Episode #9: Season 2 is HERE! Cradle System Chaos!

old_townsouth and Truebatman4444 is back! The duo discusses how their experience has been a week into season 2. The duo discusses several of the new feature's season 2 of Marathon provides and gives their feedback on all the topics.

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:00

Howdy and welcome baby to episode nine of running out of breath, the one, the only, the place to get your marathon listening ears on. I'm your host, Old Town South, and I am here with my bro, Batman, and we got a lot to talk about tonight. Hang with us, everybody, though. Hang with us. We are both running out of breath. We are both tired. We both have to we've been working. I didn't get I was gaming last night. And I didn't get a lot of sleep. And uh I know my bro Bat told me that he didn't get a lot of sleep. He's tired too. But uh got to meet a certain somebody last night. So it was all it was all uh that was uh an experience definitely worth a while. We'll get to that here real shortly. Thank you all for choosing us as your podcast. We appreciate you guys truly from the bottom of our hearts more than you know. There's a lot of podcasts you could be listening to right now in your car, on the mower, in the gym, at work, wherever this fine voice is reaching your ears at. Thank you so much. Thank you to everybody who has come over to the TikTok and said hi. Thank you, all that who has liked my videos, thank you, all that who's come over to the stream, the YouTube. I could go on and on and on. Bat, we got a lot to talk about, but I couldn't think of any other way. We're gonna start this thing off with some fan mail, baby. Bat, we got more fan mail. Let's go! All right, coming out of the state of Texas, we got we got okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:52

I'm gonna say his gamer tag. We got both of these nuts five.

SPEAKER_07 2:00

And I got to talk to this five gentleman last night on the mic, and so I cleared that up. So had I not talked to him last night on the mic, I would have said Bo Fade Z nut five. But hey, I guess that's the PG brain in my that my PG brain. You know, I I had to go a little more, a little more PG 13 for this, but uh yes, we got some fan mail from both of these nuts five. And here is what he had to say, baby. Hey guys, I'm finally logging off of season one at 4:30 CST. I don't I don't know if that was PM or AM. I'm sure he'll clarify later on. And I've taken tomorrow off to jumpstart season two from a 39-year-old dad who has a similar video game background. I hit a long hiatus. I'm putting fools in the dirt. Let's go, love to hear it. Put them in the dirt, baby, put them in the dirt for a former Menace of the Society who is getting back into the FBS scene of Marathon. How can we filthy cat casuals contribute to an endgame team? So I reached back out to him and I said, Hey man, your emails was received just to make sure I understand the last part. Was you wanting to know how filthy casuals or how how can casuals find people to play with the end game? And then he responded, yes, like trying to run cryo, but not be a burden. Servers are crazy today, crashing a lot, ran till 4 30 a.m. last night. The gold bully is silly. Yes, I wish I could have um, I wish I could have got my hands on one of those. And now I'll read one more um kind of key piece to what he said. He said, I figure y'all have insight on what's a good way to be carried in a sense. Like I can shoot stuff, lol, but where TF do we exfil? And oh crap, I'm 120 meters away from y'all now. Bat, he is describing some of our this has been us. That's been me. That's been that's been me too. Um, yeah, it's like I'm just reaching for the ex-fill. I see it, and I can't get to it. Both of these nuts, lol, don't feel bad. Um, don't feel bad because cryo archive it is a huge learning curve. And for what it's worth to you, for what it's worth to any, you know, all to all of our fine listeners out there, cryo archive is challenging. Um, bat and I and Fallen, we never opened a vault. We made our attempts, we brought keys in. Um, but you know, something just went wrong. I mean, there were times where like we just X-filled with the key because we couldn't get the materials we needed. But a lot has to come together to open up vaults. But here's the good news for you. I'm gonna call you Bo. So, Bo, here's the good news for you. Um, we would be Bat and I and Fallen, whoever's on, would be more than happy when Cryo kind of rolls back around when we kind of get ready for it and we start making those runs, we'll be more than happy to get you in with us, man. And that goes for anybody. That's um, if there's one me and bad are a lot of things. We're a lot of things. We're goobers, we're what what you're we're we're whatever you want to call us. Knuckleheads, knuckleheads, uh ding ding dong. I prefer ding dong, you know, but I like dingus, you know, dingus, what whatever, you know. Um we we we are a lot of things, but one thing we are not is stuck up. And we would we take a lot of pride in our listeners, and we take a lot of pride in the people that watch our content and that reach out to us. So, you know, unfortunately, a part uh a fire team that's destiny coming at me, a fire it can only be a fire team, a party, a squad of three, but buddy, we will cycle people out the best we possibly can, and we will get you in there, man, and we will give you our best. And you know, even if we don't do a vault, a lot of times you can go into cryo and you can have a good experience and you can have these intense fights with other teams, like we could make it a vibe, dude. And and if we can beat just one other team, if you beat one other team, correct me if I'm wrong, nine times out of ten, you're gonna come out with some pretty solid stuff if you win a heads up and you X-Fill and you won a one heads up, if not it maybe especially two heads up against teams, you're coming out with good stuff. You don't even almost need a vault. They may give the gold for you. Right. They may give the gold for you. Boy did I, boy did I. Okay, that was some fan mail from both of these nuts five. Both of these nuts five. Boy, I have never said those words so many times in my life, but we appreciate you. Appreciate talking to you last night and look forward to running some games with you. And we also look forward to be getting in contact with anybody else. Please don't be bashful. We're not hard guys to get a hold of. Email us through any of the sources that you listen to us on. Tell us what you like about the podcast, just just you talk to us about the anything, whatever, you know, maybe uh what what what you would like to. I I personally would be interested in what you like to hear more of. That would be really interesting to me. But um, yeah, we we're all about linking up with our listeners and linking up with our people. So we're all about that. So, Bat, before we get into war stories, which unfortunately in episode eight we did not get to get to, breaks my heart a little bit, but that was still a banger of an episode. And by the way, that's our most downloaded episode. That's our most downloaded episode. It's almost at 70 downloads, almost at 70 downloads. Um, gun to my you know, there's no gun to my head right now. What I'm about to do right here. This is there's people when I first got into the content creation space, and you know, loam, no, don't get it twisted. I'm still a very teeny tiny, I'm a guppy in an ocean in the cont in the Twitch space and everything in the grand scheme of things, but there's people that poured into me when I first started, and they didn't have to. I'm gonna give two names off the top of the bat. I'm gonna give three names. One of them is Sammy the Bull. Uh, he was a you know FYC guy that that we played with a lot, a friend of ours, and he, you know, he brought a lot of people over into FYC. He didn't have to do that, to come over and follow my Twitch stream and and be involved with my Twitch stream, and that's something I appreciate. There's another Twitch streamer named Cinecloop. She poured into me when she did not have to. I mean, I would come out. I I'm gonna try my best to find the words here, but like I would, you know, there would be times where I'd be in her stream and she would only have like maybe four people in there. She should have so many more followers, man. That that just that it's a crying shame. Yeah, Cine Cloop, everybody, Cine Cloop. Go go look her up on uh go look her up on Twitch. But she, I mean, I would come in there, dude, when she would only have like three or four people, and and she would every time I would pop in, she would like show this cool clip of me doing something. She would like build me up, man. And I'm just over here kind of in awe, like, like I don't deserve this. Like, you don't have to do this, but like, but that's just who she is, and she does that for others too. Like, despite she need despite the fact that she needs more people in her Twitch chat. I'm I'm trying my best to find the words here with this, but like I'm meaning well. Like, it she pours into people, she she builds others up. So I I learn, and even you, Bat, you're the third person. You poured into me. Now, like, I mean, the way you've you've wrote, I mean, you subscribed to me the other day on Twitch, Bat, and what was it? Like 40 months.

unknown 10:20

49.

SPEAKER_07 10:21

49, excuse me. I'm cutting you nine months short. Like, geez, dude. Like, you've poured into me for 49 months, man. So that's just um, I I I I think I think I have an I think I have an opportunity with this platform to pour into other people. That's why every person that comes on here, I always say, flex your stuff. Where can people find you? Um, because I I want to pour into others as they've done that to me. So, real quick, we won't spend long on this. With that being said, I hey, there ain't no gun to my head. I don't have to do this. I want to do what I'm about to do. Real quick, I'm gonna give a shout out to four marathon TikTok content creators that definitely needs more viewers and and they need more people to discover their channel. I don't know much about any of these guys. I'm gonna I I've only really been in contact with one of these four people. Uh, we've come we've messaged a little bit and we've commented back and forth, and I'll I'll mention when I get to him. But uh yeah, let's let's let's go ahead and start. I'll probably let them all know we gave them a little shout out, and they can take that with what they will. You know, that's that's up to them from there where they go. But I just want to do this real quick. I just want to pour into others. There is a TikTok content creator. I hope I say this right, up on D's. He is he is a PlayStation 5 streamer, and uh from what I've seen about his content is he's always playing some cool metal with all of his shorts. He's a he's a fellow PlayStation, fellow PlayStation streamer. You gotta give a shout out to him for that alone. And uh man, I've just seen some cool clips where he's getting some good kills. Um and he has, oh, I really want to be careful with this. I really want to because I don't know the guy, but like he kind of talks a little bit, like he he talks a little bit about like epilepsy and like his content and everything, and that might be something that has. Please, everybody, take it with a grain of salt. Um, it I I don't know him that well, but I want to give him a shout-out. So if he does have that or whatever, that's cool that he kind of brings awareness to that. And I'm happy for him if he does have that condition, that he's able to pursue his passion still with playing video games with that. So a quick shout out to Up On D's, a TikTok con marathon content creator. Uh, everybody go check him out. The next guy is the one I have been in contact a little bit with, Mike Drop 1989. He is an Xbox marathon content creator. And I've just got one thing to say about this guy. You better, if you see a if you are running out in the wide open and you see a glint, you better duck and cover because this guy is coming after you with an outland. He'll be dishing out a sniper of some kind. He is a he he is a uh Xbox sharpshooter, and uh his content is honestly pretty fun to watch too. And he he's poured into me a little bit. He's liked a lot of my videos. He comment, I mean, he commented on the video I dropped today, bad, of me and you being goofy. Um, so he's a good dude. Everybody go give Mike Drop 1989 a follow over on almost a Twitter, over on Tiki Talkie. Number coming in at number three, we have another three of four. We have another Xbox content creator. The I love this name. The Frag Father, baby. The freaking frag father. I got a dumb sense of humor, but there's something about these guys, this guy's videos, that just his sense of humor and the content he creates. It's all it's like a lot of it's marathon. It's just so funny. I can't put it into words. Y'all just just do me one better, just go over and see it for yourself. He man, he's a destroyer main, and dude, he's posted some spooky 1v1s and one 1v3s of him being what I wish I could be with Destroyer. He's using the thruster boosts at a high level, and he's able to outmaneuver his and this is controller bad. This ain't PC, at least from what I've seen. At least from what I'm seeing, if Fragfather, if this ever gets to him, the um I'm sure uh I would love to hear feedback. But I think he's an Xbox guy, but regardless, even if he is a PC guy, he uses the destroyer booster at a high level, and I've seen him win some 1v1s that he nor like I would have died. Like, me going up against any of these names I'm mentioning in a 1v1. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I could take any of these people I'm I'm listing off this note. Last but not least, we've got a guy named Killer Kill Gore. Killer Kill Gore. He is a PlayStation 5 TikTok marathon content creator. And what I've seen from him, you know, he uses face cam sometimes. He's a PlayStation 5 guy. Uh, he's got some moments, man, that's just like pure skill. Like I saw a clip of him like using um thieves grapple and like lunging up above a dude that was trying to be protected by a bubble shield, and he gunned him down with a Mizzy. Like, I mean, I was just like, good grief. You got chill out, killer Kilgore, chill out, dude. But no, he's got some cool content too, um, some entertaining matches. So I just there, I I got no agenda, nobody's paying me. Um I I I I just I just these are people that's come over and followed me on TikTok. They've they've liked some of my videos. I've been liking, we've been exchanging hearts and comments and everything, and I just want, and there's more to come. That's just four. There's honestly, there's a lot more of them out there. Um, but that's just four off the top. I made a little list today of people I want to give a shout-out to. Batman. Oh my gosh. So I took the I I hope that was a pretty rock solid 16-minute promo. It's time to turn it over to you. And the question I'm going to lead you with is, how are you enjoying? Uh, talk about course, go any way you want to. Um, how how are you enjoying Marathon Season 2 as a whole so far as of June the 8th, 2026, as this recording? What are some goals you have accomplished and reached? What are some goals you are trying to get to? And just so far, in a very uh in a summarized sense, just kind of what's your vibe on season two? What's your thoughts on it so far?

