Couple of points:

Crossroads reminds me of Payday 2, by which I mean you’re given a bunch of specific objectives but tasked to manage your own priorities and find your own way to locations. Consequently, many people end up not knowing what to do, fighting enemies for no reason and generally not helping in a meaningful way. That’s the nature of loose objectives, and I for one prefer it that way. It doesn’t so much separate good players from bad players as it separates players capable of thinking for themselves and those who just open-palm-strike their keyboards, hoping for the best.

Multi-team PvP is not a bad thing, thought it may be in a MOBA-like thing. I speak from experience with Fistful of Frags, where four-team shootout is one of the most entertaining mods. It’s not quite deathmatch chaotic since you need some degree of friend/foe recognition and since there is strength in numbers, but it’s still chaotic enough to where you can run one of your enemies into another and hope they take each other out. As with practically any competitive PvP game, though, I firmly believe that enemy chat needs to not exist in the first place. That alone should alleviate most of the “toxic” issues.

Despite your criticisms, I’m actually MORE interested in trying this game now than when you did your Sidequest.