Marathon Alpha Impressions

I'm not a big fan of multiplayer shooters anymore, but if one peaks my interest, like the recent Hell Divers 2, then I'll give it a whirl.

That being said, this game looks so uninspired. Everything just looks mid at best, from the visuals to the gameplay loop. What makes this stand out from the crowd? Not a lot from what I can see.
 
Pop said:
AAoiSCb.png


Even the very limited alpha players doesn't want to keep playing after a couple of days
Click to expand...
Can tell you what was said in one of the Discords I hang out in that has a couple of content creators in there

He says his paid Marathon promo time has expired and has moved on to Expedition 33 to stream even though he isn't getting paid to play that
 
HeisenbergFX4 said:
Can tell you what was said in one of the Discords I hang out in that has a couple of content creators in there

He says his paid Marathon promo time has expired and has moved on to Expedition 33 to stream even though he isn't getting paid to play that
Click to expand...
Ouch. Thats bad

Bungie must be very nervous about all this
 
Pop said:
Ouch. Thats bad

Bungie must be very nervous about all this
Click to expand...
I dunno how they feel internally about numbers

I doubt they are overly panicked because seems like a lot of people have a lot of good stuff to say about it

Curious what numbers they will pull when they do an actual open beta

Looking at Twitch its sitting around 50th in viewership which that does seem kind of concerning but again no idea how they feel about these numbers

I have to be careful because I don't want people thinking I am actively hoping this game will fail as the ONLY time I ever want a game to fail is when some of the devs of any game lash out at us gamers because a game isn't doing well

I don't want this to fail as I want more devs taking chances
 
HeisenbergFX4 said:
I don't want this to fail as I want more devs taking chances
Click to expand...
How is this taking chances though? A premium priced online only game that is all about the Skinner box grind, which heavily draws from other games in the genre, and surely to be monetized to hell and beyond, with the same gameplay Bungie has been coasting off for decades. I just don't see exactly what is in this to make it so special. I am watching the streams and one streamer switched to Dune Awakening which to me looked far more interesting. I also wonder when these cowardly devs will stop shutting off proximity chat. What the hell is the point of an online game if communication is nonexistant? The whole point of online is that there is also a social aspect to it. Destiny felt the same to me, completely dead socially despite having all the drawbacks of an online game.

I feel like every week there are online games released with bigger balls than Marathon.
 
Last edited:
Here's what I think most people are missing:

- Visuals will come together over the next 5 months. People seem to be praising the interiors and criticizing the exteriors. That gap will close by release. It'll be one of the best looking PvP games on the market come September.

- The game REALLY rides on allure of the 4th map. If it's a compelling carrot, it'll make the grinding on maps 1 - 3 significantly more fun. Right now, a lot of people don't care about the loot because there's no compelling end goal in the alpha.

- The focus on 3 player teams has some merit. The Finals (and I suppose Apex Legends) delivered transcendent experiences when you're playing with two like minded friends. The Extraction genre may increase group cohesion more than the aforementioned games. Still not sure it was the right choice because it hampers solo and duo play.

- The aim assist discussion is a complete waste of time. This will be settled by launch because every AA and AAA PvP game released in the last 20 years has it settled by launch. Won't impact the games market performance one iota.

- PvP rates and down time are also non issues. Bungie dropped a game of Lego bricks on the ground so they can quickly alter these things if they see them as issues.

The biggest concerns:

- 3 player team focus is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way.

- Shocked that objectives & enemies look so basic. They had 4+ years to come up with that?

- ARC Raiders may absorb too much attention. It's one thing to have a rough landing with little market competition. It's another thing to land rough with a real competitor right next to you.
 
Last edited:
Muddy said:
I mean he believes the game is in trouble because of low closed alpha numbers.

Which is nonsense considering it is on Bungie invite and at least 400K in Discord want to play it.
Click to expand...
Its clearly missing loads of stuff right now, lets see how the beta hits before I go and write it off.

If it does turn out to be a dud then no bother plenty of other games to play.
 