SPEAKER_02 17:29

So I am absolutely loving uh season two first weekend. Um I'm gonna say uh 100% that my favorite part about season two so far is um Dire Marsh Night Sponsored. Yes. Um I I have been playing it pretty much nonstop since the season started. Um I've been on the other maps like seven matches. That's it. I I love I love the sponsor Dire Marsh Knight. It is so different to what we're used to. Um it's definitely more challenging than I think a lot of people are giving it credit for. Yes. Um, I think that for one of my um personal goals, it is helping me out a very, very large amount. Um and actually, I I don't think it's gonna be very long. Possibly next week, um, you know, by the next podcast, that I'll have this goal accomplished. Um and it's only taking that long because I didn't really play the first three days very much to where I would have benefited to getting toward that goal a little bit easier. Um, but that big goal is completing the cradle um system that they have in place now. Yes, yes, sir. Um I have already filled out four of the silk weave worms. Let's go, man. Six. Let's go. So let's go. Um I have been hitting it really, really hard.

SPEAKER_07 19:23

You've you you you've you put the you put the house on Zillow.com.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

As of right now, I have 800 credits in my vault, and that is a sponsored kit. Every run, regardless of what map I go on, I'm taking in a free kit, and I am deleting everything and converting it into the cradle. Um, and I'm going to keep doing that until my cradle is done.

SPEAKER_07 19:53

Only time will tell. Hold your thought, what you was gonna go with next. Only time will tell. I think you're going about it the right way. I think bite the bullet now, feed the worm, feed the worm, get the because that nobody's taking that away from you once you get it. You have those boosted stats, and and then there'll come a point where you get to start keeping the loot you're getting for PvP. Please continue.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Um, the second goal that I have set for myself that I swear to every single person listening this podcast will happen by the end of this season. I am getting profiteered. I'm gonna hit a million credits.

SPEAKER_07 20:40

Alright, all right, let's go, let's vibe it up, let's go. Come on. Ambitions.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

I got about 700k last season. Um, and one of the things that I'm actually actively battling in this moment doing the cradle system is Gear Fear. I'm not holding anything that I'm collecting right now. Right. And that's helping me out a lot. Because I literally am not afraid to lose anything right now. Um one of the maps or matches that I did play that wasn't on the new Dire Marsh sponsored night um was an outpost run. And we had gotten into pinwheel, we were doing some stuff, killing some things, um, and all of a sudden I went back to the middle, noticed that the red room was open. We didn't open it, but only one of the cubes was opened. So I don't know if we pushed a team and they just couldn't loot quick enough, or if there was a rook that found one thing and just left. Right. But the second cube that wasn't open actually had a gold mod for the new battle pistol.

SPEAKER_07 21:59

That was a Very strange encounter. It's almost like it's a little you can almost turn it into a ghost story. It's almost like they were on the run from something. It's like they were looting the red room, and like you mentioned, they got pushed. Like something spooked them and they got out of there real quick. I I don't know. That was how do you leave a gold mod behind?

SPEAKER_02 22:23

How? It was in a pill that wasn't even opened. So and I don't know how you walk into the red room and don't open both pills. Period. Oh yeah, yeah. It wasn't even like just peaked in. But in what what I was leading into was I've even converted that gold mod. I'm getting rid of everything and throwing it into the cradle right now. As soon as it's done, I'll be able to move forward. Um and it'll probably be the same thing until I either get very, very close to a million credits or I hit a million credits to where every time that I come back from a run, I'm selling everything. So it's probably gonna be a while before anybody sees anything stored in my vault. Right, yeah. Um because of your goals, what you're wanting to accomplish. Yeah. Um, but I think that's that's something that's uh that I think I'm personally battling um fairly well. Is that is that thing that I was fighting last season super bad was Gear Fear, just sitting on stuff in my vault, not wanting to lose it. So actively I feel like I'm growing as a as a player. Um I don't know if that's the step that everybody wants to take, but I feel like it's necessary for me. Um, because now I'm gonna be able to go into a match, and you know, if we unfortunately don't win our fight, I'm not gonna be too butthurt about losing my stuff.

SPEAKER_07 23:59

Something I've noticed about you that's that's blossoming into something beauty, like, and I was kind of the same way when we first started, and I'm I talked about this the other night. When we first began Marathon, we were here. This was our mindset loot first, open things up first, fight at fight later. Now I'm kind of noticing we're morphing into fight first, go after a team, loot later. Like we're we're becoming more aggressive and offensive players, which is kind of I think it's helping us because it's putting us in stressful situations more, but we're learning slowly as a group, we're learning to adapt to those stressful situations. Like we're every time we die, every time we get discouraged and we make a misplay, we learn and we try not to do that again. Especially if it's a big hurt, if it's something that really felt bad. Like, oh, like why did why did I do it? Like, I have moments like that all the time. Like, why did I do that? Like, what was I thinking in that moment? Like the team handed it to me on a silver platter, but I still found a way to mess it up. Like, I feel like we're the more we put ourselves in these stressful situations, we grow as a team. We grow our chemistry grows, we build off each other, and we just become better players.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

And our you know, our map knowledge gets better um because we're seeing different routes, we're seeing different areas that we can, you know, hide or maneuver or you know, rotate to. Um, we're getting better with the different weapons in the game, um, because we're seeing how to use them in different um predicaments. Um, unfortunately, uh Batman is still not locking in that if there's a team and your your team is is looting bodies to not walk away. Um I gotta stop doing that.

SPEAKER_07 26:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Because it hurts.

SPEAKER_07 26:17

That reminds me a little bit. This is I don't think this is uh I don't know if this is the best comparison. I've all it's like your um these are my struggles on tank. I don't want to get into this too much. This is my struggles a little bit on tank on Overwatch. I see a vision, but nobody else sees that vision.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_07 26:36

And I go in assuming everybody sees that vision. But sometimes that you'd be surprised how much it'll be how much it'll benefit you to kind of just turn around. Just look around. Like bo even if you see no enemies around, just take a quick uh two to three seconds, just look to your left, look to your right, and look at where's my teammates right now. What are they doing? Are they ready to fight? I do because I don't want to be the guy that feeds. Because feeding is actually a little bit of it can be a thing in Marathon. You can feed in a kill.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_07 27:20

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

I I'm the king of feeding and kills. Um, I mean, in this instance, it was more like we had fought a team, we were getting hit from behind, so we turned around and somehow managed to actually kill the second team. But while we were fighting the first one, we downed a player from a third team. Jeez, I knew that they were hiding in this area, and I I never got the notification that the one died, so I knew they got resed. Um, and I again am very bad at this, but I wanted to just move forward a little bit and get some information as recon. So I was looking around and I ended up going out into an area to kill a robot because I'm an idiot. And I was just out in the open enough that they murdered me in cold blood.

SPEAKER_07 28:19

I'm bad also. Your story reminds me I have been in situations where I even know there's players around, but for some dumb reason that I can't put my finger on, I choose to shoot bots. And I walk I go back and I watch the footage and I'm like, old town, why are you shooting the the commander right now? There's a ri there's a vandal to your left trying to get angle. Why are you shooting the I it sometimes it's necessary because you because like if you're taking if you're covering and you're getting pelted, you know, it might be in your benefit to shoot that little that little UESC that's pelting you. It's necessary sometimes, but sometimes it's not necessary. Sometimes the right thing to do is to just reposition, just get away from the bot.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

I'll I'll tell you what I think it is. Um, I think it's that we're both hardwired in cryo where most of our fights that we lose that are like in a hallway, we're getting pushed by bots.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

So we're like, we gotta take care of the bots.

SPEAKER_07 29:27

Exactly. That's a good point. I mean, our we've been we've been kind of trained to think, oh, we we've had we've had so much bad luck with the bots, we're kind of we've kind of been trained, we gotta kill the bots around us so they don't kill us during this fight. But now that's sometimes that's playing against us too. Like we're doing it too much. Um, I'll tell you something else. Uh uh, real quick, I'll tell you something else I've got to get out of the habit of. I love the finisher simulation in this game. Like I love the the euphoric feeling of you get the down, you go up and you get the you do the finisher. And there is payoff besides the euphoria, there is payoff, like your shields recharge. I even think your health might. I know for a fact your shields recharge.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

I think.

SPEAKER_07 30:18

If you have the right things, okay.

unknown 30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 30:21

So uh and a lot of times I do that because I keep that in mind, but there's been fights. I go back and I watch the tape. I'm like, you should not have done that in that moment. You would have been better to have laid back, peppered him, or honestly, quite frankly, just keep him on the ground. Or you'd have been better, old town, to have just pulled out your knife and just took two heavy swings. I gotta get out of the habit of that, too. Um, so I've still got a lot to clean up.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

I would say that the only time that you would be smart to use a finisher in this game now would be after you have killed the entire enemy team and they are all already on the ground. If there's even one of their teammates still up, I wouldn't even go for it. Yeah, yeah, I know. Honestly, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen a lot of fights lost because somebody went for a finisher. Um I've also seen fights go better than they could have if they let that person get back up and then you immediately kill them again.

SPEAKER_06 31:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

So it's it's a very fine line and it's very situational, but there are benefits to both. Agreed. Because if that entire team is down, I'm gonna finish them because I want that shield back without using my cells. And if I have the right stuff, I want my health back so I don't have to use my patch kids. Do you know when I that is very efficient in my book?

SPEAKER_07 31:59

My brain hasn't got out of the seven-second revive meta. My brain is still in that when I hear that I panic and I make bad decisions. Sometimes that bad decision is I need to look up and get ready for the next fight. Sometimes that just that bad decision is I need to look around me and and not get killed by the bot. That's that's shooting, it's actively shooting me. When I hear that, dude, I I don't know why. I panic sometimes. I panic, and I've got to figure out how to get out of that. But again, it's like I said, we're putting ourselves in these stressful situations where we're fighting more. We're honestly we're looking forward to the fight, the thrill of the hunt. I think that's the biggest deal. We're not doing it because we're like, okay, I guess we gotta fight. We're doing we're getting into the mindset of, oh boy, we get to push the team at station on perimeter, and we get to fight. Like, that's the difference, I think, in us. I think that's the difference in Old Town and Batman the beginning of season one, old town and Batman the beginning of season two. We look forward to the fight now versus we're trying to run away from it in season one.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

And something I've grown a little bit is like I'm not rushing into a fight as much as I used to. I'll kind of stay back and I'll try to gather information as much as I can now. Like I've learned that running into a room is not the answer.

