Marathon has doubled the amount of Depleted Patch Kits (meds) and Depleted Shield Charges (armor) consumables players can carry in a single inventory slot as Bungie fights to make its extraction shooter less punishing for newbies.
Update 1.0.6.1, which is now live, addresses several QoL issues that may seem insignificant on paper, but actually make a big difference on the battlefield. For starters, the daily stock limits for Enhanced (green) and Deluxe (blue) Sponsored Kits have been increased, and you can now stack six Depleted Patch Kits and Depleted Shield Charges in a single slot in your inventory, up from 3. We should also see Recruits now drop more patch kits and shield charges “at a much higher rate.”
Perhaps best of all, you’ll now also get twice as many life and shield charge kits in standard rarity sponsored kits, hopefully making it easier to survive encounters, and Bungie has increased the size of the overflow inventory “to address scenarios where items could be lost due to limited overflow space.”
Bungie has repeatedly said that while Marathon has a steep learning curve, over time, recovering from a bad loss is supposed to get easier. Part of the challenge comes from the very nature of Marathon as an extraction shooter, so if you die, you lose all your gear. And not just what you looted while out on the battlefield, but also whatever you brought in. Given how easy it is to die in Marathon, this can be brutal, and make it very difficult for players still getting to grips with the game.
Game director Joe Ziegler also outlined plans to bring the WSTR shotgun “more in line” by making the bold decision to prevent it from downing an enemy player who has blue shields or above with two shots. “The ideal is that in a majority of cases this will force a reload in scenarios where the target has a blue shield, allowing for some more counterplay in these scenarios,” he said.
