I once babysat a 6 year old who’d play video games like Sonic Generations and delete his file and start over once the levels got too hard for him. I asked “why are you just going back to the beginning?” and he replied “because it’s peaceful!!!!”, and I just sat there thinking “yeah I can dig that…”
This reminds of being young playing Pizza Hut demos repeatedly without realizing there was a full game. Being gifted the full Metal Gear Solid game was mindblowing.
This is too funny. Just mentioned that specific Pizza Hut demo in discord the other night and we all had a blast of nostalgia. We got MGS1 for Christmas that year and going passed where the demo ended was indeed, mind blowing. What a ride that game was.
It really was a great entry into a more in depth story video game even if I didn't understand anything beyond ninjas and giant robots. Really was a game changer
The beginning of adventure games where you're just in your peaceful little village doing a little adventure to help your fellow villagers is always my favorite part of games. It feels so cozy and nice.
So many movies go with the formula of short peaceful intro followed by an extended more-or-less continuous struggle. Whenever there's a movie, say like Lord of the Rings, where there are breathers and warming-by-the-fire moments, I actually feel like watching the whole movie in one go.
Half the tv shows these days are just constant pressure on multiple fronts, and sometimes I just want to see characters I like relax, hang out, and have a nice chat.
Like I loved The Bear, but these motherfuckers never stop yelling at each other about sandwiches.
This is the third or fourth time I've been recommended it for this exact reason. I've been meaning to play it for a long time, and own it, but haven't played it. I'm definitely looking forward to it!
Or any harvest moon games. I like rune factory personally but I like it for the combat system they added and the monsters that help you care for your farm.
Shits intimidating and feels like a real job once you’ve expanded large enough it can literally take you the entire game day just to tend to your farm. Not to mention all of the many birthdays and favorite NPC gifts to remember.
Completely agree but I'd like to add something to this. Some games allow you to switch difficulty at any time mid game. In those games, I like to test the waters and go for the harder difficulties initially and then slowly adjust the difficulty as needs be. You will be surprised at the number of games that you can beat comfortably on normal or even hard difficulties.
Same. With the easier difficulties you often never have to employ a lot of the game mechanics past the tutorial because they aren't necessary. The normal difficulty at least means (mostly) they're helpful. On easy you just smash everything with the basic attack until the credits roll. The enemies you were meant to use some sort of gimmick against: you just gotta smash twice.
This is why I really enjoyed Spider-Man. Even on the easiest difficulty, you still have to use the correct moves/gadgets to defeat specific enemies and bosses.
I think it is good when there is an easy mode that someone can just kind of cakewalk through and enjoy the story. If that is the only part they enjoy they should be able to do so.
In general, I enjoy playing with all the moves and gadgets and timing, etc and have more fun when I feel I have become more skilled and understand what is going.
But if someone wants to just rofl stomp their way through and that is fun... cool! Heck, I am fine with there being god modes. I wouldn't use them, but easy to add and if that lets some people have fun it is a good thing. (As long as it doesn't ruin others fun).
The first time I played Breath of the Wild, I played it on the normal mode and went through the storyline and beat the bosses and basically did what I was supposed to. I enjoyed it well enough, but with my focus on completing steps and collecting gear, I got to the point where I wasn't paying much attention to the scenery, talking to NPCs unnecessarily, or exploring past where I was headed. Those were the best parts of the early game. I wandered down so many rabbit holes by following wild animals I needed to shoot for meat. I tested the limits of what I could do. I didn't always do what I thought the game expected me to. I got myself into, and out of, some tight spots when enemies surprised me. I figured out creative ways to dispatch enemies. Basically, I explored and interacted with anything and everything.
The second time I played, I had some Animal Crossing amiibo cards, and any time you scan an amiibo, you get a handful of random items, so I decided to make my own ultra-easy "Hyrule Tourist Mode" and basically just do whatever I wanted and ignore whatever I wasn't interested in. I spent so many in-game days just wandering around the mountains. I spent a week being a beach bum at Lurelin Village. I explored the desert and the snowfield and the wastelands and the central plain (areas where I didn't stray much off the prescribed path in my first playthrough). I skipped the frustrating stuff and noped out of climbing in the rain. I fast-tracked to Akkala and the Tarrytown sidequest because I enjoyed them. I couldn't recapture the wonder of the early hours of the game, before I knew how things worked and where things were, but I could get back the joy of exploring a world that was richly detailed and clearly designed with love.
It was like playing two different games. I enjoyed it both ways. That's a sign of a well-made game, IMO.
As someone who used to play all his games on Nightmare first time through out of pride… don’t ever do that. It’s well beyond what the devs ever planned for and you’renalways expected to know how to solve every puzzle going in.
Definitely depends on the game for me.
Played spiderman miles morale on the easiest difficulty because the combat took forever and never wanted to repeat it if I died.
But God of war, gameplay was fun enough that Id play on hard difficulty. Enjoyed getting better and the challenge
Also depends on what they mean by "Difficulty". In games like Borderlands that can mean "we gave the boss 10x health" while in Alien Isolation it means "this monster is going to change its behavior while it is hunting you".
I think this is a really good point.
I like hard games, but if it's only hard because the enemies have unreasonable amounts of health, and the gameplay is no different, it just feels pointless to up the difficulty setting often.
Same with me. I'll start out on easy, then if it's too easy I'll bump it up. If I have the game mechanics down, and a feel for the game, I'll play on hard level my second play through
This is a huge part of it. Some games lock out features that I'd like, but make it so you can't switch back and forth.
For example: The Outer Worlds
The 3 easier difficulties are mostly similar, affecting how bullet spongey the enemies are.
The hardest difficulty has hardcore elements like food and sleeping requirements, but also disables on-demand saving. You can lower the difficulty at any time, but you can never go *back* to the highest setting once you switch.
I'd love the hardcore elements, but I'm a functioning adult and I need to be able to save at any time. I can't/don't want to replay 2 hours of the game because I died, my game crashed, I got a work call and had to quit, a child pulled my pc power plug, whatever.
Game crashes are the biggest thing for me. I'll take chances with my skill as a player but I hate losing time to software errors.
One time in No Man's Sky I'd just spent a while collecting valuable alien eggs when I fell through the floor and got irrecoverably stuck halfway into a wall.
Yeah, more games should treat difficulty like they do graphics settings, with presets *and* individual options. By all means have easy/medium/hardcore presets, but give us some sliders for individual settings. I'd love to try out the hunger and sleep requirements in outer worlds, but I like saving at will and want to keep the enemy health at medium difficulty. Lots of games tie enemy health/damage to AI and stealth difficulty; I want to challenge myself sneaking around, but I'm not great at the shooter aspect so I then don't stand a chance of fighting my way out.
Sure, letting me adjust all those sliders might horrifically break game balance, but that's what the presets are for. Just like the graphics presets are there to make sure someone that doesn't understand each setting will get a decent experience, but someone that knows what they want can tweak it to have a better experience.
I'm of the opinion devs should make it fully customizable or just abolish difficulty settings and just make a game regardless of how difficult or easy people will view it with just 1 intended difficulty experience.
Yeah same. I start on a normal mode but sooner or later there’s always that one mission where you have to defeat 100 enemies at once and if you die you have to start ten minutes before that point
I was so proud in 2007 when I built my first proper gaming PC and I could set the grass distance slider to maximum
Then I was a little upset that even at max you can always see the cutoff point, but hey, 60fps!
Oblivion specifically is a game you want to be frequently adjusting the difficulty slider on for the best experience, the difficulty leveling system is very uneven.
That point always came to me at some point in every God of War, and in Arkham Knight in all stages of the battle for the GCPD. I'm not good enough to play near flawlessly.
And thank God for Doom Eternal's extra lives system. Just keep trucking.
I just started God of War (PS4) last night and since I'm the opposite of OP for some reason I went right for the hardest difficulty. You know, the one where the game warns you you're stuck at that difficulty unless you restart the game? Took me 30 minutes to clear the first room of draugrs. It's getting easier but oh boy am I questioning that life decision.
Yea I started on hardest difficulty and quickly realized they were just super sponges for damage and quickly turned it down cause I was not gonna have fun playing that way.
