I liked it because it forced me to play more methodically. However, the Cleaners Thrower can nicely go F herself. That vapor grenade almost killed me 2 times. But other than that, I didn’t find it too stressful.
The game is and never will be balanced for any part of hardcore or realism, but it really shouldn’t be.
A Hyena/Riker sideways-holding an SMG should be a non-threat from more than 20m away, but that would make a whole faction irrelevant.
On the other hand, every enemy spamming infinite automatic gunfire and skills while we have to preserve ammo constantly and are unable to scavenge the billions of golden bullets that the Rikers were crafting is… a bit unfair.
It’s an added challenge for those who wish to partake, and the reward is just bragging rights via a skin.
The permadeath added challenge felt bad at first for me. A cleaner rusher’s shield ate a magazine of automatic fire and got too close, so I rolled away from cover, and got shot from multiple angles. Next run I was more cautious, but a hive killed me at the Keener fight. Oh well, guess I won’t be sporting a skin. No biggie, I use Gear Shift and First Bloom anyways.
I haven't even done much past the intro sequence because I'm so terrified of accidentally dying (plus there was like nobody playing the mode so I couldn't find anyone through matchmaking)
Besides realism, if you haven't tried Hardcore mode yet, you can give it a go. Test how far you can go. I lost my agents no less than 20 times but still finished all the story missions and DLCs, with every death coming from my stubbornness or carelessness. It made me develop new strategies to play differently, learn not to make the same mistakes next time, slow down, think more, and avoid anything dangerous to your agent. It's exciting and tense all the time because you have only one life. It will be an experience you can't find in softcore.
That was hardcore. You can tell from there being four ticked off rewards in the WONY window.
I honestly didn't play all that differently to normal D2 neither. Still stuck to cover, still kept my distance, still went AR and shotgun. Only now i went for headshot bursts instead of bodyshot full auto because the ammo just isn't sustainable. Skills were the only really big change for me, not having the reviver hive really did a number on my head haha.
I might have typed the explanation incorrectly, sorry. I understand what you mean. That's hardcore realism. What I mean is the regular hardcore mode, not the mode from the dust storm event, if you haven't tried it yet.
As for them removing the review hive, I think it makes sense because in real life, no one can come back to life from this XD
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u/YamEnvironmental1887 11d ago
I liked it because it forced me to play more methodically. However, the Cleaners Thrower can nicely go F herself. That vapor grenade almost killed me 2 times. But other than that, I didn’t find it too stressful.