Mibu no ookami
his thread making privileges and take away
Men_in_Boxes
in return? Seems like a fair trade.First, I want to apologize to the mods at NeoGAF. We're probably reaching our limit on the number of Marathon threads. I'm being a bit annoying here because I think this is so vital in understanding how we interpret games.
There's been a lot of negativity surrounding the gameplay reveal of Marathon. I believe most of the criticism is meant in good faith and is actually fairly logical.
This Friends Per Second podcast (timestamped below) represents this best. Here's a 12 minute clip where 4 reasonably intelligent hosts, reluctantly bury Marathon. Not only do none of the hosts here "Get it", but they don't see how the market is going to get it either.
And here's the thing, their criticisms are all valid...but only in the context of the paper thin progression paradigm multiplayer has been stuck in forever.
The PvP was sparse, the loot was boring, the enemy AI was a chore, the shells were derivative.
But what they're missing, and what half the content creators on YouTube are missing, is that Dire Marsh was not Marathon.
Dire Marsh was the segment in Pokemon Red/Blue where you leave Pallet Town to level your starter Pokemon up. It was just walking in fields battling Sparrow for 8 hours. Leveling up your party makes no sense to anyone who doesn't understand RPGs. "You just fight the same low level monsters over and over again so you can get a few stat bonuses? How is that fun?!"
Marathon is not Apex Legends or Valorant or Halo Infinite. Marathon is Pokemon Blue, Skyrim and Final Fantasy.
The Marathon Framework:
Dire Marsh (Map 1): Easy, low level loot.
Generic Name (Map 2): Medium difficulty, medium loot rarity.
Generic Name (Map 3): Hard difficulty, rare loot.
Marathon Ship (Map 4): Get fu**ed difficulty.
Bungie wants us to level up our characters over the course of 20 - 50 hours to have a chance at Map 4. The "special" Marathon Ship map is the Elite 4 in Pokemon Red/Blue. It's Kafka in Final Fantasy.
They want you sitting down with your friends and saying "Alright, lets farm ammo on Dire Marsh tonight. Then maybe at the end we can head to Map 3 and look for some stealth implant upgrades. If we can hook Mike up with a few implants we should be ready to tackle the Marathon Ship on Friday. Everyone can still play on Friday right?"
Now there's going to be people who read this and go "Interesting theory...but I doubt it. Progression isn't that important. Marathon is still going to flop."
To those people I would ask "What are your 20 favorite games of all time and what are your 10 most anticipated titles?
Their list of 30 games would all have long form progression. That's how important this concept is. Additionally, this list of 10 most anticipated is certain to be dominated by big 30+ hour titles and not short 5 - 10 hour titles. Gamers don't value minimal progression. They want the epic.
Nobody wants Hellblade II. Everybody wants Cyberpunk 2077.
I'd also ask these people to look at the wildly successful Rust, DayZ, and ARK Survival Evolved...notice how lame the moment to moment combat looks in those titles (valid) and pontificate on why they're so popular. Might it have to do with social based, long form progression?
Bungie is building gasoline in a market dominated with kerosene. People will continue to say "PvP Live Service is a saturated market" but they don't realize that Marathon is something totally new. It just doesn't look like it through the old lense.
F2P* GAAS
Multiplayer doesn't function on "wow effect".
Do we know for certain if it has team chat in public matchmaking games?
I would say that's a safe bet. I can't remember the last moderately budgeted game with matchmaking that didn't have team chat.
Reach was a Destiny alpha. In Elite difficulty even the chacals were bullet sponges. Awful game, great story.
As if the AAA and PvP distinctions don't matter to 90+ percent of NeoGAF. Come on bruv.
How did you solve my ARG so quickly?
If they didn't matter no one would be talking about them on NeoGAF and companies wouldn't spend 100+ million dollars making them.
That is part of the Men in Boxes starter pack. All his treads are like this and funny to dunk on. It is part of the charm of a gaming forum, we need people like him haha.
I generally have a philosophy of "If someone says something silly with their very first sentence, I'll correct the error and move on...because it suggests an avalanche of errors afterwards.
It's only grind if it's not engaging to you. For example, I quit many single player games after 5 or so hours because I recognize the progression path they've built and it no longer appeals to me.
Both SP games and Extraction Shooters share similar frameworks. You complete objectives to build your power level to advance your story.
Just like Uncharted 2 delivers a new shotgun for the player to use in level 4. (Or the Super Metroid example)
Very true, but I don't consider Hunt Showdown to be a AAA game or an Extraction Shooter with long form progression. You can reach "max level" in Hunt in less than 5 hours of successful play. It has what I consider to be a really disappointing progression system for the genre.
Well, that's how SP games have done it forever. Your 20 hour progression in Uncharted 2 is sectioned up into different levels.
I don't think you thought this all the way through. It's likely that this format appeals to many more personality types than old style (sports) multiplayer games.
Guilty_AI
years ago. Hopefully seeing this new crop of multiplayer games in action makes things more clear.
The PVP in that game was rubbish
Men_in_Boxes
Fucking bloom
Can we give back
Awful. Then you have bullshit like Jetpacks and Armour Lock.
I actually am enjoying seeing his huge happiness to GAAS games. I tend to disagree with him on this topic 80% of the time, but at least we have one HUUUUUGE advocate on GAF for it. If I have questions about GAAS, I tag
The word "grind" simply refers to effort spent to achieve progress.
Most people are able to recognize the distinction between Pac Man and Cyberpunk 2077 in terms of long form progression.
You are kind of right here. The long form progression loops I'm talking about here are also found in the survival genre. That was explained in the OP, which I hope you read.
As I said before, Hunt Showdowns progression loops are longer than a CoD or Overwatch, but it really doesn't get close something like Escape from Tarkov or Marathon.
Yes, just like Uncharted 2 comes with 11 levels...Marathon comes with 4 maps and by the time Season 10 of Marathon rolls around, it should have 11 maps...just like Uncharted 2.
Nobody considers the core progression of Hunt Showdown to be your account level. The primary progression curves, the ones you feel most as a player, are the 30 minute matches and the 5 hour Hunter progression curves. Those two threads give the player the highest degree of choice and fun.
It will take players significantly longer to advance their runner to max level. Marathon is the Cyberpunk 2077 of Extraction games (I assume) while Hunt Showdown is the Hellblade II of Extraction games.
Wrong. All shooters up to this point, have followed the "sports style" framework of short matches. They resembled fencing or ping pong in that they were built around competitive integrity and short play sessions. They basically never explored the longer "Heroes Journey" type progression framework.
This was the best sentence of your post. I am absolutely thinking about this topic longer than I should, lol.
Ahhh...so the wheels ARE starting to turn for you. Excellent! I think you might check out this genre after all.
