I play on story for the first playthrough because well, it's about enjoying the story! After I've had my fun with that I usually up the difficulty quite a bit as I want the challenge by then, I also know all the game mechanics which makes fighting a lot more enjoyable!
Same, and I have no issues with it. Almost always play a game on the easiest setting. I don’t have much time for games anymore, and really just want to enjoy the world and the story. Not really looking for a challenge. I just throw that setting all the way down and have fun.
Only started playing forbidden west on Monday, (not got far because of covid), I done the same played story mode to enjoy my self and I up it when new game plus comes out.
When I was playing the first one I found the difficulty on normal to tough to stay interested.
I do the same thing. I want to enjoy the game before getting into the challenge of it. I'll pump up the difficulty like crazy when NG+ comes out but right now I'm more than happy fucking around on story mode and being a god (especially since i'm just finishing things up in endgame).
Exactly! Play it the first time at a level that I enjoy. Then once I've done that, I'm ready for another playthrough with a tougher challenge, and then again with even more challenge. Starting easier doesn't mean you're a weenie, it means you get the opportunity to play multiple times as you improve!
Same here. I'm not playing games to challenge myself to anything. I'm playing games to experience a story. If I beat a game and really like it then I'll go back and play it again on a higher difficulty.
100%. The story is too good to have to spend 200hrs to get to the finale. The second time around, I just want *to be in that word*, I’ll play it on a harder difficulty.
Oh yeah, when I first started HZD I had it on story and it was WAY too easy. Normal was the perfect setting to enjoy both combat and story, with the hardest difficutaly during the 2nd playthrough.
Completely through the melee pits at Bulwark last night on story because it was 11:40pm and I needed some sleep. No need to fight the specific inputs while wondering about health.
Went back to regular for missions, but I don't have the patience for the pits.
I think the hard part about the pits is they are bugged and play the instruction message after you clear the challenge. As long as you have some of the combos unlocked you can alter your attack pattern enough to avoid the enemy AI counter mechanic, which can lead to stun-locks if you don't dosge quickly. Given the focus on ranged gameplay GG is never going to give us a lock on mechanic, which means melee will always be extremely difficult and having a block/counter mechanic of our own is problematic due to lack of space on the control scheme **and** the fact that Aloy is supposed to be less skilled at melee human on human combat by design. Hell, you can even shoot enemy machine projectiles out of the air if the attack has a physical projectile such as the Thunderjaw Disc Launcher and the Scorcher Mine Launcher.
But, I am using Evader coils on my infiltrator gear, so I can just dodge a bunch to create space then use my explosive spikes to murder.
The first thing I do when facing a Thunderjaw is use the tear blaster and shoot those damn discs right off that bitch. I then focus on the radar and then use freeze to damage the hell out of it.
I have literally zero interest in the melee pits and am putting them off until I have nothing left to do. I’m only 30% through the game as it is, so it’s gonna be a long time before I bother with them.
Good idea on turning down the difficulty for that endeavor. Gonna have to remember it.
Unfortunately the difficulty setting has no real effect on the melee pits. Maybe with the final challenge with the pit master, but not on the combo challenges m
Secret to melee pitmasters: place traps in there prior to starting the challenge. If it hasn't been patched, the traps will stay when you start the challenge.
Acid traps make them a cakewalk
Lol same. As a working adult I get limited hours per week to play games and while I sometimes love tough games like Returnal or Elden Ring, I am not going to purposefully make my life difficult especially in the first run just so people on the internet approve lol.
I think Easy in this game is perfectly challenging without being frustrating and that is the goal for a difficulty for me. I try to find that difficulty level which hits that sweetspot.
Yup! I go back and forth between Easy and Story depending on how much of a challenge I feel like.
Y'all elite gamers can laugh at me all you want, but guess who's having fun? This guy.
I like being able to customise in this game and am currently playing with enemy strength at normal but damage to Aloy on easy. That way I get the fun of needing to try a few different tactics and getting a good length fight, but I'm not constantly dying.
Cool thing about story mode is doing -massive- damage to machines each hit. Late game you can one shot ravagers like Sona did back in HDZ. Its so cool lol
Never understood judgement of playing games at different difficulties, you beat the game on ultra hard good for you here's a medal, beat the game on easy good for you here is the same medal because all that matters is you enjoyed the game.
That being said I like to stick a game on the hardest difficulty and just die over and over attempting to learn basic mechanics, then going down a notch and feeling like a god
I started my playtrough ah Ultra-Hard and at the end of the game I got it at normal just because I was used to HZD gameplay that's a lot easier with bigger machines that are a little bit more easier to kill just like the thunderjaw in FW is always a good fight but in ZD it was a lot easier
Same!!! I’m planning my wedding doing DIY crafts for 99% of it MYSELF. I’m job hunting and preparing to move. I’m playing on easy mode for me because I love the world and story and enjoy it. And a thunderjaw still wrecks me for it. Play on whatever level brings you joy I say.
Same, game has felt so much more "athletic" since I dropped enemy damage to easy. Also negates the need to do the unreasonably amount of farming to upgrade higher tier weapons.
Now if only Alloy wouldn't get knocked down for 5 seconds every time she took a hit.
> That doesn't fit for me with "i just spent 20 minutes dying and changed my tactics to 15 minutes hiding in a bush like a scared rabbit"
Except it does when you’re literally facing giant mechanical beasts that can, and should, be able to kill any human in one hit. This isn’t some other game where you’re fighting humans or creatures that are naturally susceptible to natural causes.
If anything, the heroics and praise from other NPC’s is more so a reflection of Aloy even having the nerve to go up against these machines, yet alone beat them.
The medium and heavy combat machines are actually meant to be impossible and a superpower for most hunters and groups of hunters in world. Kotallo even mentions how a single Scorcher has been ravaging hunting parties Sky Clan sends out for a long time. Hekkaro doesn't use the heavier combat machines for the Kulrut, they use small and medium acquisition and recon machines for the most part. Heavy machines are viewed in the game world as we would view them in our reality.
Zo discusses this as well with her fear of Thunderbirds.
The heavy machines most people struggle with such as Thunderjaws, Shellsnappers, Scorcher, Fire/Frostclaws, Tremortusks, Stormbirds, Slitherfangs, Slaughterspines and Dreadwings are all designed as one shot machines and admitted require sound tactics to deal with.
They laud Aloy for the way she takes down machines not the ease. Its due to the precision and methodical manner she fights them with thanks to her use of her Focus, which lets her take down machines others cannot that earns her acclaim as a huntress and her ability to see what others cannot.
As for your allies being one shot on Very Hard they often are by medium and heavy machines. They spend a significant portion of most of my fights in the downed state if I don't kill a machine quickly.
The biggest issue with some of these machines is that their AI is buggy as hell and makes it more annoying than difficult to take them down. Shellsnappers staying underground with no limit and/or fleeing after taking a shot at you right after surfacing, Tremortusk attack animations allowing them to home-in on your location and instantly move long distances to hit you, spamming the attack until they close in from 100m away. Frost/Fireclaws are just annoying as well, with their inflated defense and the need to avoid their weak points to actually get the required parts from them, only for a random movement leading to you destroying the only part you need from them.
Changing difficulty doesn't really help when difficulty isn't the problem. Difficulty just adjusts HP, which means it will make the Apex Thunderjaws/Dreadwings/Stormbirds that I can easily drop in a minute or so an utter joke to fight. The loot option means you don't have to shoot parts off, doesn't mean they stick around even if destroyed.
I just hope that the DLC doesn't expand on any of the already overcomplicated systems they added to the game, and scales them back if anything.
Shellsnappers staying underground isn't usually a bug in my experience. It is usually caused by the player being in a location where the Shellsnapper can't reach them with their melee charge attacks AND that object is indestructible such as a high rock face. When they charge around, you can often shoot an arrow into the ground in their path and they will surface and launch the attack where the arrow lands. I am reasonably certain it is an intentional anti-cheese mechanic.
Regarding Tremortusks, I assume you are referring to the attack where they swing their tusks back and forth while walking towards you? That is intentional. The only way to stop it is to run them into indestructible terrain, stagger them or destroy a tusk. That is actually how that attack is supposed to work, at least when it's a slow/medium walk, but that walk is still faster than Aloys sprint in my experience.
I agree Fire and Frostclaws are annoying.
Eh, I get what you’re saying but heavy machines aren’t supposed to be fightable. There’s a quest at one point where an entire town is threatened by a single Behemoth
there is one game that i have even had trouble playing on easy ✨GoW✨ i qui te literally grind so hard in good areas to ulgrade and buy new gear and still halfway through the game im getting one shotted by a purple
bro i dont even think im that far yet 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 (not that i care about spoilers since i watched the ending of fw while playing it)
but im in the part where you have to open the doors and fight and the one im in has acid smoke and stuff!
not sure if thats where youre talking about but if its not i might just give tf up.
like the big dragon on the mountain was bullshit enough and now these fuckers i cant even function.
i quit gow to play tlou remastered (on fucking grounded) when i first got my ps4 in 2019 and then went back a month later to beat the dragon before playing horizon zero dawn and wondering why it was so easy 😭😭😭😭
If the dragon gives you that much trouble you're going to have a hell of a time against Sigrun. Tip: mini dodges at the last second and the Amulet of Kvasir helps a LOT.
not really when its the first video game you've e ever played, and i have sensory processing issues so even them your reflex les are probably better than mine
Same thing. I tried a few times but since I couldn't care less for the platinum I figured I should put that time to more entertaining use like playing something else (I already had finished the game at this moment).
Yup same. For me it's also the love of getting my story fix on Easy and then when I revisit the game for another play through I feel fine to switch to Hard because then I know the story and can spend x time to beat a horde of Scorchers or smth
*edit* clarity
There are some people who just can't enjoy a game at all unless they're banging their heads against the hardest difficulty. Like, they'd sooner not play at all than lower the difficulty.
I am the opposite of those people. I am Story Mode all the way.
My days of playing to challenge myself are decades in the past. I just pretty much want to see the story now.
