Hardcore Mode in KCD2 : Suggestions and Improvements.

[xR']

Hi everyone,

With the upcoming arrival of Hardcore Mode in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, I’d like to discuss possible improvements to make the experience more immersive and challenging.

I haven’t finished the game yet, but I’m basing this on my current experience as well as feedback from other players. So far, I’ve felt the need to use several mods to adjust certain aspects of the game, especially XP progression and the reputation system.

Please, consider I don't have every idea's in mind. You are all here to make you'r suggestions OFC.

The following suggestions are from everyone. They are however intended to remain realistic and achievable by the developers, with the game we already have. They mainly propose improvements, more or less already available through mods and which mainly modify somes values in xml or lua files. The goal is to bring thoses values changes standalone in HC and why not in normal for some of them...

The suggestions on this post are not "the only way", but more a direction and a line to take. A reminder that everyone can debate about it, if you're not convinced at all by some changes, there's nothing I can do about it.

🔸 Progression is too fast
-XP gains are way too high. You quickly become an expert in combat or crafting (such as blacksmithing), which removes any real sense of progression. It would be more interesting to have to make choices about which skills to focus on.

🔸 Combat is too forgiving
-The combat system lacks punishment and is too lenient on the player.
-The counter window is too generous.
-Why is it possible to dodge or riposte when you have no stamina left?

🔸 The economy is too generous
-Money is too easy to obtain, making purchases and gear management feel meaningless.

🔸 Hunger mechanics are too forgiving
-Right now, you can go an entire in-game day without eating and suffer no real consequences.

🔸 Reputation is too easy to gain
-A few good deeds are enough to make a village love you, even after committing crimes.
-Selling items to merchants gives too much reputation.



Suggestions for Hardcore Mode

🔹 A drastically slower and more realistic progression
-Reduce combat skill XP by at least 50%. Reduce other skill XP (blacksmithing, survival, etc.) by 80% (my take here, a more friendly version would be 60%) .

🔹 A more demanding combat system
-Reduce the counter window to make ripostes harder to perform.
-NPC attacks are more frequent.
-Dodging and riposting should be impossible to perform when stamina is depleted.
-less stamina should determine the duration of ripost slow-motion. less > shorter. This way, slow-mo become a feature. (imo) <- NC integration ? ->
-Armor should be the same for henry & NPC. Errors have more impact.
-Reduce damage cause by Bane poison on arrows and weapons.

🔹 A harsher economy
-Merchants should pay significantly less for sold items.
-Repairing and maintaining equipment should maybe be more expensive.
-The prices of certain items sold by merchants should be increased.
-Money found in nature (chests, bags, etc.) should be reduced.
-Food such as honey and the found plants should be reduced.
-NPCs playing dice should have a limit on the amount of money they carry.

🔹 A stricter hunger system
-The player should be required to eat at least twice a day.
-Going more than six hours without food should result in performance penalties.

🔹 A more difficult and unforgiving reputation system
-Crimes and bad actions should have long-term consequences.
-Earning a village’s trust should take much longer.

🔹 Crime system
-Killing multiple characters in the same area within a short time is directly punishable by death.
-Sneaking is way too powerful, noise stats should be a lot more impactful.
-visibility/conspicousness needs improvement.
-The guards are more suspicious, especially when Henry is covered in blood after a murder.

🔹 Other
-(why not) Heavily damaged armor & weapons, in the red, are not repairable.
-Make Save Shnaps much much harder to create
-Players alowed to save with Savior Shnaps every "......." minutes.
-Twitch items rewards are not available in HC.
-Twitch items rewards are available after a specific mid-game quest.
-Reloading a save is disabled. The player must face their choices.
-Disable quest objectives / HUD.
-Provide the option to enable or disable map markers or the HUD at the begining.
-Max carry weight reduced.


🔹 Other suggestions for the game in general (NC/HC)
-please make in-game days slightly longer if possible (exemple : 12 noon > 10 AM).
-I'm not sure if it's possible to have all the perk, but if that's the case, the player must make choices in his journey (at least in hardcore).
-less stamina should determine the duration of ripost slow-motion.
-Let the player skip the scene before meet Bozjena or let us choose to start directly in front of the head of this good woman.
-natively add an XP modifier system in the menu.
-Horse/mutt not teleporting (like rdr2, & everyone was ok with that).

