Is difficulty a serious problem for you in games?

[Rheinmetall]

Personally I usually have a 30% on average of quitting a game because I realized at some point that I can't make any progress on my own. Only during 2013 I had to quit many games for this cause, like Portal 2, Mirror's Edge (later I finished it consulting a guide all the time, but it doesn't count really), Apache Air Assault, Metal Gear Rising, and Remember Me. I play games for over than 20 years, I have memories from old school 8-bit games too, I'm not new to video games, but still I often find myself struggling to beat a game. I have beaten genuinely hard games like Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles, but I almost lost my mind in the process, so I'm not going to try that again. So what about you? Generally do you have a hard time to beat an action, or a platform game, or difficulty is no longer a serious problem for you after years of experience?

 

[LaoJim]

Generally it's not a problem. I didn't have any problems with Portal or Mirror's Edge (in fact I have a play through most of the way though on hard I need to get back to finishing one of these days)

I did turn down the difficult on Spec Ops, because I wasn't really enjoying the gameplay and wanted to see the ending. I also got half-way through Dead Space 2, got stuck and turned the difficulty down, (It was all a bit of a misunderstanding, there was a pod thing spawning enemies that I didn't realize that I could kill) but having started enjoying it, I went through again on normal straight afterwards.

Apart from them I had serious problems with F1 2010 until I turned on all the assists. Generally couldn't get round one lap without spinning off and even when I did I was 10 seconds down on the AI's time.

I generally play through on normal first and only try for hard level if I play through it again (and for a lot of games I don't bother), so I'm not the greatest gamer in the world. I don't think games are particularly getting any harder though.

 

[Legion]

The only game in recent years I have remotely struggled with has been Dark Souls. That was frustrating enough to make me quit it within a few hours. I wanted to like it, but found it far too frustrating, especially as it doesn't explain anything, not even what half of the stats do.

Other than that, I play most games on the hardest difficulty I can from the start, and rarely have any issues.

 

[Rheinmetall]

Apart from them I had serious problems with F1 2010 until I turned on all the assists. Generally couldn't get round one lap without spinning off and even when I did I was 10 seconds down on the AI's time.

What I did in F1 2010 was to use all the assists as well, exept for the qualifying round, there you had to turn off the breaking assist, because otherwise I ended up between 18th and 24th with zero possiblities to get a good result in the race. Nice that you brought up F1 2010, great game.

 

[Tono Makt]

This is a rather interesting question, and I think it depends on what it is that you, as a gamer, find most rewarding about the games you are playing.

Overall, difficulty of gameplay hasn't been an issue for me since my Sega Master System days because I've changed what it is I look for in a game, and what kind of games I tend to play. I play most games for the story rather than for the gameplay. That's what I look for in a game these days - I really don't care much about pulling an awesome move or defeating a powerful enemy via gameplay, neither of those are all that important to me. So generally I will play a game on Easy or Normal mode the first time I play through it so I can see the story and see where there may be other interesting things to see in the story and plot without the frustration of having to die in combat over and over again, or miss that jump over and over again, etc.

Once I've enjoyed the story and I want to replay a game, I'll play it on a harder level (Hardcore/Veteran/Whatever) to give myself a bit of a challenge. I know the story (basically), so now I can focus on the gameplay. Then when I've played through a few times on the lower levels, I'll go for an Insanity level to challenge myself. There have been a few times where the Insanity level has given me fits because I developed lazy habits on lower levels (Biotic Charge! in Mass Effect really screwed me up when I hit Insanity and Banshee's. Argh.) but nothing has kept me from continuing the game on Insanity. I just had to remove my bad habits and play to the difficulty level.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I think the only games I ever stopped playing due to difficulty alone before finishing were Fantasy General and Elven Legacy (which is basically Fantasy General in a new hat).

And it wasn't for a lack of trying.

 

[Church185]

The only game in recent years I have remotely struggled with has been Dark Souls. That was frustrating enough to make me quit it within a few hours. I wanted to like it, but found it far too frustrating, especially as it doesn't explain anything, not even what half of the stats do.

Other than that, I play most games on the hardest difficulty I can from the start, and rarely have any issues.

Dark Souls defense force GO! *swings in out of nowhere and crashes into a wall*

It does actually explain what the stats do in game, IIRC if you press select (console) on the stats screen it will show you a tooltip explaining briefly what each stat does. However, I'm not entirely sure that is explained anywhere in the game or manual. *shrugs*

 

[LaoJim]

Apart from them I had serious problems with F1 2010 until I turned on all the assists. Generally couldn't get round one lap without spinning off and even when I did I was 10 seconds down on the AI's time.

What I did in F1 2010 was to use all the assists as well, exept for the qualifying round, there you had to turn off the breaking assist, because otherwise I ended up between 18th and 24th with zero possiblities to get a good result in the race. Nice that you brought up F1 2010, great game.

