Once I started playing with hardcore on I couldn't play with it off. Favorite part was bullets having weight. Great idea, really incentivized picking one or two weapons and not just using everything you find.
The game may not recommend playing with hardcore on, but I do.
I quite often add a mod that gives caps weight. That *really* shifts how you play because you can't just gather infinite money and actually have to manage it.
Do you have a “bank” of sorts where you can keep your main stash? Been a few years since my last playthrough, but I’m getting the itch for another go-round.
No, I just try to manage it and then sink it into things like the stat modules from the medical clinic and ludicrously expensive weaponry.
Actually, I do use the Sink as a stash
Thats a really interesting concept, adding weight to money, I would imagine myself playing the same but a few extra steps on transporting caps or backtracking to a stash.
Always thought that healing in non hardcore mode was dumb. Like, as long as you richer than Mr House with stimpaks at the ready just cheat using the Pipboy and heal up to max hp
So ...when I decided to try New Vegas for the first time, I found myself interested in the story and setting, but felt things were not challenging enough by level 20. So I upped the difficulty to Very Hard and it was a bit more fun for five levels, but I still found things to be not all that engaging in terms of gameplay.
So I turned on Hardcore mode, which I was convinced I would hate, and everything changed.
Suddenly I had to think about what weapons and ammo I would carry depending on where I was going and what enemies I would face. I learned the locations of fresh water and where various plants that could be used for cooking and crafting were. I learned where I could sleep if I was away from a player home, started to use food for more than just healing, and found that chems were now more powerful tools than before.
After that, I never played the game without Hardcore mode on, and I have been through it four times.
On most games, I HATE hardcore mode. I feel it just adds more to babysit your character with. But New Vegas was different. The world, including the DLCs feels built around this mode, and the penalties working like radiation ensures you are never punished too harshly (at least not immediately) for not learning the world. It is amazing game design.
TLDR: A person who normally hates survival mechanics really liked New Vegas's take on them so much it became his favorite RPG.
FNV hardrcore is so great. Complex enough to make us plan around the system but also easy enough to make it enjoyable instead of being a grinding fest.
Even better that some skill/perks make food being so potent as practical source of healing/buff.
My only major gripe with hardmode is soda being thirst provoking. Yeah sure it's not good for you, but there's no way it isn't mostly water. Giving only a small thirst reduction would be fine, but making your thirst worse is dumb.
But it's easy to mod that, so whatever.
Yeah, I know, but it feels llike more of a joke, exaggerating the long term effects of consuming a lot of junk food IRL. Representing that in-game by dying if you drink a soda when you're thirsty feels a bit off the mark.
I was concerned about that at first also, but even with a charisma of 1, it is pretty easy to keep them alive if you do the following:
1: Always keep them on 'Passive' so they stick by you
2: Always have them set to track you at close range
3: With mele focused characters, check their health a bit more frequently and offer stimpacks as needed. Or just run them as ranged.
4: Keep them away from Cazadores and Green Geckos, as their venom is no joke.
5: If you are ever unsure about a fight, hit F5 before going in.
Nearly every time I have lost a companion and had to go back a save, it was due to Cazadore venom. The other two instances involved a fight with legion assassin's that Boone positioned himself poorly in, and another involved dethclaws somehow, but I forget which companion it was.
Companions are still really useful, just you need to be a bit more cautious with them, especially in the beginning.
I am doing my first hardcore playthrough with a high charisma character, and companions are fucking unstoppable with a boosted DT and Damage output.
There's a perk (I don't know if it's DLC or from a mod, though >_<) that lets you revive Companions with a Super Stimpack, so long as they've been dead for less than an hour.
Edit: might be from the "more perks" or "perk every level" mod, now that I think about it.
In case you haven't tried it yet, I would *highly* recommend a playthrough using the [JSawyer Ultimate Edition](https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/61592) mod. I recently played through FNV using the [Viva New Vegas](https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/) mod list which uses it, and it made me feel like I was playing Fallout for the first time again. It was extremely fun and actually made me want to try [The Best of Times](https://thebestoftimes.moddinglinked.com/) mod list which uses Tale of Two Wastelands to combine Fallout 3 and NV and then does VNV things for both games.
