Progression and Loot Issues - A Lack of Good Items

[pure onyx]

!post 4!
💡 A Lack of Good Items:
EDIT: I'm revising this post after learning more information. My three categories were wrong.

Pretty much all weapons are in the same category based on TTK. With the way armor works. Lvl 8 armour is barely better than 6 and lvl 9 is barely better than 8. Helmets are largely useless. The only items which are truly "better" than other items are the bigger backpacks but what are you even going to put in there if the loot doesn't matter because every item is roughly the same as what you already are wearing.

You can just run Plate rig and Uzi every single game, run around, kill everyone and not loot anything without missing out on anything. Once you figure out how the items work there is actually no reason to loot anything other than Barrel Backpacks. When I play, Solo or with friends, I'll open a vault, look for a Barrel and then leave everything else in there because none of it matters.

The way I phrased this when arguing with someone else on this forum who for some reason thought this was all okay is:

"there is no RISK/REWARD in marauders because I don't need to RISK anything to get the same REWARD as anyone else with any other gear
I can risk the lvl 9 panzer rig thing i got from a capital ship and my big sweaty lvl10 helmet and my big sweaty STG and get one-donged by a guy who looted an SVT off a scav or have almost no advantage against someone who just bought an Uzi from the trader
so at that point why bother with the lvl 9 rig or the lvl 10 helmet or anything at all? i could just run a lvl 6 armor and an uzi and be at such a small disadvantage, risking nothing
...
The entire point of extraction shooters is RISK/REWARD."

This is a massive issue for the game and has everyone I've been playing with, myself included, done with the game. This isn't a matter of it being a beta or needing more content, It's a flaw in the core design philosophy of the game and will see this game fail if it isn't addressed.

[pure onyx]

Bumping all of my suggestions and then stopping playing because there is literally no reason to go into raid until the developers balance the game. There's nothing to gain and if you try to use any of your cool items you will eventually lose them to something out of your control and there's no reliable way to get those items back. There's no point in playing a "looter shooter"/"extraction shooter" with no loot.

[tiny furnace]

git gud

[pure onyx]

Mind blowing, this is the biggest issue with the game, it’s what will make people lose interest. Last night none of my gaming group wanted to play Marauders for the exact reasons I posted and this is all the engagement I get here. Meanwhile the board is flooded with useless, unrealistic and frankly dumb suggestions.

[pure onyx]

Bumping all these again because this board is constantly being flooded with worthless posts and I'd love if this game didn't die in a week.

[jagged spoke]

Please for the love of god, format your posts... these massive blocks of text will make people ignore them.

[pure onyx]

yanno I wanted to but I was pushing the character count limit and It won't let me

[cosmic aurora]

I honestly have more fun using basic stuff. Like the Luger, I’ve had more big plays with that gun and an mp40 over any of the big rare guns.

[pure onyx]

Yeah, that’s the issue. There’s no reason to use any of the “better” gear because none of it is actually better.

And therefore there’s no reason to loot anything

[cosmic aurora]

I just sell the stuff I get, more money = less problems. I buy stuff from the trader when needed. I don’t know, I guess it’s just the style of game. I’m sure there will be more content before we know it but In the mean time I plan to keep playing and keep finding the flaws and keep bringing them up!

[pure onyx]

The issue is that I could just play any other shooter which doesn't have loot/extraction and have more gunfights with more players in less time. This game is effectively Call of Duty with a façade of being an extraction shooter laid over it. You don't need money because you can get a kit for 10k that puts you pretty much on-par with anyone else in the game. When I stopped playing I had $3M and couldn't have spent it if I tried because there was nothing to buy with it. I opened vaults, Looked for a Barrel Backpack and then left all the loot on the ground because none of it does anything. I would wipe and entire lobby, take the meds off the bodies and just leave everything else because again, there was no reason to want any piece of gear over another. I hate to do this to all the casuals and people who haven't figured it out yet who still think the loot their taking out matters but it really doesn't. You are effectively playing pretend if you believe otherwise. People are still ratting around with a bunch of random loot shoved up their ass, avoiding fights because they actually think the stuff in their inventory matters when it doesn't which further ruins the game for the people who have figured the game out and just want to run around the map fighting people.

[feral crane]

I don’t really get why you have to constantly repeat the same thing over and over again. It won’t suddenly make development faster.

This is an early access game that just started literally. You bought it knowing this. It’s very much expected that the game will be flawed.

You already got your money’s worth did you not? Like, It’s a game with 3 devs. The game will lose players regardless because there’s no way they can frequently update fast enough to keep up with the population.

[pure onyx]

Okay, keep coping I guess. I bring it up to bring awareness to the problem. I want to like this game but the game just truly isn’t very good. Not in an “early access” way, not in a “technical issues” way. Not in a “not enough content” way. But in a massively flawed design philosophy way.

[feral crane]

You say that but you’ve been putting a lot of hours into it

[pure onyx]

Me and my friends would still be playing if it weren’t for this single issue. Instead we played for about a week and a half. That isn’t very long.

[feral crane]

How many hours is that?

Also, lol you tell me to cope when I’m just saying what’s realistic

[pure onyx]

You’re going to try and say whatever number of hours I say was worth it cause $30 and EA but you are permanently just missing the point.

[feral crane]

Telling you that the game won’t be able keep with frequent updates enough to maintain their number of players because it’s 3 devs isn’t Copium

Even if they do fix the loot issues, it’d be a while because there’s other priorities like bugs and glitches.

[pure onyx]

I’m not mad because I spent $30 on a bad game, I make allot of money. I’m sad/ worried that these developers don’t know what they’re doing on a fundamental level and their forum is full of sycophants who won’t tell them that and casuals who don’t know any better. Stop bringing up content of frequency of updates, that has nothing to do with the issue. If they fixed the loot(or didn’t create it so poorly in the first place) none of the bugs would matter. At this point there aren’t many bugs left. It doesn’t matter if your game has no bugs if the core of the game is rotten.