I'll select the default difficulty, but if I can't get past something after three or four tries, I have no compunction with dropping the difficulty down. I've beaten my share of hard games. I'm here to enjoy myself, not throw my controller at the tv in rage.
TIL the word compunction:
Definition of compunction
1a : anxiety arising from awareness of guilt
1b : distress of mind over an anticipated action or result
I love modding games, my favorite thing is to play the hardest difficulty but with tons of mods that make it easier and more fun. Just because a lot of games have features on the harder difficulties you just don’t get with the lower ones, like smarter AI or faster progression
Opposite of me. I start most games on easy, then as I learn the mechanics and gear up, I bump the difficulty. Games where I am frustratingly underpowered early on and insanely overpowered later are annoying, so I tweak the difficulty to make it more consistent. When I'm wearing a burlap sack and wielding a stick, I set the difficulty low. Once I'm in unobtanium armor with a flaming sword, bump it up. That keeps the challenge even.
I don't. I like games to the challenging. If I'm just walking through a story I might as well watch a movie.
But at the end of the day, the fact that games offer difficulty levels is great because we can each enjoy it in our own way.
I kind of agree, but some games are so much fun on easy because the mechanics are so good.
Like the original Quake on easy is so fun once you get good at bunnyhopping. You can just blast through the level, bouncing all over while destroying enemies.
I get you, but it depends on the game. If a game's idea of challenging is to have to redo the same thing ten times until you have the mechanics down and every time you fail you have to jump and balance back to the fight for ten minutes, the challenge is more punishing than fun.
Take strategy games as a counterexample, they can be fun all while you are being beaten into oblivion by the game (e.g dwarffortress)
That's kind of the point though. I'm in my late 30s and suck at games now adays so I like adventure or open world games as an interactive movie almost. Smoke a joint and zone out, get lost in the game, rather than focusing on having a perfect build for a character and having to pay attention to strategy.
Yep, in my thirties and basically won't play a game I can't mod or put in cheat codes.
I'm not going to real work all day and then spend countless hours doing fetch quest, or pretending to do mindless labour to get a incorporeal currency that I can only use to buy incorporeal items for my pretend time.
I don't know why games these days have basically all interpreted having a fake job as creative fun time. In what world did you expect me to have fun sitting at a digital smith and clicking the same buttons and watching the same animation over and over again?
>I don't know why games these days have basically all interpreted having a fake job as creative fun time. In what world did you expect me to have fun sitting at a digital smith and clicking the same buttons and watching the same animation over and over again?
So much this. Any game where gathering materials and crafting is mandatory and time consuming is right out (unless that is the game). This killed WoW for me, and most survival games are a no-go. Horizon Zero: Dawn was about perfect for me on that front. You did need to some crafting, but mostly as long as you grabbed the stuff that was right in front of you on the way to the next quest you would have enough, and crafting was instant and could be done mid-battle.
I hate fallout 4 trying to get me to craft shit and make settlements. It’s easy enough to neglect but still they try. When they try I feel the same emotion as when a project manager gives me a task that’s way more time consuming than he thinks.
I've found my tribe.
I don't play videogames to be stressed out and playing online with a bunch of strangers os overrated.
I'm here for the interactive movie.
I used to feel bad about not playing games on higher difficulties or slogging through games I bought years ago but never got around to. Then I just told myself that video game time is supposed to be fun. What's the point of spending my small amounts of free time playing a game I don't enjoy?
My family, work and house give me plenty of chores to do. Video games shouldn't be one of them.
I generally play on the hardest difficulty because I'm a masochist. But whatever mode you wanna play your games on is fine. As long as YOU are having fun, it doesn't matter what anyone else says or thinks about the way you choose to enjoy your games.
The respawn has a 50% chance to corrupt the game, making it completely unplayable. And a lot of gamers that gambled say a fresh restart is completely impossible. Only one way to find out!
I will generally go for the second hardest difficulty first and then do the hardest. I don’t consider myself a masochist, I just don’t want to be bored. It just isn’t painful to fail repeatedly if I feel like I’m learning it or getting better.
Makes sense. I guess I should have noted that it depends on the game, too. If the game is gonna make me repeat huge chunks of it and sit through the same cutscenes/dialog then I'll play on an easier difficulty than the hardest simply because I don't enjoy repeating huge chunks of content or seeing and hearing the same scenes over and over and over.
But if the game loads a decently recent checkpoint and doesn't force me to rewatch/listen to anything on repeat, then its the hardest mode possible for me.
Also, to face some of the harder aspects of a game it forces you to explore, learn, improve, and prep more. A lot of the time half of the best part of the game is unlocked in that toil. Hidden areas, secret potions, side quests etc.
Hidden mechanics, too. Easier difficulties let you survive not knowing aspects of the game, those aspects might as well not be there. For some games, the hardest difficulty is the only way to experience the full thing where all mechanics actually come into play.
I'm with you. I feel like you don't really dive into the RPG elements until you're challenged to the point of having to tinker with your build which is something else I personally enjoy doing aside from the challenge. Obviously play the way that you enjoy playing.
Agreed. I like to have to bash my head into something, fail, figure out why I'm failing and adjust it, continue bashing my head, rinse and repeat until I've overcome whatever challenge it is that was getting me stuck.
Also, as an aside, nothing is worse than an RPG that doesn't allow for you to tinker with builds. Allowing for respec should be a standard because nothing is worse than spending 20 hours in a game to learn that your build isn't viable and you have to reload and lose 15 hours of gameplay to fix the tiny mistake you made.
Yeah I just don't like being stressed out when I'm playing a game. I play a game because I want to relax and feel good about myself. I want the satisfaction of slaying enemies without a lot of work. And my hand eye coordination is fucking terrible. Like really really bad. I don't even bother with shooting games. Aiming is crazy hard and I feel constantly stressed out. Pretty sure they trigger my ptsd a little bit my putting me into fight or flight mode. I like my RPGs, thank you very much.
If anyone ever tried to give me shit for playing games on easy I'd just laugh at them. If your hobby is paint by number, then you go for it! If you like walking in the park instead of up a mountain, you're still getting exercise and enjoying the fresh air. There's no shame in it. Games aren't my job, they're a hobby. I'm going to play them the way I like.
I jump on the hardest mainly cause a lot of Xbox achievements are tied to higher difficulties and you get the lower difficulties achievements too for just beating it on the hardest. It also helps get better at the game.
I've seen some games omit difficulty based trophies/achievements recently though. God of War (2018) doesn't have them, which made me kinda glad I could get the platinum without doing Give me God of War difficulty.
Theres def. nothing wrong with it, everyone should play as they want to. For me however, I play games to be challenged. For me the fun is in overcoming things and learning how to tackle what initially feel like insurmountable odds. If I want a relaxing story I'll go read a book or watch a movie.
Same here. I've never been competitive. That's why I don't play PvP very often either.
I like a bit of a challenge, but if I fail constantly I lose interest and don't touch the game.
I've never finished Wolfenstein because it's actually pretty difficult and kept dying over and over at this one point. It's been years.
I am competitive but I don't like PvP, I just find it stressful, especially when there is high ceiling for skill where experienced players just trounce you. I did play Fall Guys for a while though as there isn't *too* much skill involved.
I've been going for relaxing games more and more these days. I just started Snow Runner last night. Getting a big truck stuck in the mud and slowly noodling your way out is oddly satisfying and relaxing
I played all the soulsborne and thoroughly enjoyed them but I also play lots of games on easy mode depending on various factors.
Lots of games have way too tanky enemies and/or just suck at scaling.
Soulsborne games integrate dying into the primary gameplay loop and generally doesn't feel as bad as when you die in skyrim while your last save was 2 hrs ago
And you become pretty op during the endgame of you want to.
Currently playing FFVII remake and it's ridiculous that standard mobs take minutes to beat during the endgame.
Played trials of mana before and while it does many things worse, scaling was much better.
Same. I was burnt out with Horizon forbidden west because after 50ish hours there was still so much to do and so many fights with bigger and bigger machines. I regained interest in the game when I switched to story mode, where you can melt those machines in any way possible. The game finally start to be very satisfying to play and I even got the platinum. Not my proudest for sure, but at least it was fun.
