Game Difficulty- Do You Like it Hard? ;)

[AW11122048]

I always used to start at Normal and then slowly ratchet up -- as a kid, with a lot of time to kill. These days I start off with an easy difficulty and then  head up to normal if I get into the game. I don't have the time or interest to really master a lot of games these days --- especially info dense games like the Civ series.

[landess]

4 hours ago, AW11122048 said:

These days I start off with an easy difficulty and then  head up to normal if I get into the game.

 

This is why I find New Game Plus so valuable. Many times I feel it justifies use of a harder difficulty and allows one to deal with failures better since the player can focus on the narrative and not suffer more during optional side quest type content which lengthens the game and gives rise to more 'failure' events.

[King-Crimson]

A very humorous analysis of difficulty levels, that (imo) really hits the nail:

 

P1

Spoiler

 

 

P2

Spoiler

 

 

 

I love to play on the highest difficulty possible from the start, but only IF the gameplay is fair.

In all my time on the PS4, I have destroyed only one PS4 controller so far. not on Dark Souls, Shovel Knight, Rayman, Cuphead or Hollow Knight, no, on Batman Arkham Knight, simply because the gameplay is buggy, overcomplicated bullshit.

[KoolHndLuke]

A fugitive in a game I'm supposed to be helping is described as a "military tactical genius". This genius picks the worst possible place for *us* to defend with approaches from multiple directions and giving enemy sharp shooters plenty of cover above our position. Did I mention we were heavily outnumbered and I had no time to prepare? It's like "Oh... look at this fucked up situation you're in now! How you gonna deal with it?".

 

It's not exciting, it's frustrating and frankly feels like a raw ass fucking. If they'd had been like "Yeah... this guy is a real idiot, so expect a clusterfuck" I'd have at least suspected what I was getting into.

[KoolHndLuke]

"Blindsiders"- as I like to call them- are the enemies that already outnumber you and use two or three to engage you close while the other(s) work around and attack your exposed flanks or back. I hate those fucking guys!

[Kabal460]

You get a lot of that in State of Decay 2 on Lethal Difficulty. Packs of Ferals can screw up your day since they break stealth and draw zeds to you in vast numbers. 

[Guest]

Well-made game difficulty:

 Rewards preparation 

 Utilizes game mechanics to the fullest

 Maintains viability of diverse builds and playstyles

 Features unique content (Ex: Bonus cutscenes in the Halo series' Legendary difficulties)

 

Poorly-made game difficulty:

 Is artificial (ie. Inflation of enemy HP, deflation of PC's damage output, reduction of AI allies' intelligence, et cetera)

 Is unfair (Ex: Jackal Snipers in Halo 2's Legendary difficulty)

 Does not change AI behavior

 Does not make full use of gameplay mechanics nor abilities (Ex: Enemy NPCs in Skyrim do not use potions in their inventory)

 Constrains the PC into one playstyle, mostly defensive, thereby resulting in an overall tedious experience

 

[Kitty]

I go back and forth with this one.  Some games, it's really fun and rewarding to beat the game on like "ultra" settings.  Also, probably have a certain nostalgic value there to games I grew up on.  I've gone back and replayed some of them over the years, and was caught unaware, having not really remembered just how hard and unforgiving games were back then.

 

That said, there's also a lot of value to nice, relaxing gameplay where I don't feel like chucking the controller at the monitor or smashing the keyboard every 20 seconds.  Both have their place, but I agree with a lot of what's been said.  High difficulty settings (or games) are really only fun if they're done right.  If all you're doing is grinding out some stupid achievement, which you can only earn by doing exactly what you've already done, only with a lot of "cheats" in effect on the side of the 'AI'?  Meh.  That's not fun.  That's just tedium and artificial replay value.

 

Games should be (re)played because they're fun.  Not because some list of crap somewhere tells you "you still have work to do here".  The whole concept of games in the first place is a *release* from work and the problems and toils of the world, not to add to them.

[KoolHndLuke]

Games that constantly tell me to "HURRY!" as if the devs built all that gorgeous backdrop and carefully placed everything in the area just so I can run through it in 5 seconds and never look back. Genius

 

I make my own pace in life and in games which means I have to find a way to clear every area so I can peruse things at my leisure. A fave tactic or "trick" of mine is to rush through to the back of placed enemies or spawn points because the enemy ai is usually oriented toward the entry of an area where you were going to get swarmed. The ai doesn't even know what to do sometimes and just stands there letting me pick off enemies one by one.  It's my little way of saying "fuck you back" to the devs. 

 

Another is to back up into a narrow hallway around the corner and out of range of their carefully placed defensive positions and make them come at you where you can just take them all out with something like a grenade. Games are a little smarter to this nowadays and either don't allow you to backpedal or make the ai hold until you come back. Still works often though.

[KoolHndLuke]

Explosive barrels and the enemy tanks that kill you over and over because you didn't notice that one way in the back he passed on his way to trash you. Sure, you know it's there now..... 

