Is difficulty a serious problem for you in games?

[Pirakahunter788]

First person shooters I can get right into the groove of. Fortunately enough, since I like grabbing as many trophies in a playthrough as possible. Unfortunately, difficulty differs from game to game. Battlefield 4's hardest difficulty is more forgiving than say.. Call of Duty: Ghosts'. But in Ghosts, I could inch up patiently. In BF4, I was going after score challenges, which anyone who has played Blacklist knows what I mean, killstreaks and multi kills are the key to success. So I was putting myself in harm's way more often.

I was having problems with XCOM: EU on the harder difficulties, but that's purely the point. On normal, you can get away without anyone dying.. although this is harder on ironman mode. On the harder difficulties.. recruits become cannon fodder. Pretty much like the old game. Let the grunts take the hits.. you can always buy another. A sergeant.. not so much. Even better when you name your soldiers after friends and family. There's a lot more attachment to be had, and makes the game memorable.

The only game I genuinely rage quit from, and didn't touch again, was Alpha Protocol. Screw that game XD

 

[soitgoes19]

I don't quite games due to difficulty often, but it does annoy me when they don't include difficulty selections. Usually when I start a game I go with the default "normal" difficulty, but I like being able to scale it up or down if I choose. Sometimes I want the challenge, sometimes I don't. For example, right now I'm replaying through Oblivion, and I have the difficulty turned down because I just want to run around, explore, and go through all the questlines.

The last game I quit because of its difficulty was Prototype. The game has difficulty selections - but once you've chosen at the beginning of the game you can't change it later. I learned that the hard way when I got trapped in the middle of a boss battle. I replayed that one section dozens and dozens of times. I must have been 75% through the game at that point, so no way was I going to start over just so I could play on easy mode. Luckily I just borrowed that game from a friend, so the mistake didn't cost me anything but time.

 

[StormDragonZ]

I always start a game on Normal/Medium settings.

I also rarely play any game on the hardest difficulty unless I feel confident, such as Devil May Cry, Mega Man and/or any general platformer or action-adventure.

However, I will always try Easy or Hard mode (or any variation available) at least once. I'll admit to playing Mega Man X6 on Xtreme Mode and beating it, likewise playing Metroid Zero Mission on Easy.

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

Almost never no. And even when I do find a game, or a challenge I've set for myself in a game difficult, I'm extremely stubborn and take a very, very long time before I call it quits. If anything, games that are far too easy are more likely to get me to abandon a game.

 

[Shocksplicer]

Very rarely nowadays, when I was younger I had issues sometimes, but nowadays I'm pretty good at games. If I like a game enough I'll play again on a higher difficulty, such as with Max Payne 3, which many complained was too hard.
The only games where I've given up in part due to difficulty recently are Metal Gear Rising and Dark Souls, and in both cases I could have continued, but I just wasn't enjoying myself enough. FYI, I finished Demons Souls, but in Dark Souls I reached Lost Izalith and realised that the game was going downhill, and it wasn't worth continuing.

 

[Jaximus Decimus]

The only game I have ever stopped playing because of difficulty issues is The Witcher 2. Five or six hours into the game I was still getting thrashed by enemies and not having fun at all. Got completely stuck on a boss, so I decided to turn the difficulty down to easy (I'd been playing on medium). The boss went from frustratingly difficult, blocking all of my attacks and generally killing me in 2 or three hits, to just standing there and letting me execute him. I had to quit because I couldn't enjoy either difficulty level.

I remember getting stuck in games on the NES and SNES when I was much younger, sometimes due to difficulty and other times due to just not knowing what I was supposed to do next, but that's more an issue of conveyance and not difficulty I think.

To sum up; In the types of games I play, FPS's, action-adventure, platformers, simulators, etc., difficulty is not an issue for me. If I'm having trouble with a section I just go at it from a different angle and that usually gets me through it easy peasy.

 

[MysticSlayer]

It has more to do with the type of challenge and length of the game than the challenge itself. It's very unlikely I'll invest considerable time in an overly challenging game, but I have done it before. What really gets me, though, are the times when the difficulty is due more to bad design than anything else. I'm very likely going to drop a game if I feel like most of my deaths were not my own fault. Sometimes I push through, but it is still probably the main cause of me abandoning games before beating them.

Edit: Oh yeah, and I hate guides, so they don't help. If the game was designed well and I gave up too easily, then I feel stupid. Otherwise, it just highlights the game's problem.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

I don't have a problem with difficulty.

I do have a problem with false difficulty.

Mn, it's kinda what Persona does, or older FPS', where there'd be traps and set ups that are just unavoidable to screw you over. Or enemies who are hyper accurate/strong for no real reason to just add 'difficulty'.

 

[krazykidd]

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.

You know, some people genuinely like a challenge. Pushing themselves to the limit. Overcoming obstacles. As much in games as in real life. Not everyones does things to boast. Just sayin'.

