The majority of this guide is written by Username, mazunki, @ERRORMONSTER#8764 of the discord community with modernisation by @Zxv#0157 / Zxv975 / /u/Zxv975. If you have any questions, or if anything is wrong, please make sure to reach out to any of us. Feel free to edit the guide or add anything to it as needed.
. There is a secondary challenge, 12b, which means you may not buy any Bank slots, and are limited to the 12 provided to you by default. This is a popular additional challenge and most of the guide is directly applicable to 12b players (albeit with a lot more bank management).
To create a HCCO account, one can create a typical hardcore account and abstain from all non-combat skills. Alternatively, through the official mod manager one can use the Combat Only Account Mod to create an account with non-combat skills completely disabled and hidden. This mod offers the option for a mediumcore version, which is identical but doesn't have permadeath (you still lose one random item on death). This is different to a Standard account (aka Softcore), which has a different combat triangle that is less punishing and has health regen. Most of this guide will assume HC and therefore will sometimes be overly conservative for a softcore account.
There are currently no tangible differences between either of these options for playing HCCO mode, and one can convert between gamemodes through the use of mods. It is recommended to use the mod for MCCO or HCCO mode for the most immersive experience, as the community will add unique content specifically designed for CO in future, including a CO option in the collection log.
Preface
Food is vital to a HCCO account, and your first food source (and one that you will be relying on for quite a while) is Plants. Starting out, you should fight Plants for the Potatoes they drop and to increase your combat levels.
: All three combat skills are very useful to level in their own ways.
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Attack
increases your chance to hit and unlocks new weapons to use,
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Strength
increases your maximum hit, and
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Defence
increases your chance to not get hit (which saves you food). In general, they should all be leveled equally.
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Defence
should be the first combat skill that you level, as it greatly reduces the amount of damage that you will take from Plants (roughly by half).
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Attack
should be second,
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Strength
should be last. Since you have a low chance to hit, it’s more important to level
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Attack
rather than
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Strength
.
Weapons in this game have different attack speeds depending on their type. Daggers attack quickly, with an attack speed of 2.2 seconds, and Battleaxes attack slowly, with an attack speed of 3.1 seconds, for instance. Weapons that attack more slowly also deal more damage per hit and weapons that hit quickly usually do less damage per hit.
There are different styles in the game, depending on the weapon you’re wielding. Melee weapons, which will be our main focus initially, have Stab, Slash and Block. Each style gets a bonus to the accuracy rating depending on the specific weapon. Swords usually have a better stabbing accuracy, while scimitars are better at slashing, for instance.
The style you choose will also give you experience towards the combat skill in question: Stabbing gives
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Attack
experience, Slashing gives
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Strength
experience, while Blocking is used to train
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Defence
. At the start, you’ll have to eat manually to ensure that you won’t die. Later on, you will unlock