So if you haven't tried it already, Blizzard has an open Beta for EVeryone and everyone should try it. Its until monday soo time is limited! Anw for the first time ever I tried making a hardcore character, it doesn't really change anything in the game... except one thing. If you die, its permanent. Although I always thought this was stupid and imagined it would result in a massive waste of time if you died after reaching capped level... I have to say that I changed my mind... the psychological pressure of KNOWing you will die forever... is just so heart wrenching... I was so careful it was ridiculous... whenever i took a hit... my heart rate would increase to a really high level :P. Now, i'm thinking I should make most of chars hardcore in the real game... it just seems like the best experience... I can imagine myself now... cursing a boss in 10 years for killing my hero... that's what experiences are made for.

The change in character from my end was ridiculous, I usually talk on skype, eat, watch south park... all while playing games... but now if someone walked into my room I would log out and play another char, same thing with skype, or lunch time.

I can definitely see the appeal, but I don't think I could ever play Hardcore mode. Losing a character I might have spent hundreds of hours on would be too soul crushing.

That said, if Blizzard ever decides to implement the RMAH into Hardcore mode (which I doubt they ever will for legal reasons) then I can see myself trying to get into the high-risk high-reward world of Hardcore item farming.

Deja Vu.

I played Diablo 2 with hardcore characters and was pretty successful (furthest I got was Act V on Nightmare), so I'll definitely be giving it a try once I've played through the game a few times.

I played d2 for 5 years, eventually I got tired of core(although I loved pvp) so I gave Hc a try. I almost never play now without making it a Hc character, and I plan on doing the same in D3. It just adds a whole new challenge to the game that I really enjoy.

Go ahead, go Pvp In Hc...

Not my cup of tea.  
 
At all.

Hardcore is for those people who are Hard. And Core.

I'd definitely consider myself Core but I'm not sure about Hard in relation to D3. I guess I'll just stick to Easy Babies Mode.

Think I'm going to give it a shot. Pvp didn't interest me in D2 and playing single player hardcore was a lot more fun than getting rushed and doing baal runs online.

I was considering trying it out.
But with the fact that you are playing effectively on Blizzard servers means that any connection hiccup is potentally game over for you Hardcore character if you are in a middle of a fight.

I played D2 in hc-mode. I lost a few chars, but starting new ones was always the most enjoyable part for me anyway. Hopefully, in D3, you won't have to fear losing your chars due to naughty hacks.

I wasn't great at D2. The way hc-players kept their chars alive for so long was to know when they were about to eat it, and then exit out of the game fast as lightning. It seems there is a 10-second delay when exiting in D3. This makes sense of course. Hc is a lot more hc that way. (But believe me, it was nerve wrecking enough in D2).

No thanks.

@haffy said:

Think I'm going to give it a shot. Pvp didn't interest me in D2 and playing single player hardcore was a lot more fun than getting rushed and doing baal runs online.

HC chars are allowed to die in PVP matchups now

Don't do it on your first run. Meeting Duriel v.2 for the first time and just getting whipped cause you don't know the fight won't be fun. It'll just be annoying. HC mode is for people who are confident in their ability to adapt to any monster formation at the drop of a hat. That comes from playing way too much.

I think you would have to be insane to do it on your first or even your first few playthroughs. Especially since I've heard that dying its pretty common even in Nightmare. However, I'm sure once I've gotten pretty familiar with the characters and the enemies in the game I'll make a hardcore char for funsies. I mean, they give you 10 character slots for a reason.

I was stoked about hardcore before they mentioned the added difficulty level. I'm fine with sticking to normal if the last difficulty is going to kick my ass so hard I'll be crying blood.

Hardcore mode for me is a way to extend gameplay. Once I go through the regular game and master that, I'll move onto hardcore mode.

Not something I'd normally be interested in, but I hear there will be achievements for it. So maybe I'll try it as a side thing eventually.

Hard core is great after you complete the game a couple of times. So you loose a character? It's not the end of the world. But it puts a real exciting edge on the game that is absent in regular mode. In D2 the farthest I ever got was act II.

I hate hardcore because I can't stand losing progress. I played it for a while in D2 because my friends were way into it but after getting TPK'd in Hell for like the fifth time I was done.

Hardcore is exciting in theory. In reality it's probably you sitting at your keyboard clicking on some dude ten or eleven times because your attack animation isn't playing, realizing that you've picked up a few seconds of packet loss because of some clog who-knows-where along your magical internet tubes, and then seeing everything suddenly 'fast forward' as your computer gets all of the updated information from the server at once, and watching your level 69 character crumple up into a heap at the monster's feet. Proceed from here to slamming hands into keyboard, yelling, cursing fate, and uninstalling.

@zyn: Yes, No Thanks. What the hell. Losing your character because you made one mistake, who wants to expose themselves to that at any point of a game.

HC Inferno is for real men. Any other difficulty level is for little girls.

Is death permanent or does the character become a normal character when he dies.

@Gargantuan: If it's like Diablo 2, the character will be unplayable once you die.

@Breadfan said:

@Gargantuan: If it's like Diablo 2, the character will be unplayable once you die.

