1) Yup.
2) Wouldn't play without it, unless somebody releases a F.W.E. type mod that does it better.
3) Normal game setting with mods that make combat more lethal.
4) I did restart once after discovering that certain choices that made sense in FO3 (Lady Killer, for example) weren't so useful in NV.
5) Probably be trying out new mods.
6) Exploring while ignoring the main quest until I've played all DLCs, as finishing the main quest ends the game.
7) I never use VATS. Hate it. I prefer Bullet Time.
8) Not really.
9) Love the companions and use them all, changing from one to the other depending on what I'm doing, and pursuing their quests.

In fact, companions are the only really significant effect of hardcoe mode, to me. Most of the effects of hardcoe mode just make the game a bit more interesting by requiring you to keep the appropriate supplies in stock like doctor bags and food, but those supplies are so abundant that this isn't difficult. But in hard core mode, companions die when they fall so part of the difficulty is taking steps to insure their survival and choosing the right companion for a given mission.

1. Very much so.
2. It's the only way for me now.
3. Nothing less than Normal.
4. I wish I knew how useful Hydra was.
5. I would do another path in the quest. No gambling either.
6. I monkeyed about by going to do random things as I came across them.
7. I never played Casual but I barely use VATS as it is. Iron sights are just too useful.
8. Endurance, Medicine, and Survival are awesome on hardcoe mode.
9. On my first playthrough I used Boone and gave him a rifle. My second playthrough I went solo.

1. Yes, it's so much more fun
2. Yes
3. Normal
4. Increased limb damage. Mines hurt like a bugger.
5. Get ED-E right off the bat to store my food and ammo
6. Endgame, but reloaded a save right before it after I completed the game.
7. I like aiming down the sights myself and shooting.
8. I would say barter is very important, and repair.
9. ED-E for storage. I like his looks, seems more 'Lone Wanderer"ish.

When I played Fallout 3 I was disappointed that I didn't need to eat or drink. However, it ended up being a major annoyance in FONV, partly due to having a ton of random food and drinks to scroll through when looking through the aid section. I liked the stimpack/doctor's bag changes though.

Yes, much more balanced gameplay than FO3 and food and drink items actually have some purpose. In FO3 they were simply extra junk to weight you down.

I didn't truly get the full enjoyment out of hardcoe mode until I downloaded and installed the Harder hardcoe Rates (Refined Rates) mod from newvegasnexus.com
http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36432

The problem with vanilla hardcoe mode is that there is simply too much food and water everywhere and you don't need to sleep very much, only once every several days.

The Harder hardcoe rates mod does not make the gameplay more realistic, but it makes it much more balanced and fun, because after installing it, I would sometimes actually run out of water, or go into advance sleep deprivation because there were no beds or faucets anywhere near the area where I was. Lots more fun and makes you actually have a reason to care about finding food and water. Big improvement over vanilla hardcoe.


Absolutely, I will never play FNV on "non-hardcoe" mode. it seems quite boring after enjoying hardcoe for 160 hrs on my first playthrough (not finished yet).


Very Hard. I would not enjoy any other setting. Even very hard is not difficult enough. With melee build using super slam perk, you can easily wipe out most enemies.



When playing Caravan after the mini-game starts you have to move your cursor to move the cards around to different positions so the card changes from Red to Green before you can place the card in your stack correctly. This was not included in any of the instructions or tutorials I read, and I lost several games before figuring this part out.


probably make the same choices, but make sure not to go over 80 lockpick even with all the skill books, because with a skill magazine you can get +20 in order to pick any very hard lock.

also I would not waste any perks at all with Intense Training



After 160 hours I'm just starting to get into the key events of the main quest.

From the start of the game, I just walked off into the desert and began exploring the wasteland and doing side quests. I deliberately put off the main quest as long as possible.


I only use VATS rarely, but in FO3 after several playthroughs, I stopped using VATS entirely because the game is a bit too easy. Also VATS mode in FO3 makes you invincible which is kind of boring.