[feral crane]

For a 3 man dev team to attract 10k players to buy a 30 dollar EA game and still maintain 5-8k players after two weeks is pretty impressive if you ask me.

Clearly they’re doing something right.

Nah, I just think you’re dramatically exaggerating the issue.

I mean, look at the upvotes on your thread talking about the issues

Not a whole lot if you ask me.

[ember reef]

OP's opinion maybe valid and logical, but that does not mean that it reflects all players' opinion. By contrast to you, me and my friends are having a blast playing this game, and we are far from being bored yet. While I understand your point on the high risk/high reward, this is also precisely why I like this game over Tarkov for instance. And the genera "FPS extraction" is relatively new, it is a little bit soon to state that Marauders do not comply with the fundamental aspects of such genre while so far only a bunch of these games exist, and which all have a different approach (Hunt has nothing to do with Tarkov or Marauders for instance, and is not at all based on high risk/high reward).

I like that Marauders is not about "who has the better stuff", the stuff being accessory, and more about skills. It's like Hunt for that. Stuff does not matter as much as in Tarkov, but still can make a difference. And even a newbie with a ludger, if handled properly, can take down someone with high tier stuff.

[feral crane]

at the end of the day, the devs know best. It’s the beginning of EA so I don’t get why you’re worried. Be patient and wait for updates. That’s all I’m gonna say.

[ember reef]

That does not mean, however, that weapons are perfectly balanced yet. I quite agree that the devs should make high tier weapon more attractive. More customisation like it's already the case with BAR (which have an option for an extended magazine and compensator?).

[feral crane]

Yes, nothing is perfect which is why it’s early access.

[ember reef]

OP should offer some suggestions though, this is the suggestion channel and devs specifically told us not only to stress out issues, but also to suggest a solution.

[feral crane]

He did but now he’s constantly bumping his threads and then talking badly about “casuals” not knowing shit.

Having unnecessary worry for a game that started EA. It’s unrealistic

[pure onyx]

Idk why you keep replying to my posts if you won't engage with what I'm saying. You just keep vomiting forth cope. getting 10k people to try your game because they saw a streamer play it or saw it on tiktok is great for the devs but really not an impressive feat. "BRO THE UPDOOTS" isn't a valid response to anything I'm saying. Most people just haven't realized what i'm saying to be the case yet but they will. These kids are still shoving items up their asses and escape-podding at the mere hint of another player existing on the map because they think it matters. Just stop responding if you aren't going to add anything to the conversation. At least other people are making the argument that the current gameplay is good even if they're wrong.

[feral crane]

Has little confidence for the devs while trying to make his opinion matter more than others.

And see, now he’s calling them kids lul

This guy thinks he’s so important.

[pure onyx]

that isn't how being a developer works. You don't magically know what's best. In fact you often have the least visibility on the problems because you don't have time/ the will to play your game while you're making it.

No, I'm just right. The devs can have their game die for all I care but it would have been nice to have another decent game to play with my friends.

[feral crane]

I can trust a dev to look at suggestions and decide if it’s good or not.

A dev knows best for that because it’s their own game.

[pure onyx]

I had one here before I rewrote the post after learning the math of how the game works. I think the suggestion is pretty implicit from what I've laid out.

[ember reef]

I truly think that the issue with your tone/argumentation, is that you already claim the game dead because it's lacking something you would like to see. Maybe Marauders is just not for you...

[ember reef]

I honestly don't understand what could concretely solve your issue with the game from your post.

[feral crane]

Also, this obsession with games dying is so cringe. It’s an early access game which will have many different changes to the population as big patches come or whenever there’s a long wait between patches.

[ember reef]

Is it that high tier armor and weapon should be somehow stronger?

[feral crane]

The guy just needs the dev to acknowledge his feedback and then he’ll be a free man.

[pure onyx]

that there should be a reason to pick up items in the raid and leave with them. Failing that the game should just be a matchmade deathmatch game or BR because there is no "extraction shooter" here.

[pure onyx]

the absolute density of fanboys on the internet LOL it's truly a unique form of brainrot. I can only rephrase the undeniable facts which I've stated so many times. I can't for sure say that people don't want to play a pointless game with no progression and a lack of gunfights when they could just play a game with progression or a game with frequent gunfights. I can't 100% say that to be the case, but yeah, it's not for me.

and all the game would need to do to be for me and for literally anyone I've talked to about the game outside of this cesspool of a forum is for there to be a reason to want to go into raid and loot things.

[ember reef]

"the absolute density of fanboys on the internet LOL it's truly a unique form of brainrot"

Are you calling me a brainrot because I only partially agreed with you / because I partially disagreed with, and because unlike you, and although I acknowledge that particularly weapons could be more balanced, I find that I have reasons to raid?

[pure onyx]

"maybe the game just isn't for you" is a pretty frequent response from NPCs on forums/reddit when you offer valid criticism of a game they like. right alongside "skill issue" and "ItS A bEtA". like yeah, it's not for me for objective, quantitative and qualitative reasons that nobody has yet come up with a valid response to other than "that's just how the game is".

No shit sherlock, that's how the game is and it's a big issue if you want to retain players. I'm not saying the game is lacking some specific thing that I want to see. I'm saying the core design philosophy of the game does not seem to make logical sense. The game doesn't provide any reason for me to want to play it. I've complained about allot of issues in allot of games in my life and generally those were more of a subjective criticism than this. This is just a fundamentally broken system.

To be completely honest the only reason to not see this issue and play the game is that you like the charm and aesthetics of shooting WW2 guns in a space station which is fine if that gets you off but for people who play games seriously that just doesn't cut it.

[feral crane]

You showed your true colors with your tone and attitude which really destroy your credit imo. That's why it's hard for me to take you serious when you pull the "copium" shit and calling people kids.

