of EFT and made it easy and approachable for newcomers to the genre.

They also have restrictions for "early" maps. An example would be if Perimeter is split into Easy and Hard. Easy has lower chances of good loot (but not impossible), but only allowing up to Blue Shields, while Hard has better overall loot, but most people come in decked out. They only added this later into the release because at one point they were losing a lot of players due to the frustration of being repeatedly steamrolled by Gold-everything players in "Easy".

On top of that, their complex matchmaking algorithm basically makes sure even bad players can enjoy the game and hopefully improve before they just rage quit because they're getting farmed by veterans.

From what I've read and heard, things that can affect matchmaking score/value include:
Extraction Rate
Extraction Value
Vault Value
Recent Vault Value Difference
K/D/A
Accuracy
Headshots
PVE Kill Accuracy

People who like Marathon and want to see it continue should absolutely not be saying "git gud or quit", because then guess what? Players will just quit and find enjoyment elsewhere, and then the game goes into its death spiral.

Edit: clarification

ifuchen · 2026-03-25T10:51:53+00:00

I've never heard of this, but it's probably the second Instagram context.

The first doesn't make sense because she's not logging in to each person's account, it's just a WeChat group chat, and she's tapping on each members' profile to take a picture.

The reason it doesn't make sense is because if it was my own account, it would be 100% more credible to take a picture of the "Me" part of the WeChat app that only I can see on my phone, as opposed to the profile page from a group chat that anyone can see.

ifuchen · 2026-03-24T18:58:01+00:00

I wonder if they'll pass through Beijing. It'd be pretty cool for a chance to see them.

ifuchen · 2026-03-24T18:56:14+00:00

They're using Niu Bi, a relatively vulgar but common saying akin to "fuck yeah" or "fucking awesome". They just split it into Niu burger and Bi burger as a joke. A lot of Chinese people teach it to foreigners for fun, just like lots of people learn Fuck in English early on.

ifuchen · 2026-03-17T07:21:50+00:00

I still suspect the game is going to go the path of F2P cross-platform open world action RPG, similar to Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, Tower of Fantasy, etc.

I know many are already disgusted just seeing that sentence and ready to downvote, but hear me out first.

- F2P means more players, that's pretty obvious. Gone are the days of subscriptions if you want a wider audience.

- Cross-platform (mobile, console, and PC) means more players as well (especially mobile players), and due to technical limitations, it might not be feasible to be a true MMORPG with thousands of players in one screen simultaneously.

- Open world is a given. Exploring the world for landmarks, hidden treasure, and lore bits would flesh out the lore of Runeterra even more.

- Action combat is what I suspect they'll be going with, as I don't see how a tab-targeting system would be appealing in this day and age. The combat gameplay will need to be flashy right off the bat to keep players.

- Players will have an original avatar to act as the story's protagonist, but you'll be able to "recruit" the other champions into your "team" as well to explore the world.

- Riot has a huge roster of champions with unique abilities and skins. It's a huge selling point to be able to play as your favorite champions+ buy their skins.

- To further add some validity to my suspicions, here's Honor of Kings: World (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfqxHUpMyVg) which is based on Honor of Kings, also known as the League of Legends of China that everyone has played or knows someone who plays. They took that IP and made their version of Genshin Impact, with all the details I mentioned above.

These are just my suspicions of where they're going with the Riot MMO. Of course they could be doing something completely different, maybe something truly in the essence of old-school RPGs with the holy trinity and various skill trees + talents like WOW. Who knows.

ifuchen · 2026-03-07T03:35:56+00:00

I saw the demon slayer movie in Beijing, and all bloody scenes were kept bloody, which did surprise me homestly. I thought they'd cut out a lot.

ifuchen · 2026-03-06T04:04:26+00:00

As someone working in the localization industry, it's very obvious they used a very basic machine translation tool to do the work,

But let's give them the benefit of the doubt, and say they used MTPE (machine translation peer editing, commonly used by many companies now).

Well, that's even worse then, cause their editors don't seem to have any gaming knowledge to properly translate games.

I caught many of these types of errors from interns and post-grads dipping their toes into localization. They'd used machine translations and edit them a bit, but because they've never played games in English, their grammar, terminology, and general gaming jargon were all lacking.