Survival is important. Definitely get at least 70 survival so you can get Rad Child. Rad Child and Super Slam are the two most powerful perks in this game. If you stay at Deadly or Critical Rad Poisoning level you will constantly regen +8HP/sec or +6HP/sec.

Remember, if you get the Comprehension perk and find all the skill books you get +20 science and +16 for all the other skills. Also, there are many many skill magazines that provide a temporary +20 boost with Comprehension, so never go above 80 science, 80 lockpick or 20 below the highest speech check you want to pass (for example, the highest one I found is 75 in order to convince Arcade Gannon to join you, so you would only need 55 speech plus Meeting People magazine to pass - actually for Speech it should be even less than 55 because you can wear Benny's suit, Naughty Nightwear and take Party Time Mentats for extra boost to pass tough speech checks).

Pick either speech or barter but don't put points into both. Every conversation that has a barter dialogue check also seems to have a speech check. no need for both. I am almost finishing the game with Barter only 11 after 160 hrs and I have had no trouble at all. there are more than enough caps in the game from gambling, looting, playing caravan etc. (In fact, I installed the Expensive Wasteland mod which makes everything 10x more expensive when you buy from merchants and I still have more than enough caps and don't need Barter skill).

In FO3 it was very easy to max out or come close to maxing out all of your skills. In FNV not only is it not necessary to max everything out, but you are missing the point of role playing and specializing in certain things. Just make sure to check the requirements for the perks you want to get. For example, Jury Rigging (requires Repair 90), Piercing Strike (requires unarmed 70), Rad Child (requires Survival 70), Super Slam (requires melee 45).

Also, Luck is very, very important. I would suggest starting with Luck 10 from Doc Mitchell's house. This saves you an implant slot later and also results in almost every hit being a critical hit. With luck 10 you don't need the Finesse perk because you already have so many critical hits.

Endurance start with at least 5 or 6 and you will have 5 or 6 implant slots. END implant is a neutral cost, because it gives you one more implant slot. also it helps counteract the effects of Deadly/Critical Rad poisoning from the Rad Child perk, so definitely worth it. Also you need minimum END 6 in order to get Stonewall, which is one of the best perks (it provides constant +5 DT vs. melee attacks)

Charisma is not necessary at all. It only helps your companions DT, doesn't help you at all. CHA implant is not worth it, don't get it. Get Sub-Dermal Implant instead.

Str 5 or 6 or if you want to focus on melee, then 7 or 8. Str implant is worth it to help you carry more.

Per 5 so you can get Better Criticals after getting the PER implant.

Agility 4 or 5 unless you want a guns/sniper/VATS character, in which case I would go with AGI 7 or 8 and STR 5 or 6. Agility implant is worth it if you use VATS a lot or want to increase your guns.

Int 7 or 8, plus implant.

Sub-dermal implant is very good.

Monocyte Breeder Implant is a complete waste of caps and implant slot. It's completely useless in combat. Only +1HP every ten seconds. Rad Child perk is 60-80 times more effective (constant +6HP/sec or +8HP/sec regeneration depending on whether you are at deadly or critical rad poisoning level) and actually makes quite a difference during combat.


Cass provides the greatest perk, by constantly drinking whiskey, you can have constant +2STR and +4 DT to as high as +6 DT (depending on your Survival skill). This is equivalent to getting three different implants, or a few ranks of the Intense Training perk. ED-E's perk is the next best.

However, since companions die on hardcoe, I only travel with the companions in order to complete their quests.

I keep them all stationed waiting in the area where I first found them.

It's also a bit boring to enter into combat with companions at your side because not only are they likely to rush forward and get themselves killed, but more often than not the enemies are not too difficult, in which case they wipe out the enemies before you have a chance to do anything. If the fight is challenging then your companion will quickly die. Better to leave them at home and just benefit from their perk.