I originally thought you were a well spoken mature adult which had reasonable points but then now it really feels entitled and you have this, "My opinion is better and more meaningful than others" superiority.

[ember reef]

So you are so clever that you even know the only reason why I play and like this game? You really have answers for everything. "The game doesn't provide any reason for me to want to play it." this is exactly with other words what I said: this game has features that you don't like / are not appealing for you. But somehow your opinion is an absolute truth which applies for everybody. I mean, I did not like Tarkov for instance, but I understand why other people like it. I don't claim that the reasons for which I don't like it make of Tarkov a game which is fundamentally flawed, and should not be characterised as a survival/extraction FPS but as an RPG. According to you, we either agree completely with you, or we are just braindead fanboyz.

[feral crane]

And then you start insulting the dev's game that they worked very hard on and have little confidence in the dev themselves in very unreasonable manners.

You see what I mean, Le muchacho?

Anyways, the thread is going off topic and I'm sure the mods will step in soon so I'm off. Peace

[gusty atlas]

the amount of fan boy losers that chime in with their lame experience like this is something totally new and requires specific skill totally ruins the experience I agree. Keep your head up bro!

[ember reef]

Nobody said here that this game is perfect. Actually I tend to criticises it and suggest thing: maps tend to over-promote SMGs over other kind of weapons (most of the time), lack of customisation options for high tier weapons (such as M16, which has no extend magazine or useful options), hitreg is broken when a players is near an obstacle (bullets will somehow hit the obstacle even if you aimed at the players itself - I'm in process of recording examples of that). I also agree that when you have no more contracts to perform, you don't really have any reason to raid, that is, the game needs more contracts, and more complex contracts (various step to perform them for instance).

[pure onyx]

Oh Boo Hoo. The poor bongers who made this game and got a ton of money. Boo Hoo this guy is mean to me because I won't engage with what he's saying and instead just keep spamming nonsense responses and telling him how mean he is.

[ember reef]

Damn you are pathetic 😂

[ember reef]

Since you reject my opinion, I'm Jesus in your example, and you represent the haters?

[pure onyx]

I'm honestly unclear on what your opinion is. like, that you think I'm wrong and a meanie is clear but I'm really not sure what your counter-argument to anything I've said is.

[ember reef]

I actually agreed on avrious points you stressed out

[pure onyx]

TBH I probably came at you harder than I needed to because I was so annoyed with the other guy. I can't sit here and tell you that you're wrong for enjoying the game I just think you haven't thought very critically about it yet.

For instance have you considered what does the looting, inventory system and "raid" format actually add to the game? I you enjoy the gunplay and balanced gear where it doesn't really matter what you use than how does any of that add to the game? If the game was just a regular matchmade shooter like Overwatch or Call of Duty or something where it's just like this but you get to have more frequent gunfights with more people, wouldn't that just be better? or if it was a BR where the last man alive on the station wins and the tacked-on Tarkov elements weren't there wouldn't that be better? OR if it was like Hunt and the focus was on PVEVP with a bunch of various monsters/enemies on the station with unique mechanics where the PVE was your goal and you were competing to do PVE objectives against other players wouldn't that be better?

But the game seems more closely modeled instead after Tarkov except with the things that make people enjoy Tarkov either stripped out or just a thin veil of pretend laid over the game.

[gritty igloo]

explain to us, mighty guy who understands but also no longer plays: what is in tarkov that is missing here?

(legit asking, because like I've said, imo the game's biggest issue is lack of content to keep people around)

cause tarkov or here, with no gear fear, sounds extremely similar except I have to worry a lot more about snipers and sniping in tarkov than here

[pure onyx]

I honestly feel like that's a misconception. Adding another gun is pointless if it's the same as all the other guns and adding another map is pointless if there's still no reason to want to loot anything from the map. I'm copy-paste from an argument I had with another enlightened individual here:

So in Tarkov for all it;s flaws I wanted to progress the quests to get BETTER guns which would make it easier to kill the big sweaty juicers with all the crazy gear so I can loot and steal their crazy gear.

and then run their crazy gear, and RISK losing it for the REWARD of getting even more loot from my runs

there is no RISK/REWARD in marauders because I don't need to RISK anything to get the same REWARD as anyone else with any other gear

I can risk the lvl 9 panzer rig thing i got from a capital ship and my big sweaty lvl10 helmet and my big sweaty STG and get one-donged by a guy who looted an SVT off a scav or have almost no advantage against someone who just bought an Uzi from the trader (edited)

so at that point why bother with the lvl 9 rig or the lvl 10 helmet or anything at all? i could just run a lvl 6 armor and an uzi and be at such a small disadvantage, risking nothing

So now we've removed the RISK element and we're left with REWARD, or at least we would be left with REWARD but I can pop 10 Vaults and walk out with maybe a Barrel or two. I don't need the coins or the bonds, i just leave those, there's nothing that costs allot of money. I don't need the guns cause I already have the Uzi or the Mp40 or literally any random gun in the game. ditto for armor. I don't need the crafting mats once I have a decent amount of them stashed up. I don't need the quests done because It only took me a few days to unlock the minimal amount of advantage available.

And If i just wanted to play a game without RISK/REWARD i could just play any BR game or Siege or Overwatch or Valorant or whatever. The entire point of extraction shooters is RISK/REWARD.

[gritty igloo]

yeah that's just word salad dude

that's "dudes, cmon, more gooder items!"

[pure onyx]

I didn't even have time to read that so clearly you didn't

[gritty igloo]

you're saying your "feel" of risk/reward is off, I'm saying lol you have gear fear

that's your OP in this thread dumbass lol

[pure onyx]

what? I'm saying gear fear doesn't exist in this game because all the gear is meaningless

how are you this dense? how is that possible?

[gritty igloo]

ok let's rephrase: why do you have gear fear in tarkov and not here?

[pure onyx]

because none of the gear matters, It is all just as good as any other gear with any differences being so miniscule that the optimal thing to do is just use the cheapest gear. If you read what I said you would already know this.