That's a shame. I really like how it works in Path of Exile. If you die in the hardcore league you get transferred to the normal league.

Is the Beta still open?

@valrog said:

Is the Beta still open?

Closed on the 1st.

@Gargantuan said:

@Breadfan said:

@Gargantuan: If it's like Diablo 2, the character will be unplayable once you die.

That's a shame. I really like how it works in Path of Exile. If you die in the hardcore league you get transferred to the normal league.

But that's not really "hardcore" then if there's no severe consequence.

"Oh, well now I'm in normal league" is something other than "FUIUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK !!!"

I used to scoff at the idea of playing hardcore mode in Diablo 2. I just didn't get it at the time. After years of playing Diablo 2 I decided "Eh I'm pretty good, I'll try this out" so I played Hardcore. This was before all the bots would clear everything for you btw.

I had no friends who played HC so I didn't have anyone to rush me and nothing to barter with people who could rush... plus trust is always an issue in HC mode. So I leveled myself all the way to Act 5 hell as a shapeshifting Druid. I was level 78 and it was really stressful but a lot of fun.

I was doing a Bloody Foothill run (it was the style at the time... and I wanted to level quite a bit more before trying Baal) and during one of the runs we had a sorc in our group. Well we're all there fighting and next thing you know we're all dead. The Sorc TPPK all of us. It was really infuriating and I honestly had never (and never since) been so distraught over losing a character in a game. I didn't touch D2 for a week, whereas before all this I had played just about every night. After a week I reflected and realized that it's the journey - not the destination - that makes HC so fun. After that I only played HC and, with minor irony, that's what kept the game alive for me. I couldn't go back to softcore, it just wasn't the same. So I will definitely be playing hardcore once Diablo 3 launches. I know I will die and lose all my items and progress but that challenge of seeing how far you can go is too addictive. I wouldn't want to play the game any other way.

Me and a few close friends are rolling HC day one.

(With a secret plan to make one ragequit)

Thread title reminded me of this picture.

But anyway, I know I will definitely not play Hardcore. Too stressful for me and I'm not even that good.

@Crono said:

I used to scoff at the idea of playing hardcore mode in Diablo 2. I just didn't get it at the time. After years of playing Diablo 2 I decided "Eh I'm pretty good, I'll try this out" so I played Hardcore. This was before all the bots would clear everything for you btw.

I had no friends who played HC so I didn't have anyone to rush me and nothing to barter with people who could rush... plus trust is always an issue in HC mode. So I leveled myself all the way to Act 5 hell as a shapeshifting Druid. I was level 78 and it was really stressful but a lot of fun.

I was doing a Bloody Foothill run (it was the style at the time... and I wanted to level quite a bit more before trying Baal) and during one of the runs we had a sorc in our group. Well we're all there fighting and next thing you know we're all dead. The Sorc TPPK all of us. It was really infuriating and I honestly had never (and never since) been so distraught over losing a character in a game. I didn't touch D2 for a week, whereas before all this I had played just about every night. After a week I reflected and realized that it's the journey - not the destination - that makes HC so fun. After that I only played HC and, with minor irony, that's what kept the game alive for me. I couldn't go back to softcore, it just wasn't the same. So I will definitely be playing hardcore once Diablo 3 launches. I know I will die and lose all my items and progress but that challenge of seeing how far you can go is too addictive. I wouldn't want to play the game any other way.

great story :p

@gamefreak9 said:

So if you haven't tried it already, Blizzard has an open Beta for EVeryone and everyone should try it. Its until monday soo time is limited! Anw for the first time ever I tried making a hardcore character, it doesn't really change anything in the game... except one thing. If you die, its permanent. Although I always thought this was stupid and imagined it would result in a massive waste of time if you died after reaching capped level... I have to say that I changed my mind... the psychological pressure of KNOWing you will die forever... is just so heart wrenching... I was so careful it was ridiculous... whenever i took a hit... my heart rate would increase to a really high level :P. Now, i'm thinking I should make most of chars hardcore in the real game... it just seems like the best experience... I can imagine myself now... cursing a boss in 10 years for killing my hero... that's what experiences are made for.

The change in character from my end was ridiculous, I usually talk on skype, eat, watch south park... all while playing games... but now if someone walked into my room I would log out and play another char, same thing with skype, or lunch time.

I won't even consider playing a hardcore character until I am convinced the game and game servers will be stable enough to guarantee that a death will never occur because of something on Blizzard's end. I can handle it if it's player error, or even a third party like my ISP, but if I were to die because of a game crash or battle.net going down I would probably just quit the game entirely. Playing hardcore isn't totally off the proverbial table, but I definitely won't be doing it immediately after launch.

@StarvingGamer said:

That said, if Blizzard ever decides to implement the RMAH into Hardcore mode (which I doubt they ever will for legal reasons) then I can see myself trying to get into the high-risk high-reward world of Hardcore item farming.

That issue would be pretty easy for them to sidestep. If a hardcore character dies then all his or her equipment could be returned to storage.

I would never do it because I hate harsh death penalties. I almost lost it when someone killed me in EVE Online because you loose so much.