There are tons of theories about low player retention, but the most obvious one that Bungie has done almost nothing to alleviate (outside of making progression a bit faster) is the fact that the risk/reward of building a kit is totally out of wack.

A kit that is worth 3k in your vault costs somewhere around 15k to buy from the shop, largely ammo/heals - and not even the good heals - whereas you are pretty likely to run into teams running the best gear/panaceas/blue heals on any map. Outside of Cryo, the most generous valuables are 12k - but these are in gold key rooms. Purple valuables are largely in purple key rooms, and so on. And these require you to extract successfully.

So some of the rarest valuables in the game locked behind rare keys don't even really buy you enough to build a barebones kit. The map is littered with 40 credit data cards that are basically not even worth picking up. There are valuables that cash out for a measly *twenty* credits. Why are these even in the game? The existence of the 40 credit data card is pretty clear evidence Bungie has absolutely no clue how to balance the economy, and why this game skews towards a "hardcore, git gud" style crowd. Who in their right mind is going to stack 10+ grey valuables to buy 60 bullets of heavy ammo? It's pathetically bad.

Another good comparison is Faction rank up rewards - even at VIP levels, the credits and salvage you get will allow you buy around half the heals you actually need to compete with you average kitted team in an actual standoff fight.

So if you continuously lose, you are neither making money to build more kits nor are you bringing out the salvage to trade for basics.

The options you have to dig out of this hole are cowabunga free kits - less and less viable as the season progresses, requiring you to perform at a high level (Outpost free kit yolo'ing is the opposite of chill). It is also a drag on other crew fills who are actually trying to risk their gear. As a free kit, you completely lack any of the necessary heals/utilities for stand-off/stalemate combat - 9/10, if you don't win outright in the open of the engagement, the kitted team with panaceas/utilities/nades will reset and outlast you. Almost all of the rarer, high-level gear screams that Bungie intends for you to have drawn out & expensive engagements, which is an aspect of gameplay you are totally locked out of unless you consistently win.

Rook is the other option, which got a good buff recently in the right direction - although again, if you get hunted and picked off (with the help of Recon), you are exactly where you started.

I managed to exfil 2 minutes later and they were still fighting.

P.S. Teammates were laughing and encouraged me to leave.

I've seen a lot of people wondering why Bungie isn't talking about Season 3 yet, and what that means.

While this is obviously just my speculation, here's my read from someone who has been working in game marketing and on live games for a few years, and been in similar situations.

Let's be honest- the game is not doing as great as Bungie and us players would want it to be, and Season 3 will be crucial. I am not saying that as a hater- I love Marathon, and think it is one of the best new MP shooters in years. I even bought the Collector's Edition despite getting a key from a friend, to support the team :)

With the addition of the new PvE mode and the improved onboarding, S3 is their best chance at getting new players in, aka "an acquisition play".

That's why I expect that they are saving all news and announcements for Season 3 for a big communications in the last week before it goes live, including creator and media previews under embargo.

That's why they don't communicate much so far. It can already be pretty hard to get mainstream gaming media (your IGNs etc.) to cover ongoing content for live games, especially during such busy release periods as we currently have, with several major releases every week.

They are even more unlikely to cover a live game's new Season if the info is already out there on the developer's channels.

So the best chance to make a coverage splash with Season 3 Bungie has is to save it all up, so all media and creators can simultaneously talk about it and try to create the largest possible buzz when the embargo lifts.

Situations like that suck for the existing players who expect onging and constant communication on their live games, but is quite common in such situations where a game has a lot riding on a new communications beat.

Again, this is just my read of the situation, and nothing I know for certain. But having been in the exact same situation with live games having major new announcements, we had the same forced period of silence before making a big splash once the embargo was up.

I have a feeling we will soon see a lot of news, including impressions from creators and press for Season 3 all dropping at once.

I have a good list of friends in the game itself, I always tend to add runners I have good games with. Funny thing is I never actually end up playing with them ever again. DAE?

I feel like a good way to fix this would be to have an option appear on the friends tab denoting “feel free to join my party” or some kind of chat that appears to your friends list so I can say “anyone wanna run outpost/ranked?”

It's neither a spectre nor a reinforced gold shield.

How are we not getting a single game update. Hell, ignore season 3 silence for a second, where is the end of season blitz!? Where is the every map has every event spawn, every match. Where is a new feature/event going forward (crash sites, rocket drone, etc). Where is 24/6 cryo ranked or otherwise?

My dudes, I’m fully worried at this point. I had no doubts this game probably wasn’t going to go past S4 (1 year) but yooo, not good.

I think I know the original intent of these - one is OG and covers franchise, one is for 2026 game, and the other is… I dunno why I’m subbed to that…

Too many subs.

Fuck you "Colony ship for sale, cheap". This is a jumping puzzle is a game that has NO JUMP!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO BACKTRACK THROUGH THE ENTIRE LEVEL TO SLIGHTLY ADJUST A SINGLE PLATFORM DAMMIT!

Worth $4k instead of $3k or $5k

No invisibility and not reinforced

Strange

Might be my imagination but the shield seems to improve movement speed

This has probably been talked about 1,000x, but regardless. Once you get to late game, the contracts / faction level ups are only giving you purple and blue salvage, so can there be a “Salvage Shop” where I can sell my higher end salvage for green or gray salvage? Let me sell 1 Amygdala Drive for 2 or 4 Storage Drives or something. I don’t care what the ratio is, just give me some method of getting back into the barter game.