And people act shocked when I'm mean to them...

[gritty igloo]

alright I'm getting a little abstract here, the point of this is to examine your motivations and things like "because in tarkov I have to scrape and scrape to get loot together to fight"

let me rephrase again: why are you saying gear fear IS IN tarkov?

because I would argue: it's only there for people who don't know the systems

and if the intention is to actually retain players: that's where actual "alright what would RETAIN people in this game" come into play, because the fact that there seems to be a sizeable number of "I like marauders because it is a more accessible Tarkov" players means that this is a solid foundation, and things like bullet bullshit or manually loading mags and other tedious shit is absent here

[pure onyx]

Because If someone is broke in tarkov and they loot gear which they couldn't otherwise attain which is better than the loot they could normally attain and will provide a more profitable raid experience because they're investing in my character by using it than people don't want to lose that gear.

that is what gear fear is. It only exists because some items are better than others. if all the items are pretty much the same there is no reason to care about losing anything.

[gritty igloo]

no dude lol

[pure onyx]

okay, keep trolling i guess.

[ember reef]

"I can't sit here and tell you that you're wrong for enjoying the game I just think you haven't thought very critically about it yet. " Thanks for admitting that you are coming hard on me. But again, this is rather condescending for you to assume, because I partially disagree with you, that it means that I "haven't thought very critically about it yet". 1) What does the looting, inventory system and "raid" format add to the game? -> Having to extract, in addition to the fact that there is neither "insurance system" nor "revive by teammate system" is what make the PvP (and sometimes PvE) so tense. You only have one opportunity, it's either him or you. In addition to that, you actually need to loot stuff in order to craft your equipment, or for some contracts. I agree that the game still lacks content: more complex contracts to be performed over time (like some part to do on a map, and another part on a different map) ; they should make crafting better ships useful ; and they should add more customisation options for high tier weapons in order to reach a better balance, and to give a reason to loot high tier weapons.

2) "If the game was just a regular matchmade shooter like Overwatch or Call of Duty or something where it's just like this but you get to have more frequent gunfights with more people, wouldn't that just be better?" -> Not for me, not at all. I like the fact, as already stated, that I have only one life, and that I have to extract alive from the map. I like to raid sometimes just to try to ambush players, to play aggressively, or other times to loot to be able to craft my medicines, ammo, armour etc. I would not play it if it was only a deathmatch like any CoD. 3) was like Hunt and the focus was on PVEVP with a bunch of various monsters/enemies on the station with unique mechanics where the PVE was your goal and you were competing to do PVE objectives against other players wouldn't that be better? From my point of view this is already what Marauders is, but still lack content. From my understanding, Marauders intend to be a mix from Tarkov and Hunt. We already have bots, some kind of boss (chief commando). But I would also add more bosses which could randomly spawn on the maps, like in Tarkov. Or some event on the maps, such as bots from the different factions fighting each other, and we, marauders, would have to do something in relation thereto (i don't know what, some kind of sabotage, or some kind of objective)

[pure onyx]

okay so for starters there's no tension if I'm not actually losing anything when I die. none of the loot I picked up in raid matters and I can just replace my gear infinitely with more of the same gear.

[ember reef]

I guess this is the point, Marauders is made for people which would like to like Tarkov, but don't like it. I did not like it for a few reasons, and Marauders offer me a Tarkov-like experience without the gameplay features that I did not like in Tarkov. And you quite the opposite: you don't like Marauders because you don't find in it the features you liked in Tarkov.

[pure onyx]

If you want a game where there's only 1 life there are plenty of search/destroy type games. It's hard for me to understand the idea of "I enjoy extracting" because physically walking to the extract and leaving the map isn't in and of itself fun as far as I can tell. Generally what makes extracting fun is ... extracting with a bunch of good loot which as I've said a million times is not what ever happens in this game.

[ember reef]

And what about me? I think there is tension. Who are you to tell me that I should not feel this way? All is not about stuff and fear to loose your stuff. For me the tension comes from the fact that I'm in immersion in the match, I want to survive, and I'm ready to fight to extract myself with the loot I need to comply contracts, or to craft what I want to craft.

[pure onyx]

the issue with the Hunt comparison is that this game pretty much has a bunch of identical dudes with guns and the AI of a headless chicken. Hunt had the whole Boss mechanic that was core to the game and multiple different enemies with different mechanics. It just seems really weird to try and make Hunt but without any of the engaging PVE mechanics.

[pure onyx]

I guess I can't tell you you should feel that way but it's kind of like your playing pretend a little bit. You can convince yourself you need to escape in order to intentionally create tension and make the game more enjoyable but that's almost like No Man's Sky levels of self-goal-setting needed to create your own enjoyment. Most people want the game to be enjoyable without any of the work in self-delusion

[ember reef]

I'm still waiting for concrete solutions to the problem, beyond the mere "this should be high risk/high reward"

[gritty igloo]

lol yeah we got a real ideas guy here

[ember reef]

What does that mean concretely? What would you concretely change?

[pure onyx]

also people doing that and "ratting" even though there is no reason to rat because none of the loot matters kind of ruin the game for the people who just want to PVP other players because it's like you're playing two different games

[ember reef]

So far your whole post sounds like you want Marauders to be Tarkov with a different skin.

[ember reef]

This is the same with all games based on loot. Tarkov is full of rats, DayZ (not extraction though) is full of rats in Vanilla or Vanilla+ servers just camping with a sniper the points of interst.

[pure onyx]

In a way yes. but also Tarkov had allot of shitty mechanics, was overcomplicated for the sake of overcomplication, The gap between the worst and best gear was TOO large and there were 298634298764 ways to die which were almost entirely out of your control which made the whole experience feel kind of shitty most of the time.