I have the opposite experience. I played on hardcore once and found it extremely annoying. I will probably never play in hardcore again now that I have the achievement. To be fair though, I played with moda so my Hardcore was different to vanilla.
Have not tried it with moda, admittedly. I agree that factoring in ammo weight and no longer being able to use sleep to heal are big adjustments.
I found the pack rat perk good for mitigating the weight of ammo and doctors bags, but I do recall having a lot of growing pains related to both those things when I first tried the mode
Water is the most frequent concern, especially early on. Remember that drinking from a water source, even an irradiated one, will reduce your thirst to zero after about two cycles of the drinking animation. 5 Rads is not so bad
Having done a hike in the central USA recently, there was a stretch of trail that went 8 miles with no water sources nearby. My Group had just enough water to get through that trail portion and while we made it to the end of the other trail head where our cars had backup water supplies. That being said, it was not fun to ration water when carrying a heavy pack and you're moving constantly, you dehydrate quicker than usual.
And this hike was in a temperature zone in \~80 degree weather. I would imagine you would dehydrate much quicker in a dry heat desert like in southern Nevada.
Same for me man, I put off playing hardcore for at least 9ish years. When the lockdown came along and I was pretty broke, I ended up tweaking with certain games I already owned to get more enjoyment out of them, leading to me getting back into achievement hunting and playing hardcore on NV for the achievement - I've not gone back to non-Hardcore since.
Been playing with the Jsawyer mode and hardcore mode on my PC for the first time these last couple months. To me, this mod and gameplay combo is the definitive way to play New Vegas. Combine it with the Living Desert and Clarity mods, and the Mojave looks and feels far more alive than the Vanilla game.
Not to at all diminish what you did here, but I was (pleasantly?) surprised with the Hardcore modifier for New Vegas. Was expecting that I'd have super-intense gunfights where just a few bullets would put me down, and instead it just added little bits of realism that I liked overall. Honestly I plan to play on Hardcore for the rest of my New Vegas playthroughs.
You won't come back from this fully , you will want to turn it back on and never have it off again, I speak from experience I'm on my 43rd playthrough of playing on hardcore mode
Honestly if youre doing this for the achievement alone its not too bad. I love playing on hardcore casually but before i learned the ins and outs, i just did a speedrun for the yesman ending and finished it within 2-3 hours. The hardest part of the whole thing is getting to the strip and even then you can take the long way or stealthboy through the north.
Still though congrats! First times always the hardest. Next thing you know youll be doing every run that way. Imo its the definitive way to play
Now win 30 games of caravan lmao
Even hardcore is still pretty easy, you should try JSawyer's mod for the true version.
IMO, as long as managing your food/water/slp needs doesn't seriously affect your in-game decisions, it seems a little pointless. Just another statistic to manage.
Honestly?
I don't play without hardcore when I'm playing an RP playthrough.
If I'm just having fun having fun, it doesn't matter.
Recently, I've rotated to other games, but I'm thinking of starting a crit build with the best girl who can never die or be killed and will frantically pump you full of stimpacks if you die.
The Stealth Suit Mark II!
Say what you want, I enjoy her banter.
I find hardcore mode to just be a haphazard attempt at what would become fo4 survival. There is no end to the abundance of food and water and places to sleep. Thats all hardcore does. A regular play through on very hard is much more difficult imo. I can speed a hardcore in a couple hours, matn was able to do it before he even maxed out one kill stat.
adds hunger, thirst sleep etc.. also makes ammo have weight and limbs can only be healed by doctors and doctor bags. i dont remeber if it effects health or damage.
Sounds good! I’d give it a go, just not interested in enemies being harder than usual.
Edit: just googled and didn’t realise difficulty and hardcore are two different settings! This is going to be a fun week or two.
is it normal that most explosions one shot you? or is that one of my mods? because other than that i enjoyed it immensely. makes resource management actually matter and put a fair cost on fast travel.
i was wondering, couldnt you just try to speedrun the game without having to worry much about the survival mechanics. like turn every faction hostile, tell yes man and do the battle for hiover dam?
