14 DAY TRIAL // Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 developer Treyarch has started talking with the game's huge community about the Hardcore multiplayer playlists and revealed a few interesting facts about the mode and what actual playlists are the most popular.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 introduces a variety of changes to its multiplayer mode, like the Pick-10 system, while keeping some of the mechanics from previous games, like the Hardcore game type, which features increased damage and absolutely no HUD elements.
In Black Ops 2, however, Treyarch's Design Director, David Vonderhaar, has begun talking with fans about the special Hardcore playlists and how the studio wants to keep the community together, instead of split up between different modes.
"I know the Hardcore crowd loves Hardcore. I love me some Hardcore Search & Destroy, personally. You are a small enough community where I feel like I know some of you personally. The problem here is that not every gamemode playable in a hardcore variant has sufficient enough traffic to warrant having its own playlist," he said on the Call of Duty forums.
"Hardcore Free-For-All, for example, has a very low traffic count. This makes Matchmaking in that playlist more difficult. While I'm sure that the 4000 people in it right now are loving it, I'm just being open with you when I say that something with less than 1% of the total population barely justifies it's own playlist."
He also began asking for feedback from fans in order to enhance the experience and offer more game types, while highlighting that it's tough to keep the mode alive across its various playlists.
"I am taking feedback as we think about how to provide more hardcore game modes as Public Playlists without fragmenting the small Hardcore community or matchmaking. Some of you will be tempted to say 'Give every game mode it's own Hardcore playlist.' Save yourself some trouble. I totally get it. You like Hardcore.
"However, Hardcore is not a gamemode. It's a variant on the game rules. One that is popular with a very passionate, but very small crowd of people. Keeping the 80,000 (or so, across 2 platforms) of you together and able to play together has to be a priority over any specific variant."
As a conclusion, Vonderhaar said that Treyarch would continue to make adjustments based on the community, so players should just submit their ideas on the game's forums.