The concept of adding TDM is an interesting one. For a long time, I wanted nothing more than to have DM introduced into a team based shooter, not because I thought it was a good idea, but because I hoped all of the worthless, non-team players would be drawn to it.
It was only after I played Hawken DM mode (and realised most of those worthless players were playing TDM instead) that it occurred to me, that they don’t even want a kill based game mode.
They want an easy game mode, where they can simply button mash to their hearts content and rack up kills with no effort. In DM in Hawken, all of the usual Stealth/Sniper players got eaten alive, and frequently screamed ‘cheat’, and they always ended up at the bottom of the scoreboard (because they can’t aim or think in the same way a good player can). They play TDM because they are far more interested in having ‘assault fodder’ tie up their kills and keep their target’s attention focused elsewhere, so they can get their easy kills. The assault players trying to push and win the match often get smashed as a result. So here is little Johnny on his 2003 cheap laptop, getting his 2 kills and feeling empowered, whereas the rest of us get annoyed with having such worthless teammates (FYI this is why I always ask for skill bracket match making instead of TDM, it isn’t the game mode that requires segregation, it is the core mentality of the players that needs to be separated).
Whereas it might work in DB, I think it is ultimately self-defeating. The problem with these players is only partially due to the game. SD WANT us to have a sniper capable of OHKs, because they don’t want to deal with the screaming backlash from those loser snipers that can only manage 1-2 headshots per match, in case they don’t get a full kill from it. Same goes with stealth. But the real issue is these players, and their weak mentality, and nothing SD or any of us can do will change that. If the game became more skill based, they will quit, and SD and Nexon don’t want that.
And when they make it easy, it just pisses everyone else off. This is another classic case of a development team that is trying to please everyone instead of choosing a target audience and sticking with them. The more players, the more money made right? Except this game will die as a result of everyone getting sick of the way it plays and leaving because they lose hope.
And hope is a one off currency in gaming, players will stay with you through thick and thin if they believe in you, but there comes a point, for every player, where the penny drops and they lose hope, at which point they start looking for a new developer to believe in.
I honestly do believe that that time is coming up very quickly for SD, the general tone on the forums has become negative, and many of the people that had high hopes for the game and believed in SD are starting to get worried that the major issues are being ignored.
In any case, my apologies for this long rant, I wrote it, re-read it, edited it, re-read it again, edited it some more, and now it reads like a complete clusterfook.
So I will just say this to summarise. I think this game’s days are numbered, there are too many issues and not enough time to lock them all down, it is going to bleed players the moment the last Merc is released. Whereas that might be good as a money making scheme in the short term, it will be the beginning of the end of the game’s longevity (in my opinion, but I am male, so rarely wrong).
The core issue between the good players and the bad ones is not the game mode, it is the mentality of what they are trying to achieve. Some of them just want easy kills, some of us want to win. And we need to be separated. A game mode might achieve that, or incentives might (for example, I would rather play objective for no XP or credits, than play TDM with the mongs if it came with rewards) or even just skill bracketing.
Something needs to happen though, if all we have to look forward to (and this seems to be the case) are more mercs, balance tweaks based on player rage and a new game mode that no one seems to be very enthusiastic about, this game is going to die. We need the same stuff the OP mentioned, albeit with something more pleasing to the mong population than simple TDM.
