Earlier this week, Marathon received its first major patch since launch. On paper, it seemed perfect. But in the 48+ hours since it went live, a small change to how loud gunshots are has upended the game and turned it into a more aggressive experience. Now it seems like the change might be rolled back somewhat. And this whole situation has me thinking about older multiplayer games and how static they were, and how much I miss that.
I’ve been enjoying Marathon this past week, but after patch 1.0.0.4 arrived, many players, myself included, have started dying a lot more often, usually because multiple teams have appeared and attacked us. Many players are placing the blame for this shift on the fact that Bungie increased the noise gunshots make in Marathon. This was something every squad I played with after the patch noticed right away. Suddenly, maps sounded like battlefields, and we could hear firefights from all directions. And quickly, we learned that firing a gun meant drawing in aggressive players looking for loot and a fight. I’m not really into the current vibes in Marathon after this change, and I hope it gets reverted back to how it was before.
As I thought about it more, I realized that I didn’t just miss how Marathon felt at launch; I also missed when multiplayer games in general didn’t change so much and so often in the never-ending pursuit of balance and making everyone happy.
Games used to change a lot less after release
To be clear, developers have been tweaking, updating, and changing online games for as long as multiplayer action over the internet has been a thing. But back then, it was not expected that a game like Halo 3 would need weekly or monthly patches as well as seasonal content rollouts and roadmaps. A game would arrive, people would figure it out, and then it would start to solidify into a hard object that everyone could learn and play with for years to come.
Sometimes this meant that certain guns were forever bad or certain tactics were always overpowered. And yeah, sometimes that didn’t feel fair. But I think that’s okay. Back in the day, I remember games would develop their own culture and feel. People would know which stuff to avoid, or play around with certain tactics to the point that they became part of the fabric of the game. And because many games back then supported custom modes and server browsers, if parts of the community truly didn’t like something, they could go off and tweak stuff and set their own rules.
My friends and I ran a Battlefield server back in the day and banned a few weapons we found unfun to deal with, which would annoy some players, but hey, they were free to hop into different servers and matches and leave us alone. And it meant that EA didn’t have to spend every month tweaking those guns forever.
Balance is boring
That’s what happens so often in multiplayer games today. The rough spots and sharp edges get smoothed over as Redditors and streamers complain. Everything gets flattened with the goal of trying to reach some perfect balance. (Which doesn’t exist as different players value different things.) How boring! Instead, I’d prefer online games focus on delivering an experience, and outside of fixing game-breaking bugs or truly unfun crap, they just leave the machine alone. Maybe add some maps or modes, but leave the foundation as untouched as possible.
“But if a game never changes, isn’t that boring?” If the game is good enough, not really. I can still go back and have a blast playing Unreal Tournament or Gears 3, despite those games being granite at this point. And if eventually you do get bored with a game, you move on and play something else.
And if you returned to these older online games years later, the same great gameplay was waiting for you. People liked this. This is something that devs know, as evidenced by the tendency for older versions of online games (or simulacrums of them at least) to be released. Like Fortnite OG, World of Warcraft Classic, and Warzone’s new Blackout-inspired mode.
Sadly, I know that just releasing games and then largely leaving them alone is not really an option anymore in an era when every online game needs to have tens of thousands of concurrent players hammering on it at all times, hopefully buying battle passes and skins in the process. If not, that game gets shut down (RIP Highguard, Concord). Most online games can’t afford to be niche or have a static but dedicated audience of players. So devs are forced to try to appease everyone, compromising wherever possible and rarely making anybody happy in the process.
Today’s online games are evolving so much and so drastically that people who enjoy a game like Marathon or Fortnite might log on one day to suddenly discover the game is now something different. Nothing gets to linger, grow old, and develop its own culture anymore. Nothing gets to become a playable artifact, like Halo 3, Counter-Strike 1.6, or Quake 3. Everything must chase bigger numbers and endless income, or else be tossed into the trash.
As I finished up this blog, Bungie confirmed that it was planning on partially rolling back the gunshot changes in Marathon based on player feedback. I doubt this will be the last time the team tweaks this part of the game.
