Hardcore is not possible in 2042 - constructive criticism to fix this.

• It's a major issue when EA is marketing portal as, and I quote, "Our tools. Your rules. Battlefield™ Portal is a love letter to the most long-standing fans of the franchise. Experience the nostalgia of past Battlefield games", and yet they are missing fundamental features for us to create any experience from the past.
• Even the base game stuff like normal core conquest has issues like vehicle play is super janky right now, but I have faith that the devs can and actually will fix that. What I'm not so sure about right now is portal, and portal is the only reason I have even the slightest bit of interest in this game.
• BF4 servers are still getting populated. BF4 has reasonably balanced hardcore, great vehicle balance, great teamplay, fantastic kit balancing (ignoring the fact that ammo should still be assault's kit like in BC2, and medkit should go to support). BF4 is just the superior game right now for anyone who enjoys hardcore.
• It would be super simple for EA to fix 2042 to be the objectively superior game in every way. I know it would be a good bit of work for them, but if they are going to promote 2042 as "our tools, your rules", I expect them to give us access to just about all of the fundamental editing tools for the modes.
• It wouldn't hurt anyone to let us have this access, and it would essentially make all previous battlefield games irrelevant if we can ACTUALLY play the modes we want, on the maps we want, with the upgraded engine/gameplay/graphics of 2042. If anything it would benefit both us and EA because we would get the features we want, and they would have less people going back to old games and ignoring their new fancy game (like what happened with BF5 on a lesser scale).
• Right now I'm still recommending everyone buy BF4 instead of 2042. Would you rather pay 110 dollars for a game that feels like it is still in beta stages, with half the features that made battlefield more enjoyable than CoD stripped away from the game? Or would you rather spend 0-15 dollars on BF4 full premium depending on sales going on at the time, for a game that is completed, balanced, still has a reasonably active community, and still has our beloved features (rush, hardcore, GM, etc)?

I refunded my bf2042 until I see patch notes seeing these things corrected and recommend to all my friends that they avoid it for now. But I honestly hope the EA/DICE Devs see the comments and criticism from the fans who have been with them for over a decade and give us the power to make our game modes the way they were back in the day. You know, the way they are literally marketing it as. I would much rather be playing a next gen battlefield with the promised features that should make it the best battlefield since Bad Company 2, rather than having to play an eight year old game because it actually has the features I have grown to love.