The new so-called "hardcore mode" is a huge disappointment and here's why (a thorough look)

First of all for everyone ootl, hardcore mode is a new difficulty mode that was found in PTS game files, deactivated for now. You can activate and try it via maprunner's save editor. Here's a list of things hardcore mode brings to the game:

• You will have to pay for your fuel & repairs (not in the game);
• You will have to pay for your vehicle deployment (a deployment from Truck Storage cost general payment penalties);
• You will have to pay for your vehicle recovery (general payment penalties);
• You will have to pay every time you load cargo automatically ($100 per cargo);
• You will not be able to sell your trailers and semies;
• You will sell your trucks and equipment for half it's price;
• Contest will be restricted in the number of tries you make;
• You will have to search for the facilities with the cargo you need by yourself (this probably means that map won't show you a warehouse if the watchtower that covers it wasn't unlocked);
• You will not be able to skip time

(General payment penalties for vehicles depending on their type: Scout - $250; Highway - $500; Offroad/Heavy Duty - $1000; Heavy - $2000)

Problem №1: Game throws money at you like it's nothing

I've completed the game without ever selling a trailer back(!) while for the first 50 hours not even knowing you can sell upgrades, and right now I'm on the $2kk (with my vehicles worth another $700k). And that's with me experimenting a bit here and there and losing money I could've not lost. Right now we're all familiar with the game, we know what things to do first, which trucks and upgrades to buy, which routs to take and the best way to use money.

At their best, the current payment restrictions will make you to be careful for the first 3-5 hours, before you'll earn your first $50k-buffer from selling all the vehicles you can get right from the start and you won't run out of money ever again. And don't forget that some people have DLC trucks to sell. The Navistar truck (a pre-order bonus) costs $140k, that's literally starting a new game with +$70k and basically nullifying all money restrictions.

In conclusion, the economy system in this game is enormously unbalanced and always favors the player. It wasn't a big problem in the base game because real limitations came from the ranking system, where various vehicles and upgrades were locked until you actually did some in-game progression. But when you're making 2/3 of the restrictions based off a broken system those restrictions are gonna be broken too.

Problem №2: There's a workaround for most of the restrictions

The more fundamental problem with the hardcore mode that it doesn't make the game more interesting, only more tedious. Let's look at the "paying for vehicle deployment"-feature from the game design perspective and how it impacts the gameplay.

Firstly, this penalty can be avoided most of the time by just driving your trucks to the a different garage. Now is that an exciting addition to a Snowrunner gameplay, driving on an asphalt road with no challenge? Secondly, it locks you in one region until you're done with it, which means no change of scenery until you do all the contracts (it's not a gameplay necessity, but rather an aesthetic one - spending 20+ hours in one region will probably bore the hell out of you). And btw it's still won't stop you from going to Taymyr and buying that OP Azov in the early game.

Let's analyze another one, manual cargo loading. Is being forced to manually load cargo challenging? It can be, but only when you're dealing with a big 4-slot cargo like a large pipe, because now you need to bring an additional truck to crane it (which you didn't before). So 95% of the time you just gonna be doing manual loading for light cargo (which you won't btw cos cash is endless) and when it'll come to those "gameplay-changing" loads you'll just do it automatically.

Problem №3: Finding the fun

Let's open this can of worms and think about what makes a fun Snowrunner experience. Not for the new players. For those, who already have beaten the game, who knows it's every nook and cranny, for whom the game poses no real challenge anymore like it use to.

The fun is getting a player out of his comfort zone, forcing him to try things he haven't tried before (because there was always an easier solution), forcing player to play in a new way while completely removing that easier solution he was always going for (yes, removing it, not making him pay for it with endless in-game money). For example, turning off manual cargo for >=2-slot cargo. Turning off recoveries (or limiting them to something like 3 per region), so the player had more chances to interact with more challenging environment.

