I'm considering playing through the game again, once I finish Fallout 3, but want some ways to spice it up. Any ideas?

First off, I'm going to side with House, because I've never done so before.

hardcoe mode? Is it any fun?

Any other suggestions to spice it up?

I always play in hardcoe mode myself. If you don't mind keeping an eye on hunger, thirst and sleep needs, accounting for ammunition having weight and having stimpaks and other meds heal over time instead of instantly, then you'll probably like it a lot. The best thing is to just try it; you can turn hardcoe mode off at any time if you find it tedious. Vanilla hardcoe mode is not really all that hard. If you've played Fallout 3 modded with FWE and primary needs enabled, that is much tougher.

How is it implemented? Like, is it frustrating, or is realistic?

You'll have counters that track your hunger, thirst and fatigue levels. Once they hit threshold levels (200, 400, 600 and 800) you'll suffer increasing stat penalties (plus pop-up warning messages), and if any of them reach 1,000, you'll die. But they move pretty slowly, with thirst being the one that increases most quickly and sleep increasing the slowest. One thing that I find kind of annoying with vanilla hardcoe is that you have to access your Pip Boy to view these stats, but that can be easily fixed with HUD mods (if you're on the PC).

I really like the feature of adding weight to ammo. You can't mule around a dozen weapons with thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition for each one. You'll find yourself limiting it to a handful of favorite weapons with smaller amounts of ammo. I also really like having stimpaks heal over time. If your battle strategy involves charging at minigun-wielding enemies while spamming hot-keyed stimpaks, you'll need to come up with some new tactics, or be prepared to die. A lot.

I'm not on PC.

I like the fact that wieght is an issue that has to be considered when choosing Armor and Weapons. Having to occasionally check three extra Stats in the Pipboy becomes a habit, and You do get used to doing it. Choosing various locations to keep a supply of extra Ammunition makes places like "My" Shack useful.

hardcoe Mode limits My habit trying to loot everything, and has encouraged Me to try Melee and Unarmed builds instead of Energy or Gun based characters.

It makes the game harder, and forces you to pay attention to more stuff constantly.

For me, I do it because I like the challenge, but it can be very annoying at times.

Neither. It's pretty lame the way it's implemented really. My first playthrough I was awake for two days straight before suffering any sort of sleep penalty. It was the same sort of thing with Hunger and Dehydration, they hardly played a factor at all. I ended up making my own mod in order to toughen it up, as I didn't think it was really adding anything to my game.

IMO it's not too hard, but after I played HC the first time, non-HC was just too bland. As stated above, it's easy to keep up with sleep/hunger/thirst, ammo having weight makes a bigger difference.

Another big difference is your companions can die, so managing them carefully becomes important. HC makes food and crafting actually useful, instead of just a hobby.

I'm currently playing hardcoe mode right now actually and it's surprisingly fun. I thought that I'd be turning it off within a matter of minutes having never played with it on before but it has so far made it more interesting and realistic. I guess if you're into realism then go for it, but if you prefer to not have to worry about making sure you have enough food and water etc then just stick to the standard way of playing. Whatever you prefer really, but I would say give it a go, you can always turn it off anyway.

I did not like it that much and I am usually the type that likes to roll play the characters. I usually find it more annoying since the settings for the conditions seems strange.

It makes you not want to fast travel very often. That's for sure.

If you never played hardcoe before it can be a total surprise. I had trouble at the start with the ammo weight but I just learned to store the ammo I wasn't using and sell the stuff I didn't use. Its a little tricky to get used to but once you figure out what to do its a blast, I've had so much fun playing hardcoe mode that I can't go back to regular mode because its to easy. One thing I really like is that you never become to powerful you can still get your hind end handed to you at level 50 if you don't plan correctly. One tip though never play hardcoe mode on Very Hard difficulty because you will be killed by a Mantis Nymph and a Gecko. I did it and I was terrified to leave Good Springs I actually ran away from the fight during the Trouble in Good Springs quest because I kept getting killed. Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Prizrak

hardcoe mode isn't hardcoe enough! Download Project Nevada mod.

I'm not on PC.