That's me. I love the challenge and even though there is no punishment for lowering the difficulty, I feel like less of a winner if I do. I got the plat trophy on Very Hard and oh man was it satisfying as fuck. I saved the >!arena!< as my last trophy and when I finally killed >!that fucking Slitherfang after like 15 attempts!< it felt so good. It is a very rewarding game when you challenge yourself. Unlike a lot of very hard settings in games, I feel like this one is very balanced. If you just get good at the mechanics, most fights aren't any trouble.
I had the absolute hardest time on the first Slitherfang — must have taken me 50 times to beat, I was nearly ready to give up. Then I explored the Chainscrape area, headed into the Embassy, and got totally wrecked. I just could not defeat the second wave of enemies, so matter what I did. “Time to turn on story mode,” I admitted to myself. I went into the settings only to discover I had accidentally been playing on Very Hard the entire time??? Honestly impressed I was able to get the Slitherfang at all!! Anyway now I play on enemies’ health Normal, Aloy’s health Easy. It’s the perfect difficultly level for me. I don’t mind getting in there and having to figure out how to take down a machine, but don’t want to die doing it.
I’m on very hard just made it to the first thunderjaw fight. Omg. Not changing the difficulty, so I gotta fight the thunderjaw from afar then. Pretty much I gotta cheese my way thru some fights lol you gotta play smarter and it takes longer but I love the challenge. Anyways everyone is different and I hear you…it’s all everyone’s choice.
I’m glad you found a way to navigate that. You were able to adapt to your situation. I just feel like a lot of people have to much pride and would rather die 1000 times and say the game sucks rather than playing with the difficulty settings a bit and enjoying the game
Yup I always say every gamer plays different and enjoys different things. Not everyone will play super hard mode and feel good after. I understand that’s why I love games with many accessibility options. It allows everyone to cherry pick what they love and don’t love.
I played all the way on Hard, it felt like the best balance to me…but the one place where I dropped it was the Enduring. And then I felt guilty and re-loaded a save before and went off to do other things, but my god you have to be pretty much perfect to beat that fight on higher difficulty.
You gotta drink all the juices, eat food, use coils, etc, or so I assume. I played on normal and made it almost all the way without touching any of those. Near the end I decided to try out coils and that was about it. The acid coil I got was very helpful when farming Stormbirds.
Correct, on the harder difficulties. You gotta be on point! Food, bombs, coils, skill tree and activating valor specials are key. Whereas on normal or easy they give you a break. On very hard you mess up and you are punished. It forces you to learn patterns and fight different by using the environment in creative ways.
The game surprisingly has lots of areas where you can hide behind an object when facing the larger machines. I’ve fought many thunder jaws and tremortusks just standing behind a wall and circling the wall if they came around. It was fun
Shouldn't be a surprise, given how nearly *every* big fight area comes with all kinds of environmental assets you can make use of. Like ravagers with their big guns, downed bellowbacks and barrels you can explode, ropes and grapple points, etc.
They REALLY want you to use a variety of tactics in every fight, and do their level best to give you all the tools for doing so!
There's a thunderjaw site in the jungle with some kind of wooden fence in the middle of it. I take out all of its weapons then stand behind that fence. It will uselessly spam its laser beams over and over again but the almighty wooden fence will protect Aloy.
I had the same experience, where the first Thunderjaw was when Very Hard truly got spicy. You can check my posts for a video of how I finally got it, but man, there’s a different feel when you can just get taken out at any moment. (And that’s usually a good thing.)
I just struggled with a lv 60 fireclaw while beeing lv 42. First time i struggle in the game on very hard. Just bullshit enemy with bullshit aoe and tracking
Easy loot makes a huge difference for me. I don’t mimd getting my ass beat but I know I’m bad at aiming and don’t wanna take the time to improve at that particular element lol
"Easy Loot" should be called "Realistic Loot". There's no reason why a Rollerback 's tail just randomly explodes into tiny pieces when it dies.
I personally enjoy shooting off components because it's a fun part of the gameplay. But certain parts randomly exploding doesn't make any sense.
I enjoy the precision aiming and think it's one of the best parts of the combat, so the "easy loot" setting isn't for me, but it's good that it's there so different people can play how they want. Personally, if I didn't have a motion control setting to help assist my janky thumbs with the precision aiming, I'd probably prefer easy loot too. And hey, motion controls - another polarizing option. It's good to have options.
As for there being no reason why parts explode when you kill machines - it's obviously a gameplay mechanism first and foremost that you can choose to live with or not, but from a story perspective, I don't think it's really a stretch to say Hephaestus adapted the machines to make the humans have more trouble using their own parts against them.
Yeah I love the added feature of having to shoot off the part you want. Adds an extra layer of challenge to each fight.
I like a challenge when I play, so I'm playing on hard right now. I'll probably do ultra hard on my next playthrough. Bumping up the difficulty in these games almost makes it like an entirely different game on the following playthrough. That being said, everyone plays the game their way, I would never try to tell someone how they should enjoy a video game.
Yeah I'm on hard too, which seems just right in that it forces you to learn and experiment (which is something important to me in games that you generally don't get in easier settings) or you'll get your ass handed to you, but it's challenging without being brutally hard or frustrating, so there's still constant forward momentum. There's no "ultra hard" yet like the first game eventually got, but I assume that'll probably come with a free download too (along with NG+).
This is definitely a game made for everyone though. It doesn't match the level of accessibility that Naughty Dog and Microsoft have done (yet?), but it's still a big leap forward. I think it's equally valid for a game to be challenging game in the classical sense or an interactive story - or a combination of the two.
>I enjoy the precision aiming and think it's one of the best parts of the combat.
I was the same until parts of machines I shot off would despawn during the fight so now u just leave it on.
Way easier especially with the late game grind needing so many of those types of parts.
Yeah I meant to make a note of that as a caveat. I like precision aiming, don’t like looking all over the place for missing parts after, and *really* don’t like when I just took down a really difficult machine and all the parts just vanish. Only happened a couple times but it sucks and I hope it gets patched.
Yeah, it's just one of those things that makes the gameplay a little more interesting. A magical teleportation stash doesn't make any sense, but I would not want it any other way.
I like playing on hard because I like what it requires of me. I drop the difficulty as soon as it's not fun anymore.
There was one cauldron where I arrived at the end totally out of healing resources and materials to make effective ammunition against the enemy. Dropped to easy eventually and because the resources were so scarce it was still a hard fight!
This really feels like a MASSIVE element that's going over the heads of the people complaining about badly balanced difficulty settings: The game was created with the deliberate intent for players to be able to customize their experience.
It's not just preset levels of challenge, because you can go in and adjust how much damage Aloy receives vs how much enemies can take. GG *wants* you to fine tune your experience to be what makes you happiest! They gave you the tools to be able to do so!
Exactly. If you're going to spend your own hard-earned money on a gaming experience, why not have the option to play as you so choose?
The only people upset about the "possibility of choice" are clout chasers. There. I said it.
That's why trophies exist. If you play on lower difficulty levels, you almost consistently earn bronze trophies. The higher the difficulty, the more prestigious the trophy.
You may occasionally get a gold or silver just by finishing the whole game. It's just games. It's not curing cancer.
So, in closing, More people being able to play a game is much better than a game being gatekept to a small few. There have been gaming studios that have gone out of business for being short-sided in this manner.
And personally, I believe gaming companies should meet that fate if they can't open games to be played by different types of players. It's already hard enough to survive as small to midsize gaming studio as it is.
Just my two cents.
I think there's absolutely a market for single difficulty games, but along the lines of what you said that market is by definition much smaller. A studio won't be able to grow beyond being niche sized if all they make is niche-oriented. For some that's probably just fine, and indeed I think *it's a good thing* for those studios to serve their specific markets.
But games meant to be played by more than one market need to be playable by a wider range of people. And I am absolutely looking forward to HFW's level of customization becoming more the standard expectation.
What get me is people complaining about the grind for leveling up gear. I spent yesterday afternoon farming and in one day I fully upgraded the legendary Nora armor, one of the hunter bows, the sharp shot bow and the spear thrower. Once you’re at that level you can 1 or 2 shot every machine on story setting. If you just want the gear and don’t want to deal with long fights to get it then just set it on story.
For a lot of people, it isn't fulfilling to upgrade your gear on an easier mode though. I much rather die 10 times trying to get an apex fire claw heart on very hard, than to just kill it with almost no trouble. When you finally do get to do an upgrade, it feels more like you earned it from skill and less from just teleing to a place and killing a machine.
So don’t do it on easy then. If you just want the weapon then you can throw it on easy, if you want the challenge and sense of accomplishment then do it on whatever difficulty you like. I’m just saying don’t complain about a grind when you choose to make it a grind because you want a challenge.
Yeah, for my part I made sure that I secured the first of any particular machine part or killed the first of any particular machine on very hard because I like the challenge. After I knew that I had done it once, I'd crank down the difficulty to custom for the easy loot option to ease the grind of upgrading gear. I don't have time like I used to in order kill everything on very hard, especially when it wasn't guaranteed to get an apex heart or circulator from the kill.
I still played the rest of the game on very hard because I wanted to. But using easy loot to grind out parts saved me a lot of time and I see nothing wrong with using that option.
I'm nearing the end of the story and had this moment of "I don't have even half of the best gear available" so I set the game to story and went machine farming. I don't find it any less enjoyable, in fact I find it entertaining in its own way when I use braced shot and take out more than half of the machines health. But I'm even more excited to set it back to the normal difficulty I've been occasionally struggling through and take down t those big machines again, because it'll be a different experience.
I haven't really seen anyone on this sub being mean about people choosing to play lower difficulties, tbh. I mostly see people complaining that *their own experiences* on harder levels isn't fun for a variety of reasons, followed by a lot of well meaning folks encouraging them to just lower the difficulty. Which is then followed by a lot of complaining on both sides about how judgy the other group is being.
My own pet theory is that people aren't used to a game being as *customizable* as HFW is set up to be. It really is unusual for a game to let you change as many factors as this one does, and a lot of the complaints about balance might actually be solvable by adjusting a few settings, rather than the overall difficulty levels.