[Ir0nist]

Originally posted by xR':

Hi everyone,

With the upcoming arrival of Hardcore Mode in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, I’d like to discuss possible improvements to make the experience more immersive and challenging.

I haven’t finished the game yet, but I’m basing this on my current experience as well as feedback from other players. So far, I’ve felt the need to use several mods to adjust certain aspects of the game, especially XP progression and the reputation system.


🔹 Progression is too fast
-XP gains are way too high. You quickly become an expert in combat or crafting (such as blacksmithing), which removes any real sense of progression. It would be more interesting to have to make choices about which skills to focus on.

🔹 Combat is too forgiving
-The combat system lacks punishment and is too lenient on the player.
-The counter window is too generous.
-Why is it possible to dodge or riposte when you have no stamina left?

🔹 The economy is too generous
-Money is too easy to obtain, making purchases and gear management feel meaningless.

🔹 Hunger mechanics are too forgiving
-Right now, you can go an entire in-game day without eating and suffer no real consequences.

🔹 Reputation is too easy to gain
-A few good deeds are enough to make a village love you, even after committing crimes.
-Selling items to merchants gives too much reputation.



Suggestions for Hardcore Mode

✅ A drastically slower and more realistic progression
-Reduce combat skill XP by at least 50%. Reduce other skill XP (blacksmithing, survival, etc.) by at least 80%.

✅ A more demanding combat system
-Reduce the counter window to make ripostes harder to perform.
-Dodging and riposting should be impossible to perform when stamina is depleted.
-less stamina should determine the duration of ripost slow-motion. less > shorter. This way, slow-mo become a feature. (imo)

✅ A harsher economy
-Merchants should pay significantly less for sold items.
-Repairing and maintaining equipment should maybe be more expensive.
-The prices of certain items sold by merchants should be increased.
-Money found in nature (chests, bags, etc.) should be reduced.
-Food such as honey and the found plants should be reduced.

✅ A stricter hunger system
-The player should be required to eat at least twice a day.
-Going more than six hours without food should result in performance penalties.

✅ A more difficult and unforgiving reputation system
-Crimes and bad actions should have long-term consequences.
-Earning a village’s trust should take much longer.

✅ crime system
-Killing multiple characters in the same area within a short time is directly punishable by death.
-The gallows mean the end of the game — you have to start over. :D
-Sneaking is way too powerful, noise stats should be a lot more impactful.
-visibility/conspicousness needs improvement.



Other suggestions for the game in general

-please make in-game days slightly longer if possible.
-I'm not sure if it's possible to have all the perk, but if that's the case, the player must make choices in his journey (at least in hardcore).
-Let the player skip the scene before meet Bozjena or let us choose to start directly in front of the head of this good woman.

Agree with all apart from hunger. You can easily go 24 hours without eating in IRL. Probably common to do so in the time the game is set.

[Adahn]

i've been holding myself from playing, please make this hardcore mode true hardcore with all OP's modifications

[ickylevel]

- We need enemies to be able to see you from further away when they are in search or combat mode. Right now you can shoot at them without them reacting.
- Guards should run after you if you have been trespassing for more than 10 seconds. Right now they don't behave realistically to trespassing. I understand that their current behaviour only makes sense if you just trespassed by accident. But it they see you actually doing it with an intent (meaning you stayed in the area for more than 10 seconds or something) , they should attack you.
- Armours should provide more defence.
- It's too easy to knock off people from behind without killing them, it's not a skill you should have a the start of the game. Why use pick pocketing if you have this ability ?
- If you have blood on you and there is a dead victim, the guards should stop you. Obviously this would make killing people to rob them a less viable solution.

[ickylevel]

Most of OP's suggestions bring nothing to the gameplay.

[Abu]

"No chest mode":

This would be an optional modifier to the hardcore rules similar to the ones from KCD1 that altered, for example, how fast you bled out, how fast you got hungry, etc.

It changes the chest behavior to only allow you to take items out of it, or possibly, disabling it altogether with a switch for this particular mode to prevent access to Twitch rewards, etc. But in both cases, it prevents the addition of items to the chest.

Such a modifier would change how players treat the items they pick up. It would add more risk to holding onto stolen goods. This would incentivize people use the "sell and rebuy" method to make an item theirs more often, thus adding a new use for the gold that some people complain about accumulating too quickly. It would also make them think more carefully about what they want to hold onto and assess whether it would be more expedient to acquire things as they need them rather than pack them away to use later.

