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About this mod
The largest overhaul mod for Reforged. Reworked perks, new mechanics, balance changes, and QoL, offering a less complex/restrictive experience.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Mirrors
Introduction
Hardened is a large overhaul mod for Reforged, offering an alternate vision that stays within the bounds of savegame compatibility.
While Reforged focuses on realism and polished mechanics, Hardened embraces a simpler, more experimental approach. The submod takes more risks with innovative perk designs and mechanics, unlocking new possibilities for gameplay, though this can occasionally introduce more bugs or incompatibilities than Reforged. Hardened also walks back several of Reforged's more complex or restrictive design choices, opting for streamlined systems that prioritize fluidity and player freedom.
Hardened reflects my personal vision of a Vanilla Overhaul — a balanced, varied, and challenging experience, with enough depth and randomness to keep each playthrough fresh and unpredictable.
Features
Getting Started - What you need to know
Download
Scroll to the bottom of the Page behind the Download link and download the first .zip file from the Assets section.
It always starts with "mod_hardened_" followed by a version number.
Recommended Gameplay-Impacting Mods
These are mods, that I use myself and passively balance this mod around.
They might eventually become requirements of Hardened or their feature-set will be integrated.
Recommended Quality of Life Mods
However, new Content (beyond perks) is not in the scope of this mod
Feedback
Hardened is a large overhaul mod for Reforged, offering an alternate vision that stays within the bounds of savegame compatibility.
While Reforged focuses on realism and polished mechanics, Hardened embraces a simpler, more experimental approach. The submod takes more risks with innovative perk designs and mechanics, unlocking new possibilities for gameplay, though this can occasionally introduce more bugs or incompatibilities than Reforged. Hardened also walks back several of Reforged's more complex or restrictive design choices, opting for streamlined systems that prioritize fluidity and player freedom.
Hardened reflects my personal vision of a Vanilla Overhaul — a balanced, varied, and challenging experience, with enough depth and randomness to keep each playthrough fresh and unpredictable.
Features
- Simplified Reach Mechanic and Double Grip effect
- Shields are destructible again
- 6 New Perks
- ~100 Perks are tweaked or reworked
- ~50 Weapons and Shields are tweaked
- ~50 Body Armors are rebalanced
- A few hundred other adjustments to enemies, ai, perk trees, skills and general mechanics
- A plethora of Quality of Life improvements; several of them are optional
- Dozens of minor Vanilla Fixes, including the removal of several cheese strategies
- A complete documentation of every single change of Hardened in one searchable file and a side-by-side perk comparison of adjusted perks
Getting Started - What you need to know
- This is a Submod of Reforged, so you need to install Reforged first
- This mod is primarily available on Github
- This allows me to deliver updates and fixes quicker
- Once downloaded you will be able to keep up-to-date via the MSU update notifications ingame
- You can also book-mark the releases/latest page, as it will always point to the latest release
- You can add or remove Hardened at any time on existing savegames
- This is useful, when comparing changes or debugging an issue you are encountering (which mod is causing it)
- The severe changes to perks may result in bricked builds (until you switch back)
- Also Perk Groups can't be identified correctly anymore on already generated characters (until you switch back)
- You will potentially encounter more bugs and mod incompatibilities than with regular Reforged
- That is because this is a solo-project, there are less eyes reviewing and discussing implementations
- That is because this is a solo-project, there are less eyes reviewing and discussing implementations
- This mod is roughly 30% harder than Reforged
- Don't expect to cruise through it on the same difficulty settings you use in base Reforged
- Don't expect to cruise through it on the same difficulty settings you use in base Reforged
- If you come from Vanilla and are interested in this mod I recommend starting directly with it
- That way you don't have to re-learn most mechanics and perks
- Also the mechanics and perks in this mod should be easier to learn in the first place
- Unfortunately there is no complete documentation of every change, when jumping Vanilla -> Hardened. Instead you need to refer to Reforged Playerhandbook and then the Hardened Changelist
Download
Scroll to the bottom of the Page behind the Download link and download the first .zip file from the Assets section.
It always starts with "mod_hardened_" followed by a version number.
Recommended Gameplay-Impacting Mods
These are mods, that I use myself and passively balance this mod around.
They might eventually become requirements of Hardened or their feature-set will be integrated.
- Configurable Pause prevents the need to play at lowest world speed for countering ambushes. I consider those vanilla ambushes a gotcha and bad design and intend to bring them back in a different way, that does not require lightning reflexes
- Prepare for Battle prevents the need to optimize loadout ahead of any possible battle imaginable
- Line of Sight Fix makes line of sight more consistent and allows hills to be used as cover
- Poise System increases the depth of the stun mechanic, making it harder to stun some lategame enemies and more accessible to mitigate enemy stuns
- Turn it in allows you to return noble contracts in any town
Recommended Quality of Life Mods
- Reforged already has a good list for this
- Otherwise I suggest to look into the mods made by Endur1el, TaroEld and Myself for ones you might like
- Touch up several of the yet unchanged Reforged Perks (e.g. Cleaver, Bow, Crossbow)
- Rebalance of Body Armor and Helmets stats
- Rework stats and spawn-behavior of many more Enemies
- And hundreds of other minor ideas that I brainstormed over time and not yet had time to implement
However, new Content (beyond perks) is not in the scope of this mod
Feedback
- I mainly need feedback regarding balance (what is too weak/too strong), cheese mechanics/exploits, bugs and mod compatibilities.
- For suggestions its ideal to first suggest them to Base-Reforged. If they get implemented there, they will be available for both user-bases. I will see and read through those too
- The best way to give feedback is via the Reforged Discord Server. Hardened has a Thread in the Submods section for discussion and feedback.
- Technical feedback, like Bugs or Compatibility issues can also be posted as Issues on the mods Github page
- If you are not sure. which mod is causing a bug you are encountering (Hardened or Reforged), I kindly ask you to remove Hardened and check again, before reporting the issue