 

I actually could start another thread about stupid ai, lol. One of my absolute faves is you sneaking through an area and stealth kill a guard and have another notice him dead, search the area a minute or two, and then give up and go back to work on the generator. They actually say something stupid sometimes like "Hmm.... must've been the wind". Conversely, if you happen to snipe the guy with a silenced weapon from across the valley, in a storm, at midnight- they instantly know where you are and return fire/call for backup.

[FauxFurry]

On 3/18/2021 at 9:09 PM, KoolHndLuke said:

Explosive barrels and the enemy tanks that kill you over and over because you didn't notice that one way in the back he passed on his way to trash you. Sure, you know it's there now..... 

 

I actually could start another thread about stupid ai, lol. One of my absolute faves is you sneaking through an area and stealth kill a guard and have another notice him dead, search the area a minute or two, and then give up and go back to work on the generator. They actually say something stupid sometimes like "Hmm.... must've been the wind". Conversely, if you happen to snipe the guy with a silenced weapon from across the valley, in a storm, at midnight- they instantly know where you are and return fire/call for backup.

Dedicated stealth games tend to avoid that since remaining undetected part of the core gameplay loop rather than optional content. If you leave a corpse somewhere in, say, a Metal Gear game or Hitman, guard patrols increase and they stay on heightened alert for the rest of the stage/phase of the game. 

[KoolHndLuke]

16 hours ago, FauxFurry said:

Metal Gear game or Hitman, guard patrols increase and they stay on heightened alert for the rest of the stage/phase of the game. 

Haven't played either one of those in years but yeah I remember. Had to listen to that stupid alarm sound over and over while I was farming female recruits, lol. How come you never find any hot women hitchhiking in Afghanistan? 

[NymphoElf]

I'm in the same boat as many that have replied. If the game is too hard (Dark Souls) then I don't enjoy it.

 

I want the game to feel fair, but that's tricky for many video games to accomplish. Humans can think more creatively than machines can, so developers typically compensate by having the enemy have more health, deal more damage than the player, or outnumber them heavily (or all of the above), and that's not inherently a bad thing. The game can still be fun with "dumb AI", especially in a game that has mods. However, some games create advanced AI that are creatively programmed to act more "real" and those can be very fun.

 

At the end of the day, I want to know that my skill at the game is the only factor for progression, not luck. The game also needs to inform me of what is possible, even if it's difficult to pull off. I don't want to bash my head against the wall fighting an enemy that can be quickly dispatched from a technique I was never informed about.

 

These factors also vary WILDLY depending on the genre of game, so it's not fair for me to say that these things are equally true for every game, and that should more or less apply to everyone.

 

In Skyrim's case, I've been able to play so long from the sheer volume of content and replay-ability from the base game, and those aspects have increased by factors of ten from modding.

 

For as many adult mods/plugins I've accumulated, my favorite mod is Legacy of the Dragonborn. That mod transforms Skyrim to the point of making it a different game entirely, while still looking exactly like Skyrim, and I absolutely love that. Hands-down the best mod for Skyrim, regardless of playstyle. If anyone hasn't tried it yet, I can't recommend it enough. (To clarify, it makes you think about the game very differently. You actually have a reason to explore the entire map, not just "for the lulz".)

[PenBoozerX]

Depends on the game type and how the difficulty increase is made.

 

If I'm playing a gametype that I like, such as tactics, I like to ramp up the difficulty a lot because I wont mind failing and having to go again when playing a game I enjoy. If it's a gametype I don't enjoy like a platformer then I won't turn up the difficulty as the game prolly wont keep me interested in multiple tries.

 

The second factor is how the difficulty is made. If it includes new tactics, increased micromanaging or added goals, I will enjoy the difficulty increase. If however it is just a flat "enemies do double damage, have triple health and you hit for half less" I'm gonna sign out of that, bullet-sponges ain't my idea of fun difficulty.

 

Dark Souls is a difficult game I enjoy because I like the the gametype and wont mind mashing my head against for hours. While in contrast Ghosts 'n Goblins is a difficult game of a type I dont enjoy and skipped playing willingly.

[xboronx]

Since i mainly like strategy and tactics games finding a good setting is difficult.

 

Take the civilization series for example, on hardest difficulties the AIs get so extreme advantages, yet they are still rather bad (talking about civ 5/6 mainly) and there are so many glitches that you can still beat them, but this is not a really fun experience then if you just have to abuse every flaw of the ai design etc..

 

It's imho always about finding the sweet spot between too easy and too hard where it is fun and challenging.

 

You also can always play MP, but this has severe issues with strategy games too since it's really hard to find a group of people with similiar interests and skill levels. Like if you take Civ again, deciding which game speed and map size you want to play on can already be very difficult to agree upon for a 4-8 player group.

 

Also it can be the other way round with AIs, if you take "simple" enough games like chess then you have to handicap the AI, otherwise you never can beat it as human anymore.

