How "hard" is Hard Mode?

[Craf]

Are their gonna be mutants on the first day? How many cannibals will attack my base and when? And I'd appriciate some tips as well.

[Craf]

C'mon man?! Is the community that dead?

[ML1985]

Well I've played on Hard Mode. I don't think that there are much more mutants, but they have more health and strenght.
I was able to build a big base without much problems. If you know how combat works, you shouldn't have any problems in surviving.
But in caves it is much more difficult to survive, because you run out of ammo and armor pretty fast while killing supermutants.
There are cannibals on day 1 and they always attack your base. But this is in Normal mode that case also I think.

[Craf]

Originally posted by ML1985:

Well I've played on Hard Mode. I don't think that there are much more mutants, but they have more health and strenght.
I was able to build a big base without much problems. If you know how combat works, you shouldn't have any problems in surviving.
But in caves it is much more difficult to survive, because you run out of ammo and armor pretty fast while killing supermutants.
There are cannibals on day 1 and they always attack your base. But this is in Normal mode that case also I think.

Thanks for the info!

[RequiemsRose]

if i recall hard mode only slightly increases spawn rates, and that is general spawn rates not specifically mutant. It's main effect is boosting the hit points and health of the enemies so fighting them becomes more difficult. I do believe it also makes them slightly more aggressive, making a peaceful playthrough (yes, it's possible) even more difficult. Though admittedly I'm not sure why you'd bother with the hard mode if you planned to play peacefully so, there is that.

As for tips, there are three locations I'd recommend scavenging as early as possible: the main village (cloth, sodas, rope, circuit boards, booze, dynamite, and luggage are all found here), the yatch beach and yatch itself (luggage, cassette player and a cassette to help with stamina, turtles, and there are a few spots nearby with the old pot for boiling water or making a sap collector), and at the very least katana cave (obviously katana, plane food, some meds, some booze, the flashlight, sodas, and tons of watches. I'd recommend stocking up on booze, circuit boards, and coins prior so you can make explosives and collect the extra watches for future explosives as watches are somewhat rare). Additionally you may wish to include the modern axe as it can make base building much faster and it can be a very powerful weapon (though it is somewhat slow to swing), and i prefer to collect the modern axe from the miners cache as I can reach that through main village, the exit is near the yatch beach, and I can get additional dynamite, meds, rope, sodas, and circuit boards. If you loot these areas in the first day or two you will start with a slight advantage as you are able to deal more damage quickly, have enough resources for the majority of your crafting and survival needs, and if you did include the axe you can build your base even faster than normal before the cannibals begin coming out in stronger forces.

[Crazyloon]

Hard mode is harder because:

Higher HP enemies
Stronger enemies
More enemies
Polluted water is actually dangerous to drink
Survival is slightly tougher as far as being cold and managing energy


To compare:

In normal mode, you might encounter 2-4 enemies on the first day while trying to build a shelter. You might not even see anyone at all depending on where you go.

In hard mode, you're almost guarunteed to run into some enemies very early, and there is a chance that they will kill you (basic enemies can kill you in 4 hits without armor). The last time I started a game on hardmode I killed 8 enemies in the first day (not including night).

In all honesty. Hard mode is not that much harder, it's actually refreshing to have something to kill if you're playing with more than 1 other player. Solo hardmode can be a pain in the ass sometimes, because you don't always get a chance to stop fighting and do some gathering. I recommend playing hardmode if you're going to play multiplayer.

[Gun Tech.]

Agree, hard mode is not much harder. Tried it, I'm on day 18 in one slot, I did die once tho cos I wasn't paying attention. So that means the challenge is greater cos I have another slot with 100+ gamedays. Something like that.

I would say it takes getting cocky and not wearing any armor or leveling any weapons... like I did :P Well all in the name of testing ofc :) I just built a treehouse next to the Cockpit Village and went about my business as usual.