[Pengchon]

1. Disable the ability to loot dead soldiers in army/story mode battles. Due to this, it has made game too easy to acquire money and end game armors. Doing so allow the player to focus on the story, than to ignore it by choosing to loot first during army battles.
2. Reduce damage cause by Bane poison on arrows and weapons.
3. Reduce max steps horses and players can walk to prevent players racking up STR stats, Say if a daily steps players can take is limited to 5k, the player will become sluggish and unable to sprint and will not be able to increase stats.
4. A new energy system that limits the gain in exp in any action based on rest bar. If a players has enough rest, they will increase exp at normal rate, but as they go through the days, the energy bar reduces which also reduce EXP gain from any skills or activities.
5. There are youtube videos showing players getting rich off of dice, NPC dice player should have money limit just like store sellers.
6. Then there are the system where time doesn't matter in the game, players would skip days just to farm respawned things.

[xR']

Originally posted by ickylevel:

Most of OP's suggestions bring nothing to the gameplay.

Hi, my suggestions aim to remain realistic and achievable by the developers. I mainly propose improvements more or less already available through mods and which mainly modify somes values, but my goal is to bring thoses values standalone.

and, I don't have everything in mind, so you are all here to make you'r suggestions.
My post is not "the only way", but more a direction and a line to take.

[Abu]

Had some more ideas for optional things to toggle:

More brittle weapons: Weapons get damaged and lose their quality and state of repair faster. Basically the idea is to give people who like blacksmithing more of a reason to go back to forge their own weapons.

No repair kits: As a complement to the above, providing more opportunity for gear to be damaged and need replacement

Perfectionist: Crafted items are 25% more effective, but non-crafted items are 25% less effective (doesn't apply to armor, maces, and other things that can't be crafted, obviously).

[Dan]

Remove save scumming like in BG3. You csn save the game or the game autosaves but youre disabled from loading a save. of the same playthrough. This makes thr game more fun as actions have consequences you need to live with.

[Old Bot]

+1
The game is too unrealistic, although it should still remain a game. The lock picking system needs to be overhauled. The locks are too simple everywhere and it's too easy to pick pockets. Henry is a blacksmith - he can pick locks, so why not make legitimate lock picking quests? Why can you pick pockets with thick leather gloves? The game is too easy for thieves.

[Prince-Noctis]

The big problem is :
When you come in Kuttenberg, ALL end game stuff (armor and weapon) are here, so after this, you don't need ANY reward.

Why you have to de the tournament if you have already the best stuff ?

Same for quest reward, all stuff or money are usless. You have better before...

They really need to balance this

[Krag]

The most fun I had in KCD1 was playing on Hardcore with all negative perks and the BCAIC mod which tweaks most of the things you mentioned.
I hope they go all in on the Hardcore mode and don't just remove the AI and map position (I'm already playing like this), but also tweak many other things like timing windows for perfect blocks and masterstrikes, food decay, more emphasis on body damage when you get hit (I don't think I've bled or had anything other than a head trauma once or twice since starting the game). Rework the carry weight perks so that they give much less, forcing you to limit your inventory to mandatory things.

Just some ideas, I'm also hoping the BCAIC guy makes a similar mod for KCD2.

[Enter the Wang]

I think if they're rebalancing they should make game meat, organs and horns worth more to make hunting a viable income source. In KCD 1 deer meat sold for 8 groschen a piece and now its like .5 groschen. Ridiculous considering the survival, stealth and marksmanship needed to catch game (not to mention useless survival perk for extra organs). Currently poaching is a complete waste of time, but would be interesting if buffed with some other HC modifications.

I'd like to see guard checking increased based off of weight of stolen items carried. Sure, you've got 100 rep in town, but you're carrying a huge sack dripping blood while walking out of the king's forest.

[frankie-b]

Most valueble thing in KCD 1 HC mode is that enemies surround you and aggressively push you from different directions, they don't stand and wait till you kill first enemy. This would be main addition to me in KCD 2 HC mode.

[BIG T]

I 100% agree with this. I also really hope that they FULLY ignore anyone who wants stuff like quests markers gone or the quick travel system gone. This makes Hardcore modes in so many games unbearable for me and many people I know. Wasting time running the same way the 50th time is NOT a "hardcore" experience but a time wasting experience that makes people loose motivation in playing. And quest markers could maybe be changed into showing the general direction more often but never pin pointing the npc / location exactly.