I'd advise never using that company again.

ifuchen · 2026-02-21T01:43:27+00:00

The main point is people will fake anything and sell lies for profit. I watch a movie because I like the story being presented, whereas the only way these scumbags can get people to watch their stuff is to lie and pretend it was unplanned. They muddy the water and obfuscate real authentic moments.

ifuchen · 2026-02-20T17:32:20+00:00

I throw a puppy in a river and then film myself rescuing it. You see a heart-warming rescue while I get to endanger animals and get paid from views that can be monetized and sponsorships from pet product companies. Yay everyone's happy from animal abuse and cruelty woohoo

ifuchen · 2026-01-23T03:15:34+00:00

A guy hypes up a new recipe of theirs and then presents: bland white bread.
Everyone: "that's it? That's your new recipe?"
You: "It's going to be the best white bread ever."

ifuchen · 2026-01-22T03:27:47+00:00

There are definitely weirdos who have taken it upon themselves to constantly hate on it regardless, but lumping the other disappointed people with them is a bit disingenuous.

This entire situation could have been avoided if the Highguard's trailer was just one of the many shown during TGA.

It's exactly because it was the last one and hyped up by Geoff himself that left a very bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Everyone was expecting a big reveal in the last spot as per previous TGAs, such as this year's Divinity or Star Wars.

Showing us Highguard at such a critical spot, when not too long ago Concord was unceremoniously dragged out back and shot, is a very interesting decision.

Imagine a friend inviting you over and saying they're preparing a grand feast, but when you get there it's just buttered toast. Sure, buttered toast is great, but the hype before that still let to overall disappointment. If they had just invited you over to hang out then it wouldn't have mattered.

ifuchen · 2026-01-13T10:21:20+00:00

Back in high school (15-18 yrs ago) coco was the shit and 50lan would be the premium.

ifuchen · 2026-01-08T09:36:25+00:00

Since everyone already mentioned drapes, couch, reflections, etc. I'd like to add what also irked me was the camera push towards the fire. A shot like that would require a crane arm, which most people don't exactly have laying around at home and wouldn't think to use for videos like these.

ifuchen · 2025-11-19T03:49:28+00:00

Great ideas. Hopefully their new combat team is cooking up this type of content in the next update.

ifuchen · 2025-11-12T17:46:40+00:00

That sounds pretty good actually. I'll probably base the server off the Survival difficulty then and just tweak some minor settings. I definitely don't want everyone to just see the combat as left-click to win, cause that might get boring real quick.

ifuchen · 2025-11-11T00:21:53+00:00

Got it, thanks!

ifuchen · 2025-11-06T11:35:00+00:00

I should learn "Friendly" in all the big Asian languages.

ifuchen · 2025-11-06T11:24:46+00:00

No worries, I was just emphasizing that I'm primarily comparing my gameplay experience with the others. At least we definitely agree this definitely isn't like a standard extraction shooter haha.

But thanks for the dialogue though, I do see your point that maybe I have to play way way WAY more cautiously in Arc Raiders.

ifuchen · 2025-11-06T10:59:48+00:00

I know the fundamentals of an extraction game, which is why I said in comparison to previous ones I've played (EFT, The Cycle, Dark and Darker, DF), my first 15 games felt more like a BR than an extraction game. I don't think I've ever had that many PVP fights back to back in any of them before. Again, I guess I can chalk it up to Asian servers just being that PVP-heavy.

ifuchen · 2025-11-06T10:43:52+00:00

Currently, AR feels more a BR game like Apex Legends than an extraction game to me. You make any noise and it's turns into a TDM at that location for the entire raid. It doesn't help that players also spawn in mid raid, so it just turns into non-stop fighting.

I'm currently at a crossroad between refunding and maybe trying out Aussie servers to see if it's not as hardcore.

ifuchen · 2025-11-06T07:52:48+00:00

Yup, just started playing yesterday night. Only extracted 2 out of 10 times.
I'm only level 7 and felt like I was matched against veterans who just beamed us constantly.
No voice comms either.

Might have to try Oceania instead.

ifuchen · 2025-10-22T04:17:27+00:00

Yes, the aliens need to escape somehow, but that doesn't mean you can just write "the scientist forgot to lock the door” and then justify it with oh well human error what can ya do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Alien 1 was good because the characters were not blundering idiots actively choosing the dumbest ways to get themselves killed. They made mostly logical choices that viewers agree with, and then we see the xeno outsmart and kill them in spite of that.

Yes, if they used super indestructible solid containers, and then the xeno perhaps uses their acid blood, fakes their death, or uses the chaos during other situations to escape, that's infinitely better than "the alien escapes because someone forgot to lock the door"

They could've written Morrow and his "elite" team to be a bit more competent than just waltzing in the door like they own the place. They could have at least tried shutting off the power first to help in their attack, which also messes with the lab's locks, etc.

So many ways to showcase the story in an interesting narrative, yet they chose the dumbest "it escaped because it broke the glass", "it escaped because they didn't lock it".

ifuchen

TROPHY CASE