SPEAKER_07 33:40

Right, yeah. When you don't have the information.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

Yeah, like the I guess I can bring that back if we go into war stories for end of season one. So I'll pass on that for now. Go ahead with your next segment, sir.

SPEAKER_07 33:55

I think this would be uh actually because we did not get to talk war stories the last episode. Um, I I I we'll we'll we'll share some war stories. So in the very beginning of season two, and by the way, everybody, you can see this clip. I am that you can see this scenario I am about to talk about on YouTube and TikTok. You can see the short on both of those sources. You can also see the full video on YouTube of our second game. Here we go. Our second game of Nightmarsh was wild. We we we we we cued in. Of course, we were trying to understand the mechanics, we were we were looking around, because we got killed pretty quickly in our first match because we pushed. I mean, that kind of alludes to what we're talking about. Like we just was like, oh boy, there's a team, let's go fight them. And the gun I was using, I didn't really understand. It was one of the new weapons, I didn't really understand its range and everything, and I just lost my 1v1, and you know, one thing led to the next. But anyhow, um, our second match, we kind of we pulled, we kind of reeled it in and we locked in. And we fought a team at Compla No. We fought a team at intersection and we won. We did good. We we took them out pretty quickly. We looted all. We look we was looting their gear. Okay, we looted them guys. I then ran out the entrance. The best way I can describe this, I ran out of the entrance of intersection, kind of like as if you were going towards bioresearch, that general area-ish. I saw a random body bag. No, dumb me looking back on it. I probably shouldn't have opened it because it could have been a booby trap. Thank goodness it was not a booby trap. There was a random body just laying. I'm like, huh. I was sitting there looting, and I thought I heard something that it was like a scene off a war movie or a horror movie. I looked up and there was three purple shielded enemies. They walked right by me. They literally walked right by me. They never saw me sitting there looting. I don't know how they didn't. I do know how it's nightmarsh, and it's literally it's night, you can't see as good. And I just got one in a hundred lucky they didn't see me blindly sitting there looting. Instead, I got to jump on them, and I started just go, we just bullets started flying everywhere. I knew I got a down, I knew you got a down, but I knew they got a trade. So one of theirs traded with our third, you got a down, I got it, and I knew the third was somewhere. I saw the third throw a grenade at you, and I slowly wrapped around this wall, and there he was, the little dude. It was a tree, it was a purple shielded triage, and there he was. And boy, would I would love to have been a fly on the wall and seen his face when I popped that when I rounded that corner doot doot doot do do doot doop doop doot with the M77, gunned him down, dude. It was great, and that has now that that is my most viewed video on TikTok, and that is my most viewed video on YouTube. That that is the first video I've ever had to hit 1k views. It's a short. Obviously, algorithms pushes shorts out more, and it more people get to the video gets to people easier, but still that means a lot to me that something I've put I've put out has gotten 1k views. So that was a I was proud of that, and I added like some spooky music. I kind of went with a Halloween vibe with it a little bit. So that was a very, I mean, off the pop, that was a memorable war store moment for me. Um and dude, now we have basically since then we've played a few PvP matches. But basically that, me and you, and this probably segues into the next thing unless you have a war story you want to share real quick. Um, we've basically farmed the crap out of Nightmarsh free kit mode. We realized the benefits very quickly. Um, I'm gonna say something real quick. I've said I've only seen one YouTuber show some criticism towards the PVE mode from Marathon. I'm gonna I'm gonna uh rebuttal against that. I'm gonna I'm gonna butt back against that a little bit. I I I don't think Bungie had enough time to create this brand new wild PVE experience because I don't think they caught wind till like the middle of season one that people were interested in PvE. I'm not gonna hold Bungie, I'm not gonna hold that against them. They didn't have time to react. I think even later. It could have even been later than that, but I'm not gonna twist their arm for what we have. I think pretty much what we have been given the PVE mode in season two so far is basically what me and you asked for, Bat. Hey, Bungie, absolutely, give us a game mode. It can be a same map, give us a PVE mode where we can turn our brains off, we can go in, we can beat up on some bots, we can get some desperately needed resources to help our upgrades. This helps the casuals. This what we've said it before, we'll say it again. The sweats are gonna sweat, they're gonna get theirs, but this makes it to where we can fight back easier and we can get into the fun, juicy stuff quicker because we're not stressing out about crap. I don't have enough surveillance lens for this upgrade that I really need that's gonna help me out. They basically bat hey, you feel free to go a totally different direction. As far as I feel like people want to hear about that. Like, what's our thoughts on Nightmarsh? What's our thoughts on the PVE mode? For me, it's exactly pretty much exactly what I asked for. Um, you know, uh as far as the gold room, that's a whole nother can of worms. We tried it. I think it's more challenging than people kind of lead it on to be. I but like like if you've memorized where the green buttons are in complex, it can be a decently easy farm. But that's still a pretty challenging thing to farm, and a lot of things gotta, you gotta have some RNG on your side with that, with that lab key and everything. I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit, but Bat, what's your what's your thoughts on um how are you feeling and what's your thoughts on uh free kit, the PVE mode that Bungie has introduced to us?

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Um, so the first thing that I want to kind of point out is that anything that any game company comes out with and they're putting it out for the first time, everybody in the world should be treating it like a comedy routine. When a comedian comes out and they tell a joke for the first time, they have no idea how that joke is gonna be received, no clue. It can go really, really bad, it can go really, really good. For what they did with their first attempt at a PvE styled selection, for me, this is gold. This is gold. I love it. I love the mechanics, I love the challenge that it brings, even though it's not something that's like uh it's not a nightfall. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but it is within the marathon realm, I think it's much more difficult than a lot of people let on. Um I mean, it's not you're walking in and you're killing these super easy bots and just collecting everything. Yeah, yeah, right. Um let me tell you something. These bots have auto aim. They do. These bots hit me in ways that I didn't think an AI bot could hit me. I watched a video of a sniper robot jump off a building and do a 360 and then shot someone. That's not okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

A sniper bot should not be 360ing me, okay?

SPEAKER_03 43:22

I don't even see players 360. That's not cool.

SPEAKER_07 43:25

Who let Rambo Rook into this lobby?

SPEAKER_01 43:27

Who let Rambo Rook into this run?

SPEAKER_07 43:30

No, not Rambo Rook. John Rook! Who let John Rook into this look? Um I can't I keep reliving that nightmare.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

Like, I think that the specifically the Dire March sponsored version, where it's one team, um, and that timer is slashed is actually way more difficult than um Um than a lot of people let on. Yeah. Honestly, I think if you're gonna be somebody that tries for complex personally, I would say do it in regular mode. Um just because of the time restraint. Not only that, but you're gonna have an easier time collecting your certs from the other players that are also collecting certs, um, opening those rooms, collecting the key for complex, you're gonna have a much better time there. Um, but for somebody like me, um, and this will continue after I um finish the cradle, I'm gonna be going in there strictly to farm um resources because at the end of season one I was level what a hundred and twenty something, thirty. Right. I VIP'd five of the the factions I didn't finish a single one of those factions six capstones. I did not know that. I didn't get all of those uh upgrades. I didn't get a single faction that I had all the upgrades in.

SPEAKER_07 45:28

Yeah, I get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that. At level 130?

SPEAKER_02 45:34

That's nuts.

SPEAKER_07 45:36

Yeah, yeah. A little bit of a testament to just how difficult some of those resources were to find.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

Oh my god, they were nuts. Um, so for me, this mode is is a literal gold mine. Um unfortunately, I think we'll probably talk about this, but we don't know if this is going to you know go away in a week. We don't know if it's gonna be put on a rotation. Um honestly, I hope it's just in the background all season long. That way, if there's a night where I don't want to go onto Perimeter or regular Dire Marsh or Outpost or even Cryo, I can just go in and shut my brain off. That's what I want. Yeah, right, right. I always want to sweat on this game. Um, and I just enjoy it for the for the looting aspect, honestly. Um that kind of comes back from my Borderlands background. Um, so that is one of the things that I've looked for in this game, and I really like the direction that they went. Um, even given the short amount of time that they had to produce this. Just remember this is their stepping stone, this is their starting point. With the way that they've been working with Marathon since the launch, I can see them working this, reworking it, until they they get something that's workable, um, one that you know hits the check marks for 90% of the player base. And at that point, it's gonna be something perfect. But even right now, I personally love what it is.

SPEAKER_07 47:34

Great feedback, buddy. Great feedback. Uh, I'm with you. I'm excited for what it can become and what I hope it it's nurtured into. Uh I think it's I love it for what it is right now. It's basically what we asked for. Like, could we get a like a like a mode? Even if you cut the loot in half, they've, in my opinion, back given us more loot than we asked for. Like, I find a lot of needed resources that I could not find. Now, I've not found any hardly purple ones. I will say that. I've not found a lot of purple, but I'm finding a lot of thoroughweave lens, a lot of blues that just evaded me. That we had a lot of stressful nights in season one trying to go into quarantine, trying to find those dumb thoroughweave lens and trying to find this, trying to find biomass, just dude. This is nice, it's really nice. And I'm gonna double down, dude. I don't know if you talked to I I if you did, I I I I'll double down on something. So we was kind of talking about goals. I don't know how much of the goals that I shared, but I'll piggyback off you. I am also one of my goals is to hard focus the cradle. Um, I've put I have also put my house up on for you know, I've also you know offered my mortgage out there. Like I put my houses on Zillow right now. Um I I'm selling everything, even if I want to keep it. I'm selling purple shields, I'm selling M77s as much as it breaks my heart. Um, I'm selling, selling, selling. I'm investing, investing, investing in the cradle. Um, I have accomplished these three things. The very first one I accomplished was I think it's called recharge. It's basically where you get your heat back. You have more heat forgiveness. You can run, you can sprint for longer durations. Your heat does not build up as much. That was the first one I did. The second one, the second bar that I filled up was strength. Strength and your knife has a lot of utility in this game. And the last perk you get for the melee section is leech. If you get kills with your knife, you get a little tiny sliver of health back. That sometimes, when you're in those weird, awkward fights with the bots, could sometimes be the difference whether you live or not. It's useful, it's really useful. Um, but I I immediately wanted to get it as far as I could to where the knife hits as hardest as possible, because that is also an upgrade. I did not I was unable to accomplish that goal in season one. The furthest I got my melee damage was like the second tier. I never could get the resources to get the third tier of it. And I and I could tell a difference between the people that had it, the people that didn't have it. It's a it it was a literal noticeable difference. Uh and the third one I have recently accomplished was um it wasn't dexterity. It wasn't field medic, it's not which one okay, wait, what did you say? I'm trying to remember what's the third one I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

It wasn't resilience, because that's the field medic.

