On a serious note, marathon has fantastic map design and core gameplay: its everything else that sucks

Horrible rng, insane progression requirements, and bad matchmaking make this game unplayable for anyone except those who both started as soon as the game came out and no lifed it. Almost 200 hours in and ive never even seen a single piece of gold salvage, some of which you need dozens of, and thats with me running the red key room on outpost and cryo every chance i get. The compiler bossfight requirements are absolutely insane, ive seen a single cryo 6 key the entire time ive played the game and ended up losing it to another squad who jumped us. Ive only met a single player whos beaten it, and have never seen the red gun you get from it in game. Sekiro is a far more accessible and easier game than marathon by a long shot, at least in that game if you play enough you will eventually be able to experience all the content you payed for. Dont even get me started on the plain stupid requirements to just get a basic purple key to unlock loot rooms. Progression is gatekept by rng, stacked on rng, stacked on rng.

Why even put this game on sale when the new player experience is legit just getting spawn rushed by purple/gold shielded players every single game? My buddy recently bought the game to play with me and ended up refunding after an hour of getting straight destroyed by purple squads 5 minutes into a match and making zero progress. The maps are so small the best strategy is to push every single squad and wipe the map, every single round without question ends with the best geared squad killing everyone. If your not an expert in pvp, you will without question reach a point were the matchmaking is so brutal you with have a 0% extraction rate the entire time you play, especially considering the only people left in the game are fully kitted out every match. Im almost certain it’s not possible for a single employee at bungle to get to the compiler with how the game is currently designed. Im sure bungie playtested the core gameplay but they absolutely do not play the full game themselves. The incompetence with what should have been the easiest part of the games development is truly baffling and has sealed this games fate. How do you do the hard stuff so perfectly and completely fumble everything else bungie?