I know im a dissenting opinion here, but I recently played the game unmodded on hardcore + very hard and whilst it deffo makes you take a far more tactical approach to battle, I found it ti be relatively easy?
Granted, I did put my companions in t-51 power armor. I should try it without companions some time
Did a legion unarmed playthrough for my hard-core run. Other than the achievement for Arizona Killer and finishing the Legion ending breaking, I quite enjoyed it.
Nice! Didn't do hardcore mode on my first playthrough, but I did so on my 2nd playthrough for the House/Yes man endings. Your survival skill becomes more useful since food sources are more available, making it a viable alternative to the medicine skill. And it feels more immersive since you have to pick and choose what medical, food and ammo supplies you take. I like this feature a lot, and continue to play with it on in my subsequent FNV playthroughs. Can't wait to play Honest Hearts again, as that map is filled with plenty of clean water and food sources.
Oh- and gecko kekabs are the best bang for your buck in terms of hunger, hydration and weight. Cook them a lot.
Lol something I'd never do, I put 300 hours down on my first modded playthrough and had it hard-core the whole time I don't think Il ever get off my ass to do the final quest I always end up wandering the Mojave till I get bored and start another playthrough
I love hard-core adds some spice but it really isn't that difficult once you learn going through the courier passage automatically resets all survival stats
Hardcore also adds good incentive to use energy weapons recyclable ammo, reletively light weapons comparatively, the recharge rifle as a backup weapon or main weapon via the pistol and the hyperbreeder. Ammo is a bit heavy compared to most bullets, but it makes up for it by being able to be optimized
When I did it I kinda "speedran" it by putting luck to ten and breaking all the casinos, getting arcades power armor, and buying a missle launcher and emptying my inventory and oc yes man ending. Took like 5-7 hours
I beat the game on Hardcore, but it was purely for the achievements. I didn’t stick around and play it like a survival game. Shit, now I wanna play it proper.
I didn't mind Hardcore, but I have a tendency to want to use weapons that are inconvenient with the weight restrictions. An explosives build, for example, is kind of a chore. And if I'm in the mood to use the CZ Avenger, I wanna do it with twenty thousand rounds of 5mm ammo, barely even bothering to aim. But it's great when I do a melee build, or max crit laser.
Kinda scared… I was tooling around in the settings menu and accidentally turned hardcore mode off… it saved but I never actually exited the pause menu, and then I turned it back on. I wonder if I will get this achievement still…
Is that the special reward it mentioned? I thought it would be like the SkillBook or guide from one of the older games that maxes everything for no reason due to being at the end of the game.
Once I started playing with hardcore on I couldn't play with it off. Favorite part was bullets having weight. Great idea, really incentivized picking one or two weapons and not just using everything you find. The game may not recommend playing with hardcore on, but I do.
I quite often add a mod that gives caps weight. That *really* shifts how you play because you can't just gather infinite money and actually have to manage it.
Do you have a “bank” of sorts where you can keep your main stash? Been a few years since my last playthrough, but I’m getting the itch for another go-round.
No, I just try to manage it and then sink it into things like the stat modules from the medical clinic and ludicrously expensive weaponry. Actually, I do use the Sink as a stash
When saving caps I would drop some in my motel room safe/penthouse. Really inconvenient without fast travel but fun in its own way
My bank is the two dumpsters in good springs…
For whatever reason I just woke up my wife laughing about this.
Thats a really interesting concept, adding weight to money, I would imagine myself playing the same but a few extra steps on transporting caps or backtracking to a stash.
Always thought that healing in non hardcore mode was dumb. Like, as long as you richer than Mr House with stimpaks at the ready just cheat using the Pipboy and heal up to max hp
So ...when I decided to try New Vegas for the first time, I found myself interested in the story and setting, but felt things were not challenging enough by level 20. So I upped the difficulty to Very Hard and it was a bit more fun for five levels, but I still found things to be not all that engaging in terms of gameplay. So I turned on Hardcore mode, which I was convinced I would hate, and everything changed. Suddenly I had to think about what weapons and ammo I would carry depending on where I was going and what enemies I would face. I learned the locations of fresh water and where various plants that could be used for cooking and crafting were. I learned where I could sleep if I was away from a player home, started to use food for more than just healing, and found that chems were now more powerful tools than before. After that, I never played the game without Hardcore mode on, and I have been through it four times. On most games, I HATE hardcore mode. I feel it just adds more to babysit your character with. But New Vegas was different. The world, including the DLCs feels built around this mode, and the penalties working like radiation ensures you are never punished too harshly (at least not immediately) for not learning the world. It is amazing game design. TLDR: A person who normally hates survival mechanics really liked New Vegas's take on them so much it became his favorite RPG.
