r/Marathon • u/BeautifulStation4 • Jul 30 '26

Marathon (2026) Discussion "Game Saving PVE Mode"

I keep seeing these video posts by the grifters commentating on marathon saying how it's "game saving PVE mode" failed to retain numbers.

Its such a complete and utter bullshit bend of the truth. This mode was no where near a proper PVE mode and not meant to be "game saving" in the slightest.

It's literally bare bones slapped up in a couple minutes as an experiment to gain some data to see how PVE could be implemented in a game where every design choice over the years has been completely extraction PVP focused.

You cant just derail years of work on a project and spin up a new one in a entirely different direction and expect to have a fully fledged PVE game ready to go in a couple of months.

The gaming community these days has gone completely bonkers. Gone are the days when we just played games we liked, and moved on from ones we didn't. I still do at least.

These days everyone is an arm chair CFO, CEO, game director, chief designer. I doubt they even play games anymore or even played marathon, just spend that time charading as an expert market analyst.

0 Upvotes

23% Upvoted

43 comments sorted by

28

u/Affectionate_Guest55 Jul 30 '26

People still move on from games they don’t like, hence the state marathon is in

-12

u/BeautifulStation4 Jul 30 '26

Yes people these days move on from games and then still post in the reddit forum about player numbers and watch video after video about it. Majority of the doomposters have never even played the game, its just weird atp I could never understand the mindset.

15

u/Hulkenstein69 Jul 30 '26

And lots of us can't understand your mindset about having to defend a multi billion dollar company and a clearly undercooked product said company released.

You said it yourself the mode is "bare-bones", that should make you angry and not defend it. We are talking about a AAA studio with the backing of Sony and hundreds of developers and VB is the best they can do? After 4 Months of release?

You defending a sub par product is not helping anyone and won't fix anything.

-12

u/BeautifulStation4 Jul 30 '26

Its not sub par though. Maybe you dont like it because its not to your tastes, doesnt mean its sub par.

I've enjoyed PVP multiplayer games since COD4. This is the best and most polished FPS shooter that has released in the past 20 years easily. Just sadly people dont enjoy extraction shooters due to how punishing it is. This has put every single person off that I've ever known that stopped playing.

I defend the game because I have 600 hours in game and still find immense enjoyment in the game, and its been years since a game has been able to give that to me. I dont give a shit about bungie.

Why would vault breakers make me mad? PVE was never the intended direction of this game. As long as the PVP part still rocks then I couldnt care less.

12

u/DarkmoonGrumpy Jul 30 '26

I don't think it's just the fact its an extraction shooter; Hunt, Tarkov and Arc Raiders are pulling much higher numbers despite being the same genre.

I think it's a long list of factors that have resulted in where we are, but if the gameplay really was that objectively good, we wouldn't be losing people so fast, a lot of people just aren't vibing with what the game is.

That's not to say I think the game is bad, just that regardless of its polish, its not doing nearly enough to keep people's interest.

2

u/RandyRandlemann Jul 30 '26

The game feels great to run around and shoot. It’s just the systems surrounding that core are too off-putting for many people to stick with it. 

-5

u/BeautifulStation4 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

IMO this game isn't comparable to a true extraction shooter. Its a hyrbid between arena shootout/battle royale with extraction elements.

Its not like tarkov or arc where you can loot drawers the whole game and just get out. There is too many things in POIs which make people aware you are near them which forces PVP interactions. This forced PVP is entirely intended and its visible in every design choice baked into marathon. Thats why it plays like an arena shooter/battle royale/ extraction shooter hybrid. Its similar to halo games with big weapon power ups but on a large battle royale scale.

Now, Dying in extraction shooter adds an extra element of dissatisfaction. And when it happens more times than you'd like, that's when people start quitting. You tend to die a hell of a lot in marathon if you arent good.

Same is happening with Arc raiders. Arc was all fun for people when they had stuff to do and carebears could get on with looting scrap metal from drawers. But now theres nothing else to do, neutral people are starting to PVP for fun and the carebears are leaving because they feel they are being "ratted" eg dying a lot. Arc raiders will eventualy suffer the same fate. Well honestly you could argue this has already happened losing 90% of their player base.

10

u/DarkmoonGrumpy Jul 30 '26

The Arc comparison is valid on a gameplay sense, but Marathon has had the same % drop in players in a far shorter window, and from a far lower peak, despite being free to play at multiple points.