Yeah, now I think about I did have to turn off the breaking assist to get decent lap times. The best-line feature was broken as well, insofar as you had to wait a significant time after it turned red before breaking.

 

[Racecarlock]

Assassin's Creed IV Tailing Missions: Be careful, because your targets will turn around randomly.

That alone would be frustrating, but then you fail ten billion more fucking times because of course they walk through areas covered in guards so you have to somehow avoid every hint of detection. And you can fail in one second and lose like an hour of sneaking.

Speaking of which, FUCK MANDATORY STEALTH TOO! I know I am supposed to be an assassin, but come on!

 

[Rheinmetall]

Assassin's Creed IV Tailing Missions: Be careful, because your targets will turn around randomly.

Yes, I can imagine. The last couple of chapters in the first Assassin's Creed game almost drove me crazy, so I know that this game can be very nasty when it decides to be hard.

 

[Lucyfer86]

Not really, nothing abit googling doesn't solve.
Sometimes it might be lack of difficulty that makes me stop certain game.

 

[white_wolf]

For me the game isn't hard or challenging enough in its goals I can beat games in 2 -3 days without even trying and that is very annoying and a huge let down for me. I can't recall quitting a game because I struggled with it I can recall quitting games because the plot sucked, or the game was insultingly easy to the point I didn't enjoy it at all and it became a chore to play.

 

[Rheinmetall]

The only game in recent years I have remotely struggled with has been Dark Souls. That was frustrating enough to make me quit it within a few hours. I wanted to like it, but found it far too frustrating, especially as it doesn't explain anything, not even what half of the stats do.

Dark Souls is hard, but don't forget that it's also an rpg, which means that in the end, after hundreds of hours and tons of XP earned and god knows what fancy armour you will have on, it's going to be much easier as it happens with most rpg. Dark Souls likes bullying you, true, but if you have time to spend with it, you will soon be the boss.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Difficulty generally isn't a problem for me, not that there aren't outliers from time to time.

If anything I find that games have been actually getting easier, even on the highest difficulty settings, compared to the games I grew up with. These days between the constant hand-holding (scripted event after scripted event, regenerating health, constant auto-saving and/or save scumming, etc.) and the (admittedly much improved) optimized controls and UI elements I feel like most of the time I actually have to try to fail.

 

[Rutabaga_swe]

I don't think very many games have put me off due to actual, fair difficulty. I mean enjoyable challenges that test you, but are still fair. Games that are full of bullshit however...that's another thing entirely.

If anything i'd like more games to focus on delivering good challenge and difficulty, rather than these games that are, gameplaywise, completely mediocre but with huge production value (Uncharted and Tombraider spring to mind).

 

[omega 616]

Depends, not a single FPS that I haven't been able to do on the hardest setting to date. Fighting games, racing games, rhythm games and stratergy games (xcom to command and conquer) are from medium to easy settings to me.

I'm also oddly good at hack and slash games, DMC and such ... though I have never played them on the hardest settings, since after about 20 minutes of playing them I am bored. Though I did the majority of god of war 3 on the hardest setting till I got bored, I could complete it but those games don't hold my interest at all.

To elaborate a little bit, growing up I would just default to easy 'cos I wanted to get through the game to enjoy the story and not to just get better or grind away at a certain hard bit to over come it ... it didn't make sense to me.

Now that I am a little older, I want to be a bit better at games but I am still not going to grind my ass off to accomplish something nobody gives two fucks about. "wow, you did xcom on the hardest setting AND ironman? We need to get you a medal or something", just never happens, only increases your epeen for half a second.

 

[Caiphus]

*Looks through Steam folder to try and find a game he stopped playing due to difficulty*

I dunno. There were a few games, like Arma II, that were vague or just not fun so I didn't bother learning how to play them properly. Does that count as difficulty?

Then there are strategy games, at which I'm generally shit. But I just don't buy them, knowing this.

Oh, and Demon's Souls. My brother has completed it, along with Dark Souls, but I got frustrated and quit after a couple of hours. Probably could've kept slogging through it, but eh.

Eh.

 

[skywolfblue]

I do find it annoying when games don't include a difficulty setting. Also binary pass-fail sections, give me chances to correct my mistakes, don't send me back 15minutues because a guard turned the wrong way at the last instant.

Assassin's Creed IV Tailing Missions: Be careful, because your targets will turn around randomly.

That alone would be frustrating, but then you fail ten billion more fucking times because of course they walk through areas covered in guards so you have to somehow avoid every hint of detection. And you can fail in one second and lose like an hour of sneaking.

Speaking of which, FUCK MANDATORY STEALTH TOO! I know I am supposed to be an assassin, but come on!

^ That.

I don't have too much trouble with most games on normal difficulty.

 

[Aximili]

The only games that I find difficult are real time strategy games where as soon as I start playing hard mode I get wrecked so completely that I think I just don't know how to play these games properly. Other types of games are not hard to me at all though. First person shooters in particular seem to have been getting increasing easy over the past few years, but then I don't play the multiplayer.