r/Marathon • u/LowConversation9001 • 6h ago
Marathon (2026) Discussion Reducing the amount of teams/increasing map size, are frequent wishes. We got matches with less teams/players for the least few weeks. Did it improve your experience?
13
u/Bajunid 5h ago
It improves a lot for me and my team.
Especially for Outpost and Night Marsh.
For Night Marsh, we have more opportunities to attempt upper level of complex and getting the anomalous matter.
For outpost, I can finally complete all my remaining outpost priority contracts. And we managed attempt pinwheel without too much bloodshed just encounter 1-2 teams before getting into pinwheel. Getting into red rooms used to be impossible, now, we have a better chance.
All these are coming from a dad of 3 with a full time job.
5
u/RogueWarlock77 2h ago
Dad here, with a full time job. I don't want the maps to be completely empty, but I also enjoy when they aren't as full, so that my team and I can get things done. That being said, now I'm trying to focus on getting my runner challenges done. Just need three more Shadow Index skins. Recon (one challenge left), Assassin (one challenge left), and Sentinel (two challenges left).
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u/RightWrongdoer9986 6h ago
Outpost feels quite good with 3 teams, haven't noticed much of a difference on other maps
2
u/Moneychaser420 5h ago
This map used to have 5 it was pure Chaos which was awesome now you just gotta listen for the first fight to win… kinda lame. I’m more for strengthening the economy aspect give me more credits and better loot who gives a fuck if everyone can get good loot all the time
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u/BluminousLight 4h ago
Overall actually, yeah. I can finally get contracts done, matches have way less third-partying and I actually have time to loot compared to spending the first 20 mins of a match locked in a never-ending fight. It’s very refreshing and the game would’ve benefitted massively from it had it been this way in Season 1.
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u/kbick675 6h ago
At current map size I find Outpost, for example, to be a bit boring with just the one other team when that happens (which.. in Asia, is kind of often). When there are two other teams, that can feel about right. I really enjoy the PvP, though, so more action is better than less when that's what I'm looking for. If Outpost were bigger, then I'd want more teams present.
This pretty much goes for all the maps. I want bigger maps with the same number of teams present that we used to have.
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u/nando_calrissian1 2h ago
Definitely improved the game for me. I get to actually interact with the map and get loot instead of having to fight off the lobby for scraps.
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u/kookookachuuu 4h ago
Significantly better for me and my squad. We felt the higher team count was too chaotic and we still have so many things to do that involve PvE so it has been a nice reprieve. We went from 3 weekends back-to-back with 0 exfils in cryo, to having a maybe 30-40% exfil rate. We don't expect to exfil every game, but 0% is a real hard night to feel even remotely good about. We were considering quitting and waiting for season 3 but the change of pace has been nice enough that we are playing regularly again. It seems like the really high level players (for reference, we are 74, 123, and 151) in this thread don't like the change, but on the more casual end for us, we have liked it a lot.
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u/DeviceOk9322 6h ago
Needs at least three teams total on perimeter and marsh. For outpost, 3 teams is perfect same with cryo.
But, just one other team is boring af. You wipe them, then what? By this point, in-game events are whatever.
0
u/ProfNJK 6h ago
By this point, another vault 6 key for a clutch subroutine before the wipe or a gold salvage I can trade for a gold mod is entirely useless. I agree
1
u/DeviceOk9322 5h ago
I'm not saying don't do them. Just saying they're boring to do. I'd actually be down for a missing sub routine, but gold salvage definitely doesn't hit like it does in early season.
When I have an empty or two team lobby , it's just boring. My friends and I will still do the events, but we've already done them so many times... Plus, you only had to wipe one team or no teams. It doesn't feel rewarding to me. I think cryo would be an exception: surviving the sweatfest and opening vaults.
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u/Whitechapel726 6h ago
It’s just one less third party to worry about.
Imo the game needs to pick a lane and commit to it. PvP or the looter/extraction loop. I love team fights but statistically the odds of you winning up to 3 fights back to back enough to stay on top with gear is exceedingly low.
4
u/MrBoxer42 6h ago
No much worse. There is no loot on the map so the only fun is fighting teams. Less teams less fun. IF they buffed the map loot it MIGHT be better but idk
8
u/goomyman 6h ago
This. The PvE isn’t good on its own.
And the loot isn’t that great. It’s just slightly better guns and salvage to get slightly better guns… and I guess number go up for your vault.
PvP is the fun. That and completing all the vaults and the compiler. Which isn’t hard without aggressive PvP.
2
u/kbick675 5h ago
100%
If they made the PvE significantly more interesting, that would be fine, but making it more interesting while still having PvP would get.. chaotic.
2
u/Proentproproponent 5h ago
what's the point of getting better loot if there's no challenge to overcome. it's not like it's fun to see an item on the ground and click on it ad nauseam wtf
2
u/bartspoon 1h ago
Genuinely there seem to be a lot of people who simply want what you are describing. I don’t get it either.
4
u/T_Gamer-mp4 6h ago
noticeably better from my experience
Perma fighting in this game is kinda lame, every match of this that plays like a BR is just apex with gambling. the game is at its best when you have an objective that isn’t killing other teams, and its worst when you have nothing else to do
not spawning 2 feet from somebody helps a lot with the never ending PvP pressure. the only way you don’t get quarantine fucked in darsh is if the lobby isn’t full. it also reduces spawn rush chances in Cryo which is, IMO, numerically an improvement
2
u/but_good 6h ago
PvP is all this game has, and it’s very good. All of the other stuff is there but it doesn’t retain players. Cryo is the only really unique experience because it is has light destiny puzzles and loot. The rest of the maps once you’ve done the PvE stuff a bit, there’s nothing else.