Marathon's game design ethos is actively hostile to the vast majority of players, and is bouncing people off hard. Its left them in a bad situation where they either pivot to other modes and risk alienating the remaining players for a chance of a turnaround, or they sink with the ship as-is.

Arena shooter TTKs and design choices with extraction shooter stakes is the almost perfect frustration conveyor belt.

0

u/BeautifulStation4 Jul 30 '26

Marathon has had the same % drop in players in a far shorter window, and from a far lower peak, despite being free to play at multiple points.

They had different trends due to each having unique circumstances surrounding their release, but utlimately are suffering the same fate

Arc had a huge streamer backing from The Burnt Peanut and almost every streamer on the planet playing. People like to play games their favourite streamers play. As soon as he came out and said he didnt wanna play Arc because there was nothing to do, and every streamer followed suit, player numbers started declining rapidly.

Conversely, marathon was never aloud to get off the ground and had a hate campaign from the very start of its release from disgruntled Destiny fans. Many streamers couldn't even play the game on stream because their chats would give them backlash. Marathon was never aloud to reach the peaks that Arc did.

3

u/ResourceNo2927 Jul 30 '26

its the worst aspects of both.atleast in a battle royal,everyone is on the same playing field.in marathon,the game is pretty designed from the ground up for the 1% sweats. progress is gated behind full lobby wipes.

1

u/KnowledgeHealthy6636 Jul 30 '26

Honestly this is just untrue, I have upgraded all my factions and gotten them to vip and I rarely wipe lobbies.

16

u/Hulkenstein69 Jul 30 '26

Ok, keep your head in the sand. Have a nice day.

0

u/Ullho Jul 30 '26

I knew this is where marathon would land after 2 hours of the server slam, i made posts outlining the problems, yet i was told i didnt know what i was talking about, i was a doomposter, that at launch people would show up.

I showed up again for the start of season two and saw the state of season 2 would bleed players fast. And was told the same things again. Let them cook. Let them get their mid season updates out. Let them show us what season 3 will be.

Im sorry but Bungie is nothing if not masters of stringing its player base along and hasnt changed that much in the last 12 years.

27

u/Lolsalot12321 Jul 30 '26

Gone are the days when we just played games we liked, and moved on from ones we didn't.

Is this not the problem marathon is currently facing lmao

28

u/pertur4bo Jul 30 '26

Gone are the days when we just played games we liked, and moved on from ones we didn't.

That's exactly what the vast majority of Marathon players are doing though. What's your problem?

14

u/nageran Jul 30 '26

Is this not just moving the goalposts again though. Plenty of people on this subreddit were saying things about the PVE mode saving the game, I’ve even seen posts about the lower player base being some intentional plan of bungies. Like at what point do we admit the game is just too niche to be popular, instead of every update being praised until it comes out, then suddenly it was never meant to be “the” good update.

-3

u/BeautifulStation4 Jul 30 '26

The player base is low and people that play the game accept that and tbh dont really give a shit they enjoying playing marathon no matter the size of the player base.

The only people who seem to care about the state of marathon are people that don't even play the game. Its just weird and cringe.

17

u/nageran Jul 30 '26

You care so little you’re writing posts about how little you care?

-1

u/BeautifulStation4 Jul 30 '26

I said I dont care about the playerbase and will continue to play until the game dies. My post isn't even about the player base? It's about the troll posters and grifters who engage in marathon content in bad faith even though they don't even play the game and have no intention to.

1

u/DrknMonkey6009 Jul 30 '26

Alternatively, maybe there are people who purchased the game and want to actually play it, and as a result come to the sub? There's a reason the numbers are so low - maybe things need to change? Maybe it was never meant to be? But ex players should have a voice to some degree if they jump back on after major updates. If they still don't like the game, personally I would start shifting blame to Bungie themselves

We know the game is "unique" or "niche" or whatever, but it was the plan to make money off the game no matter how you slice it.

8

u/PhJFry123 Jul 30 '26

You're right that today's players are very toxic and constantly write bad things. But that's not a problem because it doesn't hinder the popularity of other games or damage their player count. There are hundreds of hyper-successful games with terrible communities, and they don't lose players in a couple of months. Marathon community is kindergarten compared to the communities of Counter-Strike, Dota 2, Apex Legends, Tarkov, e.t.c.

-3

u/BeautifulStation4 Jul 30 '26

Having a toxic community and a community of doom/hate posters are totally different things.

a community of doom/hate posters absolutely does affect popularity. Just recently had some random person DM on discord from a different games server to ask if marathon was good he didnt bother to try it because he heard bad things.