+20 if you have the comprehension perk or something. Normally a skill magazine adds only ten points.

1. did you enjoy it ?
Yes, it added to the game.

2. would you do it again?
Mabey, I usually don't play more than one serious RP character per game, it gets dull after a while.

3. what difficulty did you use?
Normal

4. are there things you wish you knew before you started?
Yes, keep as much water on you as possible.

5. if you did it over again you would ___________
See above.

6. did you primarily go for the end game or did you do a lot of exploring and questing?
Some exploring and questing, when a quest seemed interesting or what have you, but I tried to get to the end-game primarily.

7. did you vat a lot more than a normal game?
No, about the same.

8. were any skills or attributes more important in the HC game than a normal game?
Not really. I guess a high endurance would be a blessing as far as wounds go. I got more concussions in my game than is healthy, i'm sure.

9. did you use companions? if so who?
Cass, Veronica, Boone, and E-DE. Switched on and off at my leisure.

One point limbs as I posted earlier are annoying, but doctors bags should be a second call, ( first early on in level ), when you loot areas and visit chem dealers *buy hydra*.
Or if you get survival up to 65* + lads life magazine ( *75 without lads life, 55 with LL and comprehension )
I mostly take small frame on HC and hydra will restore most / all limb damage, combine this with anti damage tactics limbs become less concern later on.

1.) Yes, I did enjoy it though I played through really fast so I could get the acheivement, so I didn't really get the full experience.
2.) Yes, as soon as I get my Xbox fixed I am planning on starting another game on hardcoe.
3.) Since I really like to have a more realistic experience (ex. having enemies going down with one shot to the brain, not 6), I went with Very Easy.
4.) That ammo only weighed about one tenth of a pound.
5.) Take my time with it, hardcoe doesn't make the game any more challenging, it just gives you more to do and makes it more interesting to actually HAVE to carry around pre-war food and water, and it makes the Survival skill so much more worth investing in.
6.) I did a lot of both; at the beginning I wanted to know how it would affect the game so I re-did my quests and saw that they were a lot more fun, but later I got bored with it and just wanted to start another new save so I pushed to get the fastest possible ending.
7.) No, in fact. In NV I found it so much more interesting not to use V.A.T.S. to hit a moving target (except when I actually have to, ex. cazadores and deathclaws in CQB), and I really reccomend not using it at all if you expect to be an adept player in Fallout.
8.) I found it useful to put more skills into places OTHER than Lockpick (in the beginning of every game it's very tempting to add every point I get and distribute it into that), but I found it useful to only put enough points to reach Average locks, otherwise you won't be a very averaged player. I found it nice to put points into Survival for food when I really need the effectiveness.
9.) The only companions I really ever used were ED-E and Boone, because they were the ones I got first, and they helped me a lot with sniping.

I hope that my answers were helpful and hope that you have a great time in Vegas!

1. did you enjoy it ? I enjoyed getting to Hoover Dam, But I can't finish the game because of a glitch. (Retrying another playthrough..)
2. would you do it again? Yes. Yes I would. (And am, lol.)
3. what difficulty did you use? Hard
4. are there things you wish you knew before you started? Not really.
5. if you did it over again you would? Well I am doing it over again, So try new factions I guess.
6. did you primarily go for the end game or did you do a lot of exploring and questing? I did a crapload of exploring and side quests.
7. did you vat a lot more than a normal game? Nope, I use VATS every now and then but I like using Real Time.
8. were any skills or attributes more important in the HC game than a normal game? Yes.. Survival, and Repair, And maybe medicine..
9. did you use companions? if so who? Boone/Rex/ED-E/Cass/Veronica/Arcade Gannon.

I don't know if it's because I play on Very Easy, but I'm usually at lever 17 when I make it to Freeside, which is when I'm even less than halfway done. I don't take any Swift Learner perks, I just play and do quests. I do feel kind of bad for you that you didn't like hardcoe, but I find it kind of funny that you didn't like it AND you say you use V.A.T.S., which sounds like you use it commonly.