[ember reef]

Not only games based on loots, but with FPS. Even battlefield has campers

[gritty igloo]

alright DCF buddy lemme help you out a bit: gear fear is a player perception based on their own ability to get gear.

some players in marauders still have it, because they don't understand the systems of the game.

tarkov has a more complex set of systems to get through, but lol that you don't think a chunk of its players understand the systems and give no fucks. like, kind of telling on yourself there.

if the sole reason you're playing a looter shooter is the tension of losing loot... I mean, why aren't you playing roguelikes? (to use your own tortured-ass logic of "why isn't a dm if it has no loot/??")

marauders is off to a great start, they really just need to add more reasons to keep playing, such as (ironically) adding even higher tier gear like your post is kind of pushing at, but not to like, make it harder to baseline

making gear lopsided for long-time players like tarkov isn't the way either, you can already essentially bounce 20-damage weapon chestshots with full panzer, forcing players to have to headshot evne more than usual

like the fact you think it's a problem to jump into games with kits is hilarious, no the problem is that there aren't enough reasons to really split up the income players have/to really give people a reason to raid, and just saying "well you can become bulletproof with insane armor, or just ignore people's armor with better ammo" isn't a great way to actually keep new players coming in, when, AGAIN, huge reminder to make it clear: this is a difficult genre to get into! it has a steep learning curve!

so the game needs the foundation it has, and they need to figure out specific things to give the game purpose/to make it less No Man's SKy (which I agree with you on, the current game does feel very "what goal do you want to set for yourself" once you get the hang of things, the issue is what can they specifically do to correct that like I have two posts with very specific things that at least add money sinks and alleviate a bit of QoL, but overall those things don't matter because the game needs more objectives that keeps people raiding, I agree with you on that, just like, think of actual objectives rather than purely 'muh loot' because the loot is just a tool to do things, that's how you get over gear fear 😉

[pure onyx]

jesus christ man you have to be trolling, at least this other guy is bringing up valid points.

like we get it, you played allot of Tarkov and your like, really good and stuff. nobody cares.

[gritty igloo]

lol i have never played tarkov dude that's my point

these are systems-problems

[pure onyx]

jesus christ, the trolling goes yet another layer deeper

[pure onyx]

I can't with you man, The issue in marauders is that the "system" which you need to figure out is "nothing matters so just run whatever" rather than "how do i get better at the game so i can get more good stuff".

[gritty igloo]

the fact you think this is instantly apparent and making it harder without new content will attract and keep a playerbase is super cute

[ember reef]

I actually kinda agree with all of that, I see no trolling here. The only game where I feared to loose my gear was in DayZ Vanilla since you took so much time to actually find it. But neither Tarkov, nor Hunt or Marauders give me fear to loose my stuff. Tension comes from a different aspect, namely that it's a one life match. And I absolutely agree that Marauders need more contracts, more events, more specific IA, more bots and events linked to the lore (where are the different factions bots etc)

[pure onyx]

bro just stop please your making me have to scroll up to read the other guy's comments.

I know you think gang-banging me together is the same as winning an argument but that isn't how it works. Honestly @ember reef I think allot of what you bring up is valid from a more casual perspective (And i mean that in the least insulting way possible). Like if you want to get all stressed out about dying and losing the Uzi you can buy an infinite number of and not making out with War Bonds which you don't actually need and creep around the map like it's splinter cell and try to get the jump on people or whatever that's totally fine. You're allowed to have fun in the game. I'm just saying for a large subset of people who play games that just doesn't do it for us.

And If I just didn't "get" Tarkov in my thousands of hours of playing and Still wanted to make it out with those graphics cards up my ass and the loot from the giga-chad I killed that I want so badly to run and be the Giga-chad myself while it was all a big lie and I had been convinced looting mattered than maybe that's the case.

But I played for thousands of hours and never saw through that façade which took me all of like 4-5 days to see through for Marauders.

[ember reef]

But again, this is what Marauders is for me: a Tarkov-lite experience. It's perfectly normal and understandable that the community will be split, on the one hand players like me that find that Marauders is fine as casual as it is (even though it needs more balance, and other things as I already stated) and on the other hands players who would like a more hardcore experience, and thus should maybe play to Tarkov.

"Like if you want to get all stressed out about dying and losing the Uzi you can buy an infinite number of and not making out with War Bonds which you don't actually need and creep around the map". I repeat myself here for like the third or fourth time: I don't have gear-fear in Marauders. I don't have gear fear in TArkov. I don't have gear-fear in Hunt.

My pleasure, and adrenaline, does not come from looting, or from the fear to loose my stuff. It merely comes from the relatively low TTK and one-life experience of the match.

[pure onyx]

I just feel like they can make looting actually matter without making the game "hardcore" like tarkov. Like we don't need 15 different medical items that all do different things and broken bones and armor that can make you survive multiple magazines of bullets for the game to be enjoyable for more "hardcore" players. Literally all I'm saying it that It should matter to me at least a little big what loot I extract with and I should want to survive the raid for a real reason. I should want to actually open the Vault in the station and get something exciting out of it and then feel tension in wanting to make it to extract. But currently In marauders the only way you can feel that way is to either lie to yourself or be ignorant of how much it doesn't matter

[pure onyx]

Yeah but I could just play Siege lol

[ember reef]

Sure you can, and I play Marauders.

[pure onyx]

an have more of that in less time

[ember reef]

And what's your suggestion concretely? We all have so far suggested modifications or features to make loot more important, but you. What's in Tarkov, as far loot is concerned, that is not there in Marauders? And how would you implement that in Marauders?

To be honest, I don't even understand which kind of loot was in Tarkov, which would give me "gear-fear"

[pure onyx]

Your perspective on it is definitely confusing to me but like I said, If you enjoy the game that's cool. All I'm saying is that allot of the "target audience" of the game won't enjoy that and that's extremely clear to me from talking to people I know about it. Even Trollo B. Swaggins admitted that he's the only one of his friends left playing the game.

