Difficulty settings - What do you pick?

[kinn]

I don't usually like the hardest difficulty on games because I play video games to have fun, not to be killed constantly by cheap shot after cheap shot after cheap shot. Or, I don't want to play a game where harder means throwing more enemies my way. Or, I don't want to play a game where harder means fewer checkpoints, or ammo starvation, or less health, or etc etc. You get the idea. Gears of War for me is the perfect game where the actual game itself has not changed whatsoever for you, it's just that the enemies get tougher, smarter, and way more effective which makes you have to actually plan stuff out. Oh, but I think my biggest pet peeve is prolly the memorization factor on a lot of difficultly levels. Honestly, I have enough things I need to know, I really don't want to have to memorize enemy layouts or different ways to kill a boss. I want it to be intuitive, so I can just run in the game after not playing it for 2 years and jump right on, like riding a bicycle. Of course, I pretty much just have to deal with it, since almost all games are like this, except some of the older ones.

I agree with you on that. Thats what gets to me as well...when the game cheats and takes cheap shots etc.

I agree with the memorization factor as well. I always love, and hate to start a new game. Its exciting yet you have to learn what all the buttons do, what the game system is like etc. Just finished off FF12 recently and it was an ace game, yet the begining is a pain until you learn the game mechanics etc.

I guess this is why (and that I'm getting older!) that now I start one game, complete it, and then move onto the next game rather than starting a couple of games at the same time!

[disorderlyvision]

i typically stick with normal, however if it is a game like fighters , and the rare sports game where you have to unlock a bunch of stuff i will play through on easy to unlock all the characters etc.

[Ack]

Normal. For one easy reason.

Normal is what the game is meant to be played on. It is supposed to be the norm, so it's where its designers think it should be. After that, I'll raise or lower difficulty for various reasons(for instance, you can unlock Very Easy mode in Silent Hill 3 by playing in Easy mode and dying several times. Easiest way to do it is to get to the subway and just get run over several times.)

[glynnahab]

The only game I really can play on difficult would be the Megaman 2 on NES due to addictively playing it as a kid. Other than that, I tend to get frustrated and give up too early with higher difficulty settings.

[UBERTRON777]

Most of the time I play on normal difficulty because, like Ack, I believe in artist intention. Although, sometimes I'm in a Contra kind of mood and I want to die again and again just to feel better when I actually beat it.

[Gamerforlife]

Normal, unless it's a game from a series I'm comfortable with. After I beat a game, I'll play it on hard if there's some kind of incentive(like achievements, unlockables or just the bragging rights of your save file showing that you've beaten the harder setting). It's hard for me to willingly subject myself to whatever cheap, BS designers want to throw at me on higher difficulties without there being some kind of reward

I do agree that most games play better on normal. It just seems like designers have to mess up the experience with all the tweaks and changes they do on the harder settings. There's an awesome sequence in Resident Evil 4 where you fight through an area with backup from a guy in a helicopter blasting enemy encampments for you. One of the coolest, most cinematic moments of the game. On Pro difficulty, the guy practically does nothing. The one thing that made that part of the game so memorable is ruined, all for the sake of making that section harder.

See, it's fine if you want to make your enemies smarter or penalize the player more for messing up on higher difficulty settings, but don't go and take away the very things that make the game fun in the first place. That's why it really is no fun to play some games on a higher setting. I'm not a fan of games that break the rules on higher settings too. Where enemies start doing things you're not allowed to do.

There is one way I like to see higher settings done in a game. Simply massively increase the amount of damage players take while leaving everything else the same. Or simply remove health items. So in essence, you're forcing the player to play smarter and not allowing them to screw up as much as they can on normal difficulty. This forces players to learn how to play the game properly. Kind of like how the ranking system in The Red Star rewards players who take the least amount of hits

Personally though, if I was a designer, there would be no difficulty settings in my games. If I made a game, I'd had ONE vision in my mind of how that game should play and I wouldn't deviate from it. That's just me though. I'd probably have some kind of ranking system in my game to encourage players to get better though(like The Red Star). Or rewards for doing things like playing through the game without continues, beating a level without taking a hit, taking down a boss without power ups, etc, etc. This is how achievements in 360 games SHOULD be done. You don't deserve an achievement simply because you beat level one. Big, fricking deal

[Ack]

To be honest, while increasing damage and health might work for more arcadish games, something like Resident Evil 4 would be suited with an enemy AI improvement. If all the computer is gonna do is more damage, I feel as if there's almost no point for me to run through a title like that, because it doesn't really make me think any harder on what to do. Fewer healths might make me hesitate a bit before going into a room, but if I can beat the game the same way I did on normal or easy, I don't really feel it was very hard.

[Citizin]

Normal. For one easy reason.

Normal is what the game is meant to be played on. It is supposed to be the norm, so it's where its designers think it should be. After that, I'll raise or lower difficulty for various reasons(for instance, you can unlock Very Easy mode in Silent Hill 3 by playing in Easy mode and dying several times. Easiest way to do it is to get to the subway and just get run over several times.)

That's how I feel about it, except I never lower it under normal difficulty. Easy would be ok for someone who barely plays games at all and wants to get used to controls and gameplay but I've been playing games too long enough to need that. On some games however, I might replay it on the harder difficulty.

[GSZX1337]

I pick normal for my first time through, and when I play through the game again, I pick a higher difficulty to keep things interesting. Although, for older FPSes, I tend to just stick with normal since the enemies take more bullets instead of being more intelligent.

[Gamerforlife]

To be honest, while increasing damage and health might work for more arcadish games, something like Resident Evil 4 would be suited with an enemy AI improvement. If all the computer is gonna do is more damage, I feel as if there's almost no point for me to run through a title like that, because it doesn't really make me think any harder on what to do. Fewer healths might make me hesitate a bit before going into a room, but if I can beat the game the same way I did on normal or easy, I don't really feel it was very hard.

Resident Evil 4 would be impossible with smarter AI. Enemies already outnumber you, and certain enemies in the game have the element of surprise, plus extra speed and terrain advantages working to their advantage. And it's not like Leon has that many moves to work with. Plus, some of the bosses would rape you if they were any smarter. RE 4 does the increased damage thing on Pro difficulty and some enemies seem to take more hits to kill and I think it works better that way. I just hate how they ruined the helicopter sequence

Most people stumbled their way through RE 4 using lots of health items along the way. Forcing players to avoid getting hit so much is a good way to make the game more challenging in my opinion. It's a survival horror game, your character is supposed to be fragile and easy to kill so its good to make players have to avoid getting hit on Pro.

Now I can see other types of games benefiting from smarter AI, but that should already be present on normal difficulty. There's no excuse for dumb enemies in a game, unless they have many other advantages over you already. In which case, the player's ability to outsmart the enemy is the only way to succeed without lots of health loss or death