Hardcore 10.0 & 10.1 & 10.2 (jun 1, 2020 – jul 1, 2021)

Description:

In March 2020, the server saw a large increase in players due to the global COVID-19 pandemic changing most schools and jobs to be remote as people self-quarantined in their homes. This resulted in many players completing hardcore in March and April of that year. Staff determined that HC needed to be updated as soon as possible to account for the larger player base. While most HC designs are usually spread out over several months, HC 10.0 was designed in only four weeks, and implemented in another three weeks.

This design featured similar segments to 9.0, but changed the logic of the branching paths. Players could completely avoid one map type, but would play challenging levels that used the other two primary map types, as well as adventure maps of the corresponding types. Players could switch between the paths at any time without playing a loopback map. This version also adds a fourth section in-between the paths and the final gauntlet. It was named "The Big Three", since all 3 of the maps in that section are fairly challenging, with checkpoints between every level.

This design also saw the exit of two maps heavily used in Hardcore since their introduction in 2011:

Lava maze returned to FFA, after having been in hardcore since 2016, and in every version of hardcore except HC 6.0.
Elusion was retired from HC, having been replaced by a remastered version. Elusion had been in several versions of HC by this point (3.0 through 6.0 & 9.0).
This design was lead by Hex and AJDJ.

Hardcore 10.0 was later updated to 10.1 to address balance issues with the three paths. In particular, the path of Tenacity was only completed once in HC10.0. Some other adjustments were made as well including replacing Paisley Prison with Construction, and making the entire final section no-sprint. In November 2020, it was updated to 10.2 to address additional difficulty issues. Overall, HC was made slightly easier to complete. The most notable change was removing Telepads.

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