Hard mode broken?

[Dizman7]

I went to try Hard Mode, turned on the mod, and loaded up the city I've been working on since launch (about 55k pop, making $28k a week, have about $4mil).

At first I noticed the big difference is people are more picky, as soon as there is a corpse or a little bit of garbage they complain instantly (the little icons above the buildings). Which was fine, though I quickly went from $28k a week to -$5k a week, it began to stablize and go back up to around $5k a week after a while and a few tweaks. Not bad so far in my opinion.

But then I noticed an area complianing about land value to low, and then another, and another, and another. The area I decided to focus on, was already near maxed for land value, and so was the 2nd area I looked at. As I investigate and pondered this, their little icons quickly turned red, meaning they were really mad that land value was not going up. Then before I knew it in droves all the buildings started going abandon left and right. My weekly population change quickly turned to -6,500 ppl per week!

I quit shortly thereafter. So it seems to not fail in hard mode EVERY area in your town has to be max land value?! That seems higly unrealistic, and not how I want to make my city either. I don't want a city where every area is highest land value, and moreso I don't want a city where I have to artifically spam parks and what not all over too.

Granted I only tried it for a good 30mins, but that seems like what was going on, but feel free to correct me. It's a shame too, because normal seems too easy past the first 30mins or so, so I was hoping for a mode that made money a bit more valuable but I don't think I've found it yet.

 

[CreepyD666]

If you were on hard mode from the beginning, you wouldn't have this issue.
You'd also build to what money you have, so wouldn't have money issues either.

I recently took my 10k pop city and turned off hard mode to see what happens.. Masses of building upgrades, literally every building was suddenly going up 1-2 levels.
They are just more picky on hard.

You're seeing the opposite effect, but unfortunately buildings don't downgrade, they go abandoned, making turning on hard mode midway through impossible really.

If you want to play hard mode, you need to start a new city.

PErsonally I like hard mode having seen how easily buildings get upgraded without it on.

 

[Dizman7]

Hmmm, that's good to know. So you're saying the areas where I had the highest buildings....on hard they would not be that upgraded yet? That makes sense. Though really didn't want to have to start over as I've spent a LOT of time on this city. But that makes as to why it can't really work mid way thru a game.

I dunno if I like reasons that you like hard mode. On Vanilla I have a huge office park that I've spent a LOT of time one, and I still can't get the buildings to max lvl yet. Granted I don't just spam parks though, I like to have an organic layout.

But ok, you make valid points, that makes sense now why it all fell apart.

Thanks!

 

[Mithkabob]

The hard mode mod is kinda sloppy. It really kills demand. And yes, it will make it very hard to get level 5 houses because of land value. Also, there is currently a bug in the modding API (will be fixed next release) that causes offices to call the industry code instead, so the hard mode mod actually makes it easier to level the offices to 3 at the moment. Loading it up in an existing town is a bad idea (so is loading up any mod that adjusts things like that because you can cause an abandonment wave).