How hard is hardcoe

Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 11:24 am

I've put about 200 hours into FO3 and im about 50 into NV and not done yet, I was just wondering for my next game (which I'd prefer to be an Evil Unarmed)
How hard is hardcoe mode? and would it be harder trying to do an Evil unarmed build. Any suggestions for a hardcoe build are welcome, doesn't have to be unarmed.
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Poetic Vice
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 1:20 am

It's not too bad, the name makes it sound harder than it actually is, you just got to keep an eye on your food, H2o and sleep stats. Don't step on any landmines either, repairing limbs svcks (at first) :twirl:
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luis ortiz
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 6:27 pm

Its not too bad seen as hunger thirst and sleep need 1000 for you to die and there very slow doing it.

Finding water sources aint so hard but if its irradiated water source, then you have rads to worry about (which isnt a problem seen as rads dont increase over time unless your in a radiation area)

they affect you no doubt, if you dont eat, you get a -1 strength effect for hunger loosing on some extra weight


It starts off hard but when you get more money and better equipment, it wont matter especially if you pick skills and perks that benefit you for thirst/hunger and sleep
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jesse villaneda
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:10 pm

I really like the changes to the health system and the weighted ammo. The restricted healing does make the game more difficult and in particular healing in the middle of combat is far less effective which is nice. The lack of weightless ammo won't make the game much more difficult unless you're planning to use the heavier weapons - heavy ordinance is just that, heavy.

I have found the food, water, and sleep requirements to be a real nuisance but I knew going in to FONV that I was unlikely to like these. If fast travel was disabled these would have far more impact in terms of difficulty but even then food, water, and beds aren't scarce.

Spoiler
In fact the town you start in has unlimited free water and a free bed.


hardcoe also makes it possible for companions to die. This I don't like but I certainly can't argue with it's inclusion in hardcoe mode. It also hasn't annoyed me as much as FO3 (pre-BS at least), I've been traveling with Arcade who is hardly a combat powerhouse and he's only died once.
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Kirsty Collins
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:00 pm

It's really not that much more difficult. I find the survival meters are usually something I don't have to worry about too much - I can't really conceive of a situation where it'd actually kill you before you were able to find something to eat/drink. And you'll get a little notification as soon as anything starts affecting you. And the limb isn't too bad, I find. But it does teach you to be a bit more careful than you otherwise would (and I find that I'm saving before searching a lot of rooms - they've got really inventive with placing those mines this time around...)

Really, what I found to be the biggest game-changer was that items now heal you over time. That took me a bit to get used to. No more spamming your Stimpak hotkey and not worrying about dying. When your health starts getting low, you need to find cover fast, and your stimpaks time to do their job. Personally, I think it's a lot of fun, though.
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Taylah Illies
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 1:44 am

Pretty easy, really, so far at least. The ammo weight penalty just means you carry less crap about, which is a good thing to be honest. There's plenty of water around too, even if it is irradiated. Personally, I've just been paying doctors to remove my rads from time to time, Radaway being fairly uncommon in this game (at least so I've found). As I only have 1 STR and 1 END - and they don't go to zero - the penalties for minor rads/dehydration don't actually make any difference to me. :laugh:
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Naazhe Perezz
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:27 pm

I prefer hardcoe mode - it makes traps really really svck, unless you stock up on Doctor Bags.

The sleep / water / food issue is pretty much a non-issue, and it gives a reason to train up Survival so that you can make the better foods.
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Project
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 7:22 pm

hardcoe is as hard as you want to make it, there is no set difficulty so you can play on very easy hardcoe if you want.

The thing id suggest most for playing on hardcoe is to focus on your survival skill instead of medicine for healing. Food is way better than stimpaks in hardcoe mode.
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Rebecca Dosch
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 2:18 am

well i never really spend much points in medizine and i didnt spend any in survival, guess i have to boost survival if im playing it on hardcoe.
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oliver klosoff
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 1:23 am

hardcoe is not a diffculty could do it on very easy it just means you need to sleep more, drink water and use doctors from crippled legs and eat but I has my very own water supply so water is not a issue just being crippled is annoying.
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Kieren Thomson
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:06 pm

It doesn't seem difficult, to me. I could get by without companions just fine, and doctor's bags aren't exactly rare. It seems like it would be more of an annoyance than a difficulty. Personally, I'd rather spend my time "prospecting" and killing; not looking for food and water and *scoffs* sleeping.