[JOHNNYVAIN]

Ok I see these are old, and hard mode might seem just a wee bit harder at first but I can confirm that after day 10, your going to be in trouble. As in 4 Virginias, 2 armies and 2 cow men along with a mob of big cannibals. Just had that happen to me on day 13. First thing I did when i seen them coming was save the game fast.

[johncage]

if you have to ask, it's too hard for you. play normal

[Craf]

Originally posted by JOHNNYVAIN:

Ok I see these are old, and hard mode might seem just a wee bit harder at first but I can confirm that after day 10, your going to be in trouble. As in 4 Virginias, 2 armies and 2 cow men along with a mob of big cannibals. Just had that happen to me on day 13. First thing I did when i seen them coming was save the game fast.

Hah sign me up, thats just what I want to see!

[DuckieMcduck]

I've never played Normal mode but Hard mode is doable. Always wear armor, use stealth to pick your fights and you should be good? Also being a nomad of sorts helps.

You'll be forced out of the land eventually, which isn't a biggie since houseboats are a thing.

[SireSteelHell]

there is a save mode... so it cant be that hard....i would like an ultra hard, where u have no save unless u leave the game (and then u have to be not in combat to leave)

[⎛⎝sàtán⎠⎞]

Well if you ask me...

I found it totally useless to fight the cannibals on hardmode at first cause no matter how much i tried to kill them they wouldnt die.
So if there came 5 guys at once it was quite impossible for me to do ♥♥♥♥..

So i completly avoided them for the first 8 days using camoflage while bulding a safe place, even chopped down the stumps of the trees so the squads wouldnt wonder what the ♥♥♥♥ was going on.

Now i'm in day 30 or something and its a lot of fun defending my base against 7-10 normal cannibals while trying to take down 2 cowmen 2 armsy's and one leggsy (this all happening at once) :P

HardMode is harder no doubt but it add alot of more fun to the survival of the game.

Sry for poor english.

:)

[Syncourt]

Originally posted by siresteelhell:

there is a save mode... so it cant be that hard....i would like an ultra hard, where u have no save unless u leave the game (and then u have to be not in combat to leave)

You can use rawmeatmode to delete your save file when you die if you are in SP. I think In MP it just deletes your character (stats and backpack), I'm not 100% on that though.

Originally posted by sàtán:

I found it totally useless to fight the cannibals on hardmode at first cause no matter how much i tried to kill them they wouldnt die.
So if there came 5 guys at once it was quite impossible for me to do ♥♥♥♥..

When I last counted, they took around 22 hits to kill with the weak spear. It took forever to kill even the first pack of enemies. Using the plane axe though, within 5-9 hits I'd knock down a cannibal, from there its easy as it usually only takes 1 hit to kill them when they're on the ground. Only use the weak spear for hunting. If you have found some cloth - booze too if you have it - you can always make a torch and set them on fire too. Once you get your first break, burn the body and use the bones for an upgraded spear. Upgraded spear has the highest damage per hit in the game, equal with the katana.

[Cad]

Welll in my eyes it CAN be hard. The game itself if you rush to complete it, isn´t harder at all. The thing is: Usually you rarely encounter mutants, you often meet cannibals, but encoutering a mutant outside of a cave is rare.

On hard mode it stays like that for some time and then for some reason a ton of mutants appear (sometimes even 12 or more). And then you can only run if you play alone. But those always come in random amount of waves. SO if you don´t encounter such a wave, it´s not harder in my eyes.

[Spills51]

I,m playing it now without any issues thus far. I'm almost on day 30. The cannibals imo go down easy as soon as you use a club. I have seen a few mutants top side but just avoid them. Caves are harder cause you can't always avoid them.
The biggest difference I have found in my playthrough is the items are just more rare. I have not found a soda in weeks etc. Just accross the board everything seems a bit more scarce. Certainly still enough to survive but your not havimng the stuff thrown at you like in normal mode.
Imo, hard mode really is the only way to really enjoy the game.