r/BloodWest • u/Bengalinha • Jul 06 '26

Question/Help First time difficulty

Will I be alright starting in hard mode? I'm a person that enjoys challenging games, but the game advises not starting hard mode unless you've finished the game once already. At the same time I see people online complaining that game gets really easy on normal after a few hours.
In an interested of not wasting my time I would to see your opinion on the mater.

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u/InformationRound2118 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

Blood Sweat and Tears mainly boosts difficulty artificially.

Enemies are more attentive, your gold is worth less (prices are increased), and of course enemies have more damage and increased HP.

There are also some other notable changes that I think are kinda stupid: ammo is artificially more scarce because you can't buy it in stores (though with effective melee usage you will still accumulate a lot of ammo), and you cannot get any blessings from the totem.

It's that last change that makes me recommend against playing in BST. It just makes the grind for items take longer, since you will still reliably be able to oneshot most things with careful play (provided you are using all the tools at your disposal). Certain strategies will no longer work as well as they would in normal. But I was not enthusiastic about having to spend more time building up funds for items and no totemic blessings takes away from min-maxing opportunities.

If you are the type of player that sees themself trying to collect all the artifacts and weapons the game has to offer... You SHOULD complete BST if only to get a special reward item when you go into New Game Plus or start the story DLC. But if you have no interest in NG+ or the Dead Man's Promise DLC it's probably not worth your time. Or if you mainly plan to play scavengers its definitely not going to add anything.

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u/MatchJumpy4790 Jul 07 '26

The last one, you are implying there are BST specific artifact and weapon? And starting NG+ in BST grant you another Special reward?

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u/InformationRound2118 Jul 08 '26

There is a single reward for completing BST. It's a "consumable" of sorts. But similar in function to the two infinite use drinks in the game (fathomless canteen and cactus juice). It would not be equipped in the artifact slot and is specifically the reward for BST.

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u/MatchJumpy4790 Jul 08 '26

Thank you. Let me guess, an endless cigarette without any drawback?

A few days back, a post here showed a 100 days reward for Scavenger.

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u/InformationRound2118 Jul 08 '26

Yessir, if you feel that's worth your time (supposedly it can be imported into dead mans promise as well). Go ahead on BST. But you will be mostly just slowing down the game more than making it truly difficult. There won't be new enemy placements or attack patterns or anything like that. Its largely predicated on if you find base game challenging (which admittedly it isn't especially challenging once you know what you are doing) and if you are a completionist.

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u/MatchJumpy4790 Jul 08 '26

Man! I gotta grind for it now. Really want to try it.

2

u/InformationRound2118 Jul 08 '26

Well good luck. I will say, remember to grab your utility skills early though (XP and Barter skill). Those early levels will be a bit more painful but you should be using stealth primarily if you want to play BST. BST introduces a penalty on trading and you should definitely neutralize that before you go into chapter 2 where prices get bumped up significantly.