SPEAKER_07 51:06

It's not that one, it's not dexterity. But it's whatever the last one is. I just fit and it's not tactical. Recharge! Like the one where you get the perk where like um where you get the perk where you when you use a uh a patch kit, you do it faster. That's the one I did.

SPEAKER_02 51:27

That one's that one's resilience. That one's at the very bottom.

SPEAKER_07 51:30

Okay, that one is resilience. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah. That's the one I did. I have not done I have not done the medic one where you heal teammates, where you revive teammates faster, and I have not done dexterity, and I have not done where you're you get your prime and your tactical faster. Those are the three I have not done of the six. I hope I explained that okay.

SPEAKER_05 51:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 51:55

That's uh I focused I focused on those real big. And last thing I'll say, and I I want you to take off. Where I have found you talked about looting, you've talked about just enjoying turning your brain off and beating up on bots, and that's all great, and I love that too. Where I think I'm finding the mo where I have found the most enjoyment of Nightmarsh free kit is contracts. Oh my god. Con I have been hard focusing nucleoric to be specific. Because I know I realized something at the end of last season, and it took me the end uh, I mean, obviously it's kind of like a duh moment, but like it really resonated with me the difference between a blue shield and a purple shield. Like it really like clicked for me. What a big difference in a in a head-to-head, even gun fight, the person who has the blue shield and the person who has the purple shield. And even when you have the purple shield, if you make a mistake, you've got a little bit more wiggle room to react to the mistake you've made. Versus if you got a especially anything below a blue, you almost have no reaction time if you have if you make a mistake. One of my big goals is to do like you, to max the cradle out as far as I can. But I want to have access to a purple shield through Nucaloric as fast as I possibly can. That has been a priority to me. I am one priority contract away from being finished with nucleoric. Um from there, it'll just be continuing to grind XP and it'll be continuing to grind the resources. Uh, but that's what I've really got my eyes on right now. The cradle system and nucleoric progression. Speaking of contract, hey, before I say that, did you have anything you wanted to say? Because I don't want to cut you off.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Yeah, I was gonna say that as soon as you started talking, I was like, oh, I should mention contracts. Um when I tell you that just having the little voice in the back of your head saying, Hey, you can do these contracts now and not have to worry about another team pushing you, is so nice. So nice. So nice, so nice. There were several contracts that he completed um that I was with him, were ones that you know we had talked about in previous episodes that we had died eighty times trying to complete one contract. He's not kidding. You know, and that that honestly set us back so far this season because every run it was we lost everything. We didn't collect anything. The only XP that we got was you know, whatever we looted that was counting for the factions.

SPEAKER_07 55:10

Um we lost a lot of good loot and sanity in the name of Nucaloric.

SPEAKER_02 55:16

Yeah, like Nucaloric was the one that him and I were both tearing our hair out. Um I guess one thing that I didn't mention is that I do have um a goal for the contracts. I did not complete all of the priority contracts last season. Um, so I plan on doing that this time around. Um, I am gonna focus on those. I think it'll probably be um kind of mixed in as I'm going for the cradle and as I'm going for profiteer. Um, but kind of once those are done, it those are gonna be boom, what I'm focusing on the hardest once those two are achieved. Um but there's a lot of dire marsh contracts that I don't know if people are aware. You can do a Dire Marsh contract in Dire Marsh Knight or Dire Marsh Knight sponsored. It doesn't have to say dire marsh night for you to do it on Dire Marsh. Great feedback. So it is a wonderful, wonderful thing to take advantage of currently. Um, I know it's not always possible because sometimes you have those contracts that are like, hey, go to Dire Marsh, go to Dire Marsh, go to Dire Marsh. Now I need to go to Outpost. Right, right. So now you're stuck on Outpost, and if you don't want to go there for a while, you know, two weeks later you finally do the outpost one, and then it's like, hey, you got four more to do in Dire Marsh. So um, if you're someone that's going for contracts really heavy, I would honest to God focus your Dire Marsh now, if possible. Um, and then as soon as you see another um area come up, go knock it out as quickly as you can to see if Dire Marsh pops up again in that line so that you can get them done now. Um that would be my biggest takeaway for um, especially casual players. Because getting those knocked out quickly is um very, very good for us as a casual group.

SPEAKER_07 57:39

As we we will never we we will never let go of that identity of being the nine to fivers, the dads, the family people, you know, the the casuals. Um this benefited us greatly, so we plea to all of our fellow listeners and our other fellow sweats or casual listeners. If you have a uh jump jump on those con jump on those dire marsh contracts ASAP. Get it over with, uh, get it done so you can get to the juicy stuff and uh the whatever you really enjoy, you know. If that's the side of the game you enjoy the most if that's the side that you enjoy the most out of the game, feel free to savor it. Savor it. For me and Bat, we're trying to get to the honestly, can't believe I'm saying this, we're itching to get to the PvP and we're itching to get ready to make cryo runs again and to see what loot, see how far we can take our see how far we can push our skills to the limit this season. Um, so we've just, you know, we're we've been really taking advantage of uh those dire those nightmarsh contracts. And like he said, I'm I'm glad he was specific of it it even though it says die, even if it doesn't say nightmars, it says dire marsh, you can still do it on the night marsh free kit. But jump on it, we don't know what this rotation is gonna look like, honestly, bat, where we might find out tomorrow because it may just dis it may poof, it may disappear, and I don't know if it'll come back, when it'll come back. I don't, I don't know because here's the issue, bat. It was an experiment. Yeah. It's an experiment they was running, and they were experimenting with duos last season, and all of a sudden, one one Tuesday afternoon, poof, duos went away, and we never saw it again until this season.

SPEAKER_03 59:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:32

Um, which I will let everybody know. Um, if it does go away, um Batman's gonna be really, really, really, really, really sad. Um I mean, I'm looking forward to going back and playing the other maps, but I'm gonna be really, really sad. Right. I love this mode. Like everybody keeps joining me to play, and they're like, what are we doing? I'm like, Dire Marsh Knight sponsored. I don't want to do anything else. This is it. This is the game.

unknown 1:00:11

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

I don't know what y'all want to do, and I don't care because we're playing dire night dire marsh night sponsored. This is it. Until they take it away from me and pry it from my cold dead hands. This is what I'm playing.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:27

It's kind of I mean, me and you both, we we saw we we woke up and we smelled the coffee. As bad as we wanted to get into the PvP, we understood the assignment that this mode was really just too precious to pass up. Um, because we don't know what's gonna happen to it. I mean, this opportunity to crank out these contracts with no PvP threat, huge, huge, huge, huge.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:56

And I do want to throw in that like even though we have attempted it multiple times, um, we still have yet to get into complex. So I don't know about his feelings, but I don't really want to like comment on like how good it is in there, um, if it's worth your time. Personally, to me, I don't really want to go into trying that until I get one of these days where I have some time and I can sit down and like watch somebody do it over and over and over again, and I can learn the buttons, I can learn like what the best routing is, um, what the best mindset is to go in, even like what the best shells are. Um simply because in the sponsored kit, the time frame is extremely unforgiving. I feel like it would be a lot easier to do in the regular Dire Marsh. I just don't like fighting people when I'm trying to go for a goal like that. Um, so that makes it very hard for me. But one of these days we will get into complex, whether it's on sponsored or not. Um, and then at that point I would like to, you know, comment and say, you know, this is really worth it. I would give it a shot as much as you can. Um or don't do it, it sucks.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:31

But as of right now, we haven't made it in yet. Um and when I go into the sponsored kit now, I just want to do the towers, get as much stuff as I can out in a single run, and not die to the massive drone that seems to automatically go to the X-Fill as soon as it pops up on the map.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:57

Speaking of Mic Drop 1989, I've been seeing where he's posted some funny videos on TikTok. He's like, why won't this thing go away? It was so he's like, yo, this thing is griefing us. Like, if it's true, Mic Drop, if you listen to this episode, it's been griefing us too. It's literally just been laughing at us.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:17

I've been trying to think of like a good comparison, and it's like if you're running around and all of a sudden you see the X-Fill, if you look up in the sky, it's like you're the character in a scary movie that tripped and you turn around and all of a sudden the killer's there.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:34

That's what it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:35

I know, I know. You won't see that thing all game. All of a sudden that that X-Fill pops up and you look up. There it is. Hello. Oh, you want to shoot rockets at me? That's cool.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:46

I know, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

I know I'm overheated and I've got five health, dude. Go egg.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:52

Uh go get Grocks, get Grocks. Um, it's hard. It's turning into the new big suck. It's like always there. He's always there.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:00

Why is he always there? Which is also kind of why I said like the the game mode itself is harder than than a lot. I think a lot of people realize. Yeah, it's PvE. Did you know that they can up the scale on how hard those things track you?

SPEAKER_07 1:04:15

And you're a free and you're a freak yet. And it's like a nightmare sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:20

Yeah. You have a gray shield, you know, God forbid you find a green one, you feel a little safer, but it still sucks.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

Yeah. So, I mean, that's something you gotta keep in mind is um I think like when we go into PvP again at some point, I feel like I'm actually gonna be a lot stronger because I've learned to hide and peek, hide and peek, just fighting these robots in a sponsored kit that seem to have been turned up to 12.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:51

Interesting, interesting feedback.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:54

So um you also get to try out different weapons and stuff in that mode a lot easier than you do in the regular game, because you're always afraid to shoot because you're gonna give away your position.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:06

I like that. I didn't think about that because that's been me with Destroyer. I've finally got to really use Destroyer and try kind of learn him. I've got to just make mistakes without consequences, and just yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of how I feel about Destroyer. Like, I I've got to use him, and I've got to be like, oh man, this is a character I'd like to get into and start playing. So well, that we got so much to talk about, dude. We haven't even touched the notes. Um, so I think it's safe to say we're we have we we're just getting so good at free balling, sometimes we miss the big points. So, that let's power out some uh some big points. Um, I think we'll start with we're gonna, I know you you may have the notes pulled up. I'm gonna go to the bottom. So let's talk about some of the new enemies in Nightmarch. We're gonna start with the one and only the anomaly. Apparently, they got a name. The they these were teased in the trailer, and I was so excited about them. They're called the Anomaly Husks, a K Zombie Shells. Dude, these things are unsettling. They actually creep me out because, like, you're you'll be sitting there with your flashlight on. Can you imagine these things in solos by? Oh, yo, I gotta try that out. I gotta stream and I got to run some games of solo nightmares.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:37

It's creepy.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:38

That's probably as close as a horror is almost as it can get for Bungie in Marathon. Um, because like you'll be sitting here, and like you'll go get my voice cracked up there, but I don't know. You'll hear like this screech. And dude, if you notice, if you look real close when those things come near you, your flashlight starts flickering. Lore-wise, I would like to know more what's going on. It's obviously something with the anomaly has infected these dead runner shells and have turned them into screebs from destiny. They look it kind of interact like freaking screams. I hate I hate mini by the way. Do you remember mini screams? I hate mini screebs. Anyways, they remind me of Screebs a little bit, but they are they are creepy, and dude, there's even ghosts in this mode. I've just been sitting there walking, dude, in a building on my own, and all of a sudden something runs by me, and I just like I just start spraying bullets because I think it's a player, and I look, I'm like, where'd it go? It's a ghost. There's actually ghosts, there's shadow figures in this mode. They're rare, they're rare, but they're there.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:08

Did you know that they have red eyes?