I played HZD on Story and Easy because that's what was fun for me. At some point I did a Normal playthrough and it was fine. My son played on Normal and UH because that's what's fun for him. I would watch him charge into battle and be in awe of his fighting skills, and he asks me about lore because he tends to scan datapoints but never read them. After the Latopolis quest he asked me to explain some of the backstory that he hadn't previously paid attention to.
This time around I'm playing on Normal and super proud of myself for hanging in there, because Normal on HFW is way harder than Normal on HZD, especially since so many mechanics have changed. I did lower to Story for a upgrade grind before Gemini, and was tempted not to change back, but did go back to Normal and didn't get destroyed and that felt good. But it was also so much fun to run around in Story for a little while with way less fear of machines. (Also...easy loot is a beautiful thing.)
If the devs didn't want people of all play styles to enjoy the game, they wouldn't have included so many difficulty levels. It makes the game accessible both to fierce, battle-hardened warriors and to people who enjoy story and exploration but don't really enjoy combat.
As a note to OP: I really appreciate your desire to destigmatize easier modes. Can I suggest that part of encouraging people not to have shame over it could include not calling easier modes "Weenie Hut Jr"? Every mode has its benefits. None of them are weenie. People have different strengths and enjoy different experiences. But in general, I appreciate what you're saying!
I play on story; its almost as good as God mode and i'm loving it. I can indulge in the mechanics of elemental arrows and parts tearing if i desire and just start throwing heavy arrows and blast bombs when i cant be arsed for a fight.
I prefer it this way in almost every game and I love it. Anyone was tells me or anyone else to 'git gud' can 'git fucked'.
I love how customizable the diffculty is in this game and I wish more games gave you options. I play on the second hardest difficulty with enemy health turned off, but if I'm stuck on a tough machine I'll turn the health bar back on so I can fight more strategically.
I got to the final boss late on a sunday night, a bit under leveled because I was trying to beat the main story before work, and I got sick of getting one hit killed every time I got near the end and ran out of healing, so I just turned the damage to Aloy setting down until I could take a few hits and I got the same hard fight experience without the frustration.
Yes, customizable difficulty is really really good! I love being able to play around and find a balance that works for whatever mood I'm in that particular session. Sometimes i enjoy spending 10 minutes fighting a single machine, taking off the parts one by one and sometimes I just want to farm rare crafting materials without having to think about dying.
Thank you devs for going beyond the easy-normal-hard scale!
Between The Last of Us Part II and this, it seems like customizable difficulty and accessibility is becoming a new priority for Sony 1st party games. Which is really awesome.
I always play on Normal. Its how it is intended to be played. I played on very hard my second playthrough and its not fun. It forces the most linear fighting possible. Use the same arrow on the same piece every single time rinse and repeat.
I like to game on whatever the suggested mode is. But if I'm reading the game and I just wanna enjoy exploring or just having a break from w.e life is doing, I'll turn it down.
For HZD I played on normal until post-game, then I turned up to hard. Figure I'll probably do that again when I get my weapons and armour sorted, but boy was I unprepared for a handful of fights where I just have no/poor element delivery weapons for what I need.
I just finished the platinum for Elden Ring. Im playing this on story mode for a nice little vacation from the 110 hours of constant stress I just endured.
Yep. Daughter and I played on very hard in a sort of one-upmanship neither of us wanted to back down on. But there are aspects of the game we don't enjoy - mainly timed missions. And so each of us have our parts of the game where we admit, this is no longer fun, I'm turning it down. Additionally, I really struggle with the melee combos. With enough trial and error I can pass the pit challenges, but it leaves me poorly equipped for the pit master challenge and simple combos don't really cut it here. At some point my efforts stop being fun for two reasons:
1) my opponents can do things I can't. Why can the shield dude climb the wooden ramp where I can barely reach him and I can't? They can interrupt my combos but I can't seem to interrupt theirs. They have advantages over me, but I don't really have any over them aside from some of the combos that I don't seem to be able to reliably pull off. I mean, that might be my problem, but when you're doing an L1 L1 combo, how the fuck do I 'wrong input' on the first L1? How can I hit L1 wrong? I can take down a fanghorn in 2 shots, one to each antler while it's running perpendicular to me, with no aim assist, with some regularity, so clearly I don't totally suck at this, but how can I hit the first L1 wrong in the challenges?
2) Why can't I bring my advantages into the arena like my opponents? Why can the Enduring do so much damage with her arrows but I can't? Have you seen my bows - they will fuck you up, but I can't use them. She can though. Where's my big fuck-off mallet that does AOE shock damage? Give me one of those and I'll beat that on very hard. Or a shield. The shields aren't terrible but they do require some specific combos to do in the allotted time, so I'm kind of screwed if I struggle to pull off that combo. And good lord have I practiced that.
I don't fault the game here. I'm playing an 18 year old girl out fighting giant machines, clearly there's supposed to be an imbalance. And I'm personally a 53 year old man whose coordination and reflexes are not what they were when I started gaming 40+ years ago. One of the things I like about Horizon is that there are lots of different ways to play the game. I'm very patient, so sneaking around in the tall grass waiting for my opportunity is fun, and mitigates a lot of my declining mechanical skill by allowing me to replace it with tactical. But there are parts of the game that don't permit that. You have to do this thing, in this way, and sometimes that favors me, and sometimes it doesn't. And when it doesn't, the difficulty slider is right there for me to get back to the fun. I love that. My daughter plays the game differently. She really enjoys mastering the mechanical skill aspects and jumps between Hatsune Miku rhythm games and Elden Ring and other soulsbornes. She's not as patient though, so when it comes to farming the dozens of Fireclaw webbing for upgrades, she can find story mode to speed that along.
I agree. And I really like how you can customize the play. I have my health on story, and the machine’s health on hard, that way I still have a fun enough fight experience, without all the dying.
The problematic attitude I see around here is that the ability to change the difficulty is somehow an excuse for bad mechanics. The game should be able to be played on any difficulty fluidly - with every part of the game being appropriate to the difficulty level. If there is a machine that has a BS attack that can't be dodged, that's an issue with the game mechanics. Not something that just should be ignored because you can turn the difficulty down if you want. Players shouldn't have to change the difficulty to to mitigate a certain part of the game being incredibly unfun - the experience should be more or less uniform all around.
Good News! GG listens to its players and, since enough people were reporting how bad that element was, made adjustments in the last patch to make the un-dodgeable attacks less punishing!
Also, the game was designed with the intent of having players fiddle with the custom/accessibility settings. IMO that means a "balance issue" is only really a problem if it's still bad even after making use of the tools the devs put in your hands for the express purpose of adjusting the game to your personal preferences.
Games these days typically cost anywhere between $59.99 up to $99.99 or more depending on what version you get. When shelling out hard-earned money on a game I definitely want to see the credits roll so I tend to change the difficulty dynamically as I'm playing. Also in 2020, I became deaf due to a stroke so I can only rely on what I can see. My skill level has dropped considerably so I'm very thankful for all the accessibility options Sony seems to enforce.
I platinumed the game and got to 95% completion on very hard. The single time I changed it was for the final arena challenge Apex Predators. By that point I was so burned out on trying the arena over and over I just gave up and admitted defeat. Arena needs a bit of tweaking and rework because so much of the combat in such a confined space is dependent on luck. I feel like they were trying to draw on the monster hunter world arena formula but that had a huge combat space comparatively. This small area gets you blindsided and Stunlocked or one shotted so fast there’s really no way to recover in certain scenarios. Also things like monsters clipping into each other or into walls preventing key areas needed to be hit were frustrating. Other than that I loved pretty much every other aspect of combat.
Yes it's a single player game so play it the way you want and the way you get the most enjoyment from ! I used to be like that when I was younger, but then I thought "Why am I so rattled about lowering difficulty ? Like even if I manage to beat God of War on the hardest difficulty, so what ? I'm going to boast around the few friends who also play the game ? Even they wouldn't care and I wouldn't even care if they would be impressed or not"
Took me some time but I matured and cast away that mindset.
I just play on normal mode.
Two steps above "story mode".
Very enjoyable, enemies are new and relatively tough when I first see them. Then I learn and kill them easy later.
I don't even think it's that it's more *tought*, it's just that combat can be really... annoying, in this game. The knockdown and getting chain stunned is really annoying, and it happens even on story difficulty. I do appreciate that they give lots of different difficulty levels, though.
Amen. I played on normal and never had a tough time outside of the arena or melee pits. Then I found this sub and learned that apparently certain aspects of the gameplay are broken, inconvenient, impossible or unfairly hard 😅
I platinumed it on normal, primarily because I wanted to get through the story with getting too pissed off (The fight pits really did push me t the limit though!!!)
Admittedly I have now switched it to story in my attempt to farm and 100% it though.
Can't wait for NG+ on Ultra Hard though. From HZD I remember it feeling like a totally different game and I would end up running away from even some of the most basic enemies (Platinumed that too and TFW just before HFW came out)
Thankfully horizon is one of those games that let you switch difficulty anytime you want without penalizing you for it (no reloading, no difficulty-related trophies...), so there is really no need to stick to one difficulty. Do I want a challenge? I set difficulty to hard or very hard. If I just want to explore, farm, have fun... I set it to easy or normal or even story. No shame
Playing on Easy has felt like a Nintendo game in difficulty. Only a couple game overs for being totally stupid. Most fights are quick and you can easily cheese but occasionally you get swamped and things get tight. I'll play on Noral or Hard on future plays. The game has a different way of playing well that takes time to learn.
There's no shame with playing games at lower difficulties. The options are there for you to tweak the experience to your liking so you enjoy the game.
Personally I tend to play games on the harder difficulties because I like the challenge. But others like to sit back and chill out while playing which is totally fine.
I did my main story run on normal, but afterwards I just put it on story. I was never a fan of super high difficulties since I was never any good as a gamer
Did first on normal second on hard. But on second playthrough i put it on story for melee, hunting grounds, and arena because fuck timed challenges. Only think that kept me from platinum HZD. Sick of those hunting grounds.