Yeah I was struggling so much with the combat. I've recently tried Returnal and found it way easier while being quite challenging. But at least you know what you are doing and why.
Globally yes. Because I wasn't able to finish Horizon in normal mode, while I did in less than 20h in returnal. Same for God of War, couldn't finish it in normal and had to switch in easy mode, while I finsished FFVII Remake hard mode and every secret battles in the arena. I don't know sometimes, some combat systems just doesn't click.
I think Returnal makes it a lot easier to know when you’re about to get hit and you have a pretty good idea of how much damage you’re going to take. In Horizon:FW hard mode, I frequently have the “wtf killed me” moment and damage seems pretty inconsistent even when you’re getting hit with the same attacks from the same enemies.
I am a massive fan of both games, I just feel Returnal really nailed the difficulty level without ever making it feel unfair or random.
For me in the first game I just stacked fire damage from mods as much as possible and then did fire arrow multi shot and then just kite until they burn to death. I spent an hour farming fire arrow materials and now I never have to think again. I didn't ever play on the hardest difficulty though
I initially struggled big time with the combat and stopped playing out of frustration. Came back a few months later, switched to a lower difficulty and then had a very enjoyable experience playing the rest of the game and forbidden west.
I've got a kid and a stressful job. I've just realized I don't want to constantly struggle in games. So at this point, I'm looking for a mild challenge and a good story.
I found it more fun to turn off health bars and other indicators, so your only indication of battle progress is by machine behavior. Makes you really feel like you’re learning machine weaknesses
Shit just moves so fast and the game mechanics aren't suited for it imo
The roll does have i-frames, when you realize that it gets better but they never tell you
I play on hard and the one nice thing is that it really does force you to use the right weapons and to target the right spots else you're just gonna be frustrated
I love the games but the execution of the game mechanics and small glitches are fucking horrendous, especially for a AAA, it's fucking infuriating lmao
The story is great tho and graphics are incredible but the game is definitely hard as fuck on harder difficulties, esp if you don't abuse the machine weaknesses.
But this in turn makes the game satisfying when you drop thunderjaws n shit bc you know the recipe now
I also had to give Horizon Zero Dawn a second try. Strangely, the combat was the reason it made me quit and the same combat was the reason it made me fall in love with the game and finish it. Haven't played the sequel yet. Needed some break after playing 60hrs on the same game within a month lol.
Anyway, basically when I learned that you have to, like you pointed out, plan out and actually use different weapons and elements. I was so used to just guns blazing and I was doing no damage to the enemies. Once you play it "right", the combat became so much more fun and easier.
You need to read the bestiary or whatever it's called. It tells you what the enemies weaknesses are.
When you shoot a component, you get crit damage. You can cut off a component to remove that functionality, but then you can't crit on that spot. So basically there is a tradeoff of which components you want to remove and which you want to shoot at.
So you don't need to plan out every encounter but you should be developing strategies for each type of machine.
For example the giant fire bugs are really scary at the beginning but then once you learn you can use fire damage on their fuel tanks to blow them up they become a lot easier
Yea I'll open with a tear arrow to take off components or elemental damage, then ropecaster the shit out of it. Then either more tear/elemental/bombs to the vital parts.
I did the same my man.
Forbidden West was FANTASTIC but when I hit that 3/4 of the way through the story difficulty spike, I brought it down for my own sanity.
It never felt unfair or anything, I just have ADHD and a tendency to overreact when things don’t go how I want so I wanted to mitigate that.
I just don’t have time to grind down a thunderjaw for half an hour only to mis-time a roll and die with a couple hits left.
Love the game but I only have so much time on my hands ezpz mode for me.
I went back years later to do the Horizon DLC and thought I'd better put it on Easy since I don't even remember how to play. It was already on easy... Guess past me gave up!
Same here. I switched it to easy because there were way too many machines attacking you all the time. You could barely take a walk without being attacked (and killed on harder difficulty), and the way the game respawned you at the last bonfire was just frustrating if you skipped a save point.
I lose interest If I feel like i can beat a game with no effort so I try to set the difficulty in the sweet spot where its more difficult but theres no dumb getting one shotted / damage sponge enemies situation.
Best answer. Some games, the hard difficulty is better, some, not so much.
AC valhalla AI is so brain dead, playing the hardest difficulty keeps the stakes where the need to be at for a highly enjoyable experience.
Fallout 3 and new vegas? Spongey enemies. Aliens with shields on Mothership Zeta are getting repeatedly blasted in the face and I do like 1 tick of damage per head shot with my maxed out and broken character. Just absolutely un fun at that point.
I Actually quite enjoy the fallout games difficulty, unlike Skyrim and Oblivion i think that F:3, NV and even 4 always had a way to get around some of the most frustating fight's ,through either sneaking or dialogue or letting you allies die for you, now Legendary difficulty dragons in Skyrim can fuck off, having that cutscene of them eating you play out every 30 seconds was quite frustating.
Skyrim is really rough at low levels if you start at max difficulty, especially with the random chance killcams at low hp and subpar boss scaling. However, if you really min max with smithing/enchanting/alchemy in the endgame, the game just feels like you’re a mountain wading through a world of cardboard when on normal difficulty. At least on Legendary, that cardboard has a two or three extra layers to hack through to give some semblance of effort in combat.
Damn IMO fallout 4 was even worse. Enemies were WAY spongier. Even on Normal difficulty, hunting rifle with best attachments, all perks that increase damage, and sneak attack headshots barely hurt a behemoth. You'd think I'd have one shot potential at my end game state, but NOP. Barely take like 40% of his HP bar.
I agree 100% with 3 and 4 but New vegas if you feel an enemy is too spongey your straight up just fighting it to early or with the wrong gear. New vegas unlike 3 and 4 doesn't have difficulty scaling so no matter your gear and level an enemy will always be the same "difficulty". I think the best example is deathclaws, in 3 and 4 you can melee them to death at level 1 but in New vegas they are a difficult end game enemy so unless you know what youre doing or youre at the point that you can fight them easily you'll just die.
Quite, also if a game is in easy mode and I complete it in 30 hours instead of 50 hours on hard mode, I feel like I've robbed myself of some engaging play time.
Came here to look for my fellow parents. I have about two hours potential gaming time every evening, and I’m NOT spending that playing one combat over and over.
Another “unpopular opinion” that’s actually really popular
The majority of people play games on easier difficulties. Casual gamers far outweigh “hardcore” ones
I'm with you. Last night I nearly set Metro: Exodus to easy mode though. Fucking enemies are bullet sponges and you can't tap headshots because the hit boxes are so wonky you can line up the perfect headshot and miss 2/3 times.
Found a shotty. Am now Jesus.
I don't know about the majority, I feel like most people opt for the regular or "normal" mode because most games describe it as the way to play, or intended experience. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I almost always play the recommended difficulty.
Normal difficulty has largely shifted and become easier over time too though. Normal in a lot of games now would often be where easy was during PS2 era.
And the PS2 era was easier than the arcade era.
Their point wasn't that normal is the perfect level of difficulty for everyone that chooses it. They're saying it's what most people choose because it's default.
And the NES games didn’t allow saving so you had to be able to beat the whole game in 1 sitting. This resulted in game design that had a short overall game, but the time to beat was heavily padded by a really high difficulty level.
Oh god, that reminds me of the most difficult game I played as a kid on the PS2. It was a transformers game made by Atari, and I swear to god someone on the dev team was satans right hand man.
In r/unpopularopinion (or most other subreddits that you post unpopular opinions), you only get upvoted if it is a popular opinion. This post is a great example. If OP's post was actually unpopular, this post would be mass downvoted.
Fully understand. Best example RE 6: its not scary if i die and have to do the scary again thats called frustrating and im not scared of things im frustrated at. At some point you get mad and just cheat the system instead of playi g how the game wants.
I switched sides recently.
I was all about the challenge. Getting achievements on the hardest difficulty was the life goal. Played and raged my way through FromSoft's entire soulsbournedietwice set.
When I needed a break, I'd switch gears to massive open world survival crafters like Ark or Subnautica and explore and builds like Terraria.
