The Problem with "Hardcore" Mode

[Felyne Honkers (Jake)]

So I'm doing my first play through on hardcore mode with all the negative perks. Easy games aren't fun. What's even less fun though, is losing hours upon hours of progress to this buggy nightmare. Crashes and bugs are tolerable when the game autosaves after I finish a quest. Having no autosaves is fine if I'm not constantly getting nailed up the ass with gamebreaking bugs. The two combined just makes for an awful experience.

Climbing up a steep hill will spontaneously throw me 50 feet in the air, killing me with fall damage. I'll get trapped in combat with no enemies, forcing me to quit without saving. I've gotten stuck in an endless loading screen on my way to jail. A couple of times the game has just crashed to desktop for no reason.

Am I the only one that has these issues, or does everyone just tough it out?

[Deo]

Did not start hardcore playthrough yet, but after 50 hours I only got one crash.
Hardcore mode requires some preparation and strategy. You wanted hard game - you got it.
Most hardcore players just level Drinking for homecoming perk, it's a free save teleportation. Good luck.

[Kabirbd]

My hardcore playthrough was longer than my normal playthrough. And no, I didn't have such problems.

One advice for you is to learn the location of belladona and make savior schnapps, a lot of them. My drinking skill in hardcore was really high when I finished it.

If you want to play hardcore with the convenience of normal mode like autosave then there is nothing much to discuss.
No intention to disrespect but what do you expect to happen when you don't save for hours using saviour schnapps? Even if you ignore crash, anything can happen to lose progress be it a random ambush or failing a sidequest.

I did not tough anything out cause there was nothing to tough out. The worst thing that happened in my hardcore playthrough was that I got lost in the forest twice while hunting.

[SympliKrazi]

Originally posted by Felyne Honkers (Jake):

What's even less fun though, is losing hours upon hours of progress to this buggy nightmare.

Sounds frustration and no fun

Originally posted by Felyne Honkers (Jake):

Climbing up a steep hill will spontaneously throw me 50 feet in the air, killing me with fall damage.

Getting fall damage by slipping and falling of a steep hill? And the first person camera turns and tumbles in a disorienting manner. Yes.
Getting launched 50ft in the air. No, hasnt happened.

Originally posted by Felyne Honkers (Jake):

I'll get trapped in combat with no enemies, forcing me to quit without saving.

Endless combat? No, hasnt happened. Not unless you're talking about the battle and siege event sequences. I think the battles were done that way on purpose.

Originally posted by Felyne Honkers (Jake):

I've gotten stuck in an endless loading screen on my way to jail.

No hasnt happened. Actually, the quick travel locked up once I think.

Originally posted by Felyne Honkers (Jake):

A couple of times the game has just crashed to desktop for no reason.

May have happened once?

Originally posted by Felyne Honkers (Jake):

Am I the only one that has these issues, or does everyone just tough it out?

If all that happened to me, I'd probably deem the game unplayable and move on.

Not sure what the cause of the issues could be. But personally, I got the quicksave mod to help prevent losing game progress. Mods don't break achievements here, so why not?

[sooshon]

I have played this game for 300 hours, I only remember once encountering a bug where Henry got thrown in the air, and never experienced any of the other bugs you mention...I'm not sure what the explanation is why you're having so many problems, maybe you are running into some kind of system \ hardware-specific bugs that were overlooked because they don't come up for a majority of players. I am not sure what advice to give other than if you have the opportunity to try out the game on a different computer and see if your experience changes,

[Pönnukaka]

Originally posted by Felyne Honkers (Jake):

So I'm doing my first play through on hardcore mode with all the negative perks. Easy games aren't fun. What's even less fun though, is losing hours upon hours of progress to this buggy nightmare. Crashes and bugs are tolerable when the game autosaves after I finish a quest. Having no autosaves is fine if I'm not constantly getting nailed up the ass with gamebreaking bugs. The two combined just makes for an awful experience.

Climbing up a steep hill will spontaneously throw me 50 feet in the air, killing me with fall damage. I'll get trapped in combat with no enemies, forcing me to quit without saving. I've gotten stuck in an endless loading screen on my way to jail. A couple of times the game has just crashed to desktop for no reason.

