After Bungie made it clear in its recommended settings for PC players that it is “in it for the long haul” with Marathon, the latest patch pushed by the studio further supports its long-term outlook. One of the key elements of today’s patch is the removal of a popular movement glitch that skilled players could take advantage of, because despite its popularity, Bungie deemed the glitch, and movement tactics like it, “unhealthy” for the game long-term.
“Fixed an issue allowing slide cancel animations to keep momentum when either pulling out equipment or Thief’s Grapple Device ability,” is the first bullet point in Bungie’s patch notes, and it’s underneath that note where the studio digs into why it removed the glitch (outside of the team not intending for it to be there in the first place).
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“One of our core philosophies for Marathon is that rapid repositioning and aggression must always have a meaningful cost,” Bungie begins. “That cost can be an ability charge, heat buildup, or increased risk but it must exist and be understandable to an observer. Unbounded movement, while expressive and clip-worthy, is ultimately unhealthy for the pace of play we want to maintain for Marathon.“
“To set expectations early, we will be looking at any future movement exploits through the same lens.“
That’s arguably the most significant aspect of the patch, especially for any Thief players who had spent time mastering how to take advantage of the movement exploit, but it’s not the only notable change included in the update.
For starters, Pinwheel, the ‘vault’ of sorts in the middle of the Outpost map, once again has its Destroyed Wing entrance, which Bungie had previously shut off while it worked out a way to balance out the challenge of getting into Pinwheel. Before the shut off, players were accessing Pinwheel far too quickly and easily for Bungie’s liking, and now that it has found a solution, the entrance is back.
Pinwheel will also include better loot now, so if you are able to get in, you’ll be handsomely rewarded, which will surely help players load up and prepare for Cryo Archive, the endgame zone that is only available on weekends.
Other notable changes coming to Marathon, though not included in these patch notes, is that the Duos experiment continues, and is now moving to Outpost. When Bungie first started testing a Duos queue, it did so with Perimeter first, then it moved the Duos action to Dire Marsh, and beginning tomorrow, it’ll be moved to Outpost.
It’ll be interesting to see if Bungie extends the experiment to Cryo Archive and whether all of this ‘experimentation’ will end with a Duos queue getting permanently added to the game or not. If Bungie does test Duos on Cryo Archive, that may even be a precursor to a solo queue for the raid, which currently has a whole list of requirements players need to meet if they want to run it.
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