We’re just over two weeks into Marathon season 2 and, well, things could be better. Bungie’s sci-fi extraction shooter has many new wrinkles for players to navigate, but also some new issues. The big one is a bloated loot economy. The studio confirmed that players had obtained the same amount of loot after the first week of season 2 as they had by week 11 in the first season. A mysterious bug is also causing more high-rarity items to spawn than planned. “I think this season is cooked,” wrote one streamer in response. “Just leave everything bloated. Worry about making mid-season content fun and having more balance next season with progression.”
A new update went live on June 16 that made some balance tweaks to Marathon. The patch added weekly rewards but slightly reduced the rate of Prestige drops and the overall loot quality, and nerfed some of the gear that enemies were spawning with. The XP earned from certain gear discovered in the Cradle, season 2’s new point of interest on Night Marsh, was also reduced. But these are just some initial changes. It’s clear Bungie feels there are deeper problems plaguing the game’s loot economy.
It wrote on X this week:
- There’s an issue causing higher rarity loot to be more prevalent throughout the game than we see internally. This isn’t something we’ve seen in our internal playtests, and we’re still unravelling the source.
- There were various bugs and other issues we’ve fixed in recent updates, such as guaranteed gold drops in places that shouldn’t have them.
- While not the main cause, the influx of Sponsored Kits at the start of the season bolstered progression speeds.
- While also not the main cause, the Sponsored Survival grind combined with an issue with the Complex Control chest also contributed to bloated Vaults.
- The combination of these things has led to increased progression across the board, including with the Cradle.
This lines up with how some players have been feeling this season. As the game’s player pool has been winnowed down, the hardcore fans who remain are more likely to be investing lots of time in the daily grind. The result has been vaults full of blue and purple gear by the end of week two. Streamers especially are finding themselves so flush with top-end loot it sort of defeats the whole purpose of playing.
But now that it’s clear progression has been way too fast this season, players are divided on how to deal with it. Those who can’t play as much as their sweaty counterparts now feel like they’ll be left behind and at a disadvantage for the rest of the summer. Some even think Bungie should just roll with it and wait until season 3 for a clean break. “Maybe they should just call in an emergency wipe and start over lol,” joked one player on the subreddit.
It’s the latest challenge facing a game that can’t seem to catch a break this season, which launched to severe server issues and some confusion over the discounted Deluxe Edition that ended with some players getting it for free. With the game’s extended free week in the rearview mirror, the concurrent player counts on Steam are back to their pre-season-2 trough. Hopefully, most of those lost players just all temporarily switched over to Destiny 2 for its final farewell.