OT: I like challenge. Love it even. Easy games bore me to tears. There are only two games i failed to complete due to difficulty alone. Records of Agrest war: Zero and Resonance of fate. I am too stupid to understand the combat system in those two games.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

I tend to be able to pick up on cues in games quite well. I have very good spacial reasoning and deductive abilities which lends itself well to problem solving, though it has limits. I have good hand eye co-ordination, couple that with the aforementioned spacial reasoning, I have very little issue navigating a 3D space. I have great geographical awareness so I rarely get lost, as long as there are distinct features in the environment for me to use as a point of reference. I have a conservative mindset, which often results in me being more precise then necessary to avoid wasteful use of resources. This has a negative effect of me not using a games entire arsenal because I ration certain weapons ammunition so well as to make other weapons obsolete.

I have terrible retention of information, such as passwords, addresses, numbers (4 digit codes can throw me) etc. which makes puzzles that involve collecting and utilizing such information significantly harder. Hand eye co-ordination is good, but not that good... I have a hard time playing bullet hells and frantic beat-em-ups/Hack n' Slashers. I'm terrible at remembering combos (part of the poor retention of information), making advanced play in Beat-em-ups virtually impossible.

Strangely enough, I'm quite capable of pretty decent macro and micro in RTS games, despite its combo like nature, where I need to string commands together without clashing them in order to execute a desired move.

My focus is pretty Ironclad, so I never trail off or get distracted when I have a defined goal. But, something related to my problem with bullet hells (or shmups) and certain platformers, I can't focus when there is a ton of things happening at once. This also limits my skill in RTSs, but to a lesser extent then it has in platformers or shmups.

What does this all mean? I have strengths that let me play some games with seemingly little effort, while others require far more effort... sometimes more then I'm willing to commit.

Does this sound like something that could apply to you? Is it an issue of you not playing games that cater to your strengths?

Despite my weaknesses, I still play the occasional Beat-em-up, shmup and hack n' slash. Some of my favourite games are among them.

 

[Bug MuIdoon]

This has a negative effect of me not using a games entire arsenal because I ration certain weapons ammunition so well as to make other weapons obsolete.

I know that one! Coupled with the fact that in FPS', pistols are usually my favourite weapon. The amount of times I've reached the end of a game and realised I've only used about 3 of the 12 guns at my capacity is quite worrying.




OT: I love me a challenge. In everything, not just games. The first thing I do on any game I play is set the difficulty level to hard(+), it's just more fun that way for me. Sometimes I pull some hair, shout at my TV/monitor and throw my controller around - not gonna' lie - but in general I much prefer that experience. I used to be a bit of an achievement/trophy whore, so doing everything on the hardest setting is pretty much a standard feature there. The vast majority of AAA games nowadays seem to be pretty easy though.

Currently shouting many, many swear words at my monitor over the Neo Khidr boss battle on Rogue Legacy. So bloody tough, but I know I'll do it eventually.

 

[Raggedstar]

Ya, difficulty bugs me, and if it wasn't for difficulty options I would've never started playing shooters. I know people say how broken and easy Bioshock can be, but put yourself in the position of someone who's new to the genre and control style, who has been playing 3D platformers in 3rd person for the last decade plus. By Neptune's Bounty I had to restart my game on easy because I just couldn't get enough resources to get back on my feet. I wasn't having fun and my story was at a stand-still. Mind you it was a little TOO easy (o the point where my first death was AFTER the encounter with Ryan and I shocked myself to death with Electro Bolt. Most shooters and/or first person games I play I have on easy since then (with the exception of The Last Of Us, which I managed to beat on medium). I'm alright on Portal though, and beat both 1 and 2 mostly blind, Portal 2 co-op included.

If it's a franchise I'm well versed in, I generally crank up the difficulty because I know damn well I can hold my own and I want a challenge to make things more spicy. I've beaten every Ratchet and Clank game on the highest difficulty available (for those with settings), and without armour (when applicable) at least once. Ever played Tools of Destruction in challenge mode without armour? Small enemies can kill you in 1 hit by the second planet. Not bloody easy, I assure you. It's not too bad and I have yet to ragequit on any game in that franchise because of this challenge. I can also beat the "impossible" Lion King Sega Genesis/SNES game with losing less than 5 lives on medium difficulty in about 45 minutes. Also pretty decent at Jak 2, even in the harder missions (2:02 on that Erol street race, faster than anyone I've seen. Btw fuck that mission). So ya, I've got some accomplishments under my belt to show I'm not a complete failure at video games.

While I do appreciate a good challenge, I don't feel like I'm learning if I'm getting bludgeoned at every turn. I hate repeating to the point of nauseum and I need to feel some sort of progress if I'm to have fun with it and WANT to continue. A year later I'm still not all that good at shooters, but I still feel like I've improved thