Be Excellent To Each Other

When I play through a game I always start on the default difficulty setting, but if I can't get the hang of it or it is beginning to feel like a chore I have no problems at all with bashing the difficulty down to easy.
I would much rather enjoy a jolly romp through the game soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying the story rather than grinding my way through. Don't get me wrong, I will play it again on the harder difficulty setting even if it is bloody tough- I tried the last level on CoD4 on veteran countless times before I got it- I just don't understand why people would, on their first playthrough, sacrifice their enjoyment of the game and story just to play it on hard.

I think that's why I enjoyed Bioshock so much. Others seemed to hate the difficulty at points. I just strolled through on Easy, enjoying every moment. I don't think games necessarily have to be challenging difficulty-wise to be enjoyable.

I did it with Mass Effect and I'm doing it right now with the first Resistance. With CoD I never do it but thats because Im so used to it and Im good at it. I aint no gaming snob yo.

Yeah it largely depends on the game. I wouldn't want to play a game that is all about combat and get to the end having never been challenged at all. Some games I actually enjoy dying and trying different tactics and the reward is the next engagement, others I just want to kill whatever is in the way of the story progression and see what happens next.

I had to drop CoD4 down to casual on that stupid sniper mission at the fairground.

The universally acclaimed best mission in the game, you mean?

Surviving that on Veteran was a pain. Had to hide behind the bumper cars, and even then it took forever to make it to a new checkpoint. Not as bad as the barn assault though.

I loved the mission beforehand (the one crawling through the undergrowth), but from where you have to snipe that old dude from miles away up to the fairground was a right ballache.

That missions kicked my ass on Veteran, took me ages. I STILL havent done 'No fighting in the War room' on veteran

Yeah the bit at the end, at the fairground was a fucking arsehole. I thought I'd cracked it by hiding in the cashiers hut but then I got eaten by dogs.

Not by me, I think the best mission was the black and white thermal cam gunnery stuff.

I agree with Myp here. Following the lead of #sniper-guy was absolutely awesome. The bit after when he becomes a jelly bean, however, while quite fun wasn't a touch on the former.

I have no urge to play CoD4 on anything higher than Normal. I was infuriated often enough at that difficulty level.

I dropped it down to easy for the appallingly bad Heat level, and it stayed there.

CoD4 wasn't too bad playing through first time on hardened & it was only the storming of the nuclear bunker that caused me major difficulties on veteran (not counting the plane mission) & CoD2 was almost perfect to play through on veteran, if a bit grenade-tastic.

On the other hand, CoD3 was a completely different kettle of fish, normal was too easy & hardened kicked you in the cock repeatedly & "Steve's dog fighting simulator" suffered from the same poor levelling.

I quite enjoyed single-player on COD4 but I don't think I'll be playing any of them again due to the heavily scripted nature of them. Some of the levels on COD4 involved trial and error till you figured out what you were meant to be doing - there was too much assumed knowledge in the script with the characters talking about stuff you could've know about or hadn't quite reached yet.

Playing any game below 'normal' is an affront to manliness. It's not like modern games are *that* hard anyway.

On the other side of the coin, are there any games that you guys have found improved by ramping up the difficulty? I thought Hitman 2 was a far better game on the hardest setting - it made you conserve your saves and strategise your attacks, as opposed to running around shooting everybody and saving between every firefight.

Yeah, playing Hitman:Blood Money on hardest was exolant fun.

Rock Band and Guitar Hero are the only games I tend to enjoy more the higher the difficulty setting.

Rainbow Six Vegas 1 or 2 gets much, much better when it's harder, whilst I love pop up shooting gallery games like CoD4, as you say they have very little replay value and repeatedly dying affords you little option but to learn where they pop up and shoot better. Experimenting with different tactics to get through some of the sections in RSV2 was brilliant fun.

If I'm not enjoying it, I'll either drop the difficulty or just stop playing.

Agreed. The rainbow 6 games are possibly the only games I've completed all the way through (and all the terrorist hunts) on the hardest setting.

I play games on either the default setting or on easy.

The only exception I can think of being the Hitman games, which only really work properly on Expert or above.