Last edited:
clarky said:
Its about as risky as it gets in the triple A space.

This a huge gamble, taking a niche of a niche genre and trying to take it mainstream. As thing stand right now doesn't look like it will pay off.
Click to expand...
the phrase "taking chances" to me is more like Devs making something they are passionate about regardless of the market/trends.

Marathon comes across like chasing trends/Publisher mandate to make the "next big thing".
 
Muddy said:
I mean he believes the game is in trouble because of low closed alpha numbers.

Which is nonsense considering it is on Bungie invite and at least 400K in Discord want to play it.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's the Alpha player numbers that are themselves the issue. it's the apparent drop-off of players soon after it started.

maybe Bungie will release player stars after the alpha... that seems to be a trend everyone is doing.
these stats often inadvertently reveal if it was popular or not, even if the devs try to handpick numbers to spin it in certain ways.
like how Concord's numbers were talking about how many Kills happened during the Open Beta:

Lfsi7ff.jpeg


this inadvertently revealed a devastating statistic.

12.3 million kills during the beta.
meant the beta had AT MOST 400k rounds of death match.

Death Match was the only mode you can play going into the beta.
other modes were unlocked after you played like 2 or 3 matches I think.

Death Match had a point/kill limit of 30 kills and is 5v5.

So, if we assume every single death match ended 30 to 0 in favour of one team (VERY unrealistic, but let's go with that),
that would mean 12.300.000 ÷ 30 kills = 4.000.000 ... 4.000.000 ÷ 10 players = 400.000

so the maximum amount of players was about 4 million players playing a total 400.000 matches, only if we assume each round played ended 30 to 0, and NOT A SINGLE PLAYER played more than 1 match!
neither of that is realistic. a more realistic scenario is that many of these matches ended in something like 25:30 and that many players played more than 1 singular Team Deathmatch round.

so by revealing 12.3 million kills were made, which at first seems like a big number, they basically told everone that their open beta was a massive failure.
if we use a more realistic estimate, those 4 million potential players QUICKLY shrink and shrink. if we assume each player played 2 matches, we suddenly only have 2 million players... if we assume many of the matches ended in scores 30:29 or 30:25... we drop below 2 million even below 1 million.
depending on what you assume the amount of average rounds played and average points scores were, you can arrive at devastatingly low player numbers... or, like I said, at best at 4 million individual players over the course of a weekend of free acces, across 2 platforms.

even the ridiculously unrealistic best case scenario would have been only a mild success.
but of course 4 million players dropping the game after a single match would also be devastating in another way.
 
Last edited:
kevboard said:
I don't think it's the Alpha player numbers that are themselves the issue. it's the apparent drop-off of players soon after it started.
Click to expand...

There's nothing apparent. You are just looking for things.

It's a closed Alpha with limited invites across 3 platforms not just Steam. Yes many will try it and believe it's not for them.

Others are continuing to play it regularly.

For every person leaving there's thousands wanting to play the game. Go check the 400K member Discord and Reddit.

Let's wait until the game releases to gauge its success.

It's simply premature to make any conclusion now.
 
Last edited:
Muddy said:
There's nothing apparent. You are just looking for things.

It's a closed Alpha with limited invites across 3 platforms not just Steam. Yes many will try it and believe it's not for them.

Let's wait until the game releases to gauge its success.
Click to expand...

an invite only alpha should have less of a player dropoff than an open alpha/beta I think. since you actively have to seek out being invited, while an open test will have more "drive by" testers that just download it on a whim.

but of course, an alpha test isn't necessarily telling us if it's gonna be a success.
I just wanted to point out that in the case of Concord, it was predictable that it's gonna be a disaster due to its statistics.
Marathon's test has not enough data points to say either way, and it's an earlier build that can change, whereas Concord was essentially the final product already.
 
kevboard said:
an invite only alpha should have less of a player dropoff than an open alpha/beta I think. since you actively have to seek out being invited, while an open test will have more "drive by" testers that just download it on a whim.

but of course, an alpha test isn't necessarily telling us if it's gonna be a success.
I just wanted to point out that in the case of Concord, it was predictable that it's gonna be a disaster due to its statistics.
Marathon's test has not enough data points to say either way, and it's an earlier build that can change, whereas Concord was essentially the final product already.
Click to expand...

