First playthrough normal or hardcore?

[MangaBait]

Title. I played through the master mode on zelda botw on my first run and really enjoyed the added challenge. I also love difficult games,dark souls is my favourite game of all time for now. What difficulty would you reccomend for a new player?

[AfLIcTeD]

I would say normal until you get the mechanics down, as some of them need the Hud to learn. Especially combat.

[MangaBait]

Originally posted by AfLIcTeD:

I would say normal until you get the mechanics down, as some of them need the Hud to learn. Especially combat.

similar to this ,i forgot to mention that i played metro 2033 on ranger hardcore,and i still managed to understand the game with no mechanic or hud explanation.

[cretedog]

How do I choose the game levels. I can't seem to find it on the menu? Thanks!

[Nick the Greek]

I think you have to learn how to work the map. Because in hardcore mode if you don't know how to orientate yourself you will get lost for sure. Try Normal mode. It is still challenging.

[MangaBait]

Originally posted by Kenway Pirate King:

I think you have to learn how to work the map. Because in hardcore mode if you don't know how to orientate yourself you will get lost for sure. Try Normal mode. It is still challenging.

normally i dont have problems "getting" the map in games or even real life. I remember locations "by heart" . Anyways thanks for your input

[MangaBait]

Originally posted by cretedog:

How do I choose the game levels. I can't seem to find it on the menu? Thanks!

i dont know, i went ahead and tried to start a new game, and it asked me to choose between normal and hardcore save.

[Philippe_at_bay]

The combat system which is slightly unusual is neither intuitive nor obvious, and unless you've played on Normal first, you won't know what to watch for or what you really need to try to do.

I strongly recommend that you get at least twenty or thirty hours under your belt before you attempt hardcore.

Most of the other hardcore features are only hardcore in the sense that they don't dumb the game down too much, and you'll probably want to incorporate them into your play via house rules.

[Carl Brutananadilewski]

I suggest normal first, unless you're willing to tolerate dying and being set back to the last time your character slept a few times.

I mainly say that because there are a few "attack on the road" encounters that will almost certainly kill an unsuspecting player in the early game, because you just won't see it coming and suddenly 3-5 guys, possibly heavily armored will surround you, and take you down very quickly. As an expereinced player these encounters can still kill me if I have crap armor or my character has yet to learn master strikes, so early game in hardcore I avoid these random encounters, because they only spawn in specific places.

If you're willing to play around that and possibly lose a couple hours of gameplay if you really get caught off guard, you could go for it. Early-ish in the game, Henry unlocks a very good sparing partner to train against so that you can learn combat safely and build your stats up as well. I'd recommend making the most of that if you're planning on playing hardcore in your first run.

God be with you.

[Blitz4]

Hardcore. Select all of the negative traits. Thank me in 20 hours.

BUT I would add a few mods:

• Ultimate Saving[www.nexusmods.com]
  Ultime saving is to prevent Crashes or bugs from ruining your game. Each Day in KCD is 90 real-world minutes long. If you stick to the vanilla save system, you will not save as often, period. The issue now is if you will stick with your choices or will you reload your save to get the desired outcome. This mod is amazing, but it puts an angel and a devil on your shoulder for the rest of the game.
  
• Exact Money Display[www.nexusmods.com]
  
• DisableHeadBobHerbsHorse50[www.nexusmods.com]
  This is 3 mods in one. First mod reduces head bob to 50% normal, to reduce motion sickness. But there's side effects which are noticable as soon as you look down. Second mod reduces bobbing on horses, which can really get crazy. Third mod is f'n amazing, it adds an instant herb gathering mod, making gathering one herb maybe 5-10x faster.
  
• optimized_graphic_presets[www.nexusmods.com] - You want to keep the game at 60+ fps when outside of towns, and 30+ fps in towns. Stay off your horse when the game drops below 60 to reduce motion sickness. This mod did introduce the light flickering bug. But it went away after I lowered all Ultra settings to High, restarted, then changed them back to Ultra...no clue.
  
• Don't forget to edit the mod_order.txt file added by Ultimate Saving to add all of your Mods.
  
• Disable motion blur and drunk sharpening in the menu.
  
• Change the fov to 80-90, based on your preferance. Run the command cl_fov 80 if it's locked.
  
• FYI: The DS4 works perfectly with this game using Steam's setup and the most popular controller config.

After 50+ hours. There's only three issues with hardcore.

1. Nightmares Negative Trait (Each time you awake shaken from your nightmare and suffer a 2 hour debuff).
   
2. Shakes Negative Trait (Aiming a bow and picking pockets and locks take more practice to master).
   
3. The compass doesn't show N,S,E,W. Get used to checking the direction you are facing via the sun, shadows, the little marks on the compass. It takes a long time to get used to, but you do get used to it.
   
4. You don't need to take the perks 1 & 2 above. But you have to get used to a compass without cardinal directions. That's the hardest part of hardcore. Yes you will likely need to train your character more as hardcore makes him weaker. Yes, for me this made the game more immersive & fun overall.