So I'm going to try and be super-clear about this this time starting with the tarkov question: In Tarkov let's say I just started the wipe, I've got nothing, I'm broke as a joke. and I kill a big juicy boi with lvl-6 armor and a modded m4 or whatever. THAT is is HUGE dopamine rush, you get excited, you just made a huge value-trade. You desprately want to loot that because that gear is orders of magnitude more powerful than yours. It's not even a matter of "Gear Fear". It's a matter of "Gear Excitement"

Alternatively If I'm already geared in all that stuff, It cost me allot of Rubles to buy It maybe cost, let's say 10% of all the money i have. So when I find a Bitcoin or something which will pay for my entire kit, again, there's excitement, there's a rush

In marauders I don' care If i'm wearing lvl 6 and I kill a guy in lvl 9, like, I'll take his armor but It's not really like I'm gaining much In pretty much all cases his gun will be about equal to mine so i'm not really excited about taking that. Even if I do take that stuff the advantage I'm gaining is so small that It's silly to be excited about.

If I find a gold bullion, again, no excitement because it doesn't really matter how much money I'm gaining when the kit i'm running cost like .005% of the money i have.

[gritty igloo]

I make value trades all the time, I think it costs me about $75 of .32acp to take someone's shit

[pure onyx]

My specific suggestion?: Make a clear progression of items from very weak to very strong. It doesn't have to be as extreme as tarkov but maybe instead of lvl10 armor having a .5 second impact on TTK from an Uzi it has a 1.5 second impact meaning it takes most of the Uzi magazine to bring you down. doesn't have to be the whole mag, you don't have to shrug off the bullets but it should provide a strong enough advantage that you're actually excited to find a lvl10 armor.

Make money actually matter: currently the amount of money you have is irrelevant and large number of the loot items you find in let's say, a vault, are things that exchange for money. finding those provides 0 excitement because you already have pretty much infinite money. Either the costs of things need to be greatly increased from the trader so that you actually want money, or things need to be introduced which you can spend money on and which people actually want to buy.

[pure onyx]

holy shit dude just stop, your brain is rotted. There's no value-trade if you have infinite money and the stuff you're looting is of the same value as the stuff you're already using

[gritty igloo]

alright I can see some weapon rebalancing to some degree, this post I actually agree with

dude you're insanely easy to troll I'm sorry

you even gave me Trollo B. Swaggins, that's fuckin gold lol

[pure onyx]

I hate when you agree with me while im insulting you...

[ember reef]

I have no doubt that Tarkov's fans will dislike Marauders, which as I said, and according to some devs' statement, NOT targeting Tarkov's player base, but more casual players. In other words: players which line extraction FPS but did not like Tarkov.

[pure onyx]

sure but how do you address what i just brought up? like, just let everything continue to not matter?

[gritty igloo]

DCF you may not have played through the DotA LoL split

[pure onyx]

like how are you going to make players want to go open the vault on the station

[pure onyx]

no actually, I got into league after the split. like season 3-4-5 i think, I don't remember

[pure onyx]

because I have a clear suggestion for how to make people want to do the content in the game

[gritty igloo]

DotA is the objectively superior game in every way that you would like, but LoL has way more players and a brighter future and a less complex set of mechanics than DotA while still being a DotA-like

DotA is Tarkov; groundbreaking and insanely difficult

LoL is Marauders; newer, an innovation on the groundbreaker, and "only" very difficult (like The Cycle and others similar, or HoN to use my moba example)

hopefully they all take off the way DotA and LoL do, but one of them is following somewhat of a healthy path, and they still got a long way to go, cause the looter-shooter genre is fuckin awesome and has its roots in old LMS (last man standing) games that also spawned BRs

you're approaching this as a DotA player, not a LoL player, so I empathize buddy, I remember being you, I will always lasthit denies

[pure onyx]

and if there's no reason to do content they can add all the content they want and it won't matter. If the only reason to do the raid is to trick yourself into feeling tension or run around shooting people than how would you pitch the game to someone who could just go play a game with real tension or more shooting of people.

[pure onyx]

honestly I've heard that about DotA allot better never gave it a chance. The problem is that Marauders isn't league, Marauders is Heroes of the Storm or some shit. It has a broken loop and doesn't know what it's trying to be

[gritty igloo]

LOL ouch but uh

true about feeling like Heroes of the Storm but the loop itself isn't broken just not enough reason to keep doing it

[pure onyx]

A big part of my suggestion is for the game to Pick a Fucking Lane

[pure onyx]

yeah well when I write code and the loop exits before it's supposed to we call that code broken

[gritty igloo]

I think a big part of it is that you're locked into the "gear is the reason for the loop" view, while imo marauders is pursuing more of a "the loop is there for greater reasons, such as killing players or doing objectives, and having the loot be fungible is fun"

killing players here is fun, objectives are fun, they need more of both because right now my biggest gripe is that players do not stick around and while you say it's because of the maps/loops, I say it's because of at least these reasons:

[pure onyx]

like if the game wants to be Hunt they should have started with making engaging PVE content, and you're deluding yourself if you want to call the raiders in this game "engaging", they should have created their setting to have the potential for enemies with unique mechanics instead of "guy with a gun but this time he's wearing prison clothes"

if they wanted to be Tarkov-lite then they need to make the loot matter because the "Gear-excitement" is huge part of what makes people play tarkov

and if they just want to be a game where you run around a space-station killing people than idk what to tell them cause new old-school shooters aren't doing to hot these days, just look at games like splitgate and Halo Infinite.