Try playing it a lower difficulty, it makes the game a lot more fun.

1. Yes, for what's it worth. It has some inefficiencies, but with its merits it does manage to create a somewhat unique feeling to the game that - as a plus - makes the casual mode feel as fun as washing my socks.
2. Did my first run with it... I can't do it otherwise anymore.
3. Hard.
4. Not really, but there are things I wish I didn't know (which is about all it offered).
5. ....do it all over again, I guess.
6. Moderate amount of exploring and questing, I was dangerously closing the level cap and decided to leave some (a lot) stuff for other playthroughs.
7. Ran through the game with HC for the very first try, tried "normal" for the second run and got mindnumbingly bored as far along the road as Primm, started over with HC, still going. So no, did not vat more in normal game.
8. Survival and medical were a bit more helpful, but I wouldn't say much more important.
9. ED-E, Rex, Veronica and Lily for the first run.

1. yes
2. yes
3. very hard (I only play the hardest mode available for any game)
4. I wish I knew how hard it would be to get ingredients for survival stuff. I found that its easier to just go through the game collecting whatever you find than trying to farm ingredients.
5. I wish I knew Rex would randomly attack non-hostile targets in towns..... a lot of having to load the last saved game incidents. I would also try to do the companion quests since I neglected them my first time through.
6. I explored 95% of the map, but I am not sure how many of the quests I completed. Guess I just went around randomly doing stuff and it was entertaining to do so.
7. I think I used VATS only in encounters where I have a split second to squeeze off a headshot before the target becomes hostile. (after dialogue or entering a building)
8. Due to the revamp of ALL stats and skills I think it is all fairly equal.
9. I only used Boone and Rex.... I never did Boone's quest because I had no idea how to start it or anything.



I think barter might be a handy attribute so you can carry around more stuff. I think 3/4 of my weight was always ammo before adventuring and then vendor trash on my return to town. If you are good at aiming, stuff will die VERY fast on very hard. I never had any problems involving insufficient ammo.

1. Did I enjoy it?!
No
2. Would I do it ever again?
No
3. What difficulty did I use?
Very Hard at first then I went to normal(wasting 50 rounds on something you can kill in 1 shot in real life is pretty cheap)
4. Is there things I wished to know before I started?
No
5. If I did it over again I would ____________
Never, ever, going to do it again
6. Did I primarily go for the end game or did I do a lot of exploring and questing?
Exploring then decided...this bub is boring so I just rushed the end game, sadly...I beat it at level 16 or 18(Epic fail difficulty)
7. Did I VAT a lot more than a normal game?
No...VATS only slows down one enemy so you get gang-bumped if there is more than one enemy
8. Were any skills or attributes more important in the HC game than a normal game?
Not, really...it was really easy regardless just need to eat drink and get stimpacks
9. Did I use companions? if so who?
Yes, Veronica and Rex

I wouldn't play without it (played on Hard difficulty) but I don't think it's hardcoe enough. It's less hardcoe and more a removal of whimp mode. And it's good for people who enjoy role playing their characters, having to eat, drink and sleep. But because these resources are so plentiful and available that's all it amounts to.

1 - Yes
2 - I won't play in any other mode.
3 - Normal...because I've never liked the method of increasing difficulty by making everything have stupid amounts of HP. It feels too forced.
4 - That the Camel of the Mojave perk existed, so i would have spent less time guzzling from the nearest source of water, even if it was a disgusting, filthy toilet, or a pool of water full of dismembered human corpses.
5 - Try out another build. I've done guns, e-weps, I'm trying solo-melee now. Next up? Explosives. After that? Non-combatant who will let Rex and Lily handle combat, while he focuses on massive science, lockpicking, medicine, science, speech and barter.
6 - For e-weps, I went for endgame, because the things are borked right now. Once the patch comes through, i think I'll redo eweps.
7 - Nope. I use both, depending on situation. They each have their advantages.
8 - Barter in HC is vital. Life without Packrat is a hard, hard road.
9 - ED-E twice. Boone with E-weps character, Veronica with Guns. The melee is going it alone, just her, and Chance's Knife...though i think she's gonna end up addicted to Super-stims if I keep tangling with Cazadores and Deathclaws.