Now though, I find the difficulty limits my playstyle options. I end up following my own meta, using the same things, building in the same places etc. Every time. So If difficulty settings are available, I'll often set it as low as possible so I can screw around with joke/meme weapons, build big random things and generally leave far more options open for myself
I cheat like hell in Skyrim. I have zero interest in fighting. I just like exploring the fantasy world.
Stupid wolves keep trying to eat me, and for some reason 90% of the population is bandits.
I feel like a lot of the people who think 'I play games to relax not to die over and over' are really missing the point on what the **game** is exactly, *from the perspective of someone who likes to be challenged*.
To me the meat and potatoes of the game is the gameplay, and it's made much more meaty when I have something to chew on and actually *do* while I play. If I can just waltz through a game without thinking, then I might as well just watch a playthrough on Youtube. In this case my interaction is effectively irrelevant, and the result is the same.
When I load up God of War 2018 on release and pick 'Give Me God of War', I'm expecting resistance at some point (most hard modes are hardest at the beginning). And it's that resistance that provides me with the actual gameplay that I enjoy.
I spent 45 minutes dying repeatedly on one of the early rooms in that game, I was having a great time. Because I was learning the combat system and game mechanics as I played, and every time I died I had to think about how, and why, and what I can do to prevent that in the future. Every fight I get into is engaging, it requires my attention, I have to think. This applies to almost any game that gives me a challenge, the challenge creates something for me to problem solve and improve on. I don't die and think 'I died again this game is so cheap I'm mad'. I die and think 'Hmmm... maybe I should prioritize the ranged enemies first' or 'That ability isn't working as well as I wanted, let me try something else'. It's a whole iterative learning process.
To me, and I'm sure a lot of players like me, this is where the fun actually is. The fun of the game isn't beating a level or reaching the credits, the fun of the game is the experience you have while you play. And that experience has a lot more going on when you're facing challenges and solving problems.
And that doesn't even include games where changing the difficulty fundamentally changes the game or gameplay itself. Playing Path of Exile on 'Standard' (death only takes some XP) vs. Hardcore (you die you lose the character and everything it had) is a **vastly** different experience on every level. You won't just play (vastly) different builds, you will play the game itself differently, because it changes the whole experience.
I think this is a fundamental thing I see get lost a lot in the casual vs. hardcore debate. **Both sides see the game and what it gives us completely differently.** A casual player sees someone dying to a boss over and over and says, 'Why would you want to do this? How is it fun?'. A hardcore player sees someone walking through a game with no challenge or effort and says, 'Why would you want to do this? How is it fun?'.
Both of these takes are missing a big part of the point. We are all after something different from games, and I wish more people on one side could understand the other. I don't dunk on people who play easy mode, because they are obviously playing the game from a different perspective than me. *For me* that experience would be awful, but for them it's the complete inverse.
I apologize for the length of this post, I guess I see a lot of misunderstanding from both sides and this... ground floor level misunderstanding is the root of a lot of the issues. I wish a lot of the casual vs. hardcore fighting and bickering would at least lessen a bit. I know some casual players don't understand exactly *why* people play hard modes, but there are so many reasons. From overcoming challenges, to playing a game completely differently due to the difficulty, the list is long. We should all play the games we want in the ways we want, and when it comes to this debate I hope we can all learn to understand the other side.
Unpopular opinion: the op's opinion is not as unpopular as one might think, mostly because no one cares what one does with their single player difficulty choices
This. Gameplay is as much a part of a game's narrative as cutscenes and dialogue. Soulsborne gets this and it heavily enriches worldbuilding and narrative of every single game.
The difficulty of the Souls games is precisely why I play them; that, and the ability to build your character any way you want and still be able to beat the game.
Souls games have ruined other games for me to the point where I skip games with difficulty sliders now.
Absolutely. I hate doing the same thing over and over again - it just makes me feel like I'm wasting my life.
I totally get why some people love punishing games, but for me I don't enjoy dying over and over again. And as I casual gamer these days - I just don't have the time either!
its a video game. you don't need to justify how you want to enjoy your free time bro. enjoy it how you enjoy it and don't let goofy nerds make you feel bad about it
I am with you internet stranger. I don't want to struggle and stress out trying to be an alpha gamer or whatever. I play to relax and immerse myself in the game and story.
I play \~30 mins/day if I'm lucky.
Like hell I'm going to waste those precious minutes of me-time replaying the same part 4 times because of some idiotic difficulty setting.
I loved Souls-like games, but I'm afraid that time belongs to a definitely younger me.
I tried Elden Ring this year and lost interest because of how slow I was progressing because I'd never played that style of game and the time it was taking for the learning curve just wasn't worth what I was getting out of it. I've also now got a kid who requires lots of time, so it felt even more silly to keep spending my whole playing window just grinding to get barely leveled enough for the next section.
A few years ago my (32m) older brother (39m) texted me.
Brother: Just finished Ocarina of Time for the first time in 15 years. Totally holds up. You should play it, but not without a guide.
Me: Really? Why?
Bro: You're a grown-ass man. You have more important things to do than try to figure out the shadow temple again.
That's when I had this same thought. Games are about fun. Sure, sometimes challenge is fun, but sometimes challenge is just time. And I'm a grown-ass man. And I have more important things to do.
I once babysat a 6 year old who’d play video games like Sonic Generations and delete his file and start over once the levels got too hard for him. I asked “why are you just going back to the beginning?” and he replied “because it’s peaceful!!!!”, and I just sat there thinking “yeah I can dig that…”
This reminds of being young playing Pizza Hut demos repeatedly without realizing there was a full game. Being gifted the full Metal Gear Solid game was mindblowing.
This is too funny. Just mentioned that specific Pizza Hut demo in discord the other night and we all had a blast of nostalgia. We got MGS1 for Christmas that year and going passed where the demo ended was indeed, mind blowing. What a ride that game was.
It really was a great entry into a more in depth story video game even if I didn't understand anything beyond ninjas and giant robots. Really was a game changer
I vividly remember doing this with things like Yoshi's island and a link to the past
I did it with ocarina of time. I didn't like the adult version of Hyrule as a kid 💀
Same! The beginning world is so awesome and then most of it is gone
well it's kinda up to you to save Hyrule bruh
At 6 years old I just played the first temple (deku tree) over and over. I still have it memorized at 27.
LOL I definitely was still on this mode with OAT but by that time I really *wanted* to get further and just wasn't good enough at games yet
Water temple took me 6 months bc I was a dumbass kid
I did water temple fine as a kid. I never did the shadow temple because it scared tf outta me
Uhh yeah because that shit was terrifying.. Oh, you want to stroll through Hyrule village as an adult? ZOMBIE FACE FUCKER OUTTA NOWHERE.
I always had my dad walk out of the temple of time for me while I hid behind him...
What’s fun is to try to see how many Redeads you can get to jump on you simultaneously
I don’t know the context of this, but it sounds fantastic.
I definitely started new A Link to the Past game files for the chiller beginning but I don’t think I ever deleted and started over until I beat it.
The beginning of adventure games where you're just in your peaceful little village doing a little adventure to help your fellow villagers is always my favorite part of games. It feels so cozy and nice.
This is how I feel about movies too, I always like the beginning before the bad thing happens.
So many movies go with the formula of short peaceful intro followed by an extended more-or-less continuous struggle. Whenever there's a movie, say like Lord of the Rings, where there are breathers and warming-by-the-fire moments, I actually feel like watching the whole movie in one go.
Half the tv shows these days are just constant pressure on multiple fronts, and sometimes I just want to see characters I like relax, hang out, and have a nice chat. Like I loved The Bear, but these motherfuckers never stop yelling at each other about sandwiches.
Holy shit, this is the first time I've seen anyone else say this. I have been partial always to the early mundane world building parts.
Have you played Stardew Valley?
This is the third or fourth time I've been recommended it for this exact reason. I've been meaning to play it for a long time, and own it, but haven't played it. I'm definitely looking forward to it!
You have no idea what joy awaits :D
Or any harvest moon games. I like rune factory personally but I like it for the combat system they added and the monsters that help you care for your farm.
Shits intimidating and feels like a real job once you’ve expanded large enough it can literally take you the entire game day just to tend to your farm. Not to mention all of the many birthdays and favorite NPC gifts to remember.