[gritty igloo]

1. lots of players, mostly newer, still want or need to do contracts to gear up or just to have something to do, so they bounce out of maps for objectives

2. this leaves maps feeling more empty and leaving a LOT more loot available for players to hoover up in ghost-raids, bloating economy

3. the genre has a learning curve and game is still new for a lot of its players, like there are a lot of people who still feel like they need to go in with pouch rigs and stuff instead of having the cash to even buy L6 armors and helms/understanding that it's much better to go in kitted than not, with 8+ bandies than not, etc so there's still a lot of people who don't want to go in out of gear fear/"why would I risk my plate rig" etc

so, that's why imo they really need to figure out how to avoid ghost raids + give money a reason so that people NEED to go into those raids,e ven through their gear fear, such as at least more objectives

that's why I drafted two very specific things to try to combat those specific things (ghost raids and low number of getting contracts) which are still bandaids, but very concrete beyond "we need more feeling of risk" you know? they're a mechanical and specific approaches to the problem

I don't think progression of gear is a great idea per se but I do think balance needs to be done to some degree, mostly because sten and mp40 are outperformed dramatically by the klobb/uzi/mat49/mac10, there's alreayd some degree of tier progression and they're subtle, which I think is good, and why they need more content/objectives more than tweaking the core formula

cause yeah, low TTK right now is great, a solo can take on a squad with careful tactics/the squad has to be meaningfully skilled as a squad to take on a competent solo

so that's all great foundations, number tweaks can come but right now they really need more things to do (and to fix technical issues) rather than having people restarting maps or making guns more stratified

[pure onyx]

1. i don't really get that because it didn't take very long to unlock an SMG with attachments and lvl 6 armor which is pretty much the pinacle of the game other than lvl8 plate rig and SMG which doesn't take much longer

2. agreed, me and my friends were just running around maps desperately begging people to fight us before we got bored and stopped playing

3. this kinda isn't true because the lvl 6 armor gives you 1 more damage resistance which against the Uzi for example is ~.04 seconds difference in TTK, that is hundreths of a second. tbh you might as well just run the pockets because it gives you more inventory space for all that loot you don't need.

[gritty igloo]

...no dude, you spend 2 synth for a light bag for every raid, so you can fill it with bandies, and you run whatever chest you want/ideally a plate rig for storage

zero reason to run pouch unless you're broke/still learning

AND A HELMET! jesus wear a level 5+ helmet, pirate helm is legit and better than civ helm but ideally level 6+

right now, that's a neat achievement for newer players to the genre (as one myself), getting not only to the point where you can kit yourself out easily, but then also getting to the point where you keep and upgrade and keep the new kit especially through killing players (which you can force through breaching, which IS fun)

it's not super competitive, I mean, sniping is fuckin absent here which is one of the biggest shooter skills to showcase, it's got a niche that I think it's targeting well

[ember reef]

I already answered plenty of times... Like I'm sharing my ideas since one hour and yet you still ask 😆

I'll do it again in two steps. First, I'll address your two suggestions. Second, I'll share again my own point of view irrespective of your opinion.

1)a) More powerful protections. I like the fact that even with protection, you don't feel safe and have to play wisely. Increasing TTK even a little bit for advanced protections would increase even more the "headshot meta". Actually I think that Tarkov is quite unrealistic with how good protections are depicted in this game, and PvP feel very unattractive for me.

BUT hear me I didn't say that the game is balanced the way it is. However I would take the issue from the other end, and I would maybe decrease the TTK of high tier weapon irrespective of the protection used.

b) I agree that it's too easy to earn money (I have already ton of money, over 2 million). So far the only way to feel unsafe again as to money is to prestige. To wipe yourself. But I'm not sure what they could do to increase the interest of money. I saw another posts with a few ideas so it's a common issue among us, and some of us have ideas.

2. My perspective: I don't care about "gear excitement". I really don't mind loosing great gear or looting it, the only exception was in DayZ (which by the way is closer to Marauders than Tarkov as to how great protections are).

My issues with the game are:
a) that it still lacks content and you sometimes don't have any reason to raid. But that was the same for me in Tarkov (when your are blocked in your quest lines). I would add more contracts, more events within raids, more "alive" bots, bosses. I'd improve ship battles to make better ships actually useful.
b) Most maps are too close combat oriented, which favours SMGs too much. Terraformer is a good counter-example with buildings and open spaces: Uzy/MP40 can be totally useless. I would do more maps with this kind of variety.
c) High tier weapons are sometimes not so great, I would increase their tile to kill, and add more customization options for them (so far M16 have none, it could use extended magazines for instance). Having to craft this customized items require you to loot stuff.
d) More players per raid, and some tool to be able to pick a specific map in order to avoid players extracting from the beginning.

[pure onyx]

like sure, kind of, but you can run the pouch AND the light backpack and have even more space and only be sacrificing hundreths of a second of TTK. also I'm not sure about helmets, somebody said the DR from helmets applies after the 3.5x from headshots but idk if that's true. You only really need the lvl 6 helment since the amount of things you're avoiding instakills from and the change in TTK is negligible as you go up in levels after that.

either way you don't have to run the pouch since the armor is basically free anyways

[gritty igloo]

yet so many players do this anyway!!!

source: the bodies I leave in my wake

it's sad even, like, I WANT them to wear better gear

this is why I think that it's important to think about how accessible the game is and that's why I say it's in a good place, it's easier for newcomers to the genre to get to that point and then there's still a ways to go to hone their mechanics using said kits, you and I are clearly talking about this from lots of shooter experience and in your case thousands of hours of tarkov

[gritty igloo]

totally agree with 1A especially here, the low TTK is critical cause there's variance and it shows when you're bandaging up from <5-10% HP hoping you can kill the next guy before he pushes, great gun fights in marauders (when there are players)

[pure onyx]

the TTK of higher-tier weapons is already not much different that lower-tier ones. the TTk difference between pretty much any of the basic SMGs (Uzi, Mp40, Mat-45) and "high-tier" guns (BAR, STG etc) is betwen .05 and .1 seconds

[ember reef]

I meet all kind of players. Plenty of no-gear or light gear guys, but also plenty of full gear players. Players who are agressive, and other who after two shots runaways and extract or hide. Some series of matches are full of cowards, bit others are fun. It's nice to have an inconsistent experience. I sometimes like "easy" raid where I can bring back a lot of basic component to craft.

