Marathon just buffed the best loot you can find outside Cryo Archive and nerfed the Thief movement exploit that sweaty players were abusing into the ground

Marathon update 1.0.5.2 rolled out today, packed with loot buffs for the Outpost map but headlined by a bronze-knuckled smackdown from Bungie: your Thief shenanigans are over.

For weeks now, Thief players in Marathon have been using a movement exploit with the class's grappling hook to gain significant bursts of momentum while sliding around. Bungie's taken a nerf bat straight to their mechanical kneecaps, killing the slide cancel animation that was key to the exploit and sending a message that this kind of movement tech is not for Marathon.

"One of our core philosophies for Marathon is that rapid repositioning and aggression must always have a meaningful cost," Bungie writes in the patch notes. "That cost can be an ability charge, heat buildup, or increased risk but it must exist and be understandable to an observer. Unbounded movement, while expressive and clip-worthy, is ultimately unhealthy for the pace of play we want to maintain for Marathon. To set expectations early, we will be looking at any future movement exploits through the same lens."

Here's the spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. Pinwheel, the sky-high treasure chest of the Outpost map, will have "improved overall loot rewards" going forward. "This includes the quality of loose loot and small containers," Bungie clarifies, not just the big-ticket chests. The only catch is that encounters were also updated "to match reward quality," so expect more UESC bot resistance.

Speaking of those big-ticket chests: early player reports indicate that Pinwheel's central and coveted loot strongbox, previously locked behind one red key and two orange keys but now tied to three red keys, has been extra buffed. If you can get all the keys and survive the fights in the middle, you can potentially walk out with armfuls of purple or gold loot without even dealing with the reworked side wings.

Outside of Cryo Archive, which is only available on weekends, and locked rooms that can only be accessed via extremely rare keys, Pinwheel's loot is essentially as good as it gets in Marathon. But Outpost's key card system makes it hard to access, and even among middle-of-the-map hotspots, it's the hottest spot around, so it's also among the most dangerous areas in the game. With this update, Bungie's ramping up the risk and reward, teeing up higher highs and lower lows. At least Pinwheel's Destroyed Wing entrance has been reopened, now with an updated and more complex puzzle.

Marathon boss cryptically suggests the game is too hard, outright confirms "we have some iterations / big balance changes brewing right now."