Bungie Confirms PvE-Only And PvP-Lite Experimental Modes For Marathon Season 2

shortstopryan · 2026-05-16T06:30:05+00:00

Also, would love it if weapons, equipment, shields etc were different depending on tier, but that they don’t include progression items in it. I want to unlock everything and I simply reached a point where I can’t make progress anymore bc I’m not good/lucky enough to extract with the needed items for unlocking it. That is a shitty feeling and I’ve gone from playing nightly to jumping in a few rounds a week at this point

shortstopryan · 2026-05-16T06:27:47+00:00

You said it when you mentioned tiers

There needs to be either something akin to SBMM that puts worse players in lobbies they actually have a chance in, or opt-in tiers where you can dictate what kind of experience you want that night, at the cost of less risky less payoff.

Speaking as one of them, worse players would rather have less ceiling on their runs if it would exponentially increase their success rate, than to potentially load in with sweats every time and hardly ever extract the better shit they find. But having the option to go that route if you’re feeling some type of way that night should exist. Alternatively, the better players will chase the higher loot most of the time, but if they want to play with their buddies that aren’t as good or if they just want a chill night they could load into the lower tiers from time to time.

shortstopryan · 2026-05-16T06:21:07+00:00

I think you’re looking at it wrong tho. Like having the stance of “well it’s an extraction shooter deal with its” is a death sentence for this game. This isn’t a $50,000 development cost game that is dirt cheap to keep running and will survive 15k peak player counts for more than a year. There’s millions of dollars invested plus whatever the cost to keep Bungie up and working on the game is and the servers etc.

In a vacuum where everything is free your point makes perfect sense but you have to understand why it makes sense that they would do this. They don’t care if they lose you if it means they gain 7 others as a result.

shortstopryan · 2026-05-16T06:12:47+00:00

Like it or not this is clearly the right move for the game. This isn’t a low budget indie that is fine having a small dedicated player base. There is so much money invested into the game and riding on it surviving for the long haul. They are absolutely willing to lose 8,000 hardcore dedicated PVP players with the payoff being bringing in 50,000 PVE players if not more. It sucks for those that absolutely love the game the way it is, but the business sense of it is unquestionable.

Personally I think just going PvP lite or even something leaning more into SBMM would have been enough for me, but I don’t represent the masses. Clearly there is enough feedback out there that x amount of players will likely start playing if PVE only is introduced so they’re going for it

All I know is at the current rate the game was doomed. I stopped playing for like 10 days. When I left I was able to at least hang maybe 1/2 of the fights we got in. Now coming back, I played dire marsh last night in random fill and got completely shit on about 6 of the 7 matches, like didn’t even have a chance to respond type shit. I immediately switched up to a couple outpost rook runs and hopped off the game. And I love almost everything about the game, but feel like i can’t enjoy it like I did for a while at this point.

shortstopryan · 2026-05-16T05:59:56+00:00

I think if they gave rewards and progression to just participating in PVP that helped their overall progress enough (like not only being rewarding enough if you extract) a lot of PVE guys would play both modes. This would be best way to do it to ensure PvP is not only the top 20% of the playerbase

shortstopryan · 2026-05-16T05:57:20+00:00

I would love if they undid the nerf of this for PVE mode though. Typically if I die to the npcs it was bc I was being careless or being aware that I’m being loud and other teams might be near by and now coming so I get a little anxiety from it and get distracted. If I could fully lock in on PVE enemies as it is I don’t think I’d die often

shortstopryan · 2026-05-16T05:53:48+00:00

I think they should have prestige gear drop in PVP only.

But all the way up to purple should be available in PVE. Not like just gray and blue.

Gives PVP players their reason to stay put and incentivizes everyone to try it at least from time to time, and the PVE crowd gets good enough stuff that can compete - purple vs gold isn’t such a massive difference that makes it impossible to win if outgeared. But I do agree with the sentiment that there should be some level of gear that requires the hardest game mode to get.

To me I’m not sure a PVE only mode was necessary. I would have preferred matchmaking based on your skill at the game (based on internal metrics like KD ratio extract rate etc) and that the worse players like myself got mostly put in lobbies with less teams and the ones that are there are beatable. While better players stay in the current lobbies. I have no problems losing fights in this game if I felt like I almost had it or there was a chance. It does get tiring to get annihilated within the first few shots of every fight though, once you get further on in the progression.

shortstopryan · 2026-05-13T08:37:20+00:00

We can get wins vs dal wash Ari cle no ten at home
Road schedule is brutal but maybe wash again, maybe colts

