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).

[Pelikan]

BIG T a écrit :

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.

I respect your opinion but for me getting rid of the map marker is actually the basis of any hardcore mode, otherwise you need to call it differently than hardcore.

I mean it is not like people carried satellite guided GPS on them at that time.. Also in my view it is not a waste of time, it is actually part of the enjoyment as you encounter things on the way and don't necessarily power level some quests due to that, but for instance you just do what you have to do in one area and leave the rest for later because it is far for now.

What i appreciated in KCD1 playing hardcore is that I eventually knew the map by heart like the back of my hand ( after hundreds of hours) and that was very satisfying. You could put me anywhere and i knew exactly where i was and how to go as quickly as possible anywhere. This is part of the learning experience IMHO.

I mean at the end of the day, hardcore mode is also meant to lengthen the experience in addition to the challenge. Knowing where you are without gps is part of the challenge, especially at night in bad weather.

They could for instance keep the fast travel so that people who share your sentiment will not lose motivation as you said.

[AllanWake™]

Lot of brain rot here. ALL i see is "make the game WAY slower make me grind like a MMO pleb". No innovation in opinions..... no innovation in suggestions...... all the same trash suggested and begged for since the fist RPG game.

Everything SO cheap, that you can literally ask a modder to change the numbers in the game files and its done.

I dont agree with anything, this aint hardcore, this is grindmore......

P.s. Half if not all you can turn into your "hardcore" yourself, if you had self control and self enforced rules.... but you dont.

[Xeskengo]

Totally agree we need a more slowly progressing Char development, i am 77 hours in and didn’t even arived at the wedding and i m already Main level 20 . Also stealth is too easy with all the perks and so on , everyone complaining about how hard the game is please just move on to another game , they are either trolling or have some serious IQ deficit.

[AllanWake™]

Xeskengo a écrit :

Totally agree we need a more slowly progressing Char development, i am 77 hours in and didn’t even arived at the wedding and i m already Main level 20 . Also stealth is too easy with all the perks and so on , everyone complaining about how hard the game is please just move on to another game , they are either trolling or have some serious IQ deficit.

Quit with the threats pleb, of course people find it hard, if you come in fresh and you focus on the main story as almost all do. You would know that you level quite slow and are outmatched by something as basic as night time stealth section or a farmer with a rusty axe.

I on the other hand i was lvl 30 before the wedding nothing posed a threat after, but that aint the games fault, its ME. Unless devs start to implement a deadline to a main story then player like me will postpone it and ruin the game for themselves. BUT the difference is that im not crying how easy it is. I can self enforce rules to debuff myself. And i found quite a balanced after.


forest for the trees.....

[Friends with Benedicts]

This is the best thread yet. I've been silent just reading and I only hope the devs are taking these into account

[Enter the Wang]

I do think adding grind is not making a game 'Hardcore'. Difficulty is fine and extra management of conditions and diseases is fine, but not 'masterwork gear is now sold for less than the price of a meal' or the like. There needs to be a smarter way of increasing difficulty and immersion while still respecting the player's time.

Anything that breaks suspension of disbelief will hurt immersion, which was what HC mode was all about.

Also, the maps and travel time are pretty big in this game compared to KCD1, so I'm worried about how a lack of fast travel will impact enjoyment and playtime in this one. I was pretty exhausted by 100%'ing KCD2 in normal mode, so I can't imagine looking at quest markers on the other side of the map and being encouraged to go check them out.

Maybe setting a bare minimum for HC mode (diseases/genetic conditions, no map markers and a few other things) and then giving players some optional sliders to make things even more difficult if they so choose (eg can't sell found gear, only crafted items or found jewelry, materials etc, stolen status never wears off)

[xR']

up

[RedWhite]

It should be as described, that the Bane poison only works when added to a cauldron, or at least have a 5% chance of working when applied to arrows. A typical poison for arrows should be the Dollmaker poison, but not every arrow should poison the target—there should be a 40% chance of poisoning, for example

[Hellsteeth30]

No teleporting horse and you must be in range to put stuff on it.

If you forget where you parked it, tough ♥♥♥♥.

You want hardcore let's make it hardcore. NOBODY ever says anything about the mobile storage chest.