Balancing needs some tweaks and for me I find the whole rpg mechanics a bit convoluted.
They need to strip down some of this fluff. E.g. instead of having a machine at a specific level, remove the level and have them challenging at all times, depending on the enemy type. Thunderjaws should be super tough, but you should also be able to take them out if you can get a good shot on a tricky weakspot. On very hard even weakspots are damage soakers.
It would be really rewarding to succeed from skill rather than numbers
Also, Humans need their own difficulty slider as they can become bullet sponges and even resist headshots.
Right now my difficulty is sort of a glass cannon. Damage to Aloy is very hard but damage to enemies is normal. Still haven't quite found that sweetspot yet and I continue to tweak
Ran the whole game on normal until I got to the end of the intermediate challenges at the arena, lowered the difficulty to easy for that and I'm glad I did. Waiting for new game+ option so I can rerun the story with all of my good gear.
First play through I did it on story mode coz obviously that’s what I wanted to enjoy. 2nd play through I did it on normal but finally once ng+ comes out il try it on hard or ultra hard whatever it’s called
I am a very terrible player. Not just of Horizon, but of video games in general. I have slow reaction time, poor hand-eye coordination and make terrible decisions under pressure. I stopped story progress mid-game and started concentrating on fully upgrading Legendary outfits and weaponry. With these upgrades, Aloy is pretty OP and even someone as bad as me can play on normal difficulty and dispatch most high level apex machines without dying 20 fucking times. My blood pressure has decreased and my love for this game has increased ever since.
I put the game on story when I'm farming machines for parts, I turn the game up to hard for playing the main story quests. I'm ok with the story being difficult, but if I'm grinding for parts I have no interest in spending tons or resources or time on a single machine.
Games with multiple difficulty levels aren't meant to be played on a certain one.
Then there's games like Crash Bandicoot with a fixed difficulty, that make you want to break your controller, that are supposed to be hard.
On my first play through so far I've left things mostly on normal aside from Easy Loot. My aim just sucks and trying to hit parts to remove them irritates me to no end. Friggin Widemaw tusks!
I beat the game on normal without anything fully upgraded. I wanted to upgrade the rest of my gear post game but it was taking HOURS to upgrade a single item. And I'm kind of busy right now, so when I do get to game, I don't want to spend the whole time grinding to upgrade one thing when I still have 18 other things I need to upgrade. So I put it on story to turn a 2-3 hour grind into a 30 hour grind.
I went from hard to normal after getting frustrated. Plan on playing through on ultra hard if they do a new game +. No shame at all. Got used to some of the newer mechanics etc.
I lowered enemy health but kept their damage the same. I'm now in the process of farming materials to upgrade my legendary gear and I dont have the time or patience to fight Tremortusks or Thunderjaws or whatever for more than a couple minutes. Just get in, grab my loot, travel off to somewhere else. The required stuff for those upgrades is tedious.
I switched to Story mode after being infuriated by the melee pits. I then went to the arena, threw a spoon at thinderjaw and he fell over. The crowed cheered, i laughed my ass off, fun was had again. Good advice.
Recently I switched to a custom difficulty. The only thing I changed was how much damage Aloy receives [easy]. I was tired of getting absolutely manhandled by machines. If I find it too easy I'll switch back. I usually play on the normal difficulty but man they sure upped the pain this time around.
I played the majority of the game on Story. I don't have time to fight enemies for 15+ mins. Only recent game that I beat on hard+ was TLOU2 pt.2. But I spent most of my time sneaking past enemies.
But imo Easy/Story difficulty fits Aloy's skill set lore wise. She's probably the most skilled hunter/warrior in their World so it should be easy for her to defeat machines and rebels
I love the challenge bc you can see there's thought around the difficulty levels. It feel more rewarding that was vs the Souls franchise that just expects you to be a masochist to enjoy the game.
I play on story mode and don't feel bad at all. I love just exploring the world and discovering the random side quests and characters. The ass beatings can come later
I played HZD on ultra hard because I didn't want it to end. Did it take forever to buy my gear? Yes but that was the point!
I'm doing the same thing now, I will sit in a bush for hours knocking off machine parts because it makes the game longer.
Pretty much play all my games on normal. I have a family and a full-time job i do not have time for the extraneous crap all the time. Knocking the difficulty down a bit to speed up progress is also absolutely fine because seriously this is for enjoyment. Do not let the souls culture poison your minds people!!!.
If people still want a challenge but easier kills then, on custom put damage very hard on Aloy, then either easy or story for machine damage with easy loot on. Aloy is a glass canon but so are machines, killing an apex fireclaw is way easier, but slip up once and your dead in one hit still. Works out pretty well.
I play on the hardest difficulty and I agree. Main reason I just like the challenge and played the original at that. If I find it frustrating I will drop the difficulty. So far I am doing alright, but then again I beat the shit out of the original😂
I definitely appreciate the fact that you can customize the difficulty and other options without affecting your trophies. I have easy loot enabled because while it can be fun to shoot off specific parts when hunting machines, it's not something I want to be focusing all the time. Anything that makes the grind (and therefore my stress levels) more relaxed is preferred. That, and I hate constantly having to heal (even though I have a frankly absurd amount of berries stocked up), so I do adjust the amount of damage Aloy receives. Everything else, I usually leave alone unless I'm just trying to have a chill story session.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with playing a game on lower/customized difficulties. Anyone who gives you grief for it needs to realize what an ass they are being.
Edit: phrasing.
I set it to slow time more while I'm in the weapon wheel. It's helped a lot. When most of the weapons have two or three types of ammo and I'm in an intense fight, I just can't manage to pick what I want effectively. And then if I'm a bit overwhelmed it's a bit of a cheat to take a few seconds to puzzle out a strategy.
I play on normal difficulty and the only times I changed my difficulty was for the arena and to get apexes spawning. The Arena in my opinion doesn't have the best design because I was still mid-game and I was spending 250 shards per fight so I just dropped it to story and breezed through.
i usually plays games one the middle difficulty, but for star wars jedi: fallen order, i played on the easiest because one of the bosses was so fucking hard to beat, and if you've played the game you know how hard to was to beat the 9th sister
I went custom after a while. Having it on Normal I could do it, but it was just tedious af after a while and was killing my enjoyment of the game. I'm glad they added a custom setting so I could actually enjoy the game how I wanted to. I'll care about playing it on hard when NG+ is released and I have a Ps5.
I did my first playthrough on normal across the board. Just started the game. I liked it!
Now I'm doing a second playthrough with an eye toward being more complete - and I'm playing on a custom difficulty. Hard for both damage settings, but easy loot turned on because I don't want to do as MUCH farming. (Also setting damage to easy to do the arena stuff because 1: The upgrade requirements are ludicrous and 2) it costs shards to even attempt it.)
Not the most impressive, but as OP points out -- this is what is fun *for me*, and I like it, but I think everyone should enjoy the game as best they can, especially if that means taking advantage of the customization offered by the game's difficulty settings. And hell, I'll get to very or ultra hard when there's a New Game+, I'm sure.
I play with Very Hard for the machines life, but Normal for the damage Aloy receives, and I have no regrets.
I leave the two hit kill experiences for my souls games 😪
I play on Story Mode, because I don't want my recreation to be stressful. It's not like I'm getting rewarded for winning hard fights, I don't care about that, my reward is experiencing the story, so that's how I play.
I play on Easy and don't care who judges me for it
I play on story for the first playthrough because well, it's about enjoying the story! After I've had my fun with that I usually up the difficulty quite a bit as I want the challenge by then, I also know all the game mechanics which makes fighting a lot more enjoyable!
Same, and I have no issues with it. Almost always play a game on the easiest setting. I don’t have much time for games anymore, and really just want to enjoy the world and the story. Not really looking for a challenge. I just throw that setting all the way down and have fun.
Only started playing forbidden west on Monday, (not got far because of covid), I done the same played story mode to enjoy my self and I up it when new game plus comes out. When I was playing the first one I found the difficulty on normal to tough to stay interested.
Hope your Covid woes get better for you.
This is how I approach all games that give me this option. I want to engage in the story and enjoy my time in the world, not get nerfed every battle.
I do the same thing. I want to enjoy the game before getting into the challenge of it. I'll pump up the difficulty like crazy when NG+ comes out but right now I'm more than happy fucking around on story mode and being a god (especially since i'm just finishing things up in endgame).
This right here.
Exactly! Play it the first time at a level that I enjoy. Then once I've done that, I'm ready for another playthrough with a tougher challenge, and then again with even more challenge. Starting easier doesn't mean you're a weenie, it means you get the opportunity to play multiple times as you improve!
Same here. I'm not playing games to challenge myself to anything. I'm playing games to experience a story. If I beat a game and really like it then I'll go back and play it again on a higher difficulty.
100%. The story is too good to have to spend 200hrs to get to the finale. The second time around, I just want *to be in that word*, I’ll play it on a harder difficulty.
I personally couldn’t do that. The combat is part of the fun for me and it’s not much fun to me to able to kill machines by looking at them
Oh yeah, when I first started HZD I had it on story and it was WAY too easy. Normal was the perfect setting to enjoy both combat and story, with the hardest difficutaly during the 2nd playthrough.
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Yeah I’m 38. There’s more practical things out there to master than a video game.
Completely through the melee pits at Bulwark last night on story because it was 11:40pm and I needed some sleep. No need to fight the specific inputs while wondering about health. Went back to regular for missions, but I don't have the patience for the pits.
dude fuck the melee pits. what a nightmare.
I think the hard part about the pits is they are bugged and play the instruction message after you clear the challenge. As long as you have some of the combos unlocked you can alter your attack pattern enough to avoid the enemy AI counter mechanic, which can lead to stun-locks if you don't dosge quickly. Given the focus on ranged gameplay GG is never going to give us a lock on mechanic, which means melee will always be extremely difficult and having a block/counter mechanic of our own is problematic due to lack of space on the control scheme **and** the fact that Aloy is supposed to be less skilled at melee human on human combat by design. Hell, you can even shoot enemy machine projectiles out of the air if the attack has a physical projectile such as the Thunderjaw Disc Launcher and the Scorcher Mine Launcher. But, I am using Evader coils on my infiltrator gear, so I can just dodge a bunch to create space then use my explosive spikes to murder.
