Development Poll: Should the point value for Hardcore trait be changed?

[GlyphGryph]

There’s been talk of making some changes to the Hardcore trait. Currently, it grants you a whopping 6 character points! That seems inappropriate. It’s not much of a badge of pride with such a huge benefit, especially for ranged characters who are fairly likely to not take damage at all with 6 more points to spread around. And plus you can’t take other more interesting flaws with it!

So, what should we do?
(Disclaimer: I support dropping the point benefit to 0. This really IS just hardmode!)

[drake1storm]

I vote giving it less points, but you brought up a valid point for range characters.

I vote towards also adding an across the board reduction on character and item stats when the trait is selected, with zombies possibly receiving a boost.

[system]

I wouldn’t know, I’m inept and compiling myself and a new windows pre-compile isn’t up as far as my knowledge extends.

[kevin.granade]

If you want it to be a hard mode, make it a mode (or option), if it’s a trait you pick at character creation, it should fit within the existing framework for such traits, which means you get a number of points for a negative trait commensurate with how much harder it makes the game.

Also I think you might be getting hung up on the name, maybe change the name to something indicative of lack of physical resilience?

As a separate issue, I think a more far-ranging hardcore mode would be well received.

[Weyrling]

[quote=“GlyphGryph, post:1, topic:1179”]There’s been talk of making some changes to the Hardcore trait. Currently, it grants you a whopping 6 character points! That seems inappropriate. It’s not much of a badge of pride with such a huge benefit, especially for ranged characters who are fairly likely to not take damage at all with 6 more points to spread around. And plus you can’t take other more interesting flaws with it!

So, what should we do?
(Disclaimer: I support dropping the point benefit to 0. This really IS just hardmode!)[/quote]
I’d be cool with -3 or -4 points, as even for a ranged character it makes you extremely susceptible to a one hit kill.

I vote towards also adding an across the board reduction on character and item stats when the trait is selected, with zombies possibly receiving a boost.

This makes me want a general difficulty setting, but this isn't the kind of thing that would fit into player traits.

[drake1storm]

[quote=“Weyrling, post:5, topic:1179”][quote=“GlyphGryph, post:1, topic:1179”]There’s been talk of making some changes to the Hardcore trait. Currently, it grants you a whopping 6 character points! That seems inappropriate. It’s not much of a badge of pride with such a huge benefit, especially for ranged characters who are fairly likely to not take damage at all with 6 more points to spread around. And plus you can’t take other more interesting flaws with it!

So, what should we do?
(Disclaimer: I support dropping the point benefit to 0. This really IS just hardmode!)[/quote]
I’d be cool with -3 or -4 points, as even for a ranged character it makes you extremely susceptible to a one hit kill.

I vote towards also adding an across the board reduction on character and item stats when the trait is selected, with zombies possibly receiving a boost.

This makes me want a general difficulty setting, but this isn't the kind of thing that would fit into player traits.[/quote]

It’d be alot easier to test the mechanics using the trait, and then switching it over depending on the community response.

[Iosyn]

I’m all in favour of a hardcore mode, but dropping HP by 75% when an 8STR char only gets what, 80, 84something HP? bit drastic even for a hardcore mode, I’d say.

First thing I’ll say is it does make it feel more realistic, which is a good thing. Hell, a rogue encounter with a black widow nearly killed me-- and not through the poison. I was on 2 bar torso health after a few hits. By comparison, healing it up with a single bandage took me up to near full health. How would a melee character even think of fighting brutes or hulks without martial arts?

Sure, it could be alleviated by taking more points in strength, but dear lord you walk into any kind of trap and you’ve lost a leg or two.
Then again, you sure as hell wouldn’t want to step into a beartrap IRL either.

[Reservoir]

Hardcore should make the game harder like bugging the temperature system by making the good traits reduced. Let me explain: Light eater makes you eat LESS, so what if the Hardcore trait reduced the effect of that good trait?. If you started the game WITHOUT Light eater, the reduction of the effect would still apply (Aka you need to eat more). And this trait should somehow cancel 6/12 gooid trait points, making the start of the game harder for those like me who dont care about getting skills (Unless archery stuff) and get trozillions traits

[krAbhandz]

From my perspective…

The basic idea of difficulty in any game is to turn you from the hunter to the hunted. I don’t really know what I’m getting on about, so I’ll let other games do the thinking for me.

DoomRL: Monsters hit harder and have more HP. On nightmare, they respawn. Wide variety of challenge modes. More monsters = More fun.

Fallout 3: Random first guy you come across takes 20 bullets to take down, and they hit super hard. Because you run out of bullets so quickly, you get creative with how you kill. Explosives and other ordinance are super valuable compared to a regular game. When I find a missile launcher on master difficulty, you bet I take it with me, because a situation where you NEED a missile launcher is right around the corner. In cataclysm, I sort of stockpile my explosives and only bust them out on Fungal Spires. Sure, science labs call for explosives, but turret and secubot placement is so predictable it’s more of an attrition thing. Plus, when you run out of rockets, you just turn off your flashlight and leave. It’s not like they’re guarding anything valuable. I’ve been carrying around a fully charged tazer for two seasons and I haven’t used it once.