SPEAKER_07 1:08:10

No, I did not know that.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:11

They're creepy, and they come in the shells, like the different shells. The the one that I saw that had red eyes was a triage. Oh it was standing still and then just disappeared. Um I haven't had any of the ghosts scare me. I'll be walking by and I'll be like, oh hey, what's up? And then it runs away. But I have had the the anomaly husks scare the crap out of me, dude. Because I'll be going along and I'll just be looting, and I'll turn around a container, and all of a sudden one's just in my face. And I'm like, oh my god, it doesn't disappear like the ghost, it's in my face trying to kill me.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:57

So for those ones that scare me, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:00

Yes, sir. For those that don't know, Halloween is my favorite time and season of the year. Um I love horror and ghosts and anything, just Halloween. I love it. So this is a dream come true for me that they kind of threw in some some horror in this mode. And that just I freaking love it, man. I freaking love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

Um which is also something we asked for in our podcast.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:27

Yes, it was. It's something we asked for. Like, keep the horror coming. Are you listening, Bungie? Are you listening? I think you listening. They're not gonna admit it. They're they're they're they're lurking. They're lurking in the Twitch stream. They're lurking. They ain't saying nothing, but they're lurking. They're there. Um, we also have the new another new threat, the anomalous reverbs, or aka the floating eyes. It's hard to describe these things. It's just kind of you just kind of gotta see them to know what we're talking about, but they're essentially these floating jellyfish, uh, floating clouds things that are scattered. You can't miss them. They're huge. They're you can't miss them. I had these things are actually kind of annoying because they're kind of spongy, and I just got a feeling that we're gonna be fighting a PvP match one day in Nightmarsh, and I'm gonna be backing up, and I'm not gonna be realizing what's behind me, and there's gonna be an anomalous reverb, and it's gonna start pelting me to my six.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:39

They nerfed the radius on the little little deadly yellow plants so that you can back into those and get hit by its little heat-seeking orbs.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:48

Yeah, little evil, a little mean there, Bungie. We see what you did, we see what you did. A little mean there. But um, yeah, you've got the anomalous reverbs, and I think some of them are actually they're connected to the anomaly. It's connected to whatever is kind of going on currently at the state of Dire Marsh, you know, adds to the creepiness. But uh, these things are kind of the boogers because they're actually tanky. And those homing projectiles that they fire at you hit hard. And I'm telling you, bat, write it down, take it to the bank. I said it on June the 6th, on June the 8th, 2026. It's gonna happen. I'm gonna be in a fight. There it's gonna be. It ain't gonna shoot the person I'm fighting. It's gonna shoot yours truly, old town. I know this is coming. I know this is gonna happen. So, but, anyways, that's another new threat that is roaming amongst Nightmarsh. And also, we have the one and only, the biggest suck, the big suck of them all, the upgraded UESC force, the rocket drone that is griefing, and that's probably spreading the most terror to the marathon community. So, this is honestly, especially in the free kit mode, this is kind of the big bad, and this thing's even wreaking havoc in the regular mode. I think they have dialed this thing up, the aggression of it. I don't know if they've dialed up the tankiness of it. I would imagine it's about the same because we have not fought one. We always run from it because we either don't have time, we don't have time to fight it, or we don't have the bullets to fight it. Um, but like I think most of them that's the issue. We just don't have we know we don't have the bullets to fight that thing. So it's really in the free kit mode turned into more of something you run, like a monster, something you run from. You just run from that thing. You can't fight that thing. Yeah, you gotta go. Yeah, yeah. Uh so that's honestly the rocket drone is turned into kind of the new, the big bad. And then last we have uh uh the new warden called the frost warden, the complex boss. You kind of asked me earlier what were my thoughts. You weren't comfortable sharing yours because you haven't been there. I actually have been in the boss room once. We killed the boss, but we ran out of time. We did not get to loot the room. We just we committed to killing the boss knowing we were just gonna run out of time and die. But I have been in there and I have fought him. Uh, he's a fun enemy to fight. He's not that bad. He's got a hard-hitting, I think he actually has an Ares RG. And it'll, you know, he'll he'll knock your face off with it if you're not careful. And he leaves behind these frost mines. He's not too bad though. Uh, I actually personally think the Scorch Warden is is tougher. But it can't, but he can set you up in the bad situation, though. You used to, you can't take him lightly. Um kitted, I'm confident. We'll we will have no issues with him, kitted. Free kitted, it gets a little spooky. But kitted, he ain't too, too bad. Um, the gold room, dude. If you if you kill the boss and you can make it into that loot room, I will say I have not been in there myself, but from the videos I've seen, yeah, it's worth it. Uh there's golds in there. The the that room's dropping gold shields, it's dropping gold guns. At least it was, unless Bungie has done a um there's a word for it. Yeah, unless uh Bungie's kind of done a silent nerf to a sh shadow, shadow nerf. That's the word I was looking for. Unless Bungie's done a shadow nerf to it, and I haven't been uh informed of that in the last few days. It it it it's it's nice. It drops a lot of good stuff, and honestly, a lot of that stuff are gold weapons that I really wouldn't use for myself, but boy, I would love to put it towards the cradle system. It it would feed the worm, baby. But um, so I look forward to when we can get in there. So that's a little look at that's a little look at the uh the new enemies. Bat, let's go back to the top of the notes and let's talk about the cradle system. So apparently there was a little drama, apparently there's a little drama, and here's what happened. Right at the launch of season two, players discovered that the new cradle progression system was moving incredibly fast. Sweaty teams and streamers realized that they could load into the new PVE mode or Nightmars, farm the upper complex, what we were just talking about, bosses convoy events with zero risk, dump the gold salvage into the cradle and max out their stats within a matter of hours. The nerf. Bungie stepped in over the weekend and dropped a 25% reduction to global cradle XP and adjusted loot drops to slow down the progression loop. The community outrage. Casuals are some casuals are are furious because the streamers and hardcores already maxed out their stats during the first three days. Now that the nerf is live, casual players feel like Bungie kind of pulled the ladder behind the sweats, creating a massive stats disparity in active matchmaking. And then we got two more little segments instant, and me and you will give our thoughts. The counter argument to all this, on the flip side, level-headed players, I love how it says level-headed players, level-headed players have pointed out a 25% nerf really only translate into about one extra evening uh of gaming to catch up. Plus, cradle stats are mostly um uh quality of life improvements. A green kit can still easily kill a purple hit if you hit your shots. I agree, I agree. Yeah, a green kit can still definitely kill a per the they're gonna be the underdog, definitely, and there's a noticeable difference. But yeah, a green kit that gets angle on a purple kit person in this game can get them down really quickly, especially if you got a halfway decent gun that you like. Um, okay, that a lot to unpack right there. Um, me and you did not get to play. That's actually this is actually kind of a whole nother con a little bit of a controversy. Um apparently day one was just not playable. You can speak to that more than I can. We had a at where we had a cut, we had a foundation-wide training and I was busy that day. I I I'll just I'm gonna go ahead and say, I did not play, I didn't even turn on the PlayStation Tuesday when season two went live. What I heard was it was next to unplayable. Um I'm sure unfortunately, our bro, our buddy, um uh uh our our buddy that that sent us the fan mail, he was telling me last night that it was a little unfortunate for him because he took PTO that day and he was pumped, had the Red Bull, he was ready, he was fired up, only to not be able to play.

unknown 1:18:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:08

That really sucks, man. And I hate that was his experience, and I hate that that you know that happened to others. Um, that hits the casuals like us even harder because we have to use PTO, and you know, we you know, we just our time is really precious. Um on the other side of that is a lot of games struggle, a lot of studios struggle with this. Dead by daylight. I've seen them drop brand new updates, they hype it up, and they and the game don't work for three days.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:41

Bungie did it all the time in Destiny.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:43

Bungie did it all the time in Destiny. I uh I've seen Apex, I've seen uh Apex Legends, I think that's Dice. I've seen Apex Legends new new seasons be booty. Servers aren't working right, buggy, glitchy, battlefield, Call of Duty. Call of D I guess what I'm trying to say, you you know where I'm going with this. Uh it stinks, it doesn't justify it, but it happens to everyone. It seems like this is not a bungee problem. This is a everybody problem. These things unfortunately just happen when new DLCs, when new seasons, when there's a new, when there's a when there's an overhaul of content, these things unfortunately just tend to happen. But I'm happy bat and kudos to Bungie. It only lasted a day. It was in the grand scheme, we're passed it. It's a or did it, am I wrong?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:45

Please, if I'm wrong, correct me. I was gonna say, I want to say that Wednesday was still really bad until a certain time in the day. It was more accessible, but people were getting kicked from games left and right. Okay, okay. Wasn't refunding them, you weren't getting your stuff back. It was very rough the first couple days.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:06

For me to have received some Lux, I believe it's called, or some some battle, not Lux, but some some silk. Yeah, some battle, some battle pass silk, it must have been rough. When by the time I got on late Wednesday night, the servers were good. They were fine, but I missed the hurricane. So I f I so for all of you that had to go through that, I'm sorry that happened to you. Especially if you're like our buddy that sent us fan mail, Bo, um, that uh that took PU's PTO, that that definitely stinks. Uh that definitely, that definitely stinks. Um, okay, so now that I talk about the cradle, so that me and you we have to call it like it is, you know, me and you engaged and we participated before we got to reap the spoils before the 25% nerf to the cradle system. And it was, buddy. We were booking through it. I mean, you're all what what level are you at right now?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:15

I think I'm 56.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:17

Out of 70?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:19

70.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:20

Uh the codex says that there's an achievement for hitting 70. I do not know if that is the max. Um, the amount of slots that are f that are available. Um, I don't know if they are all obtainable is 84.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:39

So I don't know if it continues to 80 or if it stops at 70.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:44

I just know that the codex entry says get to level 7. I'm thinking.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:50

I've heard both sides of the argument to this, and I don't know how to feel. You've got one side saying this has potentially widened the gap. If you were one side saying, if you were there and you grinded it, you're so much further ahead than incoming and especially new players. But then you got another side saying, Hey, yeah, maybe you got a bump, but if you take a few days off and the new players keep playing, they're gonna catch up. They're gonna catch up. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle of that. Um You've got I mean you've got one side kind of saying, like, man, why did they like they should have kept they should have not done the 25% nerf to allow the incoming players to also ride that and to also catch up? Because I think me and you are in agreement. Well the part where it talked about players started grinding ASAP and was able to jump in. Bat, they were gonna 25% nerf, no 25%. Bat, they were gonna do that anyway. Yeah. The the John, we talk about Johnny 40 hour all the time. We reference him. Well, old Johnny 40 hour, he's the Johns, he's the he's the what's the saying? The family you can't never get ahead of. They're always ahead of you. The Joneses.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:27

Yeah, the Joneses. Keep it up with the Joneses.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:29