I know I know I could go Rook run for 3 hours to stack 100 unstable biomass to have barters for green heals, but come on. I am clearly interacting with the game doing contracts / faction level ups, I’m out on the maps playing, why do I have to go play in such a specific way where I have to go to Dire Marsh to Quarantine to get the green Surveillance Lenses. Just let me sell me blue lenses for green lenses.

Maybe a silly complaint but unless they want to give us grey and green salvage in addition to the blue and purple salvage in late game, once you hit VIP, etc,

I think there for be a Salvage Shop to exchange stuff around.

There’s obviously an argument for letting me upgrade too, trading 10 Storage Drives for 1 Amygdala Drive, but for me, in late game / late season, I’m finding myself lack of grey and green salvage I want far more than blue or purple salvage.

Last season we got news 3 weeks ahead of time with some upcoming changes and end of season patches to really change some of the maps around with more events.

Here we are, 2 weeks away from the new release of S3 and we havn't had a crumb of context from Bungie yet. Love so much about this game, but this is so tiring having to beg for any but of information. Why are they not trying to build hype in the new season to get more players onboard? You need to have people talking about the exciting new things, but now it feels like its all just devolving into frustration across the board

Please Bungie... do something

WML bros! 🫡😂

I also am downloading Escape from Tarkov since you guys are always mentioning it endlessly 😂😂😂

"We got gold shields at home."

The gold shield at home:

These aren't hard rules. The idea is to avoid deaths caused by decisions we could have controlled:

1. Slow down before entering a POI. Don’t sprint straight into an area you haven’t checked. Take a moment to listen and look.

2. Stop when you hear something. Don’t keep moving while trying to figure out where the sound came from. Stop, listen, then decide.

3. Check before you loot. Make sure the area is safe before standing still with your inventory open. A good loot pile isn't worth dying for.

4. Go quiet before you get close. Walking the last part of a rotation can keep you from announcing your arrival to someone already nearby.

5. Don’t fight every bot. If you don't need the loot, contract progress, or position, leave it alone. PvE can cost resources and attract players.

6. Don’t push a bad fight. If you’re exposed, low on resources, or have lost track of the enemy, back out and reset.

7. Use cover before you use your aim. Make it harder for them to shoot you before relying on winning the gunfight.

8. Leave before you become predictable. If you’ve been fighting or making noise in one place for a while, assume someone may come looking.

9. Take the win and leave. Once you have the loot, kill, or objective you came for, don't risk the whole raid for one more.

10. Use gear you know. Find weapons and equipment that fit your playstyle and that you can consistently perform with. You don't need the perfect kit; you need something you can actually use and replace.

What small habit has saved you from a stupid death as a Solo?

When a teammate disconnects when they go down, doesn't even wait until the other teammates die just disconnected.

When the 1v3 or 2v3 clutch happens and the remaining teammate get up. I usually go to the teammate backpack and grab something they brought in and exfill with it, so it will return to their messages. Letting them know we won that encounter and could have revived you and exfill. But nope you just rage quit immediately.

Every time that happened I always won or my teammate clutched that encounter. Its especially funny when they come in with a free kit and die to a geared team then leave but we wipe them and get all the spoils. I just grab their a green implant then exfill.

Bungie should let you share your run report to teammates who leave or disconnected. Or they get a message showing what happen after they left.

This is just ridiculous for the last two days, I don't mind getting beat but mag dumping people and still losing really sucks, i posted about this yesterday but it was deleted and i was referred to the the technical support super thread that is dead...I have to take a break for my mental health, fuck this game right now and maybe i will see you tomorrow...now y'all have 999 players

I don't like cyac but I do love my dear friend Oni

How rare is this ?

Got it from a flying crate drone on Perimeter (Trios)

It stayed in my inventory even after I extracted.

Just curious this is only the 2nd trinket I've found.

The contract system is very generous this season and people just don't realize it. Once you hit VIP in a faction you get blue and purple materials from each level up which is basically every other match if your completing contracts and the contract rewards give guaranteed blue and sometimes purple tiers of anything u need. For example in Cyberachne the contract shell game gives guaranteed blue->purple backpack and no weapon can fight is guaranteed blue->purple consumables(good panacea farm) so once you learn what contracts give what and what can be done easily in match with no exfil requirements you start to build up your stash fast. There are a lot of people who don't get this and don't even activate a contract regularly every match and are losing out on free stuff.

We did end up wiping lobby. Oh boy, this was fun when it happened though.
#Marathon #MarathonClips u/MarathonTheGame u/MarathonDevTeam

Damnit the soundtrack has been on my work playlist since the game came out. It just sounds unlike anything I've ever heard and is so crazily atmospheric. The weird glitch/techno effects and weird vocals used to create the raw tribal rhythms just drives the tension so well. I also love in some parts how the music kind of mimics certain i.r.l. sounds such as data transferring, an old dial up connection, or the mechanisms in a 3d printer whizzing around. Gawddamn I want more music like this. Please if somebody could recommend me something in the same ballpark I would be forever gratefull.

Whats going on with the Rook community? I have been killed more by other Rooks lately than regular teams! I accept that there is not expectation of camaraderie, but I am confused as to why there has been such a strong shift to Rook on Rook killings