The killing factor, in terms of difficulty, is that ammo and aid items have weight, so you can only carry so much. But that's what companions are for; pack mules.
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Rachael Williams
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:56 pm

What do you get at the end if you play the full game in hardcoe?
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Emmanuel Morales
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 4:41 am

hardcoe mode doesn't bother me too much, I bought this game in expectation for a HARD survivability curve, and I played the game immediately in hardcoe mode, but turns out for me this is still relatively easy.
One nuisance is that there is no gauge which shows your dehydration/hunger level other than your Pip boy, also dehydration increases way faster than starvation, makes sense I suppose since the game takes place in the desert.
hardcoe mode mainly affects me only in terms of companion, I end up not recruiting any of them when I can, and when I do, I'd immediately disband them and travel alone due to the fact they die, then again without companion I can still swing around fine.
My character only has 2 END, and I still find this mode to be quite easy, the other "nuclear apocalypse" FPS/RPG is considerably harder, and more punishing when compared in my opinion.
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Miss Hayley
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 12:30 am

I gave up on hardcoe Mode. Not because it was too difficult per se, but because my companions always committed suicide and keeping my character healthy became an annoying time-sink. Imo it just distracts from the real game.
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Teghan Harris
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 2:33 am

I gave up on hardcoe Mode. Not because it was too difficult per se, but because my companions always committed suicide and keeping my character healthy became an annoying time-sink. Imo it just distracts from the real game.


That's why I don't use any of my companion :D, then again even in FO3 I never use companions either, not even Dogmeat. So I guess I'm just used to playing solo, just my opinion.
Somehow I felt if you want to play with party members, do turn off the hardcoe mode.
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lacy lake
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 1:58 am

It's not too bad just got to keep an eye on all your stats. Your biggest hurdle will be getting used to heal over time mechanics.
I'm playing a character with 4 strength/endurance, low combat skills, low medicine/survival skill and the small frame trait (limbs cripple easier) and I haven't had too much trouble. My companions die a lot more than I do.

Then again, I played Fallout 3 with FWE a lot, NV hardcoe is a cakewalk in comparison heh.
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Taylah Haines
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:13 pm

I kind of like hardcoe; it keeps me on my toes to make sure I've got enough food/water for forays into the wastes. I'm finding that I'm using a lot fewer stimpacks as I'm eating food, and collecting purified water gives me something to hunt for.
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Tiffany Castillo
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 11:07 pm

But it does teach you to be a bit more careful than you otherwise would (and I find that I'm saving before searching a lot of rooms - they've got really inventive with placing those mines this time around...)

The bastards :P

Can't count how many times I've approached a corpse to loot it only to end up saying "Oh crap!" as I try to get far enough away before the bang. Really does make you more cautious.

One thing I found is a bottle of Hydra is worth 10 times its weight in gold. Sure the doctors bags are more useful in combat, but when you have two crippled legs and a busted head, hook yourself up to one of those and it's like having a doctor follow you around bandaging you as you go.
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Jordyn Youngman
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 4:10 am

Really starting to sound like fun, I really like the idea of carrying around 2 main guns and maybe a melee and then tonnes of food and water, soon as I'm done on first playthrough I'm doing it.
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Miragel Ginza
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 4:29 am

I played a bunch of hours on normal first, then switched to a new character and hardcoe.

Love it! And this is from someone who initially thought it would be a stupid, boring, micro managing affair.

The main differences for me are in healing over time and crippled limbs. I spend a ton of time finishing fights with blurry vision and crippled limbs, and then limp myself back to a doctor to heal. Makes combat tougher, and I actually spend the time to plan out an attack, not wanting to get slapped up because I can't just rush in and spam stimpacks. I also tend to use food more for healing than medicine, the exception being doctors bags, which I use a ton of.