Keep it up with the Joneses. That Johnny 40 sweat is the Joneses. We're never gonna catch Johnny 40 hour. He was gonna get it, he or she, he was gonna get it done anyway. Um, we are the casuals. And we're, I think we're at a good pace. But let's take a moment and let's try to get into the mindset of somebody that maybe is even on a tighter schedule than you and I. That maybe they didn't get to start. So season two launched Tuesday, servers were off, it were dead, it was almost a no-go. But look, let's pay, let's, let's, let's speak for somebody that maybe didn't get to really start playing till Saturday, and that did not get to take advantage of now that that when they joined, when they started their grind, they were hit with the 25% nerf. It does stink. This is hard for me, back, because I'm in the middle with it. I see I'm too in the middle, I see both sides, and I don't know really. I think both sides have good points, and I think both sides are right. But I think what I'm here to say, what I can say is we need new players so bad, and um, I'll just put my trust in Bungie that whatever they think is best to get the new players on board, I'll ride with it and whatever the just whatever they think is best. Um, and I think if somebody that enjoys that the new players that enjoy the game enough, in my opinion, the game, the matchmaking still tries to put you with people, relativity keyword, in moderation of your level and of your skill set. So, I I don't think Tommy with five kids that works 60 hours a week and can and only got on the game Saturday, Tommy is gonna get put with also people that's kind of just starting. And if he likes it enough, he can slowly work his way up. Hopefully, Tommy won't get put in the lobbies with the people that really got to grind it. This is a hard one, that, because it's it it's been kind of a hot topic. Um, and here's another thing. I love the cradle system. I might would have a different look on it if I did not like the cradle system. I love the cradle system. And I I think I'm gonna end with this, and I'm about to I'm gonna turn it to you. With the 25% nerf, it still feels good. I don't think it's punish. I don't think it's too punishing. If I cash in a couple of blues and purples, I see that bar go whoop like that bar jumps, baby. I think even with the nerf, it's still pretty forgiving. We need the new players desperately, and I I plead to them, please come on over. I think the system is is maybe, I don't think that situation is as bad as maybe people made it out. I don't know if that makes me the bad guy to say that. Maybe it does. Maybe it does. I don't know. I don't think it's as bad as maybe some people made it out to be. I think it's still a pretty rock solid system in it as far as how to progress it. I don't think it's too slow. You know, you've played okay, here's the final thing I'll say. You've played games before where what you have to do to progress something is not that hard. It just takes forever. I don't feel that with the cradle. I feel like if you're pulling in pretty decent loot and you're investing in it, you are getting that in return. Bat, take it away.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:23

Okay, so for starters, um as far as the Johnny 40 hour. Honestly, he's completely in the right to have gone in and done what I'm gonna tell you right now is the hardest thing that was available in the game at the time, and they reaped the ro the benefits. Yes, they got ahead of us. Guess what? They were gonna do it anyway.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:57

They were gonna do it anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:00

Period. Um one thing that I want to point out to new players is that last season level 130 or so um I right now have more enhancements for my perks and for my shells than I did at that point. There were so many upgrades that I could not achieve that were like Chase or uh Old Town said um with the the knife uh buff that he didn't get to level three. I did. That was the only one that I got to level three. Um there's so many different ones that I didn't even get to level two on. Even if it takes you a little bit longer because of the the nerf that they put on it with the 25%, in three weeks, you're gonna have more abilities on your shell than most of us casual players had in the third month of last season. To me, no matter what they do, that that's an that's a W.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:23

Um that is yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:26

Hey, I like that. I have running around. I have go I'm gonna say something real quick. I have almost just as many character boosted stats and upgrades, not even not even a full week into it as in season two as I did season one. I'm a casual, you're a casual, that's a W.

unknown 1:29:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:56

Please continue.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:57

Even like where we're at right now, um, if you go in and you and you play and you're grinding, and you're taking the initiative as a casual player to go down the path of I need to finish this cradle as quickly as possible so that I can feel this, help me later on in my future games, um, you're gonna get through it a very, very quickly, and you're gonna feel stronger than you did in season one. Um, I do want to point out, because you had talked about somebody that has even less time playing. Unfortunately, for a casual player, and I experienced this a lot, Destiny. We as a fan base and as a player base, unfortunately, it's gonna happen all the time if we're a casual. We have to pick and choose what we play. In this game, you have to pick and choose which path you want to take. Do you wanna finish the cradle first? Do you want to jump into PvP? Do you want to experience the PvE map for what it's worth? Do you want to start pumping out the contracts and getting your upgrades done? Or do you want to try to go for complex and be some of the sweatiest people there are? Right. Unfortunately, we have to keep that in the back of our heads as casual players. Um so fortunately, I think for me and most likely for Old Town, um, we chose the path of we're going to enjoy this particular map in its particular setting to accomplish a goal that we've set for ourselves. Um and I'll tell you right now when you get to even just filling one of those weams, the moment you load into your next match, you're gonna notice it. It is such a difference. Um leech is the skill at the end of strength, like he was talking about. That is the one and only perk that I wanted last season, and I never got it. I had Arachne VIP first, and I still never got it. It unfortunately is one of my biggest disappointments of season one. Um so the fact that I was able to load into season two, I've got it. Because I chose to put what I needed to into the cradle to get what I wanted. That is delicious.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:01

In week one, not month one, week one, month three, week one, I have it.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:11

When I tell you that I love leech, it is so good, do not rely on it. Do not warn you right now. Um, don't rely on it. But if if you're going into an area and there's four bots, shoot three of them, knife the last one. It will give you just that little bit of health back that helps you not have to use as many kits. Um it's just it's such a good feeling to know that something that I was gonna do already, knife a bot, is now going to benefit me in a way that's almost crucial in some moments. Um go ahead. It's it's the cradle system is is so good. Um and unfortunately, I I do see the side where the casuals are upset. But a part of me also wants to say even if you're a casual, you do have to make time to want to play the game.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:24

And to grind it. Yeah. Otherwise, you will suffer.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:28

You almost true with any game. That's true with any game, and that kind of starts getting to like whole other philosophies and whole other territory. Like, yeah, people in other games that have more hours than you, yeah, they're they're gonna be ahead of you, you know. That's the just unfortunate reality. Um Johnny 40 hour was gonna get it anyway. 25%, 50% nerf. Johnny was gonna Johnny 40 hour was gonna get it anyway. Me and you, I think have made great progressions, and we haven't played every day. I'm not gonna play tonight. I didn't play Tuesday. I played some Wednesday. I grinded hard Thursday, I grinded hard Friday, I didn't play Saturday, and I played just a little bit last night. And I'm very pleased with my results at being like level 40 something. Very pleased with the resort, with my results. Um, I was able to tell I I we gotta own that we was able to take advantage of that buff, that 25% buff that was going on for a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:45

Um keep in mind it was two of the three days.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:51

But we didn't playable. Yeah, yeah, but we didn't fully capitalize on it.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:57

And we didn't play eight hours. It was you know, four here, four there. Exactly. So yeah. It wasn't like we filled out three bars in one night. We just took advantage of what little time we could, not knowing that it was going to be nerfed.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:13

Well, and we also can't be held at fault for we have a lot of experience with the game, and we just kind of knew what to we just knew how to hit the ground running. Yep. Um, and you know, we just we that that's a lot of a testament to just our knowledge. We just we hit the ground running and we had goals and we chased and we just immediately pursued those goals. But I'm gonna give a little we we clap up bungee a lot. Uh we give them a lot of praise because we love their game and we love what they've done. I'm gonna give take this moment. I am gonna give a little criticism. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna give some L bungees. I'm gonna give a little L's here. Um Hot topic. Hot top, yeah, I'm gonna get a little spicy. I'm gonna get I'm gonna give some L's here. Uh L L Bungie on Narratively what they did. Now, this is not the end of the world for me. Um, it's not the core experience for me. The core experience for me is the social interactions and the PvP and the gunplay um and the looting system. But I'd be a lying man if I said I wasn't intrigued by the story, and I wasn't intrigued by the mystery and all the factions and their stories, and maybe L Bungee is a is a strong word, um, but I am disappointed that it's narratively basically the same. Traxus and Maida had some bonus contracts, but it wasn't that much in my opinion. Opinion, opinion, and by the way, everybody, everything we're saying, opinion, you know. Um, but I would have really liked, I was personally pretty excited about going into season two, going over to Sciac, pushing, pushing the X button, and getting a brand new set of dialogue. I think a lot of players were expecting that too, especially players that were invested in the story. The counter-argument that I've heard is, and there may be a method to the madness, and that's why I said L bungee on this part might have been might be a little strong word because there might be a method to the madness. I've heard, I don't know if this is true, that they are giving it one more season for new players to get the story. They never did such a thing in Destiny, they just always move forward, moved forward, moved forward, and new players kind of just had to catch up via YouTube videos on what was going on. But um, maybe they're not trying to do that, and maybe they're trying to just give everybody a little more time to get the story. Maybe they have mid-season plans. You know, almost all games have big mid-season patches. Maybe something's coming down the pipe mid-season. I will say, bat, I was a little let down narratively. We didn't have a lot with the contracts. I know Atlas Forged feels a little passionate about that because he's big into lore. Um, and also to double down, what we're doing, to my knowledge, bat, what we're uh aside from them new contracts from track the bonus ones, what we're doing is the same. Again, the core experience, the the the competitive side of me is kind there's a side of me that's happy they're the same because we know what to do, and we're just yeah, that's we're just pumping them out in Nightmarsh and getting them done with, and that's a good feeling. That's honestly a good feeling. Um maybe my expectations were too high. I I'm willing to own that. Maybe I was expecting too much, but um, yeah, what's your what's your and hey, hit it. If you're on the complete other side, hit me with it. Um I was personally just a little let down. We didn't have a little more meat on the bone narratively. There's still room for that. Maybe they got something coming. I know they got something. It may be season three, but I know new lore is coming down the pipe. Maybe it'll be mid-season two. Um, and I was a little let down that we're basically doing the same things, but in another sense, it's kind of nice because we can get through it and we can get to the juicy stuff, which is cryo archive and pvp and the thrill of taking other people's loot. But what's your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:51

Um, I'm I'm actually gonna be really, really honest here. Um, and I'm gonna introduce a character.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:58

Um that's they're the same. Because now I can play the game and kind of shut my brain off.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:14

Alright! Hi Elmo, nice to meet you. My son's a big fan.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:18

Hello!

SPEAKER_02 1:41:20

Um sometimes I I let Elmo come in and just speak his little his little truth. Um now I like the fact that honestly, honest to God.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:35

Um That was the moment, by the way, when somebody's listening in their office and they go, My god, what was that? Because you just went from zero to a hundred in the flip side. That's the part where somebody's sitting there bench pressing at the gym and it's just like what and what am I listening to right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:56

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:57

Um there there are plenty of other characters that I could introduce at other times to. Um, but the big thing that I wanted to say was like I know that they're having the one week of free play. So I think that that's probably got to do with a lot of it. Okay, good point. Because a lot of people can't get all those contracts done in a week and then start experiencing something new. Okay. Right?

