Is difficulty a serious problem for you in games?

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

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.

I can't play Dark Souls for long amounts of time, even one of my progressions stopped completely because I was so far into it and felt like I'd probably screwed something up along the way... It took me for goddamn ever just to beat the first boss post-intro level (and funny enough I beat him by knocking him off the wall somehow).
Difficulty isn't always a factor but I also don't feel like a game absolutely has to be hard to be good. I've completed many many hard ass games in the past (remember when completing all the Star World levels in Super Mario World was an achievement? Pepperidge Farm remembers...)

 

[Scarim Coral]

Depend on the said difficuly, yes it is hard but how is it hard?

Example- I quit Resident Evil 4 eventhought I didn't wanted to but I did. I got to the point that I had little to none ammo left and I was right in a boss welcome mat. None of my previous saves can let me reduce my ammo so the only alternative was to restart the game.

While I tend to overcome a difficuly once I read a guide on it but even then the best guide won't solve it for you (Advance War: Black Hole Rising and Golden Sun 2 duing the Dullahamn boss).

Before you mention Dark Soul, I haven't played it.

 

[bojackx]

I can't think of a single time I've stopped playing a game because it's too hard, but I have quit many games after getting stuck in a game, which I'd say is totally different.

I was playing Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and there was only so many times I could be puzzled about what to do next and consult an online guide before I realised I'm either a massive retard or the game is shit at hinting what needs to be done to advance. Also the whole fucking time limit in each section, which meant in order to get the best grade at the end of a section you needed to get all the hidden treasure and be super quick about it, but I suppose I'm getting off-topic now.

I got up to a point where you needed to light a ball of spider's web on fire to set more web on fire (not actually the most complex of puzzles since I'd had to do it several times before) but before I realised what I had to do, I'd tried sticking the ball into a crack in the wall, where the crack decided to slowly but surely suck the ball right into it mega-glitch-style and I'd be damned if I was going to redo the last half hour of tedious coin-collecting gameplay, so I dropped it and never went back.

 

[raeior]

This happened to me in several games, even though I usually play on the highest difficulty available and I love games like Dark Souls. What I can't stand is difficulty that seems...unfair. Enemies shooting across half of the map and instakilling you? Sure why not! That sounds fun.
It gets even worse when you have to repeat large sections of a game or cutscenes. Strangely this didn't bother me as much in Dark Souls.

One recent example of this was GTA IV. During the final mission you first have to chase a car, then shoot your way through dozens of goons who are no real danger but just annoy the hell out of you and then chase a helicopter on a motorbike. The last part was the problem for me. I tried it I don't know how often but every time I crashed into something or missed the jump at the end. Every single time you get the starting cutscene again and have to shoot your way through all those goons to get to the motorbike. I quit the game for a year or so, then tried that mission again and got through after ~3 tries and afterwards realized that it was already the final mission.

The final battle in Mass Effect 3 where you have to defend some missile launchers also angered me to no end. I played every ME game on highest difficulty and all of them had their share of "if it sees you, you're dead" enemies but ME3 was even worse. Throwing 2 or 3 banshees who prevent you from taking cover and also a dozen marauders at you who absolutely require you to take cover wasn't much fun. I switched the difficulty down to "story telling mode" or how it was called after several attempts just to get through the game.

An older example would be "Albion", a RPG by BlueByte. There was one enemy (Kamulos) that was ridiculously easy if you had a certain spell and the resources for it..or nigh on impossible if you didn't. I quit the game at that point and have just recently started playing it again to finally finish it. Because the story and the atmosphere in general are just awesome.

Also great was the fishing village mission in XCOM: EU on classic difficulty. It has an endless supply of one of the most annoying enemies in the game: Chrysalids. You have to run past a whale corpse that spews out 1 or 2 of those creatures every turn. Then press a button that is one story above the corpse (the Chrysalids can just jump there after spawning and nearly instantly kill your guy) and after that evacuate every one to the starting zone. I tried it several times and in the end just sacrificed a rookie who pressed the button and instantly after that died, while the rest of my guys where waiting at the extraction point. I guess it's a lot easier if you have mechs or the jumping upgrade for your own soldiers but I didn't.

 

[voet01]

The problem with difficulty is the lack of information and the ability to change and tweak the difficulty.

A - let's say you have Easy, Difficult and Hard - what does that say exactly? What changes when I choose hard over medium?
Also you should be able to change the difficulty level during any stage of the game (great example Forza and Gears of War which even allowed players to play together with different Difficulty levels).

B - There is a big difference between difficult and frustrating - everyone knows that you improve your skills when you need to play just above your game. So instead of huge steps between difficulty, why not a much finer scale which you can increase or decrease.

