This idea comes straight from the wonderful "Game Balance Isn't Real" video from Game Design Direct on youtube(Minute 49:50). And I think this duality is at the center of a lot of the good faith discourse around Marathon as a game. 

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Games have fun parts and frustrations. There are multiple ways to design a game where you maximize fun and reduce frustration, but they are ultimately connected. Reducing frustration has a good chance of reducing fun because part of the fun of a game is overcoming those obstacles. Fromsoft games are a classic example of this kind of design. 

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In a game like Marathon, one player's frustration IS the opponent's fun, in a greatly zero or negative sum arrangement. 

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The video argues that games of this type tend to have small niche player bases who are willing to deal with the high frustration to get a high level of fun. I would put myself in this camp. 

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It also argues that changing this relationship can very easily alienate the game's original audience, who will find themselves having considerably less fun given the attempt to lower frustrations. 

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This is at the heart of the discourse around PvE and "hardcore"(which is a subjective metric) in Marathon. 

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There is a portion of the playerbase who find that the frustrations are too great to begin or to continue playing. Many of these players are not interested in the skill, patience, and repetitions of Marathon's high frustration gameplay loop. Despite enjoying the aesthetic, story, and feel of the gameplay mechanics. 

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There is another portion of the playerbase who live for this shit. Who actively engage with the frustrations of losing a full gold kit in the name of chasing the next big victory. Who are willing to run it back again and again.

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There are also those in the middle that enjoy both. All of these viewpoints are valid. 

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This well of discussion is often poisoned by bad faith considering the strained relationship Bungie has with its playerbase and Sony's recent behavior when it comes to its live service acquisitions. 

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Players on all sides are in a heated situation, where the survival of the game \*appears\* to be at stake and different sides have vastly different ideas of what might improve things. 

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This combines with a core playerbase that will naturally be hostile to changes to its core gameplay loop of high fun and high frustration, and this explains much of the reasons that discussions around the game will often lead to the different sides talking past each other. 

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TLDR: Marathon is a High Fun and High Frustration game, and this leads to a niche playerbase that is hostile to changes that would lower both their frustration and their fun. Any attempts to change this relationship WILL upset this established group of players, but that doesn't make them "sweats".

Fun vs Frustration and Marathon's Niche Appeal