Revisiting restrictions

Let's go over that early list and see what those restrictions actually bring to the game and how they will impact the gameplay

• You will have to pay for your vehicle deployment
Virtually meaningless since you have tons of cash. Brings less region changing (which poses no challenge) and more garage-to-garage asphalt driving (which poses no challenge)

• You will have to pay for your fuel & repairs
• You will have to pay for your vehicle recovery
• You will not be able to sell your trailers and semies
• You will sell your trucks and equipment for half it's price
Virtually meaningless since you have tons of cash

• You will have to pay every time you load cargo automatically (100$ per cargo);
Virtually meaningless since you have tons of cash and can be avoided by manual loading (which poses no challenge)

• Contest will be restricted in the number of tries you make;
A fine addition in itself, tho really hard contests are rare and you still won't fail them unless you crash

• You will have to search for the facilities with the cargo you need by yourself
Virtually meaningless since you'll be doing watchtowers first anyways and/or you already know where all the warehouses are

• You will not be able to skip time
This is a one and only good addition which will force players to pick tacks/contracts and routes(!) depending on the time of day (I mean you can find a way to sort of cheese this too, but still not to the full extent)

Conclusion

Let me make this clear, I don't have a personal vision of a "perfect" hardcore mode in my head that will please only me. I don't have a specific list of features I want devs to implement. Even tho impact is minimal, half of the current restrictions are fine on their own, it's just not enough to make it worth a second playthrough where everything will literally be the same for the 95% of the time.

Make restrictions that will force player to experience parts of gameplay they haven't fully experience yet due to the obvious easy solutions. Take those solutions away, make the players try new things and different approaches. Don't force repetition of the more tedious (aka not challenging) parts of the game, force repetition of the core challenging gameplay.

last edited by jigsaw_3

I agree with one point: "Make restrictions that will force player to experience parts of gameplay they haven't fully experience yet due to the obvious easy solutions. "

I personally would LOVE being able to reset a map and get a statistics how much money in trucks left the garage, how many miles driven and what time till 100%. Similar to the COOP statistics.

I do not need a dammn "Hardcore" mode telling me what NOT to do. I expect with respect to "You will have to search for the facilities with the cargo you need by yourself" even a better UI showing me each destination accepting a certain cargo type. Because there is a difference if you clean a map with a 2070A or with a Tayga never leaving AUTO. With the new crafting system, there is a request for metal rolls, but to craft - you need steel bars. For example. And I currently do not see directly where steel bars are available. Its a driving game, not "memory".

Half of the game is similiar to the travelling salesman problem. Allow some stats as time, milage, fuel, money_spent and so on. Suddenly "logistics" and "generic route planning" as well as knowing shortcuts and "micromanagement" of your path play an important role for the overall result.

Edit: You may even THINK that resetting a map after It was cleaned to 100% unlocks "the hardcore mode" with additional difficulty such as "recover, major repairs and fuel do cost money..." and you get a statistics page at the end for YOUR score on that map. And I really hope that foolproof "auto everything" vehicles do get a lower score than more difficult one. As there is a quality difference between a ZIKZ/STEP and the Azov 64/Tayga.

last edited by JTT

@jigsaw_3

Let me rebute your problems:
Problem 1:
-You have to remember that you will have to pay for ALL fuel and repairs (from what was said on discord), even refuel and repairs in the garage.
-You will get only half of the value from selling trucks and addons.
-Starter trucks wont be able to go trough the whole game, you will need to buy or find new trucks to be able to progress
-NONE of the values are final.

Problem 2:
-From my understanding, the game was meant to be played one region at time. If you are going to russia, buying the Azov, first, you might not have the money to do that, second, you are doing it by a decision of yours, its like using a walkthrough to finish a game. The devs cant stop you from taking shortcuts and shouldn't, you should be able to play the game the way you want.
-Manual cargo, is it challenging? No, but remember that to do it you have to keep your engine running, spending fuel and as consequence, spending money because you dont get free refuel anymore.
-Cash is not endless, i dont know were you got that from. Yeah, its easy to get a good amount of money, but early to mid game i was tight on cash. Even selling some trucks i didn't needed to buy others i wanted.