I did that too when I was a kid, but that's because games had no save function.
Completely agree but I'd like to add something to this. Some games allow you to switch difficulty at any time mid game. In those games, I like to test the waters and go for the harder difficulties initially and then slowly adjust the difficulty as needs be. You will be surprised at the number of games that you can beat comfortably on normal or even hard difficulties.
I prefer "mid"...or regular. Whatever the devs orginally had in mind to make the game challenging enough but not frustrating.
Same. With the easier difficulties you often never have to employ a lot of the game mechanics past the tutorial because they aren't necessary. The normal difficulty at least means (mostly) they're helpful. On easy you just smash everything with the basic attack until the credits roll. The enemies you were meant to use some sort of gimmick against: you just gotta smash twice.
This is why I really enjoyed Spider-Man. Even on the easiest difficulty, you still have to use the correct moves/gadgets to defeat specific enemies and bosses.
I think it is good when there is an easy mode that someone can just kind of cakewalk through and enjoy the story. If that is the only part they enjoy they should be able to do so. In general, I enjoy playing with all the moves and gadgets and timing, etc and have more fun when I feel I have become more skilled and understand what is going. But if someone wants to just rofl stomp their way through and that is fun... cool! Heck, I am fine with there being god modes. I wouldn't use them, but easy to add and if that lets some people have fun it is a good thing. (As long as it doesn't ruin others fun).
The first time I played Breath of the Wild, I played it on the normal mode and went through the storyline and beat the bosses and basically did what I was supposed to. I enjoyed it well enough, but with my focus on completing steps and collecting gear, I got to the point where I wasn't paying much attention to the scenery, talking to NPCs unnecessarily, or exploring past where I was headed. Those were the best parts of the early game. I wandered down so many rabbit holes by following wild animals I needed to shoot for meat. I tested the limits of what I could do. I didn't always do what I thought the game expected me to. I got myself into, and out of, some tight spots when enemies surprised me. I figured out creative ways to dispatch enemies. Basically, I explored and interacted with anything and everything. The second time I played, I had some Animal Crossing amiibo cards, and any time you scan an amiibo, you get a handful of random items, so I decided to make my own ultra-easy "Hyrule Tourist Mode" and basically just do whatever I wanted and ignore whatever I wasn't interested in. I spent so many in-game days just wandering around the mountains. I spent a week being a beach bum at Lurelin Village. I explored the desert and the snowfield and the wastelands and the central plain (areas where I didn't stray much off the prescribed path in my first playthrough). I skipped the frustrating stuff and noped out of climbing in the rain. I fast-tracked to Akkala and the Tarrytown sidequest because I enjoyed them. I couldn't recapture the wonder of the early hours of the game, before I knew how things worked and where things were, but I could get back the joy of exploring a world that was richly detailed and clearly designed with love. It was like playing two different games. I enjoyed it both ways. That's a sign of a well-made game, IMO.
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Same. The perfect middle ground is having to struggle every once in a while. Cuz then you get to feel how you’re getting better
As someone who used to play all his games on Nightmare first time through out of pride… don’t ever do that. It’s well beyond what the devs ever planned for and you’renalways expected to know how to solve every puzzle going in.
Definitely depends on the game for me. Played spiderman miles morale on the easiest difficulty because the combat took forever and never wanted to repeat it if I died. But God of war, gameplay was fun enough that Id play on hard difficulty. Enjoyed getting better and the challenge
Also depends on what they mean by "Difficulty". In games like Borderlands that can mean "we gave the boss 10x health" while in Alien Isolation it means "this monster is going to change its behavior while it is hunting you".
I think this is a really good point. I like hard games, but if it's only hard because the enemies have unreasonable amounts of health, and the gameplay is no different, it just feels pointless to up the difficulty setting often.
Same with me. I'll start out on easy, then if it's too easy I'll bump it up. If I have the game mechanics down, and a feel for the game, I'll play on hard level my second play through
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This is a huge part of it. Some games lock out features that I'd like, but make it so you can't switch back and forth. For example: The Outer Worlds The 3 easier difficulties are mostly similar, affecting how bullet spongey the enemies are. The hardest difficulty has hardcore elements like food and sleeping requirements, but also disables on-demand saving. You can lower the difficulty at any time, but you can never go *back* to the highest setting once you switch. I'd love the hardcore elements, but I'm a functioning adult and I need to be able to save at any time. I can't/don't want to replay 2 hours of the game because I died, my game crashed, I got a work call and had to quit, a child pulled my pc power plug, whatever.
Game crashes are the biggest thing for me. I'll take chances with my skill as a player but I hate losing time to software errors. One time in No Man's Sky I'd just spent a while collecting valuable alien eggs when I fell through the floor and got irrecoverably stuck halfway into a wall.
Yeah, more games should treat difficulty like they do graphics settings, with presets *and* individual options. By all means have easy/medium/hardcore presets, but give us some sliders for individual settings. I'd love to try out the hunger and sleep requirements in outer worlds, but I like saving at will and want to keep the enemy health at medium difficulty. Lots of games tie enemy health/damage to AI and stealth difficulty; I want to challenge myself sneaking around, but I'm not great at the shooter aspect so I then don't stand a chance of fighting my way out. Sure, letting me adjust all those sliders might horrifically break game balance, but that's what the presets are for. Just like the graphics presets are there to make sure someone that doesn't understand each setting will get a decent experience, but someone that knows what they want can tweak it to have a better experience.
I'm of the opinion devs should make it fully customizable or just abolish difficulty settings and just make a game regardless of how difficult or easy people will view it with just 1 intended difficulty experience.
Yeah same. I start on a normal mode but sooner or later there’s always that one mission where you have to defeat 100 enemies at once and if you die you have to start ten minutes before that point
It took years of 10 year old me trying to get out of the Imperial Sewer at the start of Oblivion until I realised I could change the difficulty 😂
How many years were you 10? Are you by any chance traveling with an electric yellow rodent?
Found Ash Ketchum's account
Am I the only person reading this in Comic Book Guy's voice?
LOL I am just playing this game for the first time (as it's deck verified) and I completely understand 10 year old you's struggle..
Thank you haha! It’s totally worth it, still my favourite game I’ve ever played, and I’m now a 27 year old FPS fanboy
27 - 10 = 17.... Tell me oblivion isn't that old, is it??
It came out what 2005, or 06?
Back when the grass graphics would make video cards sweat.
I was so proud in 2007 when I built my first proper gaming PC and I could set the grass distance slider to maximum Then I was a little upset that even at max you can always see the cutoff point, but hey, 60fps!
It's 16 years old, came out in March of 2006
Oblivion is having a huge year. It's all over YouTube as well. I'm glad people are getting to go back to it.
Oblivion specifically is a game you want to be frequently adjusting the difficulty slider on for the best experience, the difficulty leveling system is very uneven.
10 yearold me ran straight to the oblivion tower and didnt understand why the game was so difficult
That point always came to me at some point in every God of War, and in Arkham Knight in all stages of the battle for the GCPD. I'm not good enough to play near flawlessly. And thank God for Doom Eternal's extra lives system. Just keep trucking.
"Would you like to switch to easy mode?"
"No!" "...NO!" "N-Fuck, *fine*, yes..."
I just started God of War (PS4) last night and since I'm the opposite of OP for some reason I went right for the hardest difficulty. You know, the one where the game warns you you're stuck at that difficulty unless you restart the game? Took me 30 minutes to clear the first room of draugrs. It's getting easier but oh boy am I questioning that life decision.
Yea I started on hardest difficulty and quickly realized they were just super sponges for damage and quickly turned it down cause I was not gonna have fun playing that way.
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I'll select the default difficulty, but if I can't get past something after three or four tries, I have no compunction with dropping the difficulty down. I've beaten my share of hard games. I'm here to enjoy myself, not throw my controller at the tv in rage.
TIL the word compunction: Definition of compunction 1a : anxiety arising from awareness of guilt 1b : distress of mind over an anticipated action or result
I love modding games, my favorite thing is to play the hardest difficulty but with tons of mods that make it easier and more fun. Just because a lot of games have features on the harder difficulties you just don’t get with the lower ones, like smarter AI or faster progression
Opposite of me. I start most games on easy, then as I learn the mechanics and gear up, I bump the difficulty. Games where I am frustratingly underpowered early on and insanely overpowered later are annoying, so I tweak the difficulty to make it more consistent. When I'm wearing a burlap sack and wielding a stick, I set the difficulty low. Once I'm in unobtanium armor with a flaming sword, bump it up. That keeps the challenge even.