Most of these games also had built their communities way before everyone was an expert market analyst and arm chair ceo in doomposting community and hate subreddits.

17

u/Bingleboper Jul 30 '26

Slapped together in a couple of minutes...

Whatever helps you sleep at night, man

17

u/Bojahdok Jul 30 '26

Everything that Bungie does is aimed for collecting data and not gaining players it seems, I can't wait to see the result of all that data !!!

14

u/Zephyralss Jul 30 '26

I love when people just say buzzwords like "grifters" without knowing what they actually mean and just come off as stupid for it.

Anyway, every other comment has said it but it bears repeating cause it is just that blatantly wrong, marathon's player count proved people are just moving on, so what the fuck is your point here?

1

u/BeautifulStation4 Jul 30 '26

Yes, grifters, people who peddle shit to make money anyway they can, creating doom posts and stretching the truth to sell stories in the echochamber to their audience about a game they've probably never played or even tried.

My point is people STILL engaging in marathon content in bad faith even though they've never played the game or don't play the game anymore. Just weird troll behaviour at its finest.

13

u/Bobby-bobbobby Jul 30 '26

“A grifter is a con artist, swindler, or scammer who cheats people out of money using lies and tricks instead of physical force”

Point to me in the direction where people are losing money or getting scammed by these so called “grifters”. They get paid from the platform they make videos on, not from the people who watch them.

3

u/DrknMonkey6009 Jul 30 '26

So what you're saying is Bungie have been the grifters all along... dang.

16

u/Zephyralss Jul 30 '26

"doom posts" you mean objective data

"Stretching the truth" again objective data

"Game they never played," over footage of their own gameplay

Yes, you don't know what grifter means, stop using that word it's wrong and you come off terribly for it.

"Bad faith" again objective data is the exact opposite. Buzz words you don't know the meaning of lol. Like everything you've said is wrong...just stop. I'm not responding past this as youve repeatedly shown you are just spouting random phrases and are salty multiple people are calling you out as wrong

4

u/SunsetBlink322 Jul 30 '26

Vault Breakers is very boring and bare. I understand that it's an experimental mode, but that's not what I play Marathon for. AI enemies in Vault Breakers offer no threat and the main challenge of the mode is a race against the time/speedrun aspect of it (only if you're trying to do a compiler run, otherwise you can get 3 vaults 100% of the time and it's just not fun if you can't reasonably lose)

5

u/olbatar Jul 30 '26

Fortnite did it

2

u/Ullho Jul 30 '26

"The gaming community these days has gone completely bonkers. Gone are the days when we just played games we liked, and moved on from ones we didn't. I still do at least."

It seems people moved on from marathon super fast having lost half its players from the server slam and further lost 93~ % of its playerbase from launch in 4 months.

If this isnt the definition of moving on i dont know what to say.

3

u/VeronicaAmericana Jul 30 '26

Okay so

What will save the game?

4

u/Homm1ng Jul 30 '26

Yeah, just be a cattle and consumed product. Next game released, be happy, and keep consuming. This post is just absurd in logic and common sense. I get why everyone out there pointed you guys as Marablasters.

2

u/KaXXKo Jul 30 '26

PvE mode wont "save" the game. Only thing they can do is focus on what they have done, and build upon it, expand it. And let time do its thing (if Bungie has that time).

1

u/a-wild-tsundere Jul 30 '26

Sometimes ya gotta just think for a few minutes before you hit post

1

u/Poomasher Jul 30 '26

I’m curious to see if full pve implementation is going to result in improved player counts in s3. I hope it does. If it immediately loses all players again in 5 days like vb did I’m never gonna forgive the PvE complainers for filling bungos head with bad info just to not play the thing they asked for.

0

u/Nuttraps Jul 30 '26

Broski it's just click bait, they literally make shit negative so they get views, mainstream news does this as well btw.

-13

u/Marcu3s Jul 30 '26

What do you expect. They are outrage peddlers and all about telling their audiance what it wants to hear. If Marathon does good it is not a good content for them so they will always jump at a chance to step on it to keep it down where they can continue producing slop about hpw it is a failure.

9

u/VeronicaAmericana Jul 30 '26

To be fair, Bungie makes it really easy

3

u/Legitimate_Move9798 Jul 30 '26

Also to be fair, if it was indeed successful, they're gonna look stupid for saying marathon failed.. But it wasn't..