Never really have any problems with hydration, hunger, or sleep deprivation, as all are relatively easy to fix. It definitely comes into play, however, when you're out in the field and hungry, and lose ten lbs of carry weight.

I've also gone from being a walking arsenal to carrying 3-5 weapons, one of which is a knife, and very limited ammo types.

Right now I'm only carrying .44, .308, 10mm, and shotgun ammo.
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Alessandra Botham
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 11:34 pm

the only issue that you will ever have with it, (needing food water and sleep is a minor annoyance) is that ammo has weight. when you are carrying around 4000 5.56mm surplus ammunition you can't carry a whole lot else.

let's put it this way, in hardcoe more my weight was around 250... due to ammo having weight when i turned off hardcoe more after i got the achievement i had a weight of around 70.
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Minako
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:13 pm

Issues of hardcoe mode in order from biggest problem to smallest:

-Healing over time. You'll want to eat/use a stimpack in advance of starting a fight sometimes and super stimpacks are often the only thing that can possibly save your life. I dunno how many battles I've survived with less than 10 HP, but having said that, I've yet to die with very hard mode and hardcoe mode both on. Though yeah, I need to be really careful and look before I leap at all times.

-Need a doctor to heal crippled limbs. Each time it costs 50 caps. This means you'll wanna get as much Hydra/Doctor's bags as possible; otherwise you'll be searching for a doctor a lot. At the beginning this is an absolute pain; later on you'll have just enough Hydra/Doctor's bags to handle the issue.

-Bullets have weight. May not seem like much but those little bullets add up. Heavy guns for example are strictly for characters with high strength. Rockets alone are one pound each; first time I picked them up they immediately put me over my limit and I thought "oh right.... D:"

-Water. Not really a huge issue at all but this is the one you need the most of. If you don't keep it down then you'll be punished with reduced stats. Hydration, Hunger and Sleep work the same as radiation: they use a 0 to 1000 scale with every 200 points aquired affecting your stats negatively.

-Hunger. Same as above, cept less neccesary. Still, it can be somewhat annoying to reduce it. Drinking water will reduce your hydration scale by ~80 points: one bottle and it's fixed basically. Most types of foods only reduce 10-30 points, so you do actually have to make an effort to reduce it at times.

-Sleep. Honestly, you'll sleep FAR more often than neccesary just by naturally wanting to sleep until shops open back up. Can't imagine ANYONE dying to sleep deprivation unless they're really REALLY negligent and oblivious to the blinking "SLEEP" sign.
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James Potter
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:55 pm

it should be the DEFAUlt way to play, its sad hardcoe mode is even called hardcoe, its actually really how it should be, just shows the state of hand holding and how dumbed down games are for the masses. hardcoe mode is way better.

hardcoe is not even hard, it just brings a more survival aspect to the game.
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Natasha Biss
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:49 pm

-Water. Not really a huge issue at all but this is the one you need the most of. If you don't keep it down then you'll be punished with reduced stats. Hydration, Hunger and Sleep work the same as radiation: they use a 0 to 1000 scale with every 200 points aquired affecting your stats negatively.



Psst...

Spoiler
It's not an issue at all if you find the Vault 13 Canteen; you automatically drink from it every now and then to keep your thirst level good.

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Misty lt
 
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Post » Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:03 pm

I've put about 200 hours into FO3 and im about 50 into NV and not done yet, I was just wondering for my next game (which I'd prefer to be an Evil Unarmed)
How hard is hardcoe mode? and would it be harder trying to do an Evil unarmed build. Any suggestions for a hardcoe build are welcome, doesn't have to be unarmed.


hardcoe mode isn't easy but it isn't too hard. It depends on your playstyle. You really need to stick to the low level type of quests for a while until you gear up, can't really roam off into a medium-high level area or your going to have a bad time, especially if you don't have a mercenary.
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JR Cash
 
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