Problem 3:
-No. Just no. Forcing the player by removing things is not a good idea. Its dumb (imo) and a easy way to make the players just not play that mode. Hardcore mode should be HARD but not stupid. Yes, recoveries shouldnt be cheap, but having them removed should not be something that should be forced upon the player. You can get stuck due a bug and need to recover. If you cant, do you think it would be fun? No. Turning off Automatic cargo loading is also not a good idea, there are some cargo areas you cant manually load, for example.

Revisions comments:
1- Most of your problems, in your opinion, come from the player having too much money. You have to remember that you will have to pay for fuel and repair and you wont get as much money from selling trucks and addons (and currently, the idea is getting none from selling trailers). You just wont have money sitting there collecting dust.

2- Cargo loading: is the price for auto loading low? Yes. Is manual loading hard? Depends on the cargo, place and truck. Is it meaningless? No. What could be done to improve it, imo, is two things: make the cargos have a better weight and have them have some sort of damage or something like that, so you have to be more careful and precise with the cargo loading.

3- warehouses and the like: sometimes watch towers dont reveal everything, and even if they do, in hardcore mode, they might not show the locations of the the "warehouses" or what they have avaible to load, so you have to drive to there to check what they have.

4- You will not be able to skip time:
How does that forces players to choose wich contracts/task to pick? Driving at night is barelly harder since your character doesnt get tired, the path is still the same as at day and there is no traffic or anything that you might not see. And remember that no contract is timed. Only contests and these are the only ones that would have any difference from driving at night or day.

Your conclusion:
-you complained and complained and barelly offered any solution. Complaining about something and not having a suggestion for how it could be improved is barelly helpfull.

I don't like this hardcore mode. I am keen to use all possible combinations in the game. I suggested adding a new game+ for the same reason when the game was first released. And this hardcore mode tends to force players to choose the most efficient few, and in the end it is likely that the very unbalanced mod is doing everything.

@blackjack01 it will be a optional mode. You are not forced to use it. And mods shouldn't be considered. Devs cant account for mods when making things

last edited by racheltgg

@jigsaw_3

hiw tou can judge wip and call it “broken”?!
its still wip!...

a never had tons of cash, money is scarce in sr, and HM will bring more immersion and permadeath feeling

anyway we all can skip HM and enjoy base game

I kind of agree with the original poster, I want real challenge, something that will make me plan out my routes and ideas while I'm in bed, I want true hardcore experience , cockpit cab view only, pop a tire and continue to drive with popped tire will steadily drain money from you , fuel prices based on average per region in real world prices , need a rebuilt engine ? $15,000 ,

Other interesting thing they should add to make hardcore more appealing is to ban American trucks on Russia and Russian trucks on America or atleast include a big tax to deploy the trucks in other region outside the country.
Something like for example 25% the value of the truck in the store to deploy a Russian truck in America(and vice versa), so for example deploy a P12 in Taymir will cost you 31650 if my calculations are correct (25% of 126600).

And in terms of the functioning of the garages, I think that at least enter on the garage should repair your truck but not to the max, they should repair it the amount of points needed to repair a scout complety but not a truck.
And I think they should add in the outside of the garage one fuel storage tank(outside the garages there are already fuel tanks modeled) where we can refuel our vehicles but when the storage be emptied we must drive to the fuel station and buy more fuel to refill our storage tank.

last edited by treneroefc

As mentioned in the other thread regarding repairs:

What about your garage creating a certain amount of repair points per time? If you exceed that - you either pay for external help OR you have to wait. Wanna have a different engine? Truck locked, same with major repairs. As each part of the Gearbox/Engine has a "criticality level" you may simply determine, how much is needed as "regular service" and how much is "badly damaged".

Personally I think, that the service cab/repair should be different than the maintenance addon/trailer. And not being "something with fuel and/or points in it".

I do not like the idea of strictly forbidding US trucks in russia and vice versa. Because its up to you doing so. If you want a challenge and use something different than a ZIKZ (with a shit suspension) or the step - what do yo take? The Voron AE is already better than any US Truck as the Paystar or 114SD. I even used a 2070A on Kola and Imandra for some jobs. Plainly to see if that works at all. And not to mention, that upgrades for russian trucks can be found on US maps and vice versa. Makes sense. NOT.