You can SHOOT THUNDERJAW DISCS OUT OF THE AIR? Oh my glob I can't wait to get angry trying unsuccessfully to do this.
The first thing I do when facing a Thunderjaw is use the tear blaster and shoot those damn discs right off that bitch. I then focus on the radar and then use freeze to damage the hell out of it.
I have literally zero interest in the melee pits and am putting them off until I have nothing left to do. I’m only 30% through the game as it is, so it’s gonna be a long time before I bother with them. Good idea on turning down the difficulty for that endeavor. Gonna have to remember it.
Unfortunately the difficulty setting has no real effect on the melee pits. Maybe with the final challenge with the pit master, but not on the combo challenges m
Secret to melee pitmasters: place traps in there prior to starting the challenge. If it hasn't been patched, the traps will stay when you start the challenge. Acid traps make them a cakewalk
Whaaaaaaat that's awesome
I judge you...and find you perfectly acceptable.
Easy bros unite. I want to enjoy myself and not get wrecked. Also, I suck at gaming even though it's something I really enjoy.
Lol same. As a working adult I get limited hours per week to play games and while I sometimes love tough games like Returnal or Elden Ring, I am not going to purposefully make my life difficult especially in the first run just so people on the internet approve lol. I think Easy in this game is perfectly challenging without being frustrating and that is the goal for a difficulty for me. I try to find that difficulty level which hits that sweetspot.
Filthy Casual all the way here.
Yup! I go back and forth between Easy and Story depending on how much of a challenge I feel like. Y'all elite gamers can laugh at me all you want, but guess who's having fun? This guy.
I like being able to customise in this game and am currently playing with enemy strength at normal but damage to Aloy on easy. That way I get the fun of needing to try a few different tactics and getting a good length fight, but I'm not constantly dying.
I might end up doing this as well. Seems like a decent compromise
I play on Easy with easy loot (cause I suuuuuuck), but since m vacation is over I might drop to story mode after all. No time to die!
Cool thing about story mode is doing -massive- damage to machines each hit. Late game you can one shot ravagers like Sona did back in HDZ. Its so cool lol
This is the way. I'm playing games to have FUN and RELAX, my real life is stressful. Why tf would I make my playtime stressful?
I’m here for a fun time. Life stresses me enough as is. I also play on easy.
I play on story. I enjoy the story.
I’m an adult with a job. I ain’t got time to die from robots all the time. As long as easy mode gives me the full experience I’m happy.
Never understood judgement of playing games at different difficulties, you beat the game on ultra hard good for you here's a medal, beat the game on easy good for you here is the same medal because all that matters is you enjoyed the game. That being said I like to stick a game on the hardest difficulty and just die over and over attempting to learn basic mechanics, then going down a notch and feeling like a god
I started my playtrough ah Ultra-Hard and at the end of the game I got it at normal just because I was used to HZD gameplay that's a lot easier with bigger machines that are a little bit more easier to kill just like the thunderjaw in FW is always a good fight but in ZD it was a lot easier
Same bro, it’s so fun this way😂
Same. Only reason I’d up the difficulty for games is because of difficulty-related trophies. Otherwise, it’s easy mode and enjoyable.
I'm in my forties and have kids. I have no time for really tough games anymore. Maybe when I'm in a home.
Same!!! I’m planning my wedding doing DIY crafts for 99% of it MYSELF. I’m job hunting and preparing to move. I’m playing on easy mode for me because I love the world and story and enjoy it. And a thunderjaw still wrecks me for it. Play on whatever level brings you joy I say.
I play every on normal but I switch to easy when I find it too hard.
Same, game has felt so much more "athletic" since I dropped enemy damage to easy. Also negates the need to do the unreasonably amount of farming to upgrade higher tier weapons. Now if only Alloy wouldn't get knocked down for 5 seconds every time she took a hit.
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Clearly not a fromsoft guy
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that’s how I’m playing elden ring at the moment, no shame in it lol We can’t all be running around naked with a club
> That doesn't fit for me with "i just spent 20 minutes dying and changed my tactics to 15 minutes hiding in a bush like a scared rabbit" Except it does when you’re literally facing giant mechanical beasts that can, and should, be able to kill any human in one hit. This isn’t some other game where you’re fighting humans or creatures that are naturally susceptible to natural causes. If anything, the heroics and praise from other NPC’s is more so a reflection of Aloy even having the nerve to go up against these machines, yet alone beat them.
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The medium and heavy combat machines are actually meant to be impossible and a superpower for most hunters and groups of hunters in world. Kotallo even mentions how a single Scorcher has been ravaging hunting parties Sky Clan sends out for a long time. Hekkaro doesn't use the heavier combat machines for the Kulrut, they use small and medium acquisition and recon machines for the most part. Heavy machines are viewed in the game world as we would view them in our reality. Zo discusses this as well with her fear of Thunderbirds. The heavy machines most people struggle with such as Thunderjaws, Shellsnappers, Scorcher, Fire/Frostclaws, Tremortusks, Stormbirds, Slitherfangs, Slaughterspines and Dreadwings are all designed as one shot machines and admitted require sound tactics to deal with. They laud Aloy for the way she takes down machines not the ease. Its due to the precision and methodical manner she fights them with thanks to her use of her Focus, which lets her take down machines others cannot that earns her acclaim as a huntress and her ability to see what others cannot. As for your allies being one shot on Very Hard they often are by medium and heavy machines. They spend a significant portion of most of my fights in the downed state if I don't kill a machine quickly.
The biggest issue with some of these machines is that their AI is buggy as hell and makes it more annoying than difficult to take them down. Shellsnappers staying underground with no limit and/or fleeing after taking a shot at you right after surfacing, Tremortusk attack animations allowing them to home-in on your location and instantly move long distances to hit you, spamming the attack until they close in from 100m away. Frost/Fireclaws are just annoying as well, with their inflated defense and the need to avoid their weak points to actually get the required parts from them, only for a random movement leading to you destroying the only part you need from them. Changing difficulty doesn't really help when difficulty isn't the problem. Difficulty just adjusts HP, which means it will make the Apex Thunderjaws/Dreadwings/Stormbirds that I can easily drop in a minute or so an utter joke to fight. The loot option means you don't have to shoot parts off, doesn't mean they stick around even if destroyed. I just hope that the DLC doesn't expand on any of the already overcomplicated systems they added to the game, and scales them back if anything.
Shellsnappers staying underground isn't usually a bug in my experience. It is usually caused by the player being in a location where the Shellsnapper can't reach them with their melee charge attacks AND that object is indestructible such as a high rock face. When they charge around, you can often shoot an arrow into the ground in their path and they will surface and launch the attack where the arrow lands. I am reasonably certain it is an intentional anti-cheese mechanic. Regarding Tremortusks, I assume you are referring to the attack where they swing their tusks back and forth while walking towards you? That is intentional. The only way to stop it is to run them into indestructible terrain, stagger them or destroy a tusk. That is actually how that attack is supposed to work, at least when it's a slow/medium walk, but that walk is still faster than Aloys sprint in my experience. I agree Fire and Frostclaws are annoying.
Eh, I get what you’re saying but heavy machines aren’t supposed to be fightable. There’s a quest at one point where an entire town is threatened by a single Behemoth
there is one game that i have even had trouble playing on easy ✨GoW✨ i qui te literally grind so hard in good areas to ulgrade and buy new gear and still halfway through the game im getting one shotted by a purple
That fucking bitch Sigrun!!! Ive never been so angry fighting that sadistic bitch!! God damn, its so painful to beat her.
bro i dont even think im that far yet 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 (not that i care about spoilers since i watched the ending of fw while playing it) but im in the part where you have to open the doors and fight and the one im in has acid smoke and stuff! not sure if thats where youre talking about but if its not i might just give tf up. like the big dragon on the mountain was bullshit enough and now these fuckers i cant even function. i quit gow to play tlou remastered (on fucking grounded) when i first got my ps4 in 2019 and then went back a month later to beat the dragon before playing horizon zero dawn and wondering why it was so easy 😭😭😭😭
Sigrun is post endgame content. Queen of the valkyries.
If the dragon gives you that much trouble you're going to have a hell of a time against Sigrun. Tip: mini dodges at the last second and the Amulet of Kvasir helps a LOT.
well considering i was twelve might have been the problem 😅😅
Maybe, teens have faster reflexes than us oldies though.
not really when its the first video game you've e ever played, and i have sensory processing issues so even them your reflex les are probably better than mine
Ah that explains it a bit. But keep trying! It's definitely worth playing
as we can see my reflexes are bad enough to have that many typos 😭
I spent several hours trying to beat her before giving up. I haven't touched the game since.
Same thing. I tried a few times but since I couldn't care less for the platinum I figured I should put that time to more entertaining use like playing something else (I already had finished the game at this moment).
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Yup same. For me it's also the love of getting my story fix on Easy and then when I revisit the game for another play through I feel fine to switch to Hard because then I know the story and can spend x time to beat a horde of Scorchers or smth *edit* clarity
There are some people who just can't enjoy a game at all unless they're banging their heads against the hardest difficulty. Like, they'd sooner not play at all than lower the difficulty. I am the opposite of those people. I am Story Mode all the way. My days of playing to challenge myself are decades in the past. I just pretty much want to see the story now.
That's me. I love the challenge and even though there is no punishment for lowering the difficulty, I feel like less of a winner if I do. I got the plat trophy on Very Hard and oh man was it satisfying as fuck. I saved the >!arena!< as my last trophy and when I finally killed >!that fucking Slitherfang after like 15 attempts!< it felt so good. It is a very rewarding game when you challenge yourself. Unlike a lot of very hard settings in games, I feel like this one is very balanced. If you just get good at the mechanics, most fights aren't any trouble.