SPEAKER_04 1:42:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:26

Um I I honestly have a really strong feeling that because of the returning players, we're all gonna be able to knock out these contracts as quickly as possible. And during the mid-season, they might drop something new. I honestly feel extremely strong about it. Okay. Um, and it's something that I've been thinking about since the moment that somebody said the contracts were the same. I'm like, y'all gotta wait. Remember, this game is three months old. They are constantly testing things, they're constantly introducing something new. They're play testing, seeing what the the player base likes, what they don't like, what they need to take out, what they need to remove, what they need to add. Um and I think that narratively I think we're probably gonna see very soon where they start introducing a lot of lore from the original games, and I think they'll probably start tying it into a lot more of like um where there were like three of the AIs originally, and then the different factions and the different planets and companies and everything. Oh, yeah. Yeah, little did you know, I went back and watched a three-hour video.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:59

Oh hey! Okay, I say you because I wanted to know a little bit more the game that I was playing, um, and kind of where the roots came.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:10

Because when I heard that it was kind of like the inspiration for a lot of aspects in Halo and Destiny, two games I'm I'm familiar with, that was really cool. I'm like, okay, so this is kind of the game that kind of push-started several aspects for those games. Um, I would love to start seeing those aspects from the originals kind of link their way into the newer version of the story. Um thing I love about like movies and stuff that have um remakes is being able to see the the vision of what the original movie wanted. Maybe not the same narrative, maybe not the same characters, but sometimes even just the visuals to where like that's what they wanted back then, but they couldn't do it in their time frame or their era. Now we get to see what they wanted to make. I think that would be really cool with Marathon.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:15

Great feedback, Bat, as always, man, you bring to the table. Um you kind of reeled me back in there with the whole like be patient.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:25

Um something It's always in the back of my head, man.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:30

Be patient. There's probably something. And I kind of taught was talking myself into it as I was talking, but you reeled really reeled me back in talking about like, hey, something's probably coming midseason. I think I just I probably set the bar narratively a little too high that oh man, I can't wait to hear what SIAC, New Caloric, and all these people, I can't wait to hear what they got to say now, like what's going on now.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:57

Um I mean, kind of compare it to like reading a book. You wouldn't necessarily want to sit down and read, you know, an 18-book series in three days. Sometimes you want to let that simmer a little bit. Let it take its time, do its thing, learn it as it comes naturally. You don't want to force feed it all to everybody at the same time.

SPEAKER_07 1:46:22

For sure, for sure, man. I like that, I like that. Um, yeah, great feedback. You you did. You uh you dialed you dialed me back in there. So we'll see. Ultimately, we'll see. We'll see what they do. Okay. Uh blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Some uh we'll we'll talk real quickly about yeah, yeah. I almost thought about talking about some hidden quality of life gems. I'm trying to look here. Yeah, hey, I'll say this real quick. Some hidden gems that they've done, some quality of life changes. Well, Stark, we we've talked about this a little bit. Faction upgrade cost cuts. Uh, material economy just got a massive sigh of relief. Bungie officially lowered the material prices required for major faction upgrades across the board. It's very noticeable. Uh, you no longer have to spend an entire week hold up an outpost grinding rare scrap metal just to unlock a baseline progression note. It's so true. This is uh we we've alluded to it earlier. This has been a very nice quality of life improvement. The UI, and that I saw a lot of people bickering when this game came out in March. I saw a lot of people bickering about the UI. I was that by the way, for anybody that don't, UI stands for user interface. It's just kind of like how you interact with the game and how easy things come to you and how you navigate, like a menu and things. That's a that's a simplified down way of talking about it. I'm over here like, y'all, it's a baby. It's a baby, it's gonna get better. And guess what, that? What did they do? They immediately it's gotten better. Um just over here like thank you. Some people I I'm just over here thinking, sometimes I just think, now I know I'm 32 and I got a little wisdom, but I'm like, use your brains, y'all. Like, use your brains, chill out. They're gonna make it better. Even I got ahead of myself while ago with narratively, but even some things I'm like, y'all, come on now, it's gonna get better. Um, Batman, you can now navigate the menu so much easier. Um, it doesn't feel as clunky. Like they've organized like clips, uh, clip mags more neatly, they've organized barrels more neatly, they've organized chip mods more neatly. It looks better, dude, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:58

Are you talking about like mainly in the armory? Correct, where they're separated. Correct.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:02

It does look a lot nicer and it's much easier to navigate.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:06

Yeah. Overflow inventory inspection. You can now inspect weapons sitting directly in your overflow inventory, allowing you to strip or tear down their mods without needing to clear out vault space first.

SPEAKER_08 1:49:19

This is an absolute godsend for console. Hallelujah! Let's clap it up. Yeah, Ziegler. Come on, Ziegler, help us out, Ziegler.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:33

The reason I'm laughing is because it's gonna be so long before I see Vault Overflow. Because I am converting everything, and then I'm gonna sell everything. It's gonna be so long. I think it was Atlas the other night that was like, oh my vault's how we're not even a weekend.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:00

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_07 1:50:01

I'm gonna poke a little I'm gonna poke I will poke a little fun at at Fallen. Wait, are you talking about Atlas or Fallen?

SPEAKER_03 1:50:07

I think it was Atlas.

SPEAKER_07 1:50:08

I was go I was gonna poke some fun at Fallen. I was gonna say I've noticed he's a little bit of a hoarder too. Like he like, did you see his stash of bullies? I'm like, dang, son.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:20

I don't I don't know if I've gotten to play with Fallen yet this season.

SPEAKER_07 1:50:25

I've played with him a pretty good amount, and we've had some really good matches together.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:29

Um I thought he wasn't available till today. No, yesterday.

SPEAKER_07 1:50:33

Yesterday he became available. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:35

Yeah, and I wasn't on.

SPEAKER_07 1:50:36

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I kind of got caught up with him yesterday. And uh we played and we had some we got some good matches together. But um, so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh we have also uh this is uh especially for casuals, we should definitely point this out. Uh the Tuesday reset, which is tomorrow starts tomorrow, June the 9th, 26th, 2026. Uh, the Tuesday reset supercharge buff to reward players with limited time. Oh, true Batman. Uh, every single Tuesday reset. Your first five contracts completions receive a massive permanent XP multiplier boost. If you only have a few hours a week to play, hit your Tuesday contracts, is now the absolute fastest way to rocket through your runner and faction levels. This is good. W's W's. Um, this is good, man. Uh, if you need to hard focus something, your first five contracts is a is a it didn't really go into detail like how much, but it's an XP multiplier boost. If you really want something from Traxus, if there's an upgrade you really got your eye on, or if there's something you really want, like an upgrade that the armory from Traxus will eventually give you, um, do your focus on Tuesday at the beginning of the week. When you can play, focus as much as you can on that faction that you're the most interested in, because you're gonna get a bump. So tomorrow, for example, tomorrow, everybody, when I when I get whenever I get to log on, starting tomorrow, whenever you know I get to play, um, I'm focusing new caloric right now. So I'll get a bump for my new caloric contracts that I complete, my first five, according to this. According to this. All good stuff, all good stuff. I mean, we just we knew we knew that. We knew we knew it was coming. We knew improvements were happening. All right, let's uh, dude, let's kind of there there's still a lot more notes. Let's talk very briefly. We're not gonna get to nerfs, we will save buffs and nerfs for episode 10. We'll save that. I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll take this from my notes and I'll put it into episode 10 notes. So we'll we're gonna break, we're gonna go by that. So let's get down to the new guns. We'll talk about the KKV 9SD. Um, this gun is really cool. This is the new SMG, if anybody doesn't know, with the built-in suppressor. I don't know if this I I think it ultimately was their intention. Uh, I'm gonna give another shout out to Mike Drop 1989. He showcased a he showcased a TikTok uh short of like how serious this thing shreds at close quarters. This thing is a demon. Like I there is like if you've got a green shield and somebody has a green KKV9, you're not react. You're not you're cooked. You're not reacting. It the TTK is so fast. It it it's it that's just the best way I know how to say it. It's a demon. It has a built-in suppressor, it has a folding stock, so like you can kind of choose if you want it to be a little more accurate or if you want it to have like a higher handling stats. Um, this is a cool gun bat, and I don't think I think it's in an okay place as of right now to be continued. I got my eye on you, KKV9. I got my eye on you, but there is a discrepancy with it. If I'm out, if I'm so many meters out, I'm gonna win with something that has semi-decent mid-range, like an M77, a um a bully. Uh, even a bully's got a lot better range. So this the range is not good on this thing, but I'm kind of hearing through the grapevine, this is Bungie's count, this is one of their counters to anti-shotgun meta. This is the thing to keep shotguns in check. What you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 1:55:04

Um, that that I will say um is I want to say that as a hundred percent fact. Um they built this weapon with the full purpose and intention to counteract shotguns. Um, I am all for it. I love this little SMG. Um, I've used it multiple times. Um granted, anything that we're gonna talk about with weapons is mainly going to be facing the UESC. I want to make that first foremost and clear. Um, because we haven't I know you've played more than I have on the PvP side, but we still haven't played a lot this season. So everything that I'm gonna be talking about is gonna be versus the UBSC. Um even if I have a little bit of range on on a UESC, um, let's say they're in a doorway and I'm behind a box 15 meters away, I might struggle to hit those shots. Um, it does have a little bit of a bounce to it. If you have the stock on it, it helps it a lot. Um I do I do want to say that I've gotten a couple of like blue attachments on a green one before. Right. And those blue attachments made it just that much better. Uh I I love this little gun, and honestly, I can't wait to take it into some PvP to specifically fight some shotgunners. I want to see how it performs. Um but yeah, it is it is such a fun little gun to play with. Um, and that's pretty much all I've been doing in the uh sponsored Tire Marsh Knight.

SPEAKER_07 1:57:12

Yes, um, this thing, it says it fires at a monstrous 1200 rounds per minute, making it the making it the official fastest firing weapon as of right now, Bungie's put in the game. I mean, yeah, it's a demon up close. People's health. You're people's health bars are disappearing with this thing at close range. But that's the catch, though. That is the catch. You gotta be close to them. You gotta be close. Almost shotgun type range.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:46

The the very first game that we played that he mentioned earlier that we died really quick. Um, it um Old Town and our random third went down kind of back to back. Um, and I ran into a small building on intersection, one of the pillar rooms, and I almost won a 2v1 because I had that gun. It was close, but I honestly, with it being the first time it was in my hands, I felt like I did poorly. I think if I were to play with that gun now in that situation, I would have won that match right then. Right. So if you're in the correct circumstances and you played with a gun enough, you're probably gonna feel very confident.

SPEAKER_07 1:58:42

Time will tell. This is a gun. I I I like my stance on it. I'm watching you. I'm watching you. We just gotta see. I'm not ready to put it in the dookie tier. I'm not ready to put it in the S tier. I'm not ready to I don't know. I don't know. We need I need to see it more. I need to use it more, I need to go against it more, and I need to use it more to come to a decision.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:05

Honestly, I can't wait to see purple attachments and possibly even gold on it. Oh, that's spooky. That thing is gonna be It's gonna be the devil.

SPEAKER_07 1:59:16

It will surpass being a demon. It'll be the Satan. Satin, it will be Satan, it will be the devil himself. Yeah, we shall see. Okay, uh, we got the D, the other, the final, the final new weapon. We've been gifted the D54 battle pistol. Uh, it is a fully automatic three-round burst handgun that comes equipped with an integrated red dot optic. This thing, uh, this thing feels cool, man. Uh, this thing uses it uses what it does use light, correct?

SPEAKER_02 1:59:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:59:52

They both do use light ammo. I have also another shout out to Mike Drop1989. He has also put out some content showcasing this gun. And uh it looks good, man. I mean, it's not gonna carry from what I've seen. That might be a hot take. I don't know, because I haven't used it that much, but I can tell you, I'll stand on business right now, and I'll say the D54. We'll see how well this ages. So y'all can keep the receipt on me, everybody. Keep the receipt on Old Town. He said it here now. We'll see how this ages. It seems to me I already like this gun better than the Magnum and the um oh. I still got notes from the last time.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:39

CE tactical.

