Offering Assistance.

Let me just start off by saying this: Marathon is the most fun, bold, and exciting multiplayer fps experience I've seen in the last decade. The ceiling for this game is limitless, the worldbuilding is phenomenal, and cryo archive is the best endgame PVP experience that has ever been created in any game, ever. 

Now to the point. This game is being run into the ground by your studio. I'm not sure if this is a combination of the purchase of Bungie by Sony, general mismanagement, lack of direction with leadership, or just poor decision-making all around but it's the truth. 

I want to see this game thrive more than anybody. I have over 750 hours on the game, and I am a longtime gamer with appreciation for both hardcore PVP and casual PVE experiences. I grew up on Halo, The Legend of Zelda, Counter Strike, and many other classics that have stood the test of time and I have a deep understanding of what makes a game fun, and what keeps players like myself coming back. 

There were a number of opportunities this season to create new and fun experiences and shake up the meta from season 1, but none of them were taken advantage of. It's been clear since day 1 of the season that Joe Ziegler was no longer involved and playing the game, and quite frankly it feels like nobody at Bungie has played the game at all this season as all of the balance changes, fixes, map adjustments feel incredibly out of touch. 

Let me just start by sharing a few of the things that hurt my experience as a player. 

1. Not nerfing the loot in upper complex fast enough. This was allowed to go on for way too long and ruined the economy day 1. This was also a slap in the face as it was apparent nobody at bungie was playing the game after servers went live as this would have gotten addressed much sooner. The post you sent out that said "internal tools were reporting this incorrectly" just proved that you guys didn't care enough to even try this out on live servers when it dropped. 

2. Sponsored kits for free day 1. All of the new players that came in were getting stomped by purple shield kits in their first games, and immediately got turned off of the game. This ruined the magic that season 1 had where the whole playerbase felt the fight progression through green shields, to blue shields, then the final reward of having purple shields. Purple shields felt completely valueless this season whereas they were a treat to come across in the beginning of season 1. 

3. The missed opportunity with Night Marsh. Turning the upper complex key into RNG hell to try to get, changed Night Marsh from an outpost like map with a clear objective, which people love, into a complete annoyance to play. Myself and many others completely stopped playing this map as it just feels bad to play, hitting your third or fourth tower and still not getting anything. This map would be incredible if keys were more abundant, and people on the map gravitated towards upper complex to fight around it and kill the boss, instead of hitting every single tower on the map for 20 minutes which feels like a complete chore. 

4. Weapon balance, weapon balance, weapon balance. I would love to share my thoughts on the sandbox as a whole as the gunplay in this game is incredible, and part of why I love this game so much. But so many mistakes were made in properly balancing the weapon sandbox as it feels like the changes are made purely from a numbers and "what are people crying about on reddit" standpoint. Instead of how these guns actually feel to use in pvp and pve encounters. I will leave my contact info in case anybody is interested in discussion. 

5. Gutting rooks. A substantial portion of the playerbase loved doing rook runs, from pure scavenger type players, to players looking for the thrill of the 1v3. Gutting this class completely, and giving them signal flares just felt like you were spitting in the faces of rook players. I know a number of people that would hop on every day just to play rook runs that just uninstalled the game as it now feels absolutely terrible to play. Even from a real runner standpoint, rooks feel like pigeons on the map. It was fun when they were potentially a threat, but now they are so useless I walk around completely carefree and that element of wondering if there is a rook creeping in the dark looking to catch you out alone kept things interesting at all times. It's just gone now. This was a combination of removing the wstr from rook, as well as nerfing the wstr so hard alongside removing stack overflow, that it is a completely useless weapon. If you've tried using it at all this season you know what I mean, but I doubt anybody at bungie even has. 

I have a number of other opinions I would love to share about the game and other missteps that I can share. I just want this game to get better and I would even be happy to consult with Bungie for no fee to help develop a better experience for players. I know the company has been through a significant amount of turbulence and I understand making games isn't easy. But the decisions that were made this season are bleeding the playerbase dry, and I know these are things that can be fixed. This game has an unbelievably high ceiling for just how good it can be it isn't too late to see it realized. It is clear there is currently a lack of direction and there is so much fun that can be injected into the game with just a few simple changes. Please don't give up now, and continue to be bold and take risks. 

You can reach me at mitchbroa@gmail.com, and I am happy to hop on a zoom call to discuss at any time. 

Thank you for reading this, and I will continue to support this game until the very end.