1. did you enjoy it?
I actually put the game down when CoD: Black Ops came out. I'll probably pick the game up again when Dead Money comes out.

2. would you do it again?
I typically don't do multiple play-throughs of Fallout.. just one long game of 100+ hours trying to accomplish everything there is to do. I'd do it in a new Fallout game though.

3. what difficulty did you use?
Normal.

4. are there things you wish you knew before you started?
That Boone could get his ass kicked by Fire Geckos in seconds.. and never fight along side me again.

5. if you did it over again you would ____________
Erm.. idk

6. did you primarily go for the end game or did you do a lot of exploring and questing?
Didn't get to the end of the main quest yet. Haven't even found Benny or the chip in the southeast yet.

7. did you vat a lot more than a normal game?
I use VATS a lot.

8. were any skills or attributes more important in the HC game than a normal game?
The +50lbs of carry weight one.. and the one that cuts items with a weight of 2lbs or less in half. Super duper helpful with ammo and food.

9. did you use companions? if so who?
Used Boone first. He died quick. Then I got Cass who hasn't left my side in probably 20+ hours of gameplay. I took Rex to get a new brain and then told him to go home, cuz I had to reload a save due to him dying A LOT on my way to Jacobstown. I've found Raul and Veronica but haven't had room for them yet. I want to pick up Veronica at some point though.

1. Yes, it's the only way I can play.
2. Yes, see above.
3. Normal.
4. How fast leveling is...I'm using an EXP reducer mod now.
5. Next time I'll make/scav everything I need.
6. Last play I hit level 28 before I hit Lucky 38. I always focus on exploring.
7. No, I seldom use VATS
8. Yes, if I didn't use hardcoe, I wouldn't need weight management (barter for the packrat perk), medicine, or survival. I can ignore charisma and speech in my survival builds. I take perks that can keep me out in the wastes for long periods of time.
9. No. Companions are a pain.

I love hardcoe Mode because I think it fixes the fundamental flaw of Fallout 3 (and "casual mode" FNV): the fact that you can pause the game at any time and use as many stims as you need to fully heal yourself up, unpause and go right back to the action. Because of this, and because there were hundreds of stims available in FO3, you never died. Ever. The only way to die in FO3 is if something kills you in 1 hit (which even Deathclaws aren't capable of, generally speaking) or you run out of stims, which basically never happens if you make even the slightest effort to gather them.

Because of this, any discussion of good character builds, of which perks are best, of what SPECIAL stats you should use to make an uber, awesome, like, totally bad-ass character in FO3 were completely moot. You could cruise through FO3 naked and armed with a butter knife so long as you had a good supply of stims. Deathclaw about to tear your head off? No problem. TAB. stim. stim. stim. stim. TAB and back to the fighting.

For this reason, I just can't imagine ever bothering with FNV in anything other than hardcoe Mode. The food, water and sleep stuff is minor in comparison to the stims heal slowly over time. I'd prefer it if food and water were harder to come by as that would make survival in the wastes more challenging and immersing. As it is, there's food and water and mattresses everywhere (and stims, unfortunately).

