Quote Originally Posted by easytarget View Post
that's only part of what changed, and while it might of been the primary result in 3, in what he calls 4, which i assume is new vegas, the harder setting adds realism by reintroducing the effects of not eating, drinking or sleeping, which meant you needed to take into consideration elements which any survivalist would actually need to plan for, and it also made pretty much everything at the outset more dangerous and realistically restricted some of your options about where you would safely consider going
Hardcore mode was independent of the difficulty setting.