C - If i want a harder game, I want smarter enemies or more and better placed enemies (not the same soldiers which are now able to kill you from any distance)

D - difficulty and assists should be treated as 2 seperate things - to give a good example.
I can drive a super fast Mclaren Car with Traction Control on hard difficulty in Forza 5

 

[Foolery]

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!

To be fair, Asscreed seriously lacks in the stealth department anyway. The game needs a crouch button and a few other adjustments. You can easily slash your way through a lot of encounters. The games do ask you to do stealth, but I don't think they're particularly well designed for it.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

I think I only solved 50% of Phoenix Wright ace attorney by myself, the other half was from a guide. In my defense it was a really good guide, it had commentary too.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Depends on the game, if i had a lot of fun i will replay on a harder difficulty. But then there are some games with interesting stories but the gameplay is just boring and a chore - so i put them on easy just so i can enjoy the story. I guess it doesnt matter how you play your game as long as you enjoy it.

 

[Alrom]

I think that the first game that made me give up because of the difficulty was monster hunter on the ps2. That damn chicken wyvern took me a week of effort to beat just for me to realise that I would need to fight stronger things.


But that was in the past. Nowadays the only reason I stop playing a game is because it either got boring or because it got too much repetitive.


I played through dark souls. I died a lot but mostly because everything I saw I said to myself "That thing will destroy me!". But after I managed to beat the gaping dragon on my first try without any difficulty and alone I started to see every enemy as a mortal and killable and that mentality made the game much more simple to me.


I also play a lot of monster hunter 3 ultimate which can be said to be as hard, if not harder, than dark souls in g-rank.

 

[Maximum Bert]

*snip for space*

Yeah they definitely help thats for sure but you cant just read a guide and become an expert in a lot of games knowing is half the battle and a guide definitely helps there but doing is not always so simple.

Take fighters I may know the bnbs of my characters and even have a good grasp of them but winning a match will ultimately come down to my experience and being able to make snap decisions and react on the fly which a guide cant help me with although its true it helps provide the building blocks I have to get to the state where I dont have to think about the execution or what would be the optimum move in any situation which is quite difficult. Of course it all depends on who you are facing against a lot of people you can look up one combo in a guide and just learn that and win because its surprising how many people dont adapt or have any knowledge of fundamentals.

There is also the failure of punishment and how harsh it can be that makes it difficult take Persona 4 arena score attack mode. I have read guides I have seen people do it and know the besic strategy but all it takes for the comp to win is land one hit in a lot of cases to beat you (no exaggeration here) which is exceedingly difficult and something a guide can only help you with so far.

I guess you cant get stuck in a competitive game as such but you can find it hard to win as your not playing a static challenge i.e the comp you are playing another player who will likely capitalise on you if they get a read on what you are doing and/or you become to predictable.

As you say though no guide can teach you how to press buttons or even the exact timings for doing so which can make some combos in fighters extremely hard i.e those with 1 frame links and such.

Spose what im saying is some games are more down to practice and familiarization of the interlocking systems and the ability to execute snap decisions on the fly with accuracy and decisiveness while others just really require knowledge of what to do guides can make the latter games very easy but the former not so much.

 

[lapan]

Difficulty rarely keep me away from a game. At worst, when i get stuck, i tend to just take a break of the game for a while and try it again later.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

Nope...i struggle to find any challenge in games anymore...they have become tediously simple in the last few years and i moan a lot about it. The rare occasion when i don't finish a game is usually because i find something in the game that is so badly broken i cannot bring myself to carry on...or the gameplay is so simple that there is no reason to try and master it.

 

[Angelous Wang]

I have a over compensation with difficulty settings actually.

I will normally play easy by default, then when I look through the achievements to see if there are any fun ones and I see a difficulty one I will often replay through the game on the highest difficulty with no trouble think "why the hell did I play this on easy in the first place?"

I forget these days "Hard" is hard by causal gamer child standards, not by 20 year+ veteran gamer standards.

Back in the day when we used to get Japanese video game difficulties, I think that's were this behaviour comes from. But these days we have separate EURO and US difficulties which are cake by comparison.

 

[Branindain]

I kind of have the opposite problem to the OP, I need a game to realistically threaten me with death or I can't engage with it properly. In the absence of better information I will start from hard difficulty and scale down later if I totally drown, because for my first playthrough the challenge has to be right. Occasionally this causes me to get burned by late-game difficulty spikes but c'est la vie (looking at you, room in God of War with the hundreds of Kratos clones that I was stuck on for 3 hours).