Am I the only one that has these issues, or does everyone just tough it out?

I wouldn't go for all negative perks, but you get the achievement and be happy.

I did change my review to negative after some years mostly because of replaying on hardcore as well and just bugs, bugs and more bugs. After losing about 2h of progress few times(game crashes to desktop, supposedly if you have over 8 cores on CPU this can happen) especially..this game never got fully patched. I really like it, but my review has to be negative. There is no other way to influence this topic. I was never thrown into the air yet, but I did die out of bugged NPCs interactions.

[Felyne Honkers (Jake)]

Originally posted by Deo:

Did not start hardcore playthrough yet, but after 50 hours I only got one crash.
Hardcore mode requires some preparation and strategy. You wanted hard game - you got it.
Most hardcore players just level Drinking for homecoming perk, it's a free save teleportation. Good luck.

Getting magically smitten by errors in code isn't "hard," it's just frustrating.

[Felyne Honkers (Jake)]

Originally posted by sooshon:

I have played this game for 300 hours, I only remember once encountering a bug where Henry got thrown in the air, and never experienced any of the other bugs you mention...I'm not sure what the explanation is why you're having so many problems, maybe you are running into some kind of system \ hardware-specific bugs that were overlooked because they don't come up for a majority of players. I am not sure what advice to give other than if you have the opportunity to try out the game on a different computer and see if your experience changes,

That's worth a shot. I was planning on having a new setup ready for MH Wilds anyway, so I'll have to see if that makes a difference.

[「HS」Interfector ex Domini]

i toughed it out, frustrating as ♥♥♥♥ tho, having to redo the same quests over and over again cause of known bugs that havent been fixed after almost a decade

especially when one of the bugs is that reloading a save during the quest destroys the quest, so you have to reload before you even accepted the quest
but the whole reason you have to reload, is becasue the npc its about randomly starts hunting down a civilian alllll the way into town and get beaten to death by the guards
and you dont know this bug exists, so youre trying to figure out how to progress the quest thats broken

and guesssss what
it wasnt the only bug
i had to redo the entire quest multiple times, cause of dem bugs

[alekseyblinoff]

Originally posted by Felyne Honkers (Jake):

So I'm doing my first play through on hardcore mode with all the negative perks. Easy games aren't fun. What's even less fun though, is losing hours upon hours of progress to this buggy nightmare. Crashes and bugs are tolerable when the game autosaves after I finish a quest. Having no autosaves is fine if I'm not constantly getting nailed up the ass with gamebreaking bugs. The two combined just makes for an awful experience.

Climbing up a steep hill will spontaneously throw me 50 feet in the air, killing me with fall damage. I'll get trapped in combat with no enemies, forcing me to quit without saving. I've gotten stuck in an endless loading screen on my way to jail. A couple of times the game has just crashed to desktop for no reason.

Am I the only one that has these issues, or does everyone just tough it out?

1. Do not take perks that consume the character's stamina.
2. Collect Belladonna to make schnapps (in Skalitz at the start you can raise the Herbalist skill to 15), and when leaving the Talmberg castle (at the start) develop it to 19 - and opposite the Hunter's house collect 80+ Belladonna.
3. In the house where Henry spends the night (having arrived in Talmberg) is an "eternal" castle, you can very quickly pump up Stealth and Hacking.
In general ... The easiest thing is to develop in Skalitz at the start ...
Everything, except for combat with cold weapons ..

[alekseyblinoff]

What I like most is the lack of a compass). Is this serious? Never happened before, and here it is again...
The "weak" son of a blacksmith is funny. But not only is he weak, he also can't navigate in the forest. And he didn't go hunting with his master as a page, of course not - why save his master from wolves and boars (they chased the boars in SQUADS - remember Henry's words about spears for boars), he didn't swing a sword in the forge (he made them and checked the balance of the blade), working in Skalice itself (the mine) he didn't repair all the equipment; hammers, chisels, axes, picks, axes, staples, ATTENTION!!! WINCHES (mechanisms)!!!. No, he didn't do all that, so he had to learn "repair" all over again... A country boy - doesn't know the grass? Again with a rake in the forehead... What's the matter, huh? There were no roads at that time, as a rule, there was only one. And of course, the blacksmith goes to fairs in neighboring towns and villages - he takes his son with him. That is, Henry "initially" knows all the neighboring cities, but no. It turns out he doesn't.
Insert a square peg into a round hole, and say "Hardcore guys, ride as you like... Only hardcore, pass by."