[ember reef]

I know, hence I would maybe decrease the TTK of high tier weapon to make them slightly more efficient. And improve them via customization. BAR is a good example: with extended magazine and compensator, I would pick it every day over an Uzi

But I would not increase protection. That would only lead to "who has the better protection" fights, and would not solve anything as to balance between low tier and high tier weapons. For me protection is this little something that can make the difference in a fight (hence when I have the choice I'll always pick the better protection to increase even slightly my survival opportunity), but not the main focus.

[ember reef]

Yep, they need to fix asap map selection to ensure that player spawning stay there

I would also add the option to stabilize high tier weapons with Shift, by blocking your breath. That would make easier to aim and shoot quickly with weapons such as Johnson, which I find so far useless since recoil is too important.

[pure onyx]

Oh i misread what you said, decrease as in make the TTK better, not decrease as in make the guns weaker.

Yeah IDK, Low TTK can be cool. I'm a big Siege player but it's more rewarding to positioning and sheer "time to hitting target" over actual skill. with longer TTK you need to be on target more consistently and make more correct decisions over a longer period of time.

both are fine but conflating low TTK with more skill is a big misconception. The most important thing is consistent TTK which headshots really throw off in this game which is why i think the biggest offenders of the useless gear problem in this game are helmets.

[pure onyx]

The issue with that is A. that that is not really true it's not JUST "who has better armor". It would be an advantage but you could make armor better in this game while still giving players the opportunity to outplay those with better armor through positioning all that. and B. as long as the armor is just a "little thing" than the issue of the loot not mattering will persist. Which you've stated isn't as much of an issue for you but without an alternate driving force behind going into raids will still have allot of people uninstalling after a week like me.

[pure onyx]

I'm not seeing how low-TTK applies there.

[ember reef]

TTK stands for Time To Kill. If you decrease the tile required to kill, that means that the weapon is more powerful and it takes less hit.

I'm more a tactical shooter player, such as Squad and Post Scriptum, where TTK is really low and where there are no protection.

I like it, since it's not all about head shit (more or less like IRL actually, soldiers do not really ail at the head but at the mass, the chest). It really rewards good positioning and anticipation. More than mere reflex. I'm not particularly good at aiming, not bad either though, but I'm far better at positioning, hunting, listening and trying to be tactical. In Tarkov, I very often had the first shot, just to have the other player turn around and spray my face.

[gritty igloo]

higher TTK is implicitly more hostile to solos/amplifies gear impacts, which aren't bad things but imo the lower TTK is a big part of the draw of marauders, in large part because solos can shine and crews have to coordinate well to leverage numbers in a low-TTK environment rather than jsut have more numbers

ambushing/camping does become more prevalent in lower TTK games but honestly I think marauders is closer to "rewards stealth and awareness" than "rewards camping" especially with current map design where even with nades removed you can sprint around and flank if you know the map

also it was in reply to a post specifically talking about how even with good gear you have to play wisely which is 100% true, you expose yourself out of cover unnecessarily and you're gonna have a bad time

[ember reef]

Maybe increase protection BUT at the same time decrease TTK of high tier weapon. This way, armor would only be really efficient for low tier weapon, and as such a good counter against Uzi etc.

That being said, helmet are useless since Uzi players aim at the face. And helmets do not protect the face, I 'y the head.

[ember reef]

But you need to be stealth to camp, don't you? 😆

[pure onyx]

Yeah, of course lol, I just misread you. I enjoy those games too but squad isn't really a competitive shooter. It's a "battlefield-type" "spectacle shooter" about big battles. head-shots are still equally important in games like Siege, Squad, Marauders with low TTK because "instant" is infinitely faster than any TKK in existence. Like there's a way to look at sitting in a corner for 5 minutes and insta-killing someone as a triumph in skill but it's equally valid to look at that as avoiding the contest of skill entirely by disallowing them the chance to respond

[gritty igloo]

yeah I guess I associate "peeking from cover" with stealth even though I'm also thinking of sprinting to change angles, so... that's why I said "and awareness" I dunno lol

definitely gonna be neat when nades are back for sure cause there's definitely a lot of times where both parties stop cause they hear each other and just F1 back and forth till someone pushes heh

[ember reef]

Anyway, I'm quite convinced that protection are fine in Marauders, and that the answer to boredom is to be found in more quests, more random events, more "alive" bots and map, more long term objectives, and even maybe maps with a different gamemode (they refered to a battle ship map, but why not other gamemodes too, or maps with strong specificities). Better loot will come with more content anyway, but it should not take the Tarkov road where loot is an end in itself.

[pure onyx]

Well we clearly just disagree on some very fundamental levels and my fiancé is going to axe-murder me if I don’t cook dinner so I’m gonna have to leave it here.

[rain widget]

Sounds like YOU lost interest shtinky. And now you're crying about it

[full lodge]

Between insults, yall are having a good discussion bringing up valid points! I just spent the past half hour reading all this and i’m nearing the point in game too where loot isn’t meaning all that much. It’s still extremely fun though due to the intensity of pvp. I think one potential solution lies in more importance placed on ships (and recalibration of ship dynamics and mechanics). Make it harder to craft ships, requiring more materials (currently it takes more material to craft a large container than a scout frigate), and make ships more meaningful (customization, power advantage- there are tons of suggestions), and it will make it more important to bring back hi-lvl armor to scrap for ship crafting, or to spend money on ship upgrades. Tremendous potential in the ship aspect of this game. One suggestion was to allow simple rearrangements of walls/doors/staircases to make each ship interior different, and unpredictable to breachers.

[pure onyx]

Heh I remember being at that point a few days ago young one! I agree that ships are another thing that are pointless but I’m not sure making the game a ship-fighting game will jive with allot of people so I’m not sure what the answer is there.