Black Ops 2 designer seeks help to make Hardcore playlists more popular

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 game design director David Vonderhaar took to the game's forums yesterday, seeking suggestions to make the game's Hardcore multiplayer variants more popular among players.

The Hardcore playlists feature rulesets that are more punishing than standard fare, often limiting elements like user interface and map data. Finding a game in these playlists through Black Ops 2's matchmaking feature can be tricky, as a much larger portion of the game's player base prefers non-Hardcore gametypes. As fewer players choose the playlist, finding an evenly-balanced match becomes that much more difficult.

The solution, Vonderhaar explained in a forum post, is to reorganize the Hardcore playlists so that their respective player bases will be larger; a rebalancing that they have had to go through with every Treyarch-made Call of Duty title.

"This year is no different," Vonderhaar wrote. "We put out the game. We then figure out what is popular amongst the Hardcore (and other variant, but relatively small communities), and we make adjustments that are in the best intrests of the game and the community. This year is no different. Of course we'll make adjustments. We always do."

Currently, the most popular Hardcore playlist is Team Deathmatch, with Capture the Flag, Search and Destroy, and Free For All trailing behind, in that order.