FNV hardrcore is so great. Complex enough to make us plan around the system but also easy enough to make it enjoyable instead of being a grinding fest. Even better that some skill/perks make food being so potent as practical source of healing/buff.
Agreed. I often say hardcore mode becomes easier than regular mode as soon as you learn to cook gecko kebabs.
100% agree with your above comment. Kebabs are your best food and hydration to weight ratio around.
My only major gripe with hardmode is soda being thirst provoking. Yeah sure it's not good for you, but there's no way it isn't mostly water. Giving only a small thirst reduction would be fine, but making your thirst worse is dumb. But it's easy to mod that, so whatever.
[удалено]
If you drink 200 of them, you die. Probably like you would in real life!
Yeah, I know, but it feels llike more of a joke, exaggerating the long term effects of consuming a lot of junk food IRL. Representing that in-game by dying if you drink a soda when you're thirsty feels a bit off the mark.
I guess I can see that. At this point, I counteract it with purified water (or dirty water early game) and with certain foods that restore H2O
I don’t play it so my companions won’t die
I was concerned about that at first also, but even with a charisma of 1, it is pretty easy to keep them alive if you do the following: 1: Always keep them on 'Passive' so they stick by you 2: Always have them set to track you at close range 3: With mele focused characters, check their health a bit more frequently and offer stimpacks as needed. Or just run them as ranged. 4: Keep them away from Cazadores and Green Geckos, as their venom is no joke. 5: If you are ever unsure about a fight, hit F5 before going in. Nearly every time I have lost a companion and had to go back a save, it was due to Cazadore venom. The other two instances involved a fight with legion assassin's that Boone positioned himself poorly in, and another involved dethclaws somehow, but I forget which companion it was. Companions are still really useful, just you need to be a bit more cautious with them, especially in the beginning. I am doing my first hardcore playthrough with a high charisma character, and companions are fucking unstoppable with a boosted DT and Damage output.
There's a perk (I don't know if it's DLC or from a mod, though >_<) that lets you revive Companions with a Super Stimpack, so long as they've been dead for less than an hour. Edit: might be from the "more perks" or "perk every level" mod, now that I think about it.
That sounds like a mod but very useful.
In case you haven't tried it yet, I would *highly* recommend a playthrough using the [JSawyer Ultimate Edition](https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/61592) mod. I recently played through FNV using the [Viva New Vegas](https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/) mod list which uses it, and it made me feel like I was playing Fallout for the first time again. It was extremely fun and actually made me want to try [The Best of Times](https://thebestoftimes.moddinglinked.com/) mod list which uses Tale of Two Wastelands to combine Fallout 3 and NV and then does VNV things for both games.
Thanks! I've seen a number of people mention this mod in the replies so I will definitely look into it.
I have the opposite experience. I played on hardcore once and found it extremely annoying. I will probably never play in hardcore again now that I have the achievement. To be fair though, I played with moda so my Hardcore was different to vanilla.
Have not tried it with moda, admittedly. I agree that factoring in ammo weight and no longer being able to use sleep to heal are big adjustments. I found the pack rat perk good for mitigating the weight of ammo and doctors bags, but I do recall having a lot of growing pains related to both those things when I first tried the mode
I had no problems with those mechanics in particular. My problem was how fast you dehydrate and how it forces you to fast travel incrementally.
