Quest, and ONLY quest. If you do any of the following, someone will tell you you’re wrong:
-Dungeon logging
-AoE grinding
-Use any enchants
-Using petri
-Using layering
Remember, if you’re not questing, you’re wrong. If you use enchants, you’re wrong. If you trying to layer so you can get away from other people so you can actually get mob tags, you’re wrong. The ONLY thing you can do is quest in greens, while trying to compete for mob tags in a highly contested area.
As someone who logs in only to AoE grind in dungeons with BiS enchants and petris out whenever I run into issues this does not bode well for me. Maybe they’ll let me off the hook because layers don’t matter for me though.
people are only cheating themselves by using said things to level through HC, self found is the true honorable way of doing a hardcore challenge.
I would like to add self found players to this list. How can you tell a player is self found? No need to ask or even look at buffs they will tell you within 5 seconds of meeting you. I dislike self founders with a passion for trying to have an ego about something that means nothing. The difficulty of self found comes from the solo aspect which isn’t enforced 
I wish they would have made a SF only server.
For me, SF feels closer to OG launch. Drops and quest rewards matter more. Greater immersion greater enjoyment.
To the topic of how to play HC, exclusively questing green, killing greens will dramatically increase your likelihood of making it to 60…… BUT, that’s boring AF.