 

[Lightknight]

In general, no. But sometimes I just want to dick around in games and have fun. If the difficulty doesn't scale low enough, then that's something I usually can't do.

For example, in FTL I wanted to explore all the worlds. In order to do that, I had to cheat and not only install a cheat client but alter the config file and do all other kinds of crazy workarounds.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Sometimes. If I can't get past a section in a game, action or puzzle, then there's a good chance I'll spend a sleepless night tackling it.

read: all of Rule of Rose

 

[Quazimofo]

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.

Yeah, that's how I felt a bout Asura's Wrath. No real combo system to speak of, but LOADS of story which I ultimately found rather drab because it was just so... slow, the enemies were not threatening, and I didn't really feel powerful. Games like Bayonetta makes you feel powerful in the very beginning even when you can't do any wicked weaves. Metal Gear Rising or God of War have you kill a pretty kickass and dangerous looking boss to help teach gameplay mechanics (except blocking in the latter, that game does a pretty shit job of explaining how to use your moves). Asura's wrath has you punch out about a third of a planet but the sound design and gameplay preceding it are just so drab it's not really entertaining.

As for difficulty: I put in a LOT of time on Dark Souls, but I got stuck on the 4 kings like a year ago and just haven't had much motivation to go back. Sure I could head toward the Bed of Chaos or Nito, but it doesn't sound appealing since I know I'll still have to fight those damn 4 kings alone (didn't get Beatrice and got no friends to help me).

I remember I also got stuck one one bit in star fox, then my brother deleted my saves for memory card space (Ah, good old gamecube), and so I never got more than half the stones/spirits in that game (need 4 and... 9? respectively to complete the game).

I also couldn't actually WIN a game of Shogun II. The damn realm divide and having the enemies spawn entire army stacks when my economy only allows me a few good stacks gives rise to the need to have ninjas to hold their armies in place indefinitely, which is too expensive to maintain because it simultaneously limits available funds for any given turn to not enough to actually build an army to counter the ones held in place.
I think I'll take another crack at it come summer break. That game is still great.



TLDR: I think that I generally don't have a problem when games are difficult to the point I can't beat them. Good games can be very enjoyable even if you ultimately fail, and few games (I'e played) which have actually proved challenging enough where failure is an option are bad.
Exception: Monsoon in Revengeance. Fuck that guy and fuck my old, well used, x box controller for making it so damn hard to block. Fuck Armstrong too because the game NEVER explains how to dodge and you can't block most of his attacks; even if you technically can I personally cannot in no small part due to my old worn controllers with the semi-busted left thumbstick. Maybe the PC version will be better for me in that regard... or I'll just buy a new controller.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

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.

If you hit Select(or your preferred platform's equivalent), you can scroll through and it'll tell you what each stat does. I haven't done such a thing in a long time, so I couldn't tell you exactly how in-depth it gets. It's better than nothing, though, I think.

For me, difficulty is only a problem when it doesn't make the game any harder, but makes it tedious. Nier is a good example of this. The game isn't any harder from Easy to Hard, but the enemies take so goddamn long to kill, that I've fallen asleep before they die. It's especially bad with bosses, as Attack Meters are near impossible to kill without 3-4 cycles.

 

[Rattja]

For me it is somewhat of a problem, as VERY few seem to get it right. Mostly games that don't have a health/damage system.
For the most part I think they are too easy. Either by being too simple, or just not offer any real challenge.

So what do I do? Well most games got some sort of hard/insane mode, so I can always just do that right?
Well these modes tends to be a bit too much... There is rarely a mode that sits well between "eyes closed faceroll" and "Oh my god make it stop!"
It's not that I can't do it, it's just not fun anymrore to be instantly killed the moment you make a mistake.

A recent example I have on this is Bravely Deafult, where each new place is like 10 times harder than the last on hard mode.
Or that fucking robot boss in the latest F.E.A.R game. Had to bring it down to easy to even hurt the thing before we ran out of ammo.

I really do not like the way they make it harder either. Just giving things higher numbers make it harder, sure, but it's still the exact same gameplay.

I have not found a game I could not beat eventually, though ironman XCOM was tough.

I think speed is a better way to set how hard a game is, rather than just changing health/damage.
Just think back, things like space invader did not make you hit harder or die faster, it simply just sped it up, and it got harder right? Let's say they changed direction at random too, now it's getting interesting.
The problem with this is that you need to keep it within acceptable range of reaction time that is actually possible for people. Being sniped across the map by something that has no reason to even know you are there is just stupid. Im looking at you Halo...

So yes I have a problem with it, but not with it being too hard, just not right.