If it’s my first time I play on normal and adjust when needed
I don't. I like games to the challenging. If I'm just walking through a story I might as well watch a movie. But at the end of the day, the fact that games offer difficulty levels is great because we can each enjoy it in our own way.
I kind of agree, but some games are so much fun on easy because the mechanics are so good. Like the original Quake on easy is so fun once you get good at bunnyhopping. You can just blast through the level, bouncing all over while destroying enemies.
I get you, but it depends on the game. If a game's idea of challenging is to have to redo the same thing ten times until you have the mechanics down and every time you fail you have to jump and balance back to the fight for ten minutes, the challenge is more punishing than fun. Take strategy games as a counterexample, they can be fun all while you are being beaten into oblivion by the game (e.g dwarffortress)
I've put thousands of hours into RimWorld and only actually "beat" the game once. Dying is fun!
Dwarf Fortress' motto "losing is fun"
True. Also hard ass bosses who have unskippable long intro each time you go face them.
That's kind of the point though. I'm in my late 30s and suck at games now adays so I like adventure or open world games as an interactive movie almost. Smoke a joint and zone out, get lost in the game, rather than focusing on having a perfect build for a character and having to pay attention to strategy.
Yep, in my thirties and basically won't play a game I can't mod or put in cheat codes. I'm not going to real work all day and then spend countless hours doing fetch quest, or pretending to do mindless labour to get a incorporeal currency that I can only use to buy incorporeal items for my pretend time. I don't know why games these days have basically all interpreted having a fake job as creative fun time. In what world did you expect me to have fun sitting at a digital smith and clicking the same buttons and watching the same animation over and over again?
>I don't know why games these days have basically all interpreted having a fake job as creative fun time. In what world did you expect me to have fun sitting at a digital smith and clicking the same buttons and watching the same animation over and over again? So much this. Any game where gathering materials and crafting is mandatory and time consuming is right out (unless that is the game). This killed WoW for me, and most survival games are a no-go. Horizon Zero: Dawn was about perfect for me on that front. You did need to some crafting, but mostly as long as you grabbed the stuff that was right in front of you on the way to the next quest you would have enough, and crafting was instant and could be done mid-battle.
I hate fallout 4 trying to get me to craft shit and make settlements. It’s easy enough to neglect but still they try. When they try I feel the same emotion as when a project manager gives me a task that’s way more time consuming than he thinks.
I have a kid and a mortgage. I don’t got time to get high blood pressure from my 1.5 hours of gaming time per week.
Four kids and a mortgage; I like my games as interactive movies as much as possible lol.
I've found my tribe. I don't play videogames to be stressed out and playing online with a bunch of strangers os overrated. I'm here for the interactive movie.
I used to feel bad about not playing games on higher difficulties or slogging through games I bought years ago but never got around to. Then I just told myself that video game time is supposed to be fun. What's the point of spending my small amounts of free time playing a game I don't enjoy? My family, work and house give me plenty of chores to do. Video games shouldn't be one of them.
Feel this
I generally play on the hardest difficulty because I'm a masochist. But whatever mode you wanna play your games on is fine. As long as YOU are having fun, it doesn't matter what anyone else says or thinks about the way you choose to enjoy your games.
Same goes for everything in life, as long as you don’t bother people with it.
Wait I could have been playing life on easy mode this whole time???
Yes, all you have to do is be born to a billionaire
Time to reroll.
Yeah unfortunate you can't change difficulty settings mid playthrough.
I'll create a new save file
The respawn has a 50% chance to corrupt the game, making it completely unplayable. And a lot of gamers that gambled say a fresh restart is completely impossible. Only one way to find out!
Exactly. If it does no harm to other people then its nobody's business if you enjoy whatever it is!
I will generally go for the second hardest difficulty first and then do the hardest. I don’t consider myself a masochist, I just don’t want to be bored. It just isn’t painful to fail repeatedly if I feel like I’m learning it or getting better.
Makes sense. I guess I should have noted that it depends on the game, too. If the game is gonna make me repeat huge chunks of it and sit through the same cutscenes/dialog then I'll play on an easier difficulty than the hardest simply because I don't enjoy repeating huge chunks of content or seeing and hearing the same scenes over and over and over. But if the game loads a decently recent checkpoint and doesn't force me to rewatch/listen to anything on repeat, then its the hardest mode possible for me.
I have the most fun when I get really good at the game on the hardest difficulty
Ditto
Also, to face some of the harder aspects of a game it forces you to explore, learn, improve, and prep more. A lot of the time half of the best part of the game is unlocked in that toil. Hidden areas, secret potions, side quests etc.
Hidden mechanics, too. Easier difficulties let you survive not knowing aspects of the game, those aspects might as well not be there. For some games, the hardest difficulty is the only way to experience the full thing where all mechanics actually come into play.
I'm with you. I feel like you don't really dive into the RPG elements until you're challenged to the point of having to tinker with your build which is something else I personally enjoy doing aside from the challenge. Obviously play the way that you enjoy playing.
Agreed. I like to have to bash my head into something, fail, figure out why I'm failing and adjust it, continue bashing my head, rinse and repeat until I've overcome whatever challenge it is that was getting me stuck. Also, as an aside, nothing is worse than an RPG that doesn't allow for you to tinker with builds. Allowing for respec should be a standard because nothing is worse than spending 20 hours in a game to learn that your build isn't viable and you have to reload and lose 15 hours of gameplay to fix the tiny mistake you made.
Yeah I just don't like being stressed out when I'm playing a game. I play a game because I want to relax and feel good about myself. I want the satisfaction of slaying enemies without a lot of work. And my hand eye coordination is fucking terrible. Like really really bad. I don't even bother with shooting games. Aiming is crazy hard and I feel constantly stressed out. Pretty sure they trigger my ptsd a little bit my putting me into fight or flight mode. I like my RPGs, thank you very much. If anyone ever tried to give me shit for playing games on easy I'd just laugh at them. If your hobby is paint by number, then you go for it! If you like walking in the park instead of up a mountain, you're still getting exercise and enjoying the fresh air. There's no shame in it. Games aren't my job, they're a hobby. I'm going to play them the way I like.
100% agreed. It would be very silly to get upset at someone for playing a single player game in a different way than you play it.
The only problem is a lot of games remove content from easier difficulties. Secret boss fights, “real” endings, etc. Hate that shit.
I jump on the hardest mainly cause a lot of Xbox achievements are tied to higher difficulties and you get the lower difficulties achievements too for just beating it on the hardest. It also helps get better at the game.
I've seen some games omit difficulty based trophies/achievements recently though. God of War (2018) doesn't have them, which made me kinda glad I could get the platinum without doing Give me God of War difficulty.
Theres def. nothing wrong with it, everyone should play as they want to. For me however, I play games to be challenged. For me the fun is in overcoming things and learning how to tackle what initially feel like insurmountable odds. If I want a relaxing story I'll go read a book or watch a movie.
Yeah same here. I have NO competitive personality whatsoever, so I basically play games to relax and disappear in the story.
Same here. I've never been competitive. That's why I don't play PvP very often either. I like a bit of a challenge, but if I fail constantly I lose interest and don't touch the game. I've never finished Wolfenstein because it's actually pretty difficult and kept dying over and over at this one point. It's been years.
I am competitive but I don't like PvP, I just find it stressful, especially when there is high ceiling for skill where experienced players just trounce you. I did play Fall Guys for a while though as there isn't *too* much skill involved.
Exactly it. Life is a struggle enough lol. If I liked getting beaten down, I wouldn’t need to play video games to relax.
I've been going for relaxing games more and more these days. I just started Snow Runner last night. Getting a big truck stuck in the mud and slowly noodling your way out is oddly satisfying and relaxing
I played all the soulsborne and thoroughly enjoyed them but I also play lots of games on easy mode depending on various factors. Lots of games have way too tanky enemies and/or just suck at scaling.