Regarding "selling" trucks for "half the price": What about undisputed totally shitty trucks as the Derry 45 or the SD114? Try & sell is normally no problem, but with these restrictions "hefty".

That stops people from changing trucks and trying/doing something different. Which will end up in always using the sam etrucks over and over. If you look at snowrunner streamers - how may always use the Tayga/AZOV64 for transports and the TUZ420 to scout? That are the most boring trucks in the game.

Edit: With respect to repair/service cost - I even like the idea of having "service/repair" cost depending on the pricetag or a "performance/flexibility" index. So a powerful and modern truck would be more expensive to maintain and repair than an old one. Implies, that the pricetag has something to do with power and options. Unlike the SD114/M916/Derry 45. Some Russian trucks as the Voron Grad and Tayga as well as some Kolobs must be much more expensive and some US ones way cheaper. With unable to "simply sell" a truck - whats exactly the point of the M916 in the game? Its a small 6x6 with bad stability and mediocre engine. Only suitable for semis. Beaten by any Voron and even the Step300 with respect to power and flexibility.

The other option would be to allow more XP per job, the "lower the pricetag" of a truck is. Again, the pricetag should have a correlation with the flexibility and performance. But THAT would reward players the most taking not always the most OP trucks. And with respect to service, a cheap truck would again pay off. So making something work would be a reward and not "your fault using that shit" feeling.

last edited by JTT

@JTT I think without some restrictions in the the trucks(american trucks ban in Rusia and vice versa) the hardcore mode would be the same as the normal mode but earning less money and progresing slowly but in the end the same as the normal mode and you will end using the same trucks. Hardcore mode should be a mode that takes you out of your confort zone and reaward your good decisions.

Maybe ban complety the trucks out of his country is to radical, and it makes more sense an intermediate solution like the implementation of and import Tax (for example 25% the value of the truck you wanna import) that way right at the begginig you don't have the enough money to import a beast from other country but as you progress in the game eventually you will be able to import it, that will made the starting of the game and your company more challenging.

And yes maybe they should implement the cost for the repair proportional to the current truck value, so some trucks will be cheaper to repair than others and that added to the thing that some trucks consume more fuel(and fuel will cost) than others creates the concept of "Operational cost" of the truck.
You can still do the job with any truck you want but if you know that the task pays you 1000, you don't want to do the job with a truck with a higher operational cost(repair+fuel) than that.
Making you chosse the trucks for the task between earn more money but suffer a little more or earn less and do it easy.
And maybe that will find at last a niche use to the highway trucks that presumably will have the lowest operational cost of all trucks.

last edited by treneroefc

Good point. An "Import Tax" for a truck in the "wrong region" would solve the problem of rushing to drowned lands and getting the Tayga.

But regarding fuel consumption: Currently, AWD has a fuel penalty. But: Its only for MANUAL Awd. So of you have a truck with a good fuel consumption as well as AUTO AWD - hard to beat.

Look at the Paystar 5070 as the first US "real" Offroad truck: 150K Torque with a Fuel Consumption of 7.0. AWD penalty: 1.4 for the offroad gearboxes AWD.

Take the Voron AE: Auto-AWD with no penalty. Weakest Engine: 160K Torque with a base fuel consumption of 6.5, the best one has 200K and FC of 8.5. As it has automatic AWD - no penalty. Any questions which one will be cheaper if you have to pay for fuel? Not asking for "pricetag" of the truck.

last edited by JTT

auto awd is a bulshit, vorons-urals dont have perma awd, as well as 90% of perma awd SR vehicles

@Stazco that is pretty minor really, awd or selectable. it has no bearing on the game what so ever. i really can't even think how this would effect hardcore mode. we all need to realise they can make a pretty model. but they do not know jack sh8te about mechanics they cant even configure a transfer case correctly. have you seen how they modeled it ? they no even less about physics. but they know how to make a pretty map and pretty models. even if they are underpowered and mechanically ass backwards lol and can't fix the bugs lol and ignore us ........... and they don't play the game themselves.......