[Bandy]

Originally posted by Felyne Honkers (Jake):

... What's even less fun though, is losing hours upon hours of progress to this buggy nightmare. Crashes and bugs are tolerable when the game autosaves after I finish a quest. Having no autosaves is fine if I'm not constantly getting nailed up the ass with gamebreaking bugs. The two combined just makes for an awful experience. ...

And THAT is why the 'Save Anywhere mod' is a must. No shame when the game is the problem, not the player...

[alekseyblinoff]

Originally posted by Felyne Honkers (Jake):

So I'm doing my first play through on hardcore mode with all the negative perks. Easy games aren't fun. What's even less fun though, is losing hours upon hours of progress to this buggy nightmare. Crashes and bugs are tolerable when the game autosaves after I finish a quest. Having no autosaves is fine if I'm not constantly getting nailed up the ass with gamebreaking bugs. The two combined just makes for an awful experience.

Climbing up a steep hill will spontaneously throw me 50 feet in the air, killing me with fall damage. I'll get trapped in combat with no enemies, forcing me to quit without saving. I've gotten stuck in an endless loading screen on my way to jail. A couple of times the game has just crashed to desktop for no reason.

Am I the only one that has these issues, or does everyone just tough it out?

One of the best guides (well, almost ) for completing the Hardcore mode of the game: https://www.reddit.com/r/kingdomcome/comments/m3m8ij/ultimate_hardcore_guide_with_all_negative_perks/
We make "adjustments" for all the negative skills taken...

[Felyne Honkers (Jake)]

Originally posted by 「HS」Interfector ex Domini:

i toughed it out, frustrating as ♥♥♥♥ tho, having to redo the same quests over and over again cause of known bugs that havent been fixed after almost a decade

especially when one of the bugs is that reloading a save during the quest destroys the quest, so you have to reload before you even accepted the quest
but the whole reason you have to reload, is becasue the npc its about randomly starts hunting down a civilian alllll the way into town and get beaten to death by the guards
and you dont know this bug exists, so youre trying to figure out how to progress the quest thats broken

and guesssss what
it wasnt the only bug
i had to redo the entire quest multiple times, cause of dem bugs

It sounds kind of funny, but I'd have been livid.

[heathGCF]

Originally posted by 「HS」Interfector ex Domini:

i toughed it out, frustrating as ♥♥♥♥ tho, having to redo the same quests over and over again cause of known bugs that havent been fixed after almost a decade

especially when one of the bugs is that reloading a save during the quest destroys the quest, so you have to reload before you even accepted the quest
but the whole reason you have to reload, is becasue the npc its about randomly starts hunting down a civilian alllll the way into town and get beaten to death by the guards
and you dont know this bug exists, so youre trying to figure out how to progress the quest thats broken

and guesssss what
it wasnt the only bug
i had to redo the entire quest multiple times, cause of dem bugs

I forgot what a buggy mess this game truly is. Hadn't played for a few years, but now I remember why.

About a third into the game, but I've already had one main quest bug out and had to roll back to a much earlier save. Now I've hit another one that completely halts progress. Reeky is completely missing from 'On the Scent' quest, not in the cave where he's supposed to be.

To 'solve' this and roll back to an even earlier save, I'd have to pretty much restart the game again from scratch, and I really can't be bothered with that. With this reminder of how bugged KCD1 is, there's no chance I'll waste money on KCD2.

[Deo]

Originally posted by heathxxx:

Reeky is completely missing from 'On the Scent' quest

Well bandits could be faster than you to him, so they killed him. It's a time sensitive quest after all, whole chain is.

Tbh the whole point of quest is to lead you to Pribyslavitz, so just going there will fix the quest and update objectives.