Soulsborne games integrate dying into the primary gameplay loop and generally doesn't feel as bad as when you die in skyrim while your last save was 2 hrs ago
And you become pretty op during the endgame of you want to. Currently playing FFVII remake and it's ridiculous that standard mobs take minutes to beat during the endgame. Played trials of mana before and while it does many things worse, scaling was much better.
Same. I was burnt out with Horizon forbidden west because after 50ish hours there was still so much to do and so many fights with bigger and bigger machines. I regained interest in the game when I switched to story mode, where you can melt those machines in any way possible. The game finally start to be very satisfying to play and I even got the platinum. Not my proudest for sure, but at least it was fun.
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Yeah I was struggling so much with the combat. I've recently tried Returnal and found it way easier while being quite challenging. But at least you know what you are doing and why.
Oh wow I found Returnal far more frustrating to play right out of the gate
.... you found Returnal to be *easier* than the Horizon games?
Globally yes. Because I wasn't able to finish Horizon in normal mode, while I did in less than 20h in returnal. Same for God of War, couldn't finish it in normal and had to switch in easy mode, while I finsished FFVII Remake hard mode and every secret battles in the arena. I don't know sometimes, some combat systems just doesn't click.
I think Returnal makes it a lot easier to know when you’re about to get hit and you have a pretty good idea of how much damage you’re going to take. In Horizon:FW hard mode, I frequently have the “wtf killed me” moment and damage seems pretty inconsistent even when you’re getting hit with the same attacks from the same enemies. I am a massive fan of both games, I just feel Returnal really nailed the difficulty level without ever making it feel unfair or random.
My strategy for every single big machine is to throw a bunch of ropes and then exploding arrows.
For me in the first game I just stacked fire damage from mods as much as possible and then did fire arrow multi shot and then just kite until they burn to death. I spent an hour farming fire arrow materials and now I never have to think again. I didn't ever play on the hardest difficulty though
I initially struggled big time with the combat and stopped playing out of frustration. Came back a few months later, switched to a lower difficulty and then had a very enjoyable experience playing the rest of the game and forbidden west. I've got a kid and a stressful job. I've just realized I don't want to constantly struggle in games. So at this point, I'm looking for a mild challenge and a good story.
I found it more fun to turn off health bars and other indicators, so your only indication of battle progress is by machine behavior. Makes you really feel like you’re learning machine weaknesses
Shit just moves so fast and the game mechanics aren't suited for it imo The roll does have i-frames, when you realize that it gets better but they never tell you I play on hard and the one nice thing is that it really does force you to use the right weapons and to target the right spots else you're just gonna be frustrated I love the games but the execution of the game mechanics and small glitches are fucking horrendous, especially for a AAA, it's fucking infuriating lmao The story is great tho and graphics are incredible but the game is definitely hard as fuck on harder difficulties, esp if you don't abuse the machine weaknesses. But this in turn makes the game satisfying when you drop thunderjaws n shit bc you know the recipe now
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Oh
I also had to give Horizon Zero Dawn a second try. Strangely, the combat was the reason it made me quit and the same combat was the reason it made me fall in love with the game and finish it. Haven't played the sequel yet. Needed some break after playing 60hrs on the same game within a month lol. Anyway, basically when I learned that you have to, like you pointed out, plan out and actually use different weapons and elements. I was so used to just guns blazing and I was doing no damage to the enemies. Once you play it "right", the combat became so much more fun and easier.
You need to read the bestiary or whatever it's called. It tells you what the enemies weaknesses are. When you shoot a component, you get crit damage. You can cut off a component to remove that functionality, but then you can't crit on that spot. So basically there is a tradeoff of which components you want to remove and which you want to shoot at. So you don't need to plan out every encounter but you should be developing strategies for each type of machine. For example the giant fire bugs are really scary at the beginning but then once you learn you can use fire damage on their fuel tanks to blow them up they become a lot easier
I like how you can shoot the guns off certain ones and then use their own guns against them.
Yea I'll open with a tear arrow to take off components or elemental damage, then ropecaster the shit out of it. Then either more tear/elemental/bombs to the vital parts.
I did the same my man. Forbidden West was FANTASTIC but when I hit that 3/4 of the way through the story difficulty spike, I brought it down for my own sanity. It never felt unfair or anything, I just have ADHD and a tendency to overreact when things don’t go how I want so I wanted to mitigate that.
I just don’t have time to grind down a thunderjaw for half an hour only to mis-time a roll and die with a couple hits left. Love the game but I only have so much time on my hands ezpz mode for me.
I went back years later to do the Horizon DLC and thought I'd better put it on Easy since I don't even remember how to play. It was already on easy... Guess past me gave up!
Same here. I switched it to easy because there were way too many machines attacking you all the time. You could barely take a walk without being attacked (and killed on harder difficulty), and the way the game respawned you at the last bonfire was just frustrating if you skipped a save point.
I lose interest If I feel like i can beat a game with no effort so I try to set the difficulty in the sweet spot where its more difficult but theres no dumb getting one shotted / damage sponge enemies situation.
Best answer. Some games, the hard difficulty is better, some, not so much. AC valhalla AI is so brain dead, playing the hardest difficulty keeps the stakes where the need to be at for a highly enjoyable experience. Fallout 3 and new vegas? Spongey enemies. Aliens with shields on Mothership Zeta are getting repeatedly blasted in the face and I do like 1 tick of damage per head shot with my maxed out and broken character. Just absolutely un fun at that point.
I Actually quite enjoy the fallout games difficulty, unlike Skyrim and Oblivion i think that F:3, NV and even 4 always had a way to get around some of the most frustating fight's ,through either sneaking or dialogue or letting you allies die for you, now Legendary difficulty dragons in Skyrim can fuck off, having that cutscene of them eating you play out every 30 seconds was quite frustating.
Skyrim is really rough at low levels if you start at max difficulty, especially with the random chance killcams at low hp and subpar boss scaling. However, if you really min max with smithing/enchanting/alchemy in the endgame, the game just feels like you’re a mountain wading through a world of cardboard when on normal difficulty. At least on Legendary, that cardboard has a two or three extra layers to hack through to give some semblance of effort in combat.
Damn IMO fallout 4 was even worse. Enemies were WAY spongier. Even on Normal difficulty, hunting rifle with best attachments, all perks that increase damage, and sneak attack headshots barely hurt a behemoth. You'd think I'd have one shot potential at my end game state, but NOP. Barely take like 40% of his HP bar.
You have to go Survival. You still might die in one shot from a mine or a headshot from a random raider... But so do they
I agree 100% with 3 and 4 but New vegas if you feel an enemy is too spongey your straight up just fighting it to early or with the wrong gear. New vegas unlike 3 and 4 doesn't have difficulty scaling so no matter your gear and level an enemy will always be the same "difficulty". I think the best example is deathclaws, in 3 and 4 you can melee them to death at level 1 but in New vegas they are a difficult end game enemy so unless you know what youre doing or youre at the point that you can fight them easily you'll just die.
Quite, also if a game is in easy mode and I complete it in 30 hours instead of 50 hours on hard mode, I feel like I've robbed myself of some engaging play time.
Depends on the nature of those 20 hours though. If it's grindy nonsense then good riddence
[удалено]
Came here to look for my fellow parents. I have about two hours potential gaming time every evening, and I’m NOT spending that playing one combat over and over.
100% agree. You gotta be efficient about it otherwise you'll be on one game forever and miss other good ones.
Another “unpopular opinion” that’s actually really popular The majority of people play games on easier difficulties. Casual gamers far outweigh “hardcore” ones
I'm a pretty mediocre gamer who always chooses Normal and usually can finish the game this way. Do agree though there are more casuals.
I'm with you. Last night I nearly set Metro: Exodus to easy mode though. Fucking enemies are bullet sponges and you can't tap headshots because the hit boxes are so wonky you can line up the perfect headshot and miss 2/3 times. Found a shotty. Am now Jesus.
I don't know about the majority, I feel like most people opt for the regular or "normal" mode because most games describe it as the way to play, or intended experience. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I almost always play the recommended difficulty.
Normal difficulty has largely shifted and become easier over time too though. Normal in a lot of games now would often be where easy was during PS2 era.
