I stopped playing Remnant 2 because it wouldn't let me change the difficulty. Played on the "normal" difficulty, whatever it was called, flew through the game with no problems, got to the final boss, and just died over and over and over again. The spike between everything else in that game and the 2nd stage of the last boss was unreal. Went to change the difficulty and it said lowering the difficulty will reset the campaign progress. Quit at that point, but I really would've rather been able to lower the difficulty.
Eh, not really. If it's not fun, I'll lower the difficulty or refund if this is not an option, I don't care.
I play all of my favorite games on the hardest difficulty because the challenges they throw my way are a big part of why I find them fun—why would I bother with higher difficulties if I'm not having fun?
Hmm… I think of difficulty, or lack thereof, as integral part of the fun. I think they're inseparable, essentially.
I don't really enjoy the process of learning and getting better at 3rd person shooters, for example, so I don't typically enjoy playing those on higher difficulties. If I pick one up, I know I'll most likely have more fun playing on lower difficulties because it eliminates a process I don't really enjoy. In other words, shooting shit is still fun, but I need the difficulty toned all the way down to enjoy it.
Conversely, I love learning the intricacies of combo systems of action games and figuring out how to exploit enemies and whatnot, so I have to play those on the highest difficulty to get the full experience and have the most fun.
Interesting, thanks! That’s not quite how I approach fun, or difficulty, in a game.
I’m happy playing on higher difficulties so long as the gameplay loop is interesting (to me), and that’s how I go about shmups for instance, gradually increasing difficulty as I start to “master” the game (as if), however if the “default” gameplay isn’t fun to me, lowering the difficulty is not going to help.
I think that comes down to the genre and game. I’ve definitely played games where I was enjoying the story and wanted to see its conclusion, but couldn’t be bothered with a boss rush in the middle of the game. In a similar vein, games with sudden difficulty spikes in the mid- to endgame portion might benefit from it.
At the end of the day, I’m a working adult, trying to fit in having some fun with all the other crap I need to do. I don’t have time for games that need me to treat them as a second job to get good enough to make any progress in them, but games with random difficulty spikes or boss rushes that just serve to pad out play time by making you grind for levels or the ideal equipment or skills/summons out of nowhere feel like an annoying bait and switch to me.
Right, I can see that. I tend to have less patience for (what I consider) annoying gameplay despite good stories, therefore I wouldn’t try lower difficulties if it’s a hassle to me.
I tend to move on / abandon games quicker than I would have done when I was younger, and I know what genres I tend to favour.
Artificially padded games are usually a pass for me too.
I don’t play too much in the way of action RPGs, but it’s definitely an annoying thing that tends to pop up in JRPGs, though less so nowadays. Still, I do appreciate being able to dial the difficulty down as an option if I’m enjoying a game, get 30 hours in, and run into one of those two issues. If it’s not an option, I’d just drop the game, but it gets annoying when you’ve sank in a month or so of free time, only for a game to pull that on you.
I like to set the difficulty high enough to where I don’t feel the game is too easy, but low enough so that I’m not getting frustrated and feeling like the challenge is bullshit.
@theangriestbird
In addition to ego (which I'm sure plays a role) I think I would find myself reticent to lower the difficultly to "Easy" for a couple reasons
The default difficultly, which is typically "normal" is often the intended experience, and if I can play like that, I see value in it.
Related to (1), difficulty settings are often poorly thought-out; it's quite common for hard mode to simply make enemies bullet sponges or for easy to turn them into cardboard cutouts, which is a disappointing experience.
i usually go with the default and rarely turn it up. Sometimes I turn it down. Some games are just brutal unless you turn down the difficulty.
Im playing WarTales right now and that game is unforgiving. Fuck your party. Not only are you going to have some deaths but it goes even further that your dead friend is now in your loot… you can even bury them and leave a gravestone which doesn’t go away!
You could always eat them if you take the cannibal trait
I just want more granular difficulty/accessibility settings. Give me more sliders to tweak my experience. I know it might be greedy and asking for a lot but Easy/Normal/Hard or whatever is just so clumsy.
Imagine we had sliders to tweak dodge i-frames and parry window lengths? I might actually dare pickup Sekiro if that was the case.
Just give me explicit visual cues on when I’m supposed to party and I’ll be happy. I hate when devs assume I understand what “just about to hit” means.
To your point, the easy-hard concept is so vague. What does that mean? Less enemies? The same amount but they have less hit points? I take less damage? Longer time before enemies react? It can be literally anything.
Let us control the settings like you said, and then have some presets for easy configurations and starting points.
I think a special shout out needs to be made to the sniper elite series, which let you reduce the difficulty of the enemies but keep the difficulty of the sniping mechanics.
It’s not a pride thing, it’s just that I’m so used to not thinking about difficulty modes that they don’t occur to me as a solution in the moment. I straight up forget that the game is more than the version of it I’m currently experiencing.
I’m usually a normal-difficulty gamer and usually don’t turn down the difficulty from there. However, as the article says, If I started on a higher difficulty, I’m more open to go back down to the default.
Games can't be easy enough for me. I like playing with dolls essentially. pew pew. that being said I firmly believe elden ring leaves a lot of cheese to give folks an easy mode without having to put in an easy setting. Sorta a cake and eat it to or official deniability.
There are a few games/genres like this for me. Like the Anno games, whenever I play one, I just turn it down to the lowest difficulty, and just build and expand. I kinda treat it like an idle/incremental game. That’s also why I normally don’t play any of the survival city builders, like Banished or stuff like that, it’s just not what I’m looking for.
Banished is so nostalgic but replaying it is so bad lol. I love colony management games. Probably my favorite genre. Rimworld is my favorite at the moment.
the Activision subsidiary known for its contribution to the Call of Duty series
Oof. As an older gamer, this hurt to read. I know them for far better. Though maybe they’ll revisit Heretic or Hexen the way ID brought back Doom under M$.
Theocratic dickheads and the proscription of sexual expression. Name a more classic pairing.
Yes, rape/abuse games are gross gooner bullshit but to paint all adult content with the same brush is just asinine. Huniepop is as much a rape/abuse simulator as it is a racing a game.
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