You actually believe Marathon is another Concord?
 
Muddy said:
You actually believe Marathon is another Concord?
Click to expand...

the only way you can come to that conclusion is if your English and/or reading comprehension is pretty bad.
I literally said I don't think there's enough data to tell either way.

What I do expect is that it will not be as big of a success as Bungie probably had hoped.
 
kevboard said:
the only way you can come to that conclusion is if your English and/or reading comprehension is pretty bad.
I literally said I don't think there's enough data to tell either way.

What I do expect is that it will not be as big of a success as Bungie probably had hoped.
Click to expand...


My reading comprehension is fine. I never came to any conclusion. I clearly said it is premature to say anything until the game releases.

You decided to bring Concord into this discussion. That specific game and no other.

I asked you a simple question.

You actually believe Marathon is another Concord?
 
Last edited:
diffusionx said:
I liked the visual design when they showed it in trailers but it really does not look good in motion with these extended gameplay videos.

I wasn't optimistic because I don't think this genre is popular and even destiny fans hate Bungie these days… but this is looking more and more like a disaster.
Click to expand...

Of the same belief why I think F2P… get at least a couple mill players in riding on it being a 'bungie title' MTX the hell out of cosmetics CoD level and maybe recoup the development costs. They'll all drop off in a month or two..

I don't see people paying for this title and seems the best way to get the majority of the cash sunk, however this I feel like is shaping up to be another concord for Sony and a terrible look 🫤
 
ChorizoPicozo said:
you are seeing that in the alpha but instead of 5 months they had like 2-5 years.
Click to expand...
I suspect the game was a mess until Joseph Ziegler took the helm, which was only 2 years ago.

Game developers frequently hide in development projects from the public because the less informed are eager to go "OMG the graphix is bad. Game is bad!"

Marathon will launch in a polished, good looking state with 3 maps, and map 4, will release a few weeks later after Bungie has hyped it up enough.
 
HeisenbergFX4 said:
Can tell you what was said in one of the Discords I hang out in that has a couple of content creators in there

He says his paid Marathon promo time has expired and has moved on to Expedition 33 to stream even though he isn't getting paid to play that
Click to expand...
More generally it shows that even professionals streamers are fed up about those industry vetted soulless GAAS games and want to play high quality single player games that have heart even if they have to pay for that. More AA SP games, less AAA boring games.
 
Last edited:
Muddy said:
There's nothing apparent. You are just looking for things.

It's a closed Alpha with limited invites across 3 platforms not just Steam. Yes many will try it and believe it's not for them.

Others are continuing to play it regularly.

For every person leaving there's thousands wanting to play the game. Go check the 400K member Discord and Reddit.

Let's wait until the game releases to gauge its success.

It's simply premature to make any conclusion now.
Click to expand...
I signed up for the alpha because why not. I count in the discord.

I really don't want to play the game, it's not a big deal if I don't get in. This isn't World of Warcraft beta here where people were fighting like the zombies in World War Z to get to play it.

Men_in_Boxes said:
- ARC Raiders may absorb too much attention. It's one thing to have a rough landing with little market competition. It's another thing to land rough with a real competitor right next to you.
Click to expand...
nobody cares about ARC Raiders except for you. I have seen that avatar you are using and thought it was a fake game lmao.
 
Last edited:
diffusionx said:
I signed up for the alpha because why not. I count in the discord.

I really don't want to play the game, it's not a big deal if I don't get in. This isn't World of Warcraft beta here where people were fighting like the zombies in World War Z to get to play it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information.

So you speak for everyone in a Discord group of 400K members.

They all joined and signed up to get the Alpha because why not?

They really don't want to play the game though.
 