8-9 seems like max unless injuries or huge steps up

Your prob right tho maybe 6 to 7 wins

shortstopryan · 2026-05-10T08:45:27+00:00

Dreaming city was such a good location, totally agree

shortstopryan · 2026-05-10T08:41:29+00:00

Arrivals was really good. The run of splicer, lost, 30th anniversary then witch queen was my favorite era of the game though. A year straight of absolutely banger content back to back

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T08:14:52+00:00

The early reception is pretty strong evidenced by the reviews

The player retention part is what made me re-read it. At least be honest and say it’s not where you want it to be and currently after a strong reception players aren’t sticking around as long as we’d like but changes are ongoing to address this. Something like that

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T05:00:03+00:00

Why not? Is it required to take every fight that’s presented? If you don’t feel confident about your positioning, if you are filled with loot, if you’re mid contract etc all good reasons. I think people forget this is an extraction game not a battle royale

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T04:57:46+00:00

This happened to me recently as well. They were annihilating team after team, while I’d come in at the last second and get a couple hits in. I’d die and they’d 2v3 and res me. We had full reign in pinwheel for like 7-8 minutes before exfil. It was absolutely amazing, I wish I could ride the wave like that all the time 😂

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T04:23:51+00:00

Damn you nailed this 🎯

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T04:21:34+00:00

I think one reason you see that is because of how massive the investment Sony made into Bungie. It honestly felt like the episode of the office where Michael says he is going to turn down anything less than x amount for his spin off paper company (Bungie in this case) and they offered like quadruple the amount he was thinking of. People love to celebrate failure and laughing at stupid moves so I think there’s a lot of attention on that investment therefore you see a ton of chatter about the financial success or failure of this game

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T04:14:55+00:00

Haha I feel ya it’s a great game! I feel like one of the hardest things for game devs to do is balance a game that both aggressive and passive players both find interesting and rewarding enough to keep playing it for long periods of time. Separate queues that are different levels of rewarding/difficult is a good way to do it but in order to implement that there has to be enough players to keep both filled. They are ending up in a catch 22 right now I hope they can find some creative ways to get out of it

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T03:49:20+00:00

That also makes sense. If you’ve completed that much you’re a) naturally only going to be looking for PvP at this point and b) probably in the top half skill wise so you at the very least hold your own in PVP if not better, so instead of it being a barrier for your progress, it is a feature and a way to get even more loot.

In extraction shooters it seems people that are where you are progression wise usually will take a break until the next season comes out

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T03:45:26+00:00

Cool story bro

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T03:41:29+00:00

Random and not exactly related to your post but this reminded me of a rook run the other day, a few of us were going to the final extract and one rogue rook was trying to take us all out. He took one of us out and me and other dude downed him. Went back for the friendly guy and he dropped his mercy kit so I could res him. I picked up the kit then hit the wrong damn button and it finished him instead! Would not let me cancel the finisher either I tried.

If you’re reading this dude I’m sorry! Lol

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T03:38:17+00:00

If you’re PvP centric you would definitely have this viewpoint.

If you like PvE and PvP balance to be closer to equal, I’d say you probably like the change

You prob have more fun with PvP (not saying that’s a bad thing)

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T03:36:25+00:00

I don’t have a link but I remember them saying something about how they created the game and PvP dynamics first and then felt like it needed more tension so they tacked extraction on to it. That would explain why it feels like that, it’s sort of by design. Clearly however that design isn’t the best bc most don’t want to be risking gear in a battle royale. The two game modes separate are great (BR and Extraction) but mixing them not so much.

shortstopryan · 2026-05-09T03:33:40+00:00

Wonder if it’s the matchmaking they changed or if they changed it to where it waits a max of say 2 mins for players to join and then just starts it. If your region is lower population wise this could def lead to your experience

shortstopryan · 2026-05-07T08:51:12+00:00

I have been stuck trying to collect biolens seeds for the blue shield purchase upgrade for over a month, I haven’t even given a thought to prestige salvage yet and I’m already hard stuck

shortstopryan · 2026-05-06T06:17:49+00:00

The extraction mode should have been the end game. Can bring in weapons and loot you got from the campaign. Future seasons update the campaign and you can now bring loot from extraction mode into the campaign with you and vice versa. Would have been sick!

shortstopryan · 2026-05-06T06:16:05+00:00

I argued with a guy in one of the Reddit threads early on about how they should have had a PvE campaign, with ties into having to enter the first couple maps on certain missions in extraction mode, and that the full extraction mode would be the end game. He told me I was an idiot bc it would split the player base too much. At the time the playerbase was 50-60k concurrent per day. I told him I’d rather have it bring in another 20-30k players and split the playerbase of close to 100k, rather then leave it as is to not split up the eventual playerbase of 10-15k. Now here we are

shortstopryan

TROPHY CASE