Of course, Halo 3 on Legendary becomes a completely different game. And one better for it, IMHOTEP.

I normally start on the default difficulty and then increase it if I feel like playing it again. I did CoD4 on Hardened first time though, I think, and then tried to get through on Veteran but a couple of the levels were a nightmare. Getting from the barn with the tank-buster missiles to the helicopter at the bottom of the hill was sooooo nasty. Especially when I finally got to the halfway checkpoint, only to die, and every time it spawned me at the checkpoint it spawned me in sight of a guy who would kill me before I could take cover. Bah!

Anyway, I loved CoD4 single player mission, especially the 'All Ghillied Up' mission. Aces. And yes, hiding around the back of the bumper cars FTW.

I'm playing GoW1 on Hardcore first go through though, as I've played #2.

I keep getting raped by CoD4 on veteran whenever I try and play it, it takes me about an hour or so to get to one or two checkpoints...then I just get frustrated and go to online mode

Plus there's no Normal difficulty; only Casual.

And that is an insult to me!





FTFY

It never really occurs to me to drop the difficulty mid game or restart on easy. I either plough through on default and do it, or get annoyed give up and, usually, restart the game months later in a different frame of mind. Unless I am going for achievments it is default all the way. Default, default.

I like to play games on the hard settings, then drop down if the game's too hard or unfair/badly made. I suppose it's a kind of masochism, but I love the challenge.I'd agree games are getting easier, if multiplayer is anything to guage myself by I'm not improving any

Am I allowed to post pointy blue guys? Anyway, I'm *so* in the same boat. I don't think I've EVER changed the difficulty level when a game is giving me the shits.

As I said in the RE5 thread, I love the way RE5 describes it's difficulty at easy mode: "For those who enjoy the journey".
I like games to make themselves easier for me. RE5 does this, apparently - if you are dying a lot it'll spawn more ammo and make the baddies stun for longer when you hit them, among other things.

I tend to baulk at playing games on easy for some reason. The only exception is Baja, which has Easy or Hard. It's pretty rock-solid on Easy, to be fair.

I always tend to play on Medium/Default/Normal or whatever.

That sounds good.
I played Gow2 on hardcore from the off, as I have played lots of shooty games. And I generally ramp up the starting difficulty when startign any game as I know I won't come back and play it again, so I might as well @get the most@ from it while I am playing it.

I play on default settings unless there's an incentive to play on a higher difficulty level. Super Smash Bros Melee for example which gives you different bosses and trophies.

I'm not sure I like the idea of a game adapting its difficulty for me like that, it would seem a bit of a hollow victory if the game takes pity on you and just lets you win.

I didn't use to do it and still rarely do it, off the top of my head the only games I can think of are Mass Effect and Resistance. With Mass Effect, it was mainly because I got that game at a time when I was working a lot of 12 hour shifts and so if i was playing, I wasn't as quick or as alert as usual. Also, the missus was working til about 9pm usually so if I finished at half four I would stick it on for a wee while before she got home. I think it was a combination of these things. Being tired all the time meant I was irritable so while i would normally have played on and completed it on normal I just didnt have the time or patience but I realised I really liked the game so lowered the difficulty. I'm really glad I did because it would have been criminal to stop playing it.
With Resistance, I am trying to adjust to the Ps3 controller and I am also getting used to the game so I'm playing it on easy (which tbh does make it very very easy) and just blasting through it, enjoying the story and setting myself up for the second one. Again, I dont really have the time to give it the attention it would require on another setting.

Left 4 Dead does this too. I vagually recall a shoot-em-up on the Amiga that also adjusted the difficulty on the fly, depending on how skilled you were. Personally, I don't like this. What if you're crap but just have a run of good luck? It's like they're punishing you for being good or something.

Left 4 Dead does this too. I vagually recall a shoot-em-up on the Amiga that also adjusted the difficulty on the fly, depending on how skilled you were. Personally, I don't like this. What if you're crap but just have a run of good luck? It's like they're punishing you for being good or something.

Edit: Bleugh, edited a typo and clicked 'quote' by accident.

