Me and my friend have a hardcore Minecraft server and due to problems with the server provider they had to reinstall the server. We now have a hardcore world (is still ours before reinstalling) in which one can respawn. You still get the message "Game Over!" and the two buttons Watch World and Server left, but respawnt you watch in the world and when you leave you will not banned. However, we still have the hardcore typical hearts. I think that was set in the Serverconfig Survival due to the reinstallation (I have now switched) and that has now geglitched the world.
Can you fix that? Somehow takes the sense of hardcore away.
I can see that after each server start the game mode changes again to survival.