1. I don't know if I can say that I enjoyed it but I didn't exactly hate it.
2. Possibly. I would need to mod it or add some sort of personal roleplaying element to feel motivated to do it again.
3. Default
4. I wish I knew a lot of things. First, the whole 'hardcoe' label is maybe not exactly the one I would slap on it. It's kind of like calling those poser rock climbers on a mountain dew commercial hardcoe. It sounds more menacing than it really ends up being. We all knew for a while that it wasn't
going to be some Diablo style hardcoe with ultimate consequences and finality, but I was expecting something a bit more grueling than what we got. With high hopes and a fresh character, I started out. I had no idea what to expect. So, I expected the worst. I figured I should make survival a
priority and hoard everything useful I could grab. Water! Food! ............ummmm .......Sleep?!?! Dammit! where can I sleep!!?? Bed? House? Oh boy! This is going to be a problem. Getting up in levels but everyone is still kicking my butt. I'd like a more diverse loadout but had to make certain
choices so I can keep space in my inventory for those survival items! Store them you say? Haven't found a home yet. I've been carrying about 200lbs worth of crap for the last 4 levels. The bottom line..... I had no idea what was useful or valuable in the beginning and had no means of storage.
I had a character that had a high level of survival skill and got wasted by 'A' radscorpion at level 10. But I have 59 Gecko Steaks, 18 Caravan Lunches, enough Grilled Mantis to choke a horse, crispy squirrel bits coming out of every orifice, and enough bottled water for an army.
5. Not tag survival as a skill and not spend so many points on it in the beginning as I did.
6. Exploring
7. Hardly any VATS
8. I wouldn't call any particular skill more important in HC mode. Some may be more useful but that depends on you. I went by instinct and tagged survival as a skill thinking it would benefit but after a few levels saw it as a waste. If you think about it. The whole point of playing in HC mode is to
make things more challenging and add to the immersion. Why now did I just use a skill or adjust my character to compensate for and alleviate the pressures from playing hardcoe??
9. I used Cass for a bit but that's all.

It was a step in the right direction but still not quite enough. Forcing yourself to go through the motions of doing certain mundane activities doesn't make for a fun gaming experience no matter how you dress it up. It's like having to press the 'breathe' key every 20 seconds so you have something more to do. More incentive to use Rad-X, I guess.

The best way I can describe it.... The only time I want such realistic day to day activities to be in my games like having to pay my utility bill, pay income taxes, or use a toilet is when I can also blow up said utility company office, ambush the tax collector in some green field with an axe, or attempt to orbit the toilet with as many cherry bombs as I feel are necessary to do so as an optional quest. That's it.

1) Yes
2) Eh, sure
3) hardcoe -- Very Hard
4) Nah
5) Nothing different
6) Lot more exploring than I had previously (I started on Normal and then finished it, then started a new one and did Hard, then Very Hard, then hardcoe -- Very Hard)
7) Maybe a tad bit more
8) I think Survival helps a lot since stims aren't instant anymore -- the health benefit from food/water really helps
9) I always use companions -- for hardcoe, I unlocked the achievement and got them all, but used Boone most of the time

It was fun, but I thought it would be a lot harder than it was...

But the only difference in hardcoe mode is that rather than using the same item a bunch of times, you now pause the game and use a bunch of different items when things starts to go badly wrong. In normal mode, you spam stimpaks, in hardcoe mode you spam stimpaks, desert salads, nuka-colas, gecko steaks... you're still pausing the game in the middle of a firefight, only this tme you're stopping to have an inpromptu picnic. I'm not sure this is much of an improvement.

They should've added a penalty for overeating. Or make food not heal at all.

And make it all more scarce, for sure.

If your medicine skill is low those Sunset Sarsaparilla are better than stimpaks I think...

Well, I think the point of it is not to simulate mundane activities, but to force you to make planning decisions on carry capacity, food/water needs, and locations based on what you intend to do. Can you leave much of your stash of food and drink at home and loadout on more weapons and ammo? Or, if you are intending to explore, do you leave some of your weapons at home and carry more food/water? You have to decide how much ammo you will carry for each weapon, and which weapons you will bring for any given outing.

You have to pay attention to your meds, where you are going, potential resting places, campfires, the type of mobs you may encounter. hardcoe mode adds more planning, and that, IMO, is good immersion in an RPG.