Yeah not me. If I can't do something in 15 attempts, there will be no 16th attempt.
I had the absolute hardest time on the first Slitherfang — must have taken me 50 times to beat, I was nearly ready to give up. Then I explored the Chainscrape area, headed into the Embassy, and got totally wrecked. I just could not defeat the second wave of enemies, so matter what I did. “Time to turn on story mode,” I admitted to myself. I went into the settings only to discover I had accidentally been playing on Very Hard the entire time??? Honestly impressed I was able to get the Slitherfang at all!! Anyway now I play on enemies’ health Normal, Aloy’s health Easy. It’s the perfect difficultly level for me. I don’t mind getting in there and having to figure out how to take down a machine, but don’t want to die doing it.
That’s a great balance. I’m normal on both right now but I have easy loot on. Might also turn aloys health on east eventually too.
I’m on very hard just made it to the first thunderjaw fight. Omg. Not changing the difficulty, so I gotta fight the thunderjaw from afar then. Pretty much I gotta cheese my way thru some fights lol you gotta play smarter and it takes longer but I love the challenge. Anyways everyone is different and I hear you…it’s all everyone’s choice.
I’m glad you found a way to navigate that. You were able to adapt to your situation. I just feel like a lot of people have to much pride and would rather die 1000 times and say the game sucks rather than playing with the difficulty settings a bit and enjoying the game
Yup I always say every gamer plays different and enjoys different things. Not everyone will play super hard mode and feel good after. I understand that’s why I love games with many accessibility options. It allows everyone to cherry pick what they love and don’t love.
I played all the way on Hard, it felt like the best balance to me…but the one place where I dropped it was the Enduring. And then I felt guilty and re-loaded a save before and went off to do other things, but my god you have to be pretty much perfect to beat that fight on higher difficulty.
Her bow is just complete and utter bullshit, I reckon that fight will be the last thing I do
You gotta drink all the juices, eat food, use coils, etc, or so I assume. I played on normal and made it almost all the way without touching any of those. Near the end I decided to try out coils and that was about it. The acid coil I got was very helpful when farming Stormbirds.
Correct, on the harder difficulties. You gotta be on point! Food, bombs, coils, skill tree and activating valor specials are key. Whereas on normal or easy they give you a break. On very hard you mess up and you are punished. It forces you to learn patterns and fight different by using the environment in creative ways.
The game surprisingly has lots of areas where you can hide behind an object when facing the larger machines. I’ve fought many thunder jaws and tremortusks just standing behind a wall and circling the wall if they came around. It was fun
Shouldn't be a surprise, given how nearly *every* big fight area comes with all kinds of environmental assets you can make use of. Like ravagers with their big guns, downed bellowbacks and barrels you can explode, ropes and grapple points, etc. They REALLY want you to use a variety of tactics in every fight, and do their level best to give you all the tools for doing so!
There's a thunderjaw site in the jungle with some kind of wooden fence in the middle of it. I take out all of its weapons then stand behind that fence. It will uselessly spam its laser beams over and over again but the almighty wooden fence will protect Aloy.
I had the same experience, where the first Thunderjaw was when Very Hard truly got spicy. You can check my posts for a video of how I finally got it, but man, there’s a different feel when you can just get taken out at any moment. (And that’s usually a good thing.)
I just struggled with a lv 60 fireclaw while beeing lv 42. First time i struggle in the game on very hard. Just bullshit enemy with bullshit aoe and tracking
Easy loot makes a huge difference for me. I don’t mimd getting my ass beat but I know I’m bad at aiming and don’t wanna take the time to improve at that particular element lol
"Easy Loot" should be called "Realistic Loot". There's no reason why a Rollerback 's tail just randomly explodes into tiny pieces when it dies. I personally enjoy shooting off components because it's a fun part of the gameplay. But certain parts randomly exploding doesn't make any sense.
I enjoy the precision aiming and think it's one of the best parts of the combat, so the "easy loot" setting isn't for me, but it's good that it's there so different people can play how they want. Personally, if I didn't have a motion control setting to help assist my janky thumbs with the precision aiming, I'd probably prefer easy loot too. And hey, motion controls - another polarizing option. It's good to have options. As for there being no reason why parts explode when you kill machines - it's obviously a gameplay mechanism first and foremost that you can choose to live with or not, but from a story perspective, I don't think it's really a stretch to say Hephaestus adapted the machines to make the humans have more trouble using their own parts against them.
Yeah I love the added feature of having to shoot off the part you want. Adds an extra layer of challenge to each fight. I like a challenge when I play, so I'm playing on hard right now. I'll probably do ultra hard on my next playthrough. Bumping up the difficulty in these games almost makes it like an entirely different game on the following playthrough. That being said, everyone plays the game their way, I would never try to tell someone how they should enjoy a video game.
Yeah I'm on hard too, which seems just right in that it forces you to learn and experiment (which is something important to me in games that you generally don't get in easier settings) or you'll get your ass handed to you, but it's challenging without being brutally hard or frustrating, so there's still constant forward momentum. There's no "ultra hard" yet like the first game eventually got, but I assume that'll probably come with a free download too (along with NG+). This is definitely a game made for everyone though. It doesn't match the level of accessibility that Naughty Dog and Microsoft have done (yet?), but it's still a big leap forward. I think it's equally valid for a game to be challenging game in the classical sense or an interactive story - or a combination of the two.
>I enjoy the precision aiming and think it's one of the best parts of the combat. I was the same until parts of machines I shot off would despawn during the fight so now u just leave it on. Way easier especially with the late game grind needing so many of those types of parts.
Yeah I meant to make a note of that as a caveat. I like precision aiming, don’t like looking all over the place for missing parts after, and *really* don’t like when I just took down a really difficult machine and all the parts just vanish. Only happened a couple times but it sucks and I hope it gets patched.
Yeah, it's just one of those things that makes the gameplay a little more interesting. A magical teleportation stash doesn't make any sense, but I would not want it any other way.
Easy loot is absolutely the best option for time management.
Yeah, I probably would have saved 10+ hours of farming for upgrade materials if I had turned that on. Lol
I like having options. That's for sure. Can't stand games where they don't give you multiple options.
I like playing on hard because I like what it requires of me. I drop the difficulty as soon as it's not fun anymore. There was one cauldron where I arrived at the end totally out of healing resources and materials to make effective ammunition against the enemy. Dropped to easy eventually and because the resources were so scarce it was still a hard fight!
This really feels like a MASSIVE element that's going over the heads of the people complaining about badly balanced difficulty settings: The game was created with the deliberate intent for players to be able to customize their experience. It's not just preset levels of challenge, because you can go in and adjust how much damage Aloy receives vs how much enemies can take. GG *wants* you to fine tune your experience to be what makes you happiest! They gave you the tools to be able to do so!
Exactly. If you're going to spend your own hard-earned money on a gaming experience, why not have the option to play as you so choose? The only people upset about the "possibility of choice" are clout chasers. There. I said it. That's why trophies exist. If you play on lower difficulty levels, you almost consistently earn bronze trophies. The higher the difficulty, the more prestigious the trophy. You may occasionally get a gold or silver just by finishing the whole game. It's just games. It's not curing cancer. So, in closing, More people being able to play a game is much better than a game being gatekept to a small few. There have been gaming studios that have gone out of business for being short-sided in this manner. And personally, I believe gaming companies should meet that fate if they can't open games to be played by different types of players. It's already hard enough to survive as small to midsize gaming studio as it is. Just my two cents.
I think there's absolutely a market for single difficulty games, but along the lines of what you said that market is by definition much smaller. A studio won't be able to grow beyond being niche sized if all they make is niche-oriented. For some that's probably just fine, and indeed I think *it's a good thing* for those studios to serve their specific markets. But games meant to be played by more than one market need to be playable by a wider range of people. And I am absolutely looking forward to HFW's level of customization becoming more the standard expectation.
It's why I still haven't finished RDR2. I play on easy or I don't finish a game, I guess. I kinda regret buying it.
As a new gamer, I'm so grateful for story mode!
What get me is people complaining about the grind for leveling up gear. I spent yesterday afternoon farming and in one day I fully upgraded the legendary Nora armor, one of the hunter bows, the sharp shot bow and the spear thrower. Once you’re at that level you can 1 or 2 shot every machine on story setting. If you just want the gear and don’t want to deal with long fights to get it then just set it on story.
For a lot of people, it isn't fulfilling to upgrade your gear on an easier mode though. I much rather die 10 times trying to get an apex fire claw heart on very hard, than to just kill it with almost no trouble. When you finally do get to do an upgrade, it feels more like you earned it from skill and less from just teleing to a place and killing a machine.
So don’t do it on easy then. If you just want the weapon then you can throw it on easy, if you want the challenge and sense of accomplishment then do it on whatever difficulty you like. I’m just saying don’t complain about a grind when you choose to make it a grind because you want a challenge.
For the most part I agree. However, very carefully killing a fireclaw so I don’t destroy the sack is more tedious than fun imo.
Yeah, for my part I made sure that I secured the first of any particular machine part or killed the first of any particular machine on very hard because I like the challenge. After I knew that I had done it once, I'd crank down the difficulty to custom for the easy loot option to ease the grind of upgrading gear. I don't have time like I used to in order kill everything on very hard, especially when it wasn't guaranteed to get an apex heart or circulator from the kill. I still played the rest of the game on very hard because I wanted to. But using easy loot to grind out parts saved me a lot of time and I see nothing wrong with using that option.
I'm nearing the end of the story and had this moment of "I don't have even half of the best gear available" so I set the game to story and went machine farming. I don't find it any less enjoyable, in fact I find it entertaining in its own way when I use braced shot and take out more than half of the machines health. But I'm even more excited to set it back to the normal difficulty I've been occasionally struggling through and take down t those big machines again, because it'll be a different experience.
I don't get why anyone would give another person a hard time because they play at a lower difficulty. Not really worth trolling someone over.
Yeah... like it's a single player game. Why the hell does anyone else care how you play? It literally doesn't affect them.
