What is Hardcore?

Back from the memory hole. Hopefully no other clans are watching close enough to STEAL OUR SECRETS >:O

Or, how I learned to start thinking and love Den Kirson.

With the hardcore KC op coming up, I think it's worth talking about a few things. First, if you haven't already, sign up here for Friday's op so we can get teams organized ahead of time.

Next, I think it's worth thinking about how hardcore kill confirmed is different from normal kill confirmed, and how that might influence our gameplay. The basic facts:

• Hardcore also means having 30 hit points instead of 100. These HP also don't regenerate.
• Hardcore means no HUD, so no hipfire reticle, no minimap, no ammo counter, not even a score counter.
• There is no killcam, just a second where the camera points at the guy who killed you.
• In Kill Confirmed, there is also no respawn timer, so you instantly spawn whether you want to or not.
• Richochet Friendly Fire. If you hurt a teammate, you take the damage yourself.

We'll tackle these in reverse order, since the last ones have fewer ramifications. Wall of text after the jump.

Ricochet is pretty self-explanatory, though it does make things like the Predator less useful for bootstrapping to higher killstreaks - if you accidentally predator one of your teammates, your killstreak is toast.

The forced spawns make HC KC a much faster gametype - if you think about a Hardcore Team Tactical TDM game, with its 15 second respawn timer, even if your team mows down all 4 on the enemy team the instant they spawn, you'll have to kill their team 19 times to get the 75 points for the win. That's almost 5 minutes just waiting for them to respawn. This gets cut down somewhat if you're playing a team of 6, but you get the idea. Given the fact that HC also kills people much faster and KC will have you rushing in to get tags, you need to watch your (and your teammates'!) back VERY carefully, as spawns can flip fast.

The lack of killcams leads to the overgrowth of Arbuscula prona, commonly known as the Prone Bush-Man. This is less of a problem in KC, because they have to move to get tags, but if you get sniped coming down a corridor, you will never, ever win a rematch unless you saw EXACTLY where he shot you from. Flank another direction.

The lack of HUD is fairly interesting, I think. It makes UAVs much more powerful, since you have to call one in in order to get a minimap, and likewise makes counter-UAV a stronger option. It also makes Assassin a weaker perk, because there are way fewer motion sensors, and there's much more incentive to run things like Hardline to get more UAV support. Dead Silence and SitRep Pro obviously get much, much stronger because people rely on sound more in the absence of a minimap. Steady Aim  can be either much more or much less powerful, depending on how good you are at hipfiring without the reticle. The lack of HUD also makes a lot of air support deadlier because people have a harder time telling where they can safely hide from a helicopter or reaper until it's too late.

Finally, the HP. This is a huge game-changer, since it makes a number of weapons which are not competitive in core into very useful ones. The MP9 is an excellent example; it has the same 1.75x sprint modifier as the USAS, but using it in core is difficult because it can be up to a 6 hit kill. Not so in hardcore, where at very close range it is actually a 1-hit kill, though at longer ranges it can still take a few. Other guns which get greatly improved are the MK14, Dragunov, and AS50, which are all now one-hit kills at nearly any range, as well as all the LMGs. I guess it's also worth mentioning the Deagle, which is less terrible in HC, but... please don't use it during the op. >_<

Another entire set of weapons which get hugely buffed in HC are explosives - the grenade/rocket launchers, precision airstrikes, and thrown grenades all kill at much larger ranges, besides also being harder to dodge due to the lack of grenade indicator. This is also helps SitRep, because it will highlight incoming grenades in red.

Finally, the only thing I know of which works completely differently in hardcore than in core: ballistic vests. All the numbers in this post have been taken from Den Kirson's forum, and their testing on ballistic vests is extremely interesting: basically, in core, vests give you an extra 50 or so HP, which will let you survive an extra bullet or two. I think everyone is reasonably familiar with this. In hardcore, vests do several things: one, they let you regenerate HP. Two, they still absorb 50 damage before disappearing, but the kicker is that as long as your vests have even one hit point left, you will not take any damage to your normal HP. Basically, a single vest will save you from a Barret headshot, even if it's already taken two long-range MP9 bullets. Pair this with health regeneration, and vests are practically an I WIN button in one on one fights.

Anyway, those are some things I've been thinking about recently. If you have any hardcore tips or tricks you think we should know about, don't be shy! Comment!

PS remember to sign up for the op on Friday!