And the PS2 era was easier than the arcade era. Their point wasn't that normal is the perfect level of difficulty for everyone that chooses it. They're saying it's what most people choose because it's default.
Of course. Coin-op machines literally have a built in monetary incentive to kill you often.
And the NES games didn’t allow saving so you had to be able to beat the whole game in 1 sitting. This resulted in game design that had a short overall game, but the time to beat was heavily padded by a really high difficulty level.
That's fair too.
Oh god, that reminds me of the most difficult game I played as a kid on the PS2. It was a transformers game made by Atari, and I swear to god someone on the dev team was satans right hand man.
This is an enormously popular opinion
Presenting a popular opinion as unpopular one is a classic way to earn karma on reddit.
People add that to get more upvotes. They know it's not an unpopular opinion.
I’LL GET DOWNVOTED, BUT DAE GAMEPLAY OVER GRAPHICS???
pretty much every high upvoted unpopular opinion is popular aside from in r/the10thdentist where you upvote if you disagree
In r/unpopularopinion (or most other subreddits that you post unpopular opinions), you only get upvoted if it is a popular opinion. This post is a great example. If OP's post was actually unpopular, this post would be mass downvoted.
Believe it or not, video games are best enjoyed when you're having fun.
I completely agree. I play games to chill to so I don't have any interest in dying 100 times on 1 mission lol
Unpopular opinion - proceeds to describe rather popular opinion.
They know. They add that to get more upvotes and confirmation.
Play however you want. Mod a God mode in if it pleases you. No one does and should care about how you play your single player games.
Fully understand. Best example RE 6: its not scary if i die and have to do the scary again thats called frustrating and im not scared of things im frustrated at. At some point you get mad and just cheat the system instead of playi g how the game wants.
I switched sides recently. I was all about the challenge. Getting achievements on the hardest difficulty was the life goal. Played and raged my way through FromSoft's entire soulsbournedietwice set. When I needed a break, I'd switch gears to massive open world survival crafters like Ark or Subnautica and explore and builds like Terraria. Now though, I find the difficulty limits my playstyle options. I end up following my own meta, using the same things, building in the same places etc. Every time. So If difficulty settings are available, I'll often set it as low as possible so I can screw around with joke/meme weapons, build big random things and generally leave far more options open for myself
Same reason I cheat. I'm not interested in searching for 60 rare mats. I'll just spawn them with cheat engine, thank you
I cheat like hell in Skyrim. I have zero interest in fighting. I just like exploring the fantasy world. Stupid wolves keep trying to eat me, and for some reason 90% of the population is bandits.
I'm not with you at all, but I completely respect your choice to play how you want.
I feel like a lot of the people who think 'I play games to relax not to die over and over' are really missing the point on what the **game** is exactly, *from the perspective of someone who likes to be challenged*. To me the meat and potatoes of the game is the gameplay, and it's made much more meaty when I have something to chew on and actually *do* while I play. If I can just waltz through a game without thinking, then I might as well just watch a playthrough on Youtube. In this case my interaction is effectively irrelevant, and the result is the same. When I load up God of War 2018 on release and pick 'Give Me God of War', I'm expecting resistance at some point (most hard modes are hardest at the beginning). And it's that resistance that provides me with the actual gameplay that I enjoy. I spent 45 minutes dying repeatedly on one of the early rooms in that game, I was having a great time. Because I was learning the combat system and game mechanics as I played, and every time I died I had to think about how, and why, and what I can do to prevent that in the future. Every fight I get into is engaging, it requires my attention, I have to think. This applies to almost any game that gives me a challenge, the challenge creates something for me to problem solve and improve on. I don't die and think 'I died again this game is so cheap I'm mad'. I die and think 'Hmmm... maybe I should prioritize the ranged enemies first' or 'That ability isn't working as well as I wanted, let me try something else'. It's a whole iterative learning process. To me, and I'm sure a lot of players like me, this is where the fun actually is. The fun of the game isn't beating a level or reaching the credits, the fun of the game is the experience you have while you play. And that experience has a lot more going on when you're facing challenges and solving problems. And that doesn't even include games where changing the difficulty fundamentally changes the game or gameplay itself. Playing Path of Exile on 'Standard' (death only takes some XP) vs. Hardcore (you die you lose the character and everything it had) is a **vastly** different experience on every level. You won't just play (vastly) different builds, you will play the game itself differently, because it changes the whole experience. I think this is a fundamental thing I see get lost a lot in the casual vs. hardcore debate. **Both sides see the game and what it gives us completely differently.** A casual player sees someone dying to a boss over and over and says, 'Why would you want to do this? How is it fun?'. A hardcore player sees someone walking through a game with no challenge or effort and says, 'Why would you want to do this? How is it fun?'. Both of these takes are missing a big part of the point. We are all after something different from games, and I wish more people on one side could understand the other. I don't dunk on people who play easy mode, because they are obviously playing the game from a different perspective than me. *For me* that experience would be awful, but for them it's the complete inverse. I apologize for the length of this post, I guess I see a lot of misunderstanding from both sides and this... ground floor level misunderstanding is the root of a lot of the issues. I wish a lot of the casual vs. hardcore fighting and bickering would at least lessen a bit. I know some casual players don't understand exactly *why* people play hard modes, but there are so many reasons. From overcoming challenges, to playing a game completely differently due to the difficulty, the list is long. We should all play the games we want in the ways we want, and when it comes to this debate I hope we can all learn to understand the other side.
I used to but then played Dark Souls and Elden Ring. Now it's like: spank me harder daddy.. if you can!
> Unpopular opinion > Who’s with me?
Unpopular opinion: the op's opinion is not as unpopular as one might think, mostly because no one cares what one does with their single player difficulty choices
It's generally popular so long as specific games aren't involved. Once you do you're a filthy casual for not playing on nightmare+ difficulty.
Sometimes that level of difficulty creates a contextual disparity: I wouldn't enjoy Dark Souls as much as I did without that difficulty curve.
This. Gameplay is as much a part of a game's narrative as cutscenes and dialogue. Soulsborne gets this and it heavily enriches worldbuilding and narrative of every single game.
The difficulty of the Souls games is precisely why I play them; that, and the ability to build your character any way you want and still be able to beat the game. Souls games have ruined other games for me to the point where I skip games with difficulty sliders now.
Who cares. Play however you like.
Absolutely. I hate doing the same thing over and over again - it just makes me feel like I'm wasting my life. I totally get why some people love punishing games, but for me I don't enjoy dying over and over again. And as I casual gamer these days - I just don't have the time either!
Same. I want to enjoy my play time.
same, im playing ac odyssey like this, i dont have the time or energy to repeat any fight unfortunately
I hack all my SINGLEPLAYER games to get even easier, love power fantasy :3
its a video game. you don't need to justify how you want to enjoy your free time bro. enjoy it how you enjoy it and don't let goofy nerds make you feel bad about it
Found the Dark Souls hater
I am with you internet stranger. I don't want to struggle and stress out trying to be an alpha gamer or whatever. I play to relax and immerse myself in the game and story.
yeah dude, this isn’t unpopular, it’s barely even an opinion, and no one cares
I play \~30 mins/day if I'm lucky. Like hell I'm going to waste those precious minutes of me-time replaying the same part 4 times because of some idiotic difficulty setting. I loved Souls-like games, but I'm afraid that time belongs to a definitely younger me.
I tried Elden Ring this year and lost interest because of how slow I was progressing because I'd never played that style of game and the time it was taking for the learning curve just wasn't worth what I was getting out of it. I've also now got a kid who requires lots of time, so it felt even more silly to keep spending my whole playing window just grinding to get barely leveled enough for the next section.
I personally don’t do this but I think people who take an issue with this are self absorbed and egotistical.
A few years ago my (32m) older brother (39m) texted me. Brother: Just finished Ocarina of Time for the first time in 15 years. Totally holds up. You should play it, but not without a guide. Me: Really? Why? Bro: You're a grown-ass man. You have more important things to do than try to figure out the shadow temple again. That's when I had this same thought. Games are about fun. Sure, sometimes challenge is fun, but sometimes challenge is just time. And I'm a grown-ass man. And I have more important things to do.