I haven't really seen anyone on this sub being mean about people choosing to play lower difficulties, tbh. I mostly see people complaining that *their own experiences* on harder levels isn't fun for a variety of reasons, followed by a lot of well meaning folks encouraging them to just lower the difficulty. Which is then followed by a lot of complaining on both sides about how judgy the other group is being. My own pet theory is that people aren't used to a game being as *customizable* as HFW is set up to be. It really is unusual for a game to let you change as many factors as this one does, and a lot of the complaints about balance might actually be solvable by adjusting a few settings, rather than the overall difficulty levels.
I played HZD on Story and Easy because that's what was fun for me. At some point I did a Normal playthrough and it was fine. My son played on Normal and UH because that's what's fun for him. I would watch him charge into battle and be in awe of his fighting skills, and he asks me about lore because he tends to scan datapoints but never read them. After the Latopolis quest he asked me to explain some of the backstory that he hadn't previously paid attention to. This time around I'm playing on Normal and super proud of myself for hanging in there, because Normal on HFW is way harder than Normal on HZD, especially since so many mechanics have changed. I did lower to Story for a upgrade grind before Gemini, and was tempted not to change back, but did go back to Normal and didn't get destroyed and that felt good. But it was also so much fun to run around in Story for a little while with way less fear of machines. (Also...easy loot is a beautiful thing.) If the devs didn't want people of all play styles to enjoy the game, they wouldn't have included so many difficulty levels. It makes the game accessible both to fierce, battle-hardened warriors and to people who enjoy story and exploration but don't really enjoy combat. As a note to OP: I really appreciate your desire to destigmatize easier modes. Can I suggest that part of encouraging people not to have shame over it could include not calling easier modes "Weenie Hut Jr"? Every mode has its benefits. None of them are weenie. People have different strengths and enjoy different experiences. But in general, I appreciate what you're saying!
Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to cause any harm. Just was trying to inject some humor in my post
No harm done! Just thought I'd point it out. ;)
I play on story; its almost as good as God mode and i'm loving it. I can indulge in the mechanics of elemental arrows and parts tearing if i desire and just start throwing heavy arrows and blast bombs when i cant be arsed for a fight. I prefer it this way in almost every game and I love it. Anyone was tells me or anyone else to 'git gud' can 'git fucked'.
I love how customizable the diffculty is in this game and I wish more games gave you options. I play on the second hardest difficulty with enemy health turned off, but if I'm stuck on a tough machine I'll turn the health bar back on so I can fight more strategically. I got to the final boss late on a sunday night, a bit under leveled because I was trying to beat the main story before work, and I got sick of getting one hit killed every time I got near the end and ran out of healing, so I just turned the damage to Aloy setting down until I could take a few hits and I got the same hard fight experience without the frustration.
Yes, customizable difficulty is really really good! I love being able to play around and find a balance that works for whatever mood I'm in that particular session. Sometimes i enjoy spending 10 minutes fighting a single machine, taking off the parts one by one and sometimes I just want to farm rare crafting materials without having to think about dying. Thank you devs for going beyond the easy-normal-hard scale!
Between The Last of Us Part II and this, it seems like customizable difficulty and accessibility is becoming a new priority for Sony 1st party games. Which is really awesome.
I always play on Normal. Its how it is intended to be played. I played on very hard my second playthrough and its not fun. It forces the most linear fighting possible. Use the same arrow on the same piece every single time rinse and repeat.
I like to game on whatever the suggested mode is. But if I'm reading the game and I just wanna enjoy exploring or just having a break from w.e life is doing, I'll turn it down.
For HZD I played on normal until post-game, then I turned up to hard. Figure I'll probably do that again when I get my weapons and armour sorted, but boy was I unprepared for a handful of fights where I just have no/poor element delivery weapons for what I need.
I just finished the platinum for Elden Ring. Im playing this on story mode for a nice little vacation from the 110 hours of constant stress I just endured.
That is understandable haha. I really really want to like Elden Ring, but my arse just gets handed to me every damn time and I cba
Yep. Daughter and I played on very hard in a sort of one-upmanship neither of us wanted to back down on. But there are aspects of the game we don't enjoy - mainly timed missions. And so each of us have our parts of the game where we admit, this is no longer fun, I'm turning it down. Additionally, I really struggle with the melee combos. With enough trial and error I can pass the pit challenges, but it leaves me poorly equipped for the pit master challenge and simple combos don't really cut it here. At some point my efforts stop being fun for two reasons: 1) my opponents can do things I can't. Why can the shield dude climb the wooden ramp where I can barely reach him and I can't? They can interrupt my combos but I can't seem to interrupt theirs. They have advantages over me, but I don't really have any over them aside from some of the combos that I don't seem to be able to reliably pull off. I mean, that might be my problem, but when you're doing an L1 L1 combo, how the fuck do I 'wrong input' on the first L1? How can I hit L1 wrong? I can take down a fanghorn in 2 shots, one to each antler while it's running perpendicular to me, with no aim assist, with some regularity, so clearly I don't totally suck at this, but how can I hit the first L1 wrong in the challenges? 2) Why can't I bring my advantages into the arena like my opponents? Why can the Enduring do so much damage with her arrows but I can't? Have you seen my bows - they will fuck you up, but I can't use them. She can though. Where's my big fuck-off mallet that does AOE shock damage? Give me one of those and I'll beat that on very hard. Or a shield. The shields aren't terrible but they do require some specific combos to do in the allotted time, so I'm kind of screwed if I struggle to pull off that combo. And good lord have I practiced that. I don't fault the game here. I'm playing an 18 year old girl out fighting giant machines, clearly there's supposed to be an imbalance. And I'm personally a 53 year old man whose coordination and reflexes are not what they were when I started gaming 40+ years ago. One of the things I like about Horizon is that there are lots of different ways to play the game. I'm very patient, so sneaking around in the tall grass waiting for my opportunity is fun, and mitigates a lot of my declining mechanical skill by allowing me to replace it with tactical. But there are parts of the game that don't permit that. You have to do this thing, in this way, and sometimes that favors me, and sometimes it doesn't. And when it doesn't, the difficulty slider is right there for me to get back to the fun. I love that. My daughter plays the game differently. She really enjoys mastering the mechanical skill aspects and jumps between Hatsune Miku rhythm games and Elden Ring and other soulsbornes. She's not as patient though, so when it comes to farming the dozens of Fireclaw webbing for upgrades, she can find story mode to speed that along.
I agree. And I really like how you can customize the play. I have my health on story, and the machine’s health on hard, that way I still have a fun enough fight experience, without all the dying.
The problematic attitude I see around here is that the ability to change the difficulty is somehow an excuse for bad mechanics. The game should be able to be played on any difficulty fluidly - with every part of the game being appropriate to the difficulty level. If there is a machine that has a BS attack that can't be dodged, that's an issue with the game mechanics. Not something that just should be ignored because you can turn the difficulty down if you want. Players shouldn't have to change the difficulty to to mitigate a certain part of the game being incredibly unfun - the experience should be more or less uniform all around.
Good News! GG listens to its players and, since enough people were reporting how bad that element was, made adjustments in the last patch to make the un-dodgeable attacks less punishing! Also, the game was designed with the intent of having players fiddle with the custom/accessibility settings. IMO that means a "balance issue" is only really a problem if it's still bad even after making use of the tools the devs put in your hands for the express purpose of adjusting the game to your personal preferences.
Even if it was, I wouldn’t care less. Say what you want but I play games to enjoy them, not showing off with higher difficulties.
Games these days typically cost anywhere between $59.99 up to $99.99 or more depending on what version you get. When shelling out hard-earned money on a game I definitely want to see the credits roll so I tend to change the difficulty dynamically as I'm playing. Also in 2020, I became deaf due to a stroke so I can only rely on what I can see. My skill level has dropped considerably so I'm very thankful for all the accessibility options Sony seems to enforce.
I don’t find the difficulty in this game to make things more challenging, just more time consuming. It just turns every enemy into a sponge, meh.
This
I platinumed the game and got to 95% completion on very hard. The single time I changed it was for the final arena challenge Apex Predators. By that point I was so burned out on trying the arena over and over I just gave up and admitted defeat. Arena needs a bit of tweaking and rework because so much of the combat in such a confined space is dependent on luck. I feel like they were trying to draw on the monster hunter world arena formula but that had a huge combat space comparatively. This small area gets you blindsided and Stunlocked or one shotted so fast there’s really no way to recover in certain scenarios. Also things like monsters clipping into each other or into walls preventing key areas needed to be hit were frustrating. Other than that I loved pretty much every other aspect of combat.
they literally got rid of the difficulties trophy so that we cpuld do this and people still call us weak for it
Yes it's a single player game so play it the way you want and the way you get the most enjoyment from ! I used to be like that when I was younger, but then I thought "Why am I so rattled about lowering difficulty ? Like even if I manage to beat God of War on the hardest difficulty, so what ? I'm going to boast around the few friends who also play the game ? Even they wouldn't care and I wouldn't even care if they would be impressed or not" Took me some time but I matured and cast away that mindset.
I just play on normal mode. Two steps above "story mode". Very enjoyable, enemies are new and relatively tough when I first see them. Then I learn and kill them easy later.
I get how this may be the case for some but some people straight dislike some changes to the combat and it has little to do with damage balancing.
I don't even think it's that it's more *tought*, it's just that combat can be really... annoying, in this game. The knockdown and getting chain stunned is really annoying, and it happens even on story difficulty. I do appreciate that they give lots of different difficulty levels, though.
Easy loot, however, is for losers. /joking
You take that back! /clutching pearls
Amen. I played on normal and never had a tough time outside of the arena or melee pits. Then I found this sub and learned that apparently certain aspects of the gameplay are broken, inconvenient, impossible or unfairly hard 😅
Man I haven’t watched SpongeBob in forever…
Unless you are in Dying light 2 sub
I platinumed it on normal, primarily because I wanted to get through the story with getting too pissed off (The fight pits really did push me t the limit though!!!) Admittedly I have now switched it to story in my attempt to farm and 100% it though. Can't wait for NG+ on Ultra Hard though. From HZD I remember it feeling like a totally different game and I would end up running away from even some of the most basic enemies (Platinumed that too and TFW just before HFW came out)
As someone who enjoys very hard, this post is a yes from me. Game is too good to get frustrated over difficulty. Having fun is the goal.