last edited by barefootbob

@treneroefc how is any of that " hard core " ? that's just making the game irritating. The vanillas are already underpowered for what they are. good trucks get screwed by there ignorance of physics. restrictions of tires and wheel combos. hapless engines. you don't need "them" to create your own hardcore scenario. there is no one to compete against therefore how one uses or chooses to use a particular truck has no bearing on the situation. if you want the added challenge of accounting and monitoring cash flow i guess that is an option that would be more "realistic" not " hardcore" hardcore would be taking the imandra map and making it twice as hard.

you can take any of these trucks restrict them down. or only use what you think would make it challenging. To me it is already hardcore you have to try and play a game in spite of the bugs that plague the game. physics that make NO sense. and complete the game. and after using mods i won't hardly use the vanilla trucks. and the mods i do use i avoid most OP mods and try to keep them restricted to the same speeds as the vanillas and compensate most of the retarded physics with the better wheel tire combos.

what is crappy is the american trucks do not get decent wheel tire combos. and motors that can make the power. that's why the taiga and the voron ( i/e kraz and ural ) get chased after immediately. or the 8x8s which are also russian. not to mention they don't get the benefit of stability.

I dont really like myself their "vision" on a hardcore mode.
I dont mind paying for recoveries, fuel and repairs. Seems easy enough and can force me to think twice in some situations

What i would expect from a hardcore mode would be more "gameplay" related. For example
. Remove all perma AWD and perma difflocks that are not a true thing for the vehicle
. Remove the ability to set waypoints. Or set a very low limit to their number
. They need to improve the navigation system to compensate the disappearance of waypoints. Add a compass on the main screen
. You will have to search for the facilities with the cargo you need by yourself. i currently have some good hopes this one will mean what i think, ie you wont have map markers when you pick a mission about where to go to grab the cargo you need. This will "just" force me to manually look through the map where are the facilities i need to go. Its just a time sink, but i can like it
. Make all cargos heavier. Using overweight cargos mods since they appeared on modio, i can say this is definitly the best improvement for a more challenging experience
. I really much dislike the contests limitation. Because there is times i need cash. And "farming contests" is the only way
They should add daily/weekly contests then

Its just a few things i see, as i type them.
One thing i expect is all those hardcore rules will be in some xml, so totally moddable.
Also, this is Saber first take on "hardcore mode", and fact its currently disabled means its a very early work in progress, and will most probably receive a lot of changes before it goes live

Hey everyone! We appreciate the feedback on this, but please keep in mind that this list is datamined information and not a confirmation of anything, even the feature as a whole. While speculation can be fun, keep in mind that we've had lists like this in previous builds where that feature ended up looking completely different, and even where it didn't arrive at all.

When anything official is confirmed, we will let you know! 🙂

great job, so-called “community members”...because of YOU game may lose HM at all, so we all stuck at main game even without new game+.
so next time think, try, play, test, and later let us know about your freaking “huge disappointments”

@Stazco where the hell do you get "we" may loose hardcore mode? Cause ppl are talking about it? Telling they dislike or they are disapointed? This post wont endanger any plan for hc mode. Its early community feedback, devs taking temperature. Dont be worried... if HC is in reflexion, such posts wont change the outcome

last edited by Tazmanyak

@Tazmanyak Again, this list is not a confirmation of anything coming.

@Stazco said in The new so-called "hardcore mode" is a huge disappointment and here's why (a thorough look):

...because of YOU game may lose HM at all

:smiling_face_with_open_mouth_cold_sweat:
I don´t think devs would be childish like that. But one thing is clear, after all this discussion - whatever they might release as a hardcore mode someone will always be very disappointed... Can´t please everybody.

Also keep in mind there are still a lot of bugs to fix and content to be released, which should have priority. And those who are looking forward to have a more painfull SR-experience aka "hardcore mode" are only a small minority of the players still. Although I gotta say a vocal one. 😉

last edited by bellerophon