Well, yeah. I didn't find GoW2 a challenge even on hardcore. If I had found it difficult, I would have had no problem with dropping down. I did exactly that on Oblivion, which allows a large, in game sliding scale change, which is cool.

Edit, in response to SDG.

I didn't even consider changing the difficulty in Oblivion and ended up stopping playing it because I didn't start the main quest til I'd played for a while and it was solid.
I might have to go back to that. When I have three years to spare of course.

RE5 is really interesting. It offers you four difficulty levels, but has 10 behind the scenes. Easy spans 1-4 and normal spans 3-7. You start on 4 on Normal. You then have a hidden counter. Every shot on an enemy is +3 points, every critical hit +20; every kill is +something. Every time you are hit is -some and every time you die is -1200. Every time the counter goes up or down by 1000, you move difficulty levels, but only within the range of the overall level you chose. So if I'm on Normal and I'm headshotting and not being harmed, I'll be experiencing the same game as someone on Hard who is getting their ass kicked (as there is limited overlap between the hidden difficulty levels and the one you choose). More importantly, if I die a few times on one bit, the game quickly gets easier, then rapidly ramps back up to where it was when I hit the tricky patch.

I like this.

I made it a bit easier so I could kill stuff more easily. But then I kinda got bored of it due to the lack of immersion, I can't be bothered running around closing all the gates

You only have to close two or three gates as part of the main questline. You can ignore the rest (although I farmed them for incredibly powerful unique enchantment mods).

I almost always start on normal, or if there are loads of options and it's a genre I'm used to, slightly harder than normal. Quite often I'll play like that for a few hours until I'm a bit good, then go up to hard and aim to finish. If it's already hard enough I'll leave it be.

I don't really find many games too hard, except for beat 'em ups and racers, which just cheat like fuck and piss me off. I totally get what people are saying about it being fun, and though I joke about it, I don't really look down on people who simply enjoy a less challenging/frustrating/masochistic approach and simply want to have fun without getting worked up. I just tend to find games lose a fair bit of appeal when they get easier. Although it depends how it manifests itself, too - the hitman games become totally different when you whack the settings to an extreme - they can be infuriating, painful excercises in meticulous, ultra-patient perfection, or ultra-violent shooting running cackling invincible rampages. Both game modes are great fun and complement one another well. Similarly, mount and blade can be enormously stress-relieving when you've had enough of getting your arse kicked, so whack all the settings down and charge naked into an army, hurling axes and javelines about and twatting people with an enormous club until there's nothing left but you and 50 mangled corpses.

Gears of War was grindy enough on normal. I'd not enjoy it on the harder modes at all (except on horde or deathmatch with some bots to up the ante, obv). And Oblivion had a good idea with its sliding scale, but it was double-edeged - I found that I wanted to use it to increase the damage I was going because running backwards for three miles firing 35 arrows into every two-bit bandit I saw was getting monstrously tedious, but as you raise the damage you do, so you simultaneously lower the damage the enemy do, so that nobody can hurt you anymore and it's tediously easy instead of merely tedious. Fortunately I effectively swapped it for PC version (which I should have got in the first place really), and mods can fix that. But still.

I still think the best games to do difficulty (aside from many strategy games with lots of tailoring options that wouldn't really work in another genre) are the hitmen and Aliens Vs Predator. More limited saves is a particularly good one.

I just got a little bored with it... it might have been because I picked up fallout and prefer guns to enchanted bows and arrows...

if the game doesn't allow to change difficulty during the game i make some research beforehand to know if i should go for medium or hard. I like to be challenged every time, otherwise i feel bored.



i thought Bioshock was dead easy on medium, what are you talking about? Big Daddies could be tough, but it was just a matter of unloading upon him every grenade, missile and mine you had.

I'm not very good at most games, so need to have the level right low to get anywhere, and this is fine for me as I then get time and value from it.

Are you batshit mentil? There's the first outside Kvatch, then one spawns at every major city later on. THEN there's the fuckers outside Thingycoldplacethat'snotnorwaynono City where you have to keep that stupid sod king alive throughout.

Fixed.

By closing the superfluous gates, you get a bigger army for the battle where you have to keep the stupid sod king alive.