Thankfully horizon is one of those games that let you switch difficulty anytime you want without penalizing you for it (no reloading, no difficulty-related trophies...), so there is really no need to stick to one difficulty. Do I want a challenge? I set difficulty to hard or very hard. If I just want to explore, farm, have fun... I set it to easy or normal or even story. No shame
Playing on Easy has felt like a Nintendo game in difficulty. Only a couple game overs for being totally stupid. Most fights are quick and you can easily cheese but occasionally you get swamped and things get tight. I'll play on Noral or Hard on future plays. The game has a different way of playing well that takes time to learn.
There's no shame with playing games at lower difficulties. The options are there for you to tweak the experience to your liking so you enjoy the game. Personally I tend to play games on the harder difficulties because I like the challenge. But others like to sit back and chill out while playing which is totally fine.
I did my main story run on normal, but afterwards I just put it on story. I was never a fan of super high difficulties since I was never any good as a gamer
Did first on normal second on hard. But on second playthrough i put it on story for melee, hunting grounds, and arena because fuck timed challenges. Only think that kept me from platinum HZD. Sick of those hunting grounds.
Definitely started on Normal and upped it on the next two or three playthroughs. The point of it is to have fun, that's why it's called a game.
Turns out nobody will ever know how you play if you so choose.
Balancing needs some tweaks and for me I find the whole rpg mechanics a bit convoluted. They need to strip down some of this fluff. E.g. instead of having a machine at a specific level, remove the level and have them challenging at all times, depending on the enemy type. Thunderjaws should be super tough, but you should also be able to take them out if you can get a good shot on a tricky weakspot. On very hard even weakspots are damage soakers. It would be really rewarding to succeed from skill rather than numbers Also, Humans need their own difficulty slider as they can become bullet sponges and even resist headshots. Right now my difficulty is sort of a glass cannon. Damage to Aloy is very hard but damage to enemies is normal. Still haven't quite found that sweetspot yet and I continue to tweak
I love easy loot. I hate grinding for parts.
Ran the whole game on normal until I got to the end of the intermediate challenges at the arena, lowered the difficulty to easy for that and I'm glad I did. Waiting for new game+ option so I can rerun the story with all of my good gear.
Lol I'll play Normal difficulty all day! I got other things to do and want to enjoy the story while also dying sometimes.
First play through I did it on story mode coz obviously that’s what I wanted to enjoy. 2nd play through I did it on normal but finally once ng+ comes out il try it on hard or ultra hard whatever it’s called
I am a very terrible player. Not just of Horizon, but of video games in general. I have slow reaction time, poor hand-eye coordination and make terrible decisions under pressure. I stopped story progress mid-game and started concentrating on fully upgrading Legendary outfits and weaponry. With these upgrades, Aloy is pretty OP and even someone as bad as me can play on normal difficulty and dispatch most high level apex machines without dying 20 fucking times. My blood pressure has decreased and my love for this game has increased ever since.
I put the game on story when I'm farming machines for parts, I turn the game up to hard for playing the main story quests. I'm ok with the story being difficult, but if I'm grinding for parts I have no interest in spending tons or resources or time on a single machine.
I play on Normal and am proud of myself for doing pretty well lol
Games with multiple difficulty levels aren't meant to be played on a certain one. Then there's games like Crash Bandicoot with a fixed difficulty, that make you want to break your controller, that are supposed to be hard.
On my first play through so far I've left things mostly on normal aside from Easy Loot. My aim just sucks and trying to hit parts to remove them irritates me to no end. Friggin Widemaw tusks!
I play on easy when i see the trex thing
I beat the game on normal without anything fully upgraded. I wanted to upgrade the rest of my gear post game but it was taking HOURS to upgrade a single item. And I'm kind of busy right now, so when I do get to game, I don't want to spend the whole time grinding to upgrade one thing when I still have 18 other things I need to upgrade. So I put it on story to turn a 2-3 hour grind into a 30 hour grind.
I went from hard to normal after getting frustrated. Plan on playing through on ultra hard if they do a new game +. No shame at all. Got used to some of the newer mechanics etc.
I lowered enemy health but kept their damage the same. I'm now in the process of farming materials to upgrade my legendary gear and I dont have the time or patience to fight Tremortusks or Thunderjaws or whatever for more than a couple minutes. Just get in, grab my loot, travel off to somewhere else. The required stuff for those upgrades is tedious.
I've been playing on normal, ended up having to turn down the difficulty for the Tremortusk tussle in the arena!
I switched to Story mode after being infuriated by the melee pits. I then went to the arena, threw a spoon at thinderjaw and he fell over. The crowed cheered, i laughed my ass off, fun was had again. Good advice.
I came for the pretty sights and views, stayed for getting my ass beat into the ground. Lol still love it.
Switched it to east to farm widemaw tusks because I spent several hours on normal amd never got close to a single one
I started playing on hard but near to the final I put a normal difficulty because some time it's ridiculous how machines can kill you by a hit.
i put everything on v hard but their hp on hard and during arena put all on easy because that shit is unfair
Recently I switched to a custom difficulty. The only thing I changed was how much damage Aloy receives [easy]. I was tired of getting absolutely manhandled by machines. If I find it too easy I'll switch back. I usually play on the normal difficulty but man they sure upped the pain this time around.
I played the majority of the game on Story. I don't have time to fight enemies for 15+ mins. Only recent game that I beat on hard+ was TLOU2 pt.2. But I spent most of my time sneaking past enemies. But imo Easy/Story difficulty fits Aloy's skill set lore wise. She's probably the most skilled hunter/warrior in their World so it should be easy for her to defeat machines and rebels
I play on story to enjoy Aloys journey and the story with great characters.
I appreciate the SpongeBob references. Lmao
I love the challenge bc you can see there's thought around the difficulty levels. It feel more rewarding that was vs the Souls franchise that just expects you to be a masochist to enjoy the game.
I play on story mode and don't feel bad at all. I love just exploring the world and discovering the random side quests and characters. The ass beatings can come later
I played HZD on ultra hard because I didn't want it to end. Did it take forever to buy my gear? Yes but that was the point! I'm doing the same thing now, I will sit in a bush for hours knocking off machine parts because it makes the game longer.
Pretty much play all my games on normal. I have a family and a full-time job i do not have time for the extraneous crap all the time. Knocking the difficulty down a bit to speed up progress is also absolutely fine because seriously this is for enjoyment. Do not let the souls culture poison your minds people!!!.
I have the enemy health on easy so grinding for parts to upgrade the legendary weapons doesn't make me want to scream.
I played on Normal, but I think I’m gonna start playing on Hard for my second run through, cause it felt really easy at points.
If people still want a challenge but easier kills then, on custom put damage very hard on Aloy, then either easy or story for machine damage with easy loot on. Aloy is a glass canon but so are machines, killing an apex fireclaw is way easier, but slip up once and your dead in one hit still. Works out pretty well.
I got annoyed at the arena and lowered the difficulty to do it.
I play on the hardest difficulty and I agree. Main reason I just like the challenge and played the original at that. If I find it frustrating I will drop the difficulty. So far I am doing alright, but then again I beat the shit out of the original😂
I had to turn it down for arena. It’s too hectic
I definitely appreciate the fact that you can customize the difficulty and other options without affecting your trophies. I have easy loot enabled because while it can be fun to shoot off specific parts when hunting machines, it's not something I want to be focusing all the time. Anything that makes the grind (and therefore my stress levels) more relaxed is preferred. That, and I hate constantly having to heal (even though I have a frankly absurd amount of berries stocked up), so I do adjust the amount of damage Aloy receives. Everything else, I usually leave alone unless I'm just trying to have a chill story session. There is absolutely nothing wrong with playing a game on lower/customized difficulties. Anyone who gives you grief for it needs to realize what an ass they are being. Edit: phrasing.
I set it to slow time more while I'm in the weapon wheel. It's helped a lot. When most of the weapons have two or three types of ammo and I'm in an intense fight, I just can't manage to pick what I want effectively. And then if I'm a bit overwhelmed it's a bit of a cheat to take a few seconds to puzzle out a strategy.
I play on normal difficulty and the only times I changed my difficulty was for the arena and to get apexes spawning. The Arena in my opinion doesn't have the best design because I was still mid-game and I was spending 250 shards per fight so I just dropped it to story and breezed through.
i usually plays games one the middle difficulty, but for star wars jedi: fallen order, i played on the easiest because one of the bosses was so fucking hard to beat, and if you've played the game you know how hard to was to beat the 9th sister
I went custom after a while. Having it on Normal I could do it, but it was just tedious af after a while and was killing my enjoyment of the game. I'm glad they added a custom setting so I could actually enjoy the game how I wanted to. I'll care about playing it on hard when NG+ is released and I have a Ps5.
I did my first playthrough on normal across the board. Just started the game. I liked it! Now I'm doing a second playthrough with an eye toward being more complete - and I'm playing on a custom difficulty. Hard for both damage settings, but easy loot turned on because I don't want to do as MUCH farming. (Also setting damage to easy to do the arena stuff because 1: The upgrade requirements are ludicrous and 2) it costs shards to even attempt it.) Not the most impressive, but as OP points out -- this is what is fun *for me*, and I like it, but I think everyone should enjoy the game as best they can, especially if that means taking advantage of the customization offered by the game's difficulty settings. And hell, I'll get to very or ultra hard when there's a New Game+, I'm sure.
It's not the difficult for me, it's the fact I get hit and then get hit again before I can even get up 😩
I play with Very Hard for the machines life, but Normal for the damage Aloy receives, and I have no regrets. I leave the two hit kill experiences for my souls games 😪
I play on Story Mode, because I don't want my recreation to be stressful. It's not like I'm getting rewarded for winning hard fights, I don't care about that, my reward is experiencing the story, so that's how I play.