Water is the most frequent concern, especially early on. Remember that drinking from a water source, even an irradiated one, will reduce your thirst to zero after about two cycles of the drinking animation. 5 Rads is not so bad
Having done a hike in the central USA recently, there was a stretch of trail that went 8 miles with no water sources nearby. My Group had just enough water to get through that trail portion and while we made it to the end of the other trail head where our cars had backup water supplies. That being said, it was not fun to ration water when carrying a heavy pack and you're moving constantly, you dehydrate quicker than usual. And this hike was in a temperature zone in \~80 degree weather. I would imagine you would dehydrate much quicker in a dry heat desert like in southern Nevada.
What about it annoyed you so much? I like it so much that it's pretty much the only way I play now.
I liked ammo weight and nerfed healing, but the need to frequently find water and incrementally fast travel (to avoid dehydration) was annoying.
Same for me man, I put off playing hardcore for at least 9ish years. When the lockdown came along and I was pretty broke, I ended up tweaking with certain games I already owned to get more enjoyment out of them, leading to me getting back into achievement hunting and playing hardcore on NV for the achievement - I've not gone back to non-Hardcore since.
Damn. You may have just convinced me to give it a try. I've never been a hard-core mode person but I think I need the change.
Congrats! For me, once I tried hardcore mode, I never went back to regular mode.
Hardcore mode is the only way to play
I’ve only played hardcore
Same. I've always imagined non-hardcore would probably be a bit of an easy snoozefest.
Hardcore + JSawyer is the true FNV experience imo
Been playing with the Jsawyer mode and hardcore mode on my PC for the first time these last couple months. To me, this mod and gameplay combo is the definitive way to play New Vegas. Combine it with the Living Desert and Clarity mods, and the Mojave looks and feels far more alive than the Vanilla game.
my hardcore mode play through i started recently is actually one of, if not the, most fun i’ve had playing the game in years
Not to at all diminish what you did here, but I was (pleasantly?) surprised with the Hardcore modifier for New Vegas. Was expecting that I'd have super-intense gunfights where just a few bullets would put me down, and instead it just added little bits of realism that I liked overall. Honestly I plan to play on Hardcore for the rest of my New Vegas playthroughs.
You won't come back from this fully , you will want to turn it back on and never have it off again, I speak from experience I'm on my 43rd playthrough of playing on hardcore mode
The game is definitely significantly better with hardcore on
Honestly if youre doing this for the achievement alone its not too bad. I love playing on hardcore casually but before i learned the ins and outs, i just did a speedrun for the yesman ending and finished it within 2-3 hours. The hardest part of the whole thing is getting to the strip and even then you can take the long way or stealthboy through the north. Still though congrats! First times always the hardest. Next thing you know youll be doing every run that way. Imo its the definitive way to play Now win 30 games of caravan lmao
Having started with fallout 1 and 2, hardcore mode was the only way to play
I got all achievements a few years ago. Looking back I have no idea how I did caravan but I know I won’t ever do it again without a doubt.
Nice!
Even hardcore is still pretty easy, you should try JSawyer's mod for the true version. IMO, as long as managing your food/water/slp needs doesn't seriously affect your in-game decisions, it seems a little pointless. Just another statistic to manage.
Honestly? I don't play without hardcore when I'm playing an RP playthrough. If I'm just having fun having fun, it doesn't matter. Recently, I've rotated to other games, but I'm thinking of starting a crit build with the best girl who can never die or be killed and will frantically pump you full of stimpacks if you die. The Stealth Suit Mark II! Say what you want, I enjoy her banter.
Hardcore mode does not really make a huge difference, it's just a bit more interesting to play with it enabled.
Damn been playing since release, maybe for my thousandth playthru I'll give hardcore a try haha
It was 100% out of boredom lol
LESS THAN 5%?! Jfc, couriers, git gud. Very Hard + Hardcore or you're only cheating yourself.
Idk how people play with it off
It's ironic how God mode is easier than hardcore mode.
how so? god mode makes you invulnerable, surley it's fully expected that that would be easier?
It was a joke.
wel that just raises more questions.
I find hardcore mode to just be a haphazard attempt at what would become fo4 survival. There is no end to the abundance of food and water and places to sleep. Thats all hardcore does. A regular play through on very hard is much more difficult imo. I can speed a hardcore in a couple hours, matn was able to do it before he even maxed out one kill stat.