More monsters. More unpredictable monsters. Especially high density, variety, and unpredictability of monsters around areas that have the best loot, like Mini-nukes and high end CBMs (the high end CBMs which are most often obtained from shockers in poorly defended cities). Monsters should have abilities that support each other and are designed to break dominant strategies. The smoker is good anti-range. Acid spitters should be more effective at routing players from windows. Dogs keep the pressure on but should be able to grab you and slow you down. Skitterbots should throw flashbangs and manhacks should be hard to shoot. Turrets should be burrowed and invisible until they’re close enough to the player to have a legitimate chance of killing the player, it would give the terranian sonar a use at least. Oh yeah, and hulks tear down walls… and throw players through walls too! And off of cliffs and into the swarm!

Oh, then hardcore mode would double their damage, double their hitpoints, and give them an extra special ability apiece. Even regular zeds should have an ability that helps them fulfill their role as swarming fodder, even if it’s triggered by boomers or shockers. It should be so hard that fortresses get overrun, then when you run to your vehicle, the engine won’t start up for 6 turns while the zombies break all your windshields.

[Iosyn]

Actually, I like the sound of that. Instead of nerfing the player, make all the enemies much, much harder.
And make the normal zeds conduct electricity from shockers, ala chain lighting.

[Vorpal2]

I like the idea of a hardcore mode being essentially one that is not meant to be fair or balanced, and where mechanics that would make things too hard can be put, such as fear mechanics that can cause you to have heart attacks, needing certain amounts of blood sugar, getting AIDS from a dirty syringe if you don’t cauterize, Shia LaBouf, etc.

Basically, it’s a great excuse to add “Fuck You” mechanics.

[i2amroy]

In regards to the idea of a difficulty setting: I’m all for it. This would include the variety of things that have been discussed in the thread like harder monsters, other debuffs, etc.

In regards to this as a trait: I’m for a slight reduction in points (maybe down to 5), potentially a small buff to it (only reduce hp by 60% maybe), and a definite rename. Some alternatives might be “Frail” or “Delicate”.

Also the “Other” option for your poll is currently titled “Otter” (like the sea creature).

[Iosyn]

[quote=“i2amroy, post:12, topic:1179”]In regards to the idea of a difficulty setting: I’m all for it. This would include the variety of things that have been discussed in the thread like harder monsters, other debuffs, etc.

In regards to this as a trait: I’m for a slight reduction in points (maybe down to 5), potentially a small buff to it (only reduce hp by 60% maybe), and a definite rename. Some alternatives might be “Frail” or “Delicate”.

Also the “Other” option for your poll is currently titled “Otter” (like the sea creature).[/quote]

Unfortunately I have little else to add to this apart from a +1.
Difficulty setting: Hell yes. Give us a normal mode, a hard mode and then a ‘Fuck_Nope.jpg’ Insane difficulty.

As in, Fire’s raining from the sky, you just got handed an active mininuke, we’re 106 miles from arroyo with half a tank of gas, the floor is radioactive, the denizens of the underworld just opened a hellgate into our realm in an attempt to escape something really fucking scary, the military decided to nuke the site from orbit and there’s some fucking chewing gum stuck in the soul of my brand-new sneakers but all’s just about right with the world-level difficulty.

Edit: Also I’m quite sure ‘Otter’ is a reference to giant mutant otters that will be coming out in the next version.

[krAbhandz]

[Izicata]

I say Hardcore should give no points, but give you some sort of bragging rights thing. Maybe some sort of “You survived for X days, Y hours on normal mode, P days, Q hours on hardcore mode” on the main screen.

[eternalflame]

In my honest opinion, the trait is fine. You live in constant fear of monsters killing you in one or two hits. Even simply walking past a regular zombie might cause significant damage. More than one and you might just die outright. In the long term this trait is significantly worse than either illiterate or schizophrenia, which are both -5 point traits.

The trait can be renamed if you want to use “hardcore” for some kind of harder difficulty setting in the future. And I agree with the post above that if it is in the list of negative traits, it should give me points for my trouble. Actual “no gain” hard mode should be in the options instead.

[Shoes]

Hardcore should be like in diablo : you die, and it’s game over, while still giving you the chance to find your old body and loot its contents.

[Labtop_215]

Yea, hard mode is just that. It’s an increased challenge.

Also it would be nice to be able to take on more than 12 points worth of negative traits, even if you don’t get more than 12 points for doing so.

See for instance, you can’t be a near sighted insomniac with asthma, a bad back, and have poor hearing all at the same time because that would normally give you 13 points in bonuses. It would be nice to be able to take all of those traits, even if you only got 12 points for doing so.

You would need a way to keep track of the additional point costs associated with those traits somehow though so that you can still take them off if you change your mind without arbitrarily losing points in character creation somehow. I mean you could just exit out and restart the process if that did happen, but it would be kind of tedious.

I hope this demonstrates what I mean.

[TurningBreeze]

“No match for my Kevlar.” Heh, famous last words in the best of conditions.

I don’t think hardcore should give points, but it should find less strategic ways to reward the player. Like prestige titles that NPCs use to refer to the player, or more detailed logs of a character’s lifetime and achievements exported to a .txt file upon death. Or the privilege of renaming firearms. Or delusions that visit the PC in their sleep, coming in increased waves of nastiness as the player “fights” them off until the PC “dies” and awakens from the nightmare.

[JMatt]

Yeah, I don’t think the hardcore trait should offer 6 points if the point of hardcore is to make things harder. I was confused when I first saw the 6 point bonus when I first looked at it. It should be integrated into a more difficulty setting than a trait, anyway. I presume that’d take a lot more time to implement, however. It also makes it impossible to go with hardcore and a random character without randomizing a bunch of times until you end up rolling hardcore on one of your characters.