[KoolHndLuke]

9 minutes ago, xboronx said:

Also it can be the other way round with AIs, if you take "simple" enough games like chess then you have to handicap the AI, otherwise you never can beat it as human anymore.

Chess is such a classic. I'm not brilliant by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like a harder a.i. opponent. Remember losing game after game and having to adapt a strategy that strengthened my game. Mainly about how many moves ahead you can see and making no mistakes. I prefer being aggressive and keeping the opponent off-balance, but it requires a bit of deception and sacrifice. Like I said, I love the game.

[Kitty]

4 minutes ago, KoolHndLuke said:

Chess is such a classic. I'm not brilliant by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like a harder a.i. opponent. Remember losing game after game and having to adapt a strategy that strengthened my game. Mainly about how many moves ahead you can see and making no mistakes. I prefer being aggressive and keeping the opponent off-balance, but it requires a bit of deception and sacrifice. Like I said, I love the game.

I used to think I was really good at chess.  I played and played as a child, took me years to finally beat my father.  Went on to beat most people I played in my say "high school years".

 

Then I played someone who actually _was_ really good at chess.

 

Yep.  So much for that illusion.  xD

[KoolHndLuke]

17 minutes ago, Kitty said:

Then I played someone who actually _was_ really good at chess.

You're selling yourself short and are probably much better. I played a guy once that just destroyed me game after game. I could see his moves, knew what he was doing (wiping out my corner pawn, rook, then knight, then bishop)- I couldn't figure out how to counter it. Had time one day and worked out a strategy and went back and played him some more. 2 draws. He had worked on his strategy for years. 

[Kitty]

6 minutes ago, KoolHndLuke said:

You're selling yourself short and are probably much better. I played a guy once that just destroyed me game after game. I could see his moves, knew what he was doing (wiping out my corner pawn, rook, then knight, then bishop)- I couldn't figure out how to counter it. Had time one day and worked out a strategy and went back and played him some more. 2 draws. He had worked on his strategy for years. 

Not in this case.  I mean, I can still hold my own, but not against a true chess prodigy, which this guy was.  Was a friend of mine for a lot of years in my 20s and early 30s, and after playing probably oh.. I'd say a couple hundred games over the course of a decade, many sober, a few 'enhanced', I never got remotely close to beating or even stalemating him.

 

He probably ultimately improved my game if anything, but to play on his level felt akin to trying to reach the moon in a steam locomotive. 

 

[SillyDreams]

Depends on the game. If it is multiplayer, I don't really care as long as I am having fun (and those I am playing with are having fun). As for singleplayer, it depends on the game and what mood I am in. For first playthroughs I almost always shoot for medium difficulty. A nice challenge to learn about the game while not being frustratingly difficult so I can keep track of the story. Afterwards I usually determine what I want to get out of a game. A game like Crusader Kings I have no problems with using cheats to make it trivially easy so I can live out a twisted power fantasy simulation. Cities Skylines I like the limitations imposed on building up a city and the satisfaction of watching it run smoothly (or working out the problems) with moderate challenges that come my way. DOOM I play on the highest difficulty available because I can also punish myself with a good challenge. Games like Skyrim, Fallout 3/NV/4, Rimworld, etc I tend to mod into a barely recognizable mess in which by the end game the "cheats" are earned. In short, I'm an all-around kind of person (most the power fantasy stuff though).

[Kantus12]

I pref harder games, there are a few how get my heart beating fast.

[Molevalence]

You want a hard game? Try getting this on Frostpunk.

[WhatRules]

On 3/18/2021 at 9:32 PM, Bromum said:

Well-made game difficulty:

 Rewards preparation 

 Utilizes game mechanics to the fullest

 Maintains viability of diverse builds and playstyles

 Features unique content (Ex: Bonus cutscenes in the Halo series' Legendary difficulties)

 

Poorly-made game difficulty:

 Is artificial (ie. Inflation of enemy HP, deflation of PC's damage output, reduction of AI allies' intelligence, et cetera)

 Is unfair (Ex: Jackal Snipers in Halo 2's Legendary difficulty)

 Does not change AI behavior

 Does not make full use of gameplay mechanics nor abilities (Ex: Enemy NPCs in Skyrim do not use potions in their inventory)

 Constrains the PC into one playstyle, mostly defensive, thereby resulting in an overall tedious experience

 

 

I think you'd like Requiem, but it sounds like you're already playing it.

[WhatRules]

If you like hard platformers, try Ori and the Will of the Whisps. It's also a very beautiful game that can make you cry if you're an empathic person.

[Guest]

A totally different angle... as I primarily "play" Sims 3 (I know gamers may not consider that a game) and the way I sometimes play, it is not... more like a TV show... There are times when I set autonomy to high, and just watch them do stupid things! Although, with Kinky World installed, stupid often leads to woohoo in strange places.