This is directly supported from the high level loop of collecting loot and choosing your loadout per run to the in run decisions like secured boxes, guarded exfils, hackable boxes, supply drops.
Challenges give you rewards but you risk what you have. What you have makes challenges easier or harder.

All this to say marathon doesn't feel "punishing" to me like it's some dark souls of shooters. It feels like a game who's challenge is fairly laid out to the player. The amount of challenge and reward offered is directly and plainly proportional to the risk you put up.

And here's bow on top of it all, the world building supports the gameplay because that risk and reward loop IS the story. Your shell is expendable to the factions as long as you get the job done. Exfiling, surviving and filling your vault is the least of their concerns.

Marathon is only this brutal sweaty game if your goal is to demolish every player you see and stomp anything else in your way. And that's a lot of why it's been so intriguing for me. There is still fun there for sweats who want to do that and in the very same match for me watching them from a bush.

Or go the opposite, I've had so much fun loading in with nothing, knowing the run will most likely end in death but no risk except my time, and all the same rewards on the table if I can just overcome a stacked encounter with skill or much more likely luck.

Marathon is very well designed to have the world be extremely risky but also filled with rewards, and the best part is you get to chose run to run what you are risking. Load out with good gear and you are increasing not only your risk but how easy it will be to succeed.

Sometimes it's just information on how you should route an "actual" run where you bring good gear to complete a contract. A lot of times its just incremental progress on other contracts. By design they even have data cards that give you credits without extraction. You gain rep on all runs.

My rate of successful exfil is very low, but where as in other games of this type that means I "lose" most games in marathon there is always something gained in the majority of runs.

I think a big part of it is to me marathon is a rouge lite in the skin of an extraction shooter and competition isn't the core *goal* of the game but an obstacle to your progression. The loot isn't the goal it's gear you risk to increase your chances of successfully completing a contract.

I'm 30 hours into marathon I'm a bit confused at the idea that its this hardcore sweaty game that is more brutal than the average AAA shooter. If anything I've found it infinitely more approachable and less frustrating than Warzone/redsec/league of legends etc.

Spore did this as a "Demo" and it was like the best thing ever, I think I have as many hours in Creature Creator as the actual game

I might also recommend getting a big ass Battery bank, I got one to run my laptop in weird places and it's pretty useful for all kinds of things. Used it during a hurricane to power a fan for like 2 days, used it to DJ on a parade route etc.

All of which is good for the economy and society as a whole tbh. Without it I basically want to become a plant watered by rage and eat hot chips.

My ADHD meds do 1 of three things:
Make me a semi-functional human who can do 2 chores
Make me reach the height of productivity to the point you can see a spike in my employers stock price
Make me want to audition for the role of the emcee in a local production of cabaret.