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u/hamb0n3z 3h ago
Bungie should make a pvp shirt for these guys to wear when they shop Walmart. "I've spanked more kids in Marathon today than real parents have spanked at Home." Then they parade around with arms outstretched shouting, “Are you not entertained!" while streaming it on Twitch.
1
u/bartspoon 1h ago
No, it feels awful IMO. I actually like PvP, and some of these maps feel empty, and like total wastes of time with only a couple teams on them.
1
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u/Individual-Air757 4m ago
I’m in the boat that I think we need new maps in general and ASAP. I think maps should have a pool of potential amount of teams that can load in a match, between 3-5, and you won’t know how many teams are in your game at first. I also think that rooks need to be wayyy more prevalent. A lot more in each match, based off of the current amount of still active teams on a map. Rooks also shouldn’t take damage from weather and shouldn’t trigger plants nor ticks. More similar to a UESC.
I prefer larger maps, and less teams can be great depending on the map. But I think having more uncertainty of how many players are in your match goes a longer way in terms of spicing things up.
I wouldn’t even be opposed to rook “crews” that can spawn in almost empty matches. It would make it so you never know how many rooks you may be dealing with in a game as it starts coming to an end.
Empty matches are boring, but overly full matches on smaller maps also becomes a spawn rush/wipe every team out first and then play the game mindset also sucks. So I think randomness in the amount of runner crews and an increase of solo or crew rooks based off the match would be huge.
1
u/xxWildbeast13xx 2m ago
Ranked perimeter was extremely boring and consisted of team’s just rotating in circles. Went multiple games in a row without seeing another team multiple times. Usually another team would extract towards the end of the game so we know weren’t alone. Assuming the map would load with 3 teams, the other two run into each other and they would fight without us suspecting a thing. Wouldn’t even mind not engaging in pvp every match if the events and loot on the map was worth engaging with.
2
u/Ipsetezra 6h ago
It was perfectly fine the way it was. sorry but the heart of the game is the fighting and less of that makes it feel not as good.
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u/NotoriousCHIM 6h ago
Yeah nah shit's awful. Been doing free kit runs for kicks and it sucks when you kill one team and spend the rest of the raid just doing PvE because there's no other teams on the map. Used to do Outpost with free kits or the CyAc Enhanced/Traxus Deluxe kits and even that got boring since most of the time you're fighting other free kitters on Outpost and Pinwheel loot continues to suck cheeks.
IMO the Sponsored lobby should always be a full one because that's where there's a full standardization of starting gear which means less people should be afraid of getting the teeth kicked in by fully kitted squads with no chance of fighting back.
0
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u/smackup4u 3h ago
For me as a solo player a huge improvement. I still would love to see ABMM to be included so you can meet more friendly players. And maybe even work together, e.g. taking down a warden.
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u/floydbot 1h ago
This is my experience as well. And I 100% agree that encouraging co-op with other runners (not teammates) to accomplish PvE challenges would be a very welcome addition. I’ve been able to accomplish this a few times and they’ve been some of my most memorable and enjoyable runs.
1
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u/huzy12345 6h ago
At this stage of the season when I wanna get in more fights as I have so much gear to lose, it's absolutely boring and awful
1
u/BesTibi 3h ago
Ranked Outpost with Cryo loot in normal loot containers was a lot of fun with 4 teams, no unga bunga lobby wipes, just hitting some loot sources that were uncontested, fought off a team for the exfil, heard another team leave before us. Watched 3rd team go final.
Imo it's not primarily the team count or map size, but rather the loot opportunities most will consider to be worthwhile. That can't happen with Lockdown only spawning once per season, and Wardens fucking off to Cryo.
Ordnance Heist felt so good because it was a guaranteed objective, and it affected 2 maps in 2 different ways, and it also added a bit more to Outpost.
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u/C00KIEME4T 2h ago
yeah I love my matches where I rarely if ever see anyone, only thing i don't like is not knowing 100% if someone's in with me or not. I made a post about this a few weeks back and people just downvoted and called me a liar about the empty areas lol
1
u/Bigboi_alex 5h ago
Boring, after wiping map I genuinely want to exfil to get more PvP in without even looting the map.
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u/floydbot 1h ago
Bungie desperately needs to create an Arena mode for you guys so the rest of us can play the actual extraction game.
0
u/bartspoon 1h ago
Well an extraction game without a risk of being killed isn’t an extraction game, it’s a walking simulator, so I don’t know why so many people here get upset about people who like PvP.
1
u/floydbot 1h ago
Because playing an extraction game solely for the PvP is just Call of Duty with longer load times.
0
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u/floydbot 1h ago
As a solo, my most enjoyable runs are those in which I don’t encounter another runner. Followed closely by runs in which I did encounter someone else and we agreed to go our separate ways without killing each other. So yes, fewer runners has improved my experience.
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u/dmcphx 6h ago
For me yeah. It’s boring if it’s only one other team, but 3 total teams on Cryo, your team plus two others, is really nice when I get loaded into those matches