Last edited:
ChorizoPicozo said:


4TlDgYM.jpeg

simply put:
Marathon is mid af, not innovative enough 😬... just like Concord.
Click to expand...

They got to make it safe and casual for sake of trying to build up an audience as big as possible across platforms. I dont know how many console/PC sales and CCU play Hunt and Tarkov, but Sony and Bungie are expecting Marathon to be exponentially bigger. Bungie isn't being bought out for $3.6B for leftover Destiny 2 sales and Marathon (WIP shooter) being sold as a niche shooter for a small subset of the shooter genre.

- safe casual sci fi graphics
- no prox chat to prevent trolling (they even admitted they did this to prevent toxic communication)
- revives
- forced teams so casual gamers dont bail fast being being killed or confused as they realize it's not DM or TDM or simple objective modes like in other shooters
- heavy aim assist, even for PC mouse gamers . Ya, I read they are adjusting that, but it shows going into it they wanted to make aiming easy. No wonder the alpha footage showed laser beam hit boxes from a mile away. Everyone's got ultra aim assist in the alpha

It'll be an interesting post mortem. They are launching a shooter focused on a niche mode (most shooters arent even extraction or have that mode), but trying to dumb it down so more people will play it over Hunt or Tarkov.
 
Last edited:
clarky said:
Click to expand...

Just saw it and he echoes my thought exactly although I do think it will find an audience. But the issues at least from what i've seen is mainly PvE variety which i do agree needs attention.

I was talking to a few people on crosses stream about this. You need other things happening in that world to make these matches were jumping into interesting beyond just PvP. i don't know if strictly PvP is what can solely carry a game today SPECIFICALLY what fans expect from Bungie.

Example I've said it here and talked about with others, would love to see some gladus or Guilty spark type A.I that is rampant at these facilities that its still doing its duties even though no ones alive there. Just telling you when you enter don't go to these areas. Runner teams don't listen at its warnings , these areas could be like dungeons , the A.I traps you in the room no other teams could get to you, but you have to survive the traps , figure them out like a puzzle and escape and get rare loot and other story based elements.

If you escape , the A.I tells the other team where your located and makes it easier for them to get to you. A.I can decide to help or betray everyone cause it doesn't like runners in its facilities. It could take over one of these machines and mark you as the one who stole from it and chase you across map. It can laugh as your death and , feel scorn when you don't listen to it.

These places shouldn't entirely feel barren, they should be facilities that are working itself to decay. There needs to be 3rd party element to these places, same with weather even though the lightning is a good touch, wouldn't mind sandstorms , or like acid rain or whatever conditions that makes the players have to get to safety it changes the approach of how we fight. Now were taking a risk going outside , and fighting close quarters inside. Maybe the weather affects the facilities , lights go out, theirs fires in certain areas, so the A.I send the machines to take care of it leaving areas that would otherwise be heavily guarded easier to get too.

Just stuff like that I think would help, and doesn't take away from the PvP experience.
 
Last edited:
StreetsofBeige said:
They got to make it safe and casual for sake of trying to build up an audience as big as possible across platforms. I dont know how many console/PC sales and CCU play Hunt and Tarkov, but Sony and Bungie are expecting Marathon to be exponentially bigger. Bungie isn't being bought out for $3.6B for leftover Destiny 2 sales and Marathon (WIP shooter) being sold as a niche shooter for a small subset of the shooter genre.