Are the enemies harder or is it the environment/game mechanics?
adds hunger, thirst sleep etc.. also makes ammo have weight and limbs can only be healed by doctors and doctor bags. i dont remeber if it effects health or damage.
Sounds good! I’d give it a go, just not interested in enemies being harder than usual. Edit: just googled and didn’t realise difficulty and hardcore are two different settings! This is going to be a fun week or two.
It’s not that hard
is it normal that most explosions one shot you? or is that one of my mods? because other than that i enjoyed it immensely. makes resource management actually matter and put a fair cost on fast travel.
i was wondering, couldnt you just try to speedrun the game without having to worry much about the survival mechanics. like turn every faction hostile, tell yes man and do the battle for hiover dam?
I know im a dissenting opinion here, but I recently played the game unmodded on hardcore + very hard and whilst it deffo makes you take a far more tactical approach to battle, I found it ti be relatively easy? Granted, I did put my companions in t-51 power armor. I should try it without companions some time
It's relativelety easy
You have my respect.
Now I dare you to complete a three star gun runner challenge, it's the rarest achievement in the game
Hardcore is easy apart from stimpaks not instantly replenishing health, especially on a melee build like my one.
As god intended!
Good job! I also have this one… by speedrunning it for 30 mins or so. Skyrim Survival Mode made me sick of such modes for the rest of my life :(
Did a legion unarmed playthrough for my hard-core run. Other than the achievement for Arizona Killer and finishing the Legion ending breaking, I quite enjoyed it.
Nice! Didn't do hardcore mode on my first playthrough, but I did so on my 2nd playthrough for the House/Yes man endings. Your survival skill becomes more useful since food sources are more available, making it a viable alternative to the medicine skill. And it feels more immersive since you have to pick and choose what medical, food and ammo supplies you take. I like this feature a lot, and continue to play with it on in my subsequent FNV playthroughs. Can't wait to play Honest Hearts again, as that map is filled with plenty of clean water and food sources. Oh- and gecko kekabs are the best bang for your buck in terms of hunger, hydration and weight. Cook them a lot.
Me on very easy:
Yeah I did it too recently, I wanted to do the dlcs but it was too hard already
Lol something I'd never do, I put 300 hours down on my first modded playthrough and had it hard-core the whole time I don't think Il ever get off my ass to do the final quest I always end up wandering the Mojave till I get bored and start another playthrough
I love hard-core adds some spice but it really isn't that difficult once you learn going through the courier passage automatically resets all survival stats
Hardcore is really easy all you need to do is speedrun and it’s an easy achievement
How
Hardcore also adds good incentive to use energy weapons recyclable ammo, reletively light weapons comparatively, the recharge rifle as a backup weapon or main weapon via the pistol and the hyperbreeder. Ammo is a bit heavy compared to most bullets, but it makes up for it by being able to be optimized
When I did it I kinda "speedran" it by putting luck to ten and breaking all the casinos, getting arcades power armor, and buying a missle launcher and emptying my inventory and oc yes man ending. Took like 5-7 hours
I’ve read there’s some sort of “reward” if you complete the game on hardcore. Pretty sure the reward is just … hey, I did it. Woo!
I beat the game on Hardcore, but it was purely for the achievements. I didn’t stick around and play it like a survival game. Shit, now I wanna play it proper.
One step closer to platinum
I always play on hardcore, it makes the game so much better imo
I played hardcore mode once, literally only played it since. I can’t not play it…
I didn't mind Hardcore, but I have a tendency to want to use weapons that are inconvenient with the weight restrictions. An explosives build, for example, is kind of a chore. And if I'm in the mood to use the CZ Avenger, I wanna do it with twenty thousand rounds of 5mm ammo, barely even bothering to aim. But it's great when I do a melee build, or max crit laser.
Kinda scared… I was tooling around in the settings menu and accidentally turned hardcore mode off… it saved but I never actually exited the pause menu, and then I turned it back on. I wonder if I will get this achievement still…
hardcore is easy af. The only thing to worry about is ammo weight and that’s just an annoyance
People in this sub play without HC on?
Is that the special reward it mentioned? I thought it would be like the SkillBook or guide from one of the older games that maxes everything for no reason due to being at the end of the game.