SPEAKER_07 2:00:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The CE uh the CE tactical. Yeah, here we go. Here we go. I still think the D54 is better than the at the Magnum MC, and I think it's better than the CE Tac. I think it now it runs a rate, now it's contesting the V11 punch. It's a good gun. I like the D-54. They've done a good job with it. Um and it it can kind of be, it can clutch, it's got good handling on it. You can kind of you're in an intense fight, the enemies close the distance for you, and everybody's jumping everywhere, everybody's bobbing and weaving and finessing and finagling, and you can just kind of you know, just kind of spray that thing, and you just you know you get that down with it. I think it surprisingly it seems like that it hits pretty good too. Um, it's actually got pretty that hits hard. It actually kind of has pretty solid damage to it. So this gun may keep an eye. This is also everybody keep your eye on the D-54 battle pistol. This could turn into the S tier of the pistols, like the the the standard to the pistols. It may surpass the V11 punch. So keep your keep it, everybody keep your eye on this one. So oh man, bat. We did it again, brother. We did it again. Uh, this has been awesome. We are honestly right at can you believe this? We are right at two hours. We are right at two hours. So we we done good.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:04

Real quick. Um, I just wanted to add in my thoughts on the pistol. Um I think it's a very, very, very strong weapon um compared to the CE tactical. I have only used this weapon with green attachment. I am so excited to see blues, purples. I have had a gold attachment for that gun. I didn't use it because I put it in the cradle, but I will say there were a lot of words on the description, um, and it seems like it's going to be more of a mental type of um mod where you have to think tactically with it. So I don't know if me personally I would be using it. Um I would probably just stick with purple attachments in the future, unless they have like a secondary gold mod for it that's different. Um, just the one that I had seemed like it would be very tactical. Um it was something about it gaining stacks when the stock is folded, and then being like having better ammo and super bullets when it's unfolded. So take that with a grain of salt, but I I am definitely looking forward to seeing purple attachments on that weapon. I think it is to slay.

SPEAKER_07 2:03:46

I think it's gonna slay too. Yeah, yeah. I dig the gun and I think it it is gonna slay. I mean, it could be like uh just a rock steady, like bring a bully in, bring a M77, and your second weapon is that daggum battle pistol. And you can just kind of and you can ride with that. Like you can you can pass on guns and stuff, you can just continue to ride with that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:10

I mean, they kind of tease that in the where the guy like shot the I think it was a thief like twice with the long shot and then switched to the tactical or the switch to the new pistol and cleaned him up. They're like, yeah, you can just automatically swap to that gun and clean them up. Do it. That's what it's intended for. Um, so yeah, I'll be excited to see it. Um definitely in the PvP sense.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:35

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:35

But I love it using the UESC.

SPEAKER_07 2:04:38

Yeah, yeah, me too. Yeah, I get it. I actually get excited. It's one of those guns, I can already tell I'm gonna like it because I get excited when I see it.

unknown 2:04:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:04:48

Almost more excited than the KKV.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:51

Almost. Almost. I'm not gonna lie, just for the range and the stability, I would say that that's probably true for me.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:00

I would rather see it over the KKV.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:04

Now, if there's attachments on it later on, that might be a statement. But with the free kits, that's where I'm sitting.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:12

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_07 2:05:13

Okay, well, man, we did it again. This has been a really fun episode for everybody watching. I just want to again take this moment to say if you've made it to this point. Oh man, thank you so much for choosing Running Out of Breath as your podcast. The feedback I'm getting, uh, even on YouTube, like people are saying, I've been listening to Running Out of Breath, man, while I'm at work or whatever. Thank you for thank you for making a marathon podcast and just the the connections, the the the relationships we're forming. Um it continues to build. Just thank y'all. Uh the download and you checking us out is is more than enough, but we we pre but you uh some of you some of you have took it even further and y'all have reached out to us and you did come into our Twitch chat, you did email us, you did leave a comment. We appreciate that so much from the bottom of our heart. Thank you. Put on more steam, man. Please, we urge everybody. Me and Bat, we typically go live on the weekends, we go live on Fridays and Saturdays. Please, we urge everybody. Uh, we want to hear from you, we want to get to know you more. Come over to our Twitch streams, come hang out with us, come talk to us, come tell us you're from the podcast, and we'll all just have a jolly time together. We're not hard people to get a hold of. We pride ourselves in in being one of you, and you know, we want to be as easy access as we possibly can. We obviously can't play all the time, which is why we claim the casual title, but we we would be happy to play with you. We would be happy to meet with you. And if you wanna you if you have if you want to play, what I'm ultimately trying to say is if you want to play with us, let us know. Send me an email through your source, if you Spotify, Apple Procast, hit that, hit that send email button that you can find. Send me a whisper on Twitch, comment, um, catch me on the live stream, however you want to go about it. If you want to get to know us more, if you want to build a relationship with us, we're not hard, man. We're easygoing guys, we're chill dudes, and we'd we'd love to get to know you. But thank you all so much for the feedback and the support that this podcast has already received. It honestly blows our mind that we've even made it to this point. Put on more steam and baby, let's see what we can turn this thing into. Batman, where can the people find you?

SPEAKER_00 2:07:57

You can find Batman on Twitch.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:05

Um, and then if you want to contact me, um honestly, I don't have a lot of ways for that to happen. Um Typically it would be a whisper through Twitch. Um, but if you're wanting to send me like a personal message or something, um you can always go through Old Town um and that to me. That would be pretty cool to see something that somebody's just reaching out.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:29

Just Batman, but he's just lurking around, he's just creeping around the corner. Yeah, I mean the shadows. He did the tattoos. Uh yes, yes, yes, yes. You heard it from Elmo himself. Everybody go show true Batman, the person that's always on this podcast with me. Go show true Batman 4444 some love on Twitch. Uh, most of the time when I'm live, he's live as well. And it's just warmed my heart seeing people back come to your stream because of the podcast. That makes me so happy.

SPEAKER_06 2:09:07

It's it's it's really cool.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:08

And uh, and I and I hope like every person. So I gotta say this real quick. It was a cool moment, dude. Like, even like fallen, man. Like, so even the the guy that we got to link up with, uh uh both D's nuts. We linked up with kind of sad I wasn't there. I am too. I really wish I I'm sad too, but it's coming, it's coming. You'll get to meet him. And uh sometimes it was so cool. Like, I joined the lobby with him first, and he was like, Oh my gosh, old town south, what's up, man? He's like, I didn't think you would join, and then like fallen joined, and he was like, Oh my god. Is that the he he said, is that the not fallen? He said, Is that the fallen? I'm like, that is the fallen. The anime, the aura farming anime. The legends that you've the the legend that you have heard of, yes, it is indeed him. That makes you know what, Bat, that makes me that's what makes me happy. That makes me happy that he was just as happy to see fallen as he was me. And that like if this podcast can bring you guys followers and it can get you get people to getting to know you guys and build you up, that is more than anything I could really ever ask for, man. Because like I said, I like to pour into people and I like to build people up. That's why, like I said, I ain't got no gun to my head. There was no agenda. I wanted to just give those four TikTok streamers a shout out, just cuz. Just cuz.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:58

You know what would be like the the pinnacle, I think, for us. What's that? It is if like you know, eventually, you know how like Fortnite has like tournament stuff, or like ranked could you imagine if there was like a tournament thing for Marathon and like we're not even a part of it, but they like mention either the podcast or us. Dude, that'd be hilarious, dude.

SPEAKER_07 2:11:24

It would, man. It it would. Um, I would love to get it. Like, I like I would love to that'd be that would be like a dream come true, dude.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:33

To like to maybe like, oh man, it's Batman, the the recon, or like it it's old town, the the triage, and like we have like characters that people know us by. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_07 2:11:47

I know, dude. I know that that would be the dream right there, man. But you know, even what this podcast has accomplished so far, how it's gotten some, it's it's helped you get some rel. It's helped you develop new relationships. It's developed me new relationships. It's just, you know, I want to pour in and I think a w I have an opportunity to pour into other people, to use this platform to build others up. And dude, that's what I want to do. I I I'm I'm all for that, man. That that's um that's that just that sounds good to me. So I am your host. Host? Host? Host. Host. I'm your host. Holster that. Holster that, baby. I am your host, Old Town South. You can also find me on Twitch at Old Underscore Town South. You can whisper me on there. Please come by my stream on Fridays and Saturdays. I would love to hear from you. Say you're from the podcast. That would make my day. Uh, as others have, put on more steam. Let's get some more people in the stream from the podcast. You can also find me on YouTube, Old Underscore Town South. You can't miss it. You type in old underscore town south, you will see the running out of breath logo. You'll know it's us. You'll see my face. You'll hear my voice. You can't miss it. Yeah, that's so that old dirty southern accent, redneck southern accent. You can't, you can pinpoint it a mile away. Which Batman, we're gonna have some fun one episode where we're gonna get into some geography. I've got to point out some of these places that people are listening to us from because we got some people in New York, and I'm willing to bet I sound straight out of the pig pen to the people in New York.

SPEAKER_08 2:13:42

PR New York listeners, I don't know how you put up with me. I don't know how you do it, but thank you for being here. Thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:53

I wonder if they listen are like, yeah, that guy's from Iowa. I don't know what you would like pinpoint.

SPEAKER_07 2:14:06

Well, I can tell you this is hilarious. I can tell you this. They definitely know the other guy's not from Iowa.

SPEAKER_03 2:14:16

They're like, that other guy has like that Batman guy has like such a weird range. He's something in the middle. What is he? He can speak like Elmo. He can talk like Batman. He's so weird.

SPEAKER_07 2:14:32

Oh man, we're going unhinged, but I'm I love it. I love it, man. Um, I said you could find me on the YouTube. I post shorts on there. You can keep up with me there. Um I'm working on my editing skills. Uh that's some that's a goal and a vision I have in mind to get better at that. I post some of our whole matches on there. So if you like that, that's gotten a little love. It's gotten a little love, and I'm so grateful for that. Uh the one I think I've been having the most fun with, though, is you can also, everybody, you can also find me on TikTok, old underscore town south. I think I've I put TTV in there, but you can't miss me either. You'll you'll know. It's same logo, running out of breath. Can't miss me. You'll know with the end on there. I feel like I have more editing opportunities with the TikTok shorts. Dude, I've got such a stupid sense of humor. I can't, dude. I I'll go unhinged on TikTok with some of the things. The one you did today. I just a grin, dude, went across my face making that one, man. It was so fun making it.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:36

So the song you paired with it was perfect.

SPEAKER_08 2:15:39

I tried what I had resonated. It just kind of did. And I was just like, runners got each other's backs, baby. Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_07 2:16:03

That's been stuck in my that has been that has imprisoned my brain all day, and it won't go away. This has been episode nine of running out of breath. We're flying off the rails here. We ain't got no sleep, and we're getting a little crazy. We better end this thing now before this gets rated R or something goes off the walls. This has been episode nine of Running Out of Breath. Thank you all so much for the support. We love you guys very much.

SPEAKER_08 2:16:38

Anyways, love you all.

SPEAKER_07 2:16:39

We will get you all on episode 10 when we have the big come together for our past guest, and we have a big hoorah on season 10. See you all there. Don't miss it.