>do a new run on survival difficulty and in hardcore mode
>have a few close calls but make it to level 30~
>actually die once
>it wasn't hardcore, you can just reload your last save
I'm not sure how to feel. On the other hand I died for a pretty stupid reason so it feels good not to lose all my progress over it but knowing it's not hardcore sucks some of the fun out of it because I enjoyed the thrill of potential permadeath and not being able to be incredibly reckless all the time.