Hardcore? When, why, where?

[MarkesOrelies]

Defining what people mean these days when they add "hardcore" to titles are hard. By this I mean are just referring to the sense that the pack is meant to be long and unforgiving, is the pack meant to playing in hardcore mod.
So list of question I set to the forum.
- How do you describe hardcore( 1 -life, long unforgiving, HQM, fast- fun)
- When do you believe should the hardcore tag be added?
- What do you consider hardcore'ish(if that is a word) mods?
- Why is hardcore good/bad?
- How should Hardcore be implemented?

Hardcore'ish mods
-Gregtech
-Iguanatweaks/TCtweaks
-Enviromine

I personalty see Hardcore as a 1-life, fast start- tough pack like madpack where you can die in the first 10 mins, try again and again, I did the same with Crash landing, before I learned trenching and so forth.

** What Ideas do you have to try and prevent players from holding up in a hole or making a trench and so forth?** (mods, tweaks, scripts)

 

[b0bst3r]

Yeah this is one word that is misconstrued by a lot of people, but at the same time has more than one meaning.

Hardcore pack should relate to playing the game in hardcore mode (1 life and it deletes the world after dieing).

Then you have HQM packs which delete the world after you run out of lives so those really are hardcore packs?

I think what is needed is packs to determine their packdifficulty (PD) level by not using MC mode terminology. So a pack might have packdifficulty=normal, which would be standard MC mode normal with no extra mob/dungeon difficulty mods added.

Then PD=hard which would add dungeons with spawners, possibility of extra mob mods, this should also relate to how the pack is balanced mod wise, like if GT hooks into all mods or say recipes have been altered significantly.

Then PD=extreme which would just add lycanites (so many pointless mobs in this mod).

Then PD=madness which would be all of the above + dark nights + no sleep + health/food regen issues.

Then you could even go PD=extreme madness and play all of the above on hardcore mode, which would inevitably just means you start world after world after world. For example Madpack 2 on hardcore mode (or slightly less so Blood n Bones).

 

[ljfa]

For me hardcore means having to worry about and expect dying at basically any time, for instance by starvation or mobs. One bad move and you're dead (save for skyblock).
HQM alone doesn't make a pack hardcore as we see with Running Red.
Mods like Enviromine, Hunger Overhaul, Spice of Life and Zombie Awareness are hardcore by this definition while Gregtech and TiC Tweaks aren't.

Then there also are mods/packs which make certain aspects of the game inconvenient, e.g. slowing you down the more items you carry, making the night really dark or slowing down progression a lot. These can increase the hardness in conjunction with other things. For instance, running around slowly is merely an inconvenience in peaceful mode but of course has a big effect when escaping mobs that hit like a truck.

Gregtech isn't hard but tedious: You have to find veins and spend more materials but it doesn't make you die (unless maybe you activate the hunger drain config).

Edit: A hardcore dungeon mod only makes it hardcore when you enter the dungeon obviously.

 

[darkeshrine]

Last I checked, "Hardcore" was a difficulty in Minecraft. Typically, when you die, the world get's deleted. When i see a modpack with the "Hardcore" thing tacked on, I would normally assume that dying comes with such a punishment.

Of course, for many people that enjoy "Hardcore" modpacks, it would typically contain mods that make survival a lot more difficult for even more of a "Hardcore" experience.

EDIT: I'd also like to note that simply making all the recipes dumbfoundingly expensive or grindy is not "Hardcore". It doesn't increase the packs overall difficulty. All it does is make you spend more time playing to get to stages of the game that would take significantly less time. It's more of a "See? Not going to take iron tools for granted anymore, are you? Not when they cost two to four times as much." thing rather than actual difficulty.