[tequilatibbs]

Hellsteeth30 a écrit :

No teleporting horse and you must be in range to put stuff on it.

If you forget where you parked it, tough ♥♥♥♥.

You want hardcore let's make it hardcore. NOBODY ever says anything about the mobile storage chest.

Yes, I would also like the horse/ dog to not teleport

[Friends with Benedicts]

tequilatibbs a écrit :

Hellsteeth30 a écrit :

No teleporting horse and you must be in range to put stuff on it.

If you forget where you parked it, tough ♥♥♥♥.

You want hardcore let's make it hardcore. NOBODY ever says anything about the mobile storage chest.

Yes, I would also like the horse/ dog to not teleport

That would be neat, although idk what could be done when you lost them, since the hardcore mode map doesn't have actor icons.

[SeeYouInHeLL]

We need Changes
Negative Perks
Non Exclusive Perks
AI attacks more frequently.
AI switches attack zones more often.
AI reacts faster in certain situations, such as clinches.
AI dodge probability increased.
Player's base armor is now equivalent to other NPCs. (Optional)
Significantly reduced damage bonuses from skills. (Optional)
All melee weapon damage is reduced by 50%. (Optional)
Food, drinks, potions, poisons, books, documents and crafting materials are weightless. or 0.1 weight
Easy To See Herbs
Easy To See Bird Nests
Removes letterboxing in cutscenes
Extended Brighter Torches in cutscenes , some is total dark
BETTER Large FONTS
Nighthawk Cleanser Potion we need

[Enter the Wang]

Hellsteeth30 a écrit :

No teleporting horse and you must be in range to put stuff on it.

If you forget where you parked it, tough ♥♥♥♥.

You want hardcore let's make it hardcore. NOBODY ever says anything about the mobile storage chest.

There would be some issues with quests where you park your horse in an area that becomes unavailable after the quest. Also if you're sent to the second map and can't get back to pick your horse up from the south of the first map.

Might be able to solve this by allowing yourself multiple horses as the 'Your Horse' slot was probably used to determine which horse would teleport to you from whistling. Might allow for dynamic horse stealing to get a convenient ride no matter where you are. This would help with immersion, but they should balance things by assigning no crime points for stealing horses from bandits or other enemies.

[zeanomourph]

>>Reloading a save is disabled. The player must face their choices.

Yes! Real hardcore mode should ideally be perma-death, as is typical for 'hardcore' games. Save should only and always happen on exiting the game (to prevent scumming we currently have where you can exit without saving to load back bypassing the schnapps). Save should be so that you can go deal with IRL things that come up, not so that you can redo choices and fights that you've messed up. There's non-hardcore mode for that.

Really looking forward to negative perks like we had in KCD1 as well. Maybe the permadeath and always save on exit could be part of this optional negative perk package, because otherwise the 'casual hardcore' gang will rise up and riot.

[Earl of Haugwitz]

- More frequent ambushes by bandits or wolves at random places. KCD1 had much more ambush spots. I hoped that KCD2 would introduce truly random ambushes and not just at certain easy to memorize places. Sadly, in KCD2 ambushes became less frequent and still at fixed, constant places. And FFS, make those ambushes deadlier - if you fall on the ground from your horse because of the ambushing enemies, you should have very little chance to get out alive from the encounter, as that would be the case IRL.

- I don't know if the engine allows that but, some of the enemies overall strength should depend on Henry's level so if Henry is stronger by the time you fight them, they should be much stronger, too, to keep the balance.
- Make arch-enemies OP, so that a duel victory against them would come at a really high price. Or even fistfights in pubs against the fistfigthers overhyped by bartenders should be much more difficult.

- Nerfing swords, especially against heavy armours.
- Introduce more types of maces, axes, war hammers, etc., with a damage potential against heavy armour
- Crime system: if you are caught red-handed by the guards, there should be no option at all to talk yourself out, bribe the guards, etc... - you should bear the consequences by all means
- Don't know if feasible at this point, maybe not, but make more timed quests. If you don't finish them in a day, or two, you fail these quests.
- Fix the economy and let us spend our hardly earned coins on something meaningful, becasue now there is nothing you could spend your money on. You don't need to buy armour, or weapons, because you can really loot top gear equipment from enemies.