- safe casual sci fi graphics
- no prox chat to prevent trolling (they even admitted they did this to prevent toxic communication)
- revives
- forced teams so casual gamers dont bail fast being being killed or confused as they realize it's not DM or TDM or simple objective modes like in other shooters
- heavy aim assist, even for PC mouse gamers . Ya, I read they are adjusting that, but it shows going into it they wanted to make aiming easy. No wonder the alpha footage showed laser beam hit boxes from a mile away. Everyone's got ultra aim assist in the alpha

It'll be an interesting post mortem. They are launching a shooter focused on a niche mode (most shooters arent even extraction or have that mode), but trying to dumb it down so more people will play it over Hunt or Tarkov.
Click to expand...
jAzP6v1.jpeg
 
StreetsofBeige said:
- no prox chat to prevent trolling (they even admitted they did this to prevent toxic communication)
Click to expand...
🤔.... how can put this to call Bungie's bullshit.... like, i don't wanna go there.. but im going to:

Bungie wants to make the first AAA Extraction Shooter (as men in boxes states), implies it's needs to go mainstream...casual (mass market)

yet. their influencer event was full of profesional players, many of them Tarkov steamers.

you can't play solo (the game is not really designed to do so) and because is a 3 team squad, communication is very important in order to succeed. A lot of normies don't even use their mic to speak to team mates.

i haven't seen ANY content creator defend or justify the no proximity chat. and a lot of them, explain why it doesn't make sense; having proximity chat makes for a better game.

the fact that the director uses the toxicity argument it should tell you this:

They are not trying to make the best game possible. They are trying to make a game that is inclusive and diverse. Probably an army of fat women (50/50 chance they are actually men) with blue hair and pronouns in their bios are the ones pushing for this "accessibility option" to protect "minorities" against the toxic white male gamers... right?. and the same can be said about their character design.

just as with Concord (which was a mediocre game) marathon has the same vibes. Sony really should be questioning the relase of this game.
 
ChorizoPicozo said:
🤔.... how can put this to call Bungie's bullshit.... like, i don't wanna go there.. but im going to:

Bungie wants to make the first AAA Extraction Shooter (as men in boxes states), implies it's needs to go mainstream...casual (mass market)

yet. their influencer event was full of profesional players, many of them Tarkov steamers.

you can't play solo (the game is not really designed to do so) and because is a 3 team squad, communication is very important in order to succeed. A lot of normies don't even use their mic to speak to team mates.

i haven't seen ANY content creator defend or justify the no proximity chat. and a lot of them, explain why it doesn't make sense; having proximity chat makes for a better game.

the fact that the director uses the toxicity argument it should tell you this:

They are not trying to make the best game possible. They are trying to make a game that is inclusive and diverse. Probably an army of fat women (50/50 chance they are actually men) with blue hair and pronouns in their bios are the ones pushing for this "accessibility option" to protect "minorities" against the toxic white male gamers... right?. and the same can be said about their character design.

just as with Concord (which was a mediocre game) marathon has the same vibes. Sony really should be questioning the relase of this game.
Click to expand...
Personally, I think it's a BS answer. They know what they are doing and it has nothing to do with enemy teams smacktalking.

They are just trying to make the game as easy to understand for the casual crowd. Toxic rants can happen in any game especially sports and shooters and it's allowed in the game if a gamer allows open mics in their settings. The game already is slower paced, includes loot to fiddle with, kill enemy humans and AI bots, objectives and then bolting for the exit point. That's a lot of layers of work to do while most gamers playing a shooter just want to shoot people (or AI enemies in PvE) as much and fast as possible like a 10 minute round of meat grinding and mashing the respawn button when killed. And whomever has the most kills and pts wins kind of thing.

So excluding prox chat that can lead to more complexity with randoms ranging from helping to backstabbing and trolling, 99% of gamers can just treat all gamers on other teams as shoot them asap - no different than COD. So it makes the game easier to understand as that layer is gone. So in theory, the easier the game to understand, the more it should help boost casual sales.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Bungie publishes new closed playtests for Marathon (previous alpha players only)
32
929
MagnetoWasRight replied
Marathon alpha feedback 16th May (1pm PT // 4pm ET // 9pm UK)
5 6 7 8 9
439
4K
ValiantInstance replied
Marathon Alpha invites going out (cannot share codes, no friend invites)
28
3K
Hideous Snake replied
New Marathon Leaks from Playtest 3...
2 3
146
1K
Piggoro replied
Marathon delayed by Bungie
5 6 7 8 9
445
4K
clarky replied
Top Bottom