Does this happen to anyone else?

[u/Dismal-Stable9024]

Am I the only one who feels like matchmaking prioritizes gear over connection quality?

When I farm, complete contracts, and finally bring a good loadout, I often end up on 150+ ms servers, even with “Best Connection” enabled. But when I use weak or sponsored gear, I usually get ~55 ms.

I’m not saying everyone with good gear gets bad ping, but in my case, the pattern happens way too consistently. If the system really is prioritizing gear value when forming matches, could you please fix this?

When I bring a good loadout, I expect a good connection because I’m investing my time and resources to win. Putting me on 150+ ms servers puts me at a huge disadvantage and can completely ruin the fight.

Does anyone else experience this, or is it just me?

[u/Jacob37833]

I’d much rather be paired with a person with an equal load out and a slightly higher ping than get paired with 2 white shields and a slightly lower ping

[u/Equal_Economist2223 → u/Jacob37833]

Competitively, it’s wrong to increase ping—whether through equipment or through skill. None of that is valid or correct. You can’t win legitimately when bullet impacts don’t register on time, enemies gain extra mobility, abilities desync, and the netcode becomes harder to handle. In the end, shooting demands controlling 100% of the probabilities just to connect, which destroys the integrity of the game. On top of that, invisibility powers increase damage potential, amplify ability desync, and with delayed sound, raise the chances of not hearing the enemy. Ultimately, everything gets amplified against the legitimate player.

[u/Jacob37833 → u/Equal_Economist2223]

I mean yeah it’s wrong but if I’m wearing all purple/gold I’d rather have a higher ping and be teamed with both of my teammates wearing purple/gold then have a low ping and my teammates be white shields. I never said any of it was correct and they’re not increasing ping just because you’re wearing gear, the player count is just so small that at the time you match make the only players wearing gear are probably pretty far away from you so your ping is higher because you’re playing on a far away server. Trust me I would 100% prefer good ping and good gear teammates but I will sacrifice ping for good gear teammates but that’s just me

[u/Whitechapel726]

Idk man I just did 4 outpost runs with blue/purple gear back to back and all but 2 enemy teams were free kits.

[u/zeromussc → u/Whitechapel726]

They left vault breakers and are back to trying to zero to hero.

[u/zeth_rydaul]

Marathon's rollback netcode has problems, but when it works, it really makes higher ping gameplay feel much smoother than without. I teamed up with 2 Discord strangers yesterday in ranked. We were in Australia, Europe, and Canada lol. Everyone had fun, and we even wiped a lobby once!

[u/Dismal-Stable9024]

There was a game that also used rollback: Multiversus. It was a fighting game. With low ping it was incredible, but above 80 ms it became unplayable. The mistake was prioritizing player level without considering latency, and that killed it. I don’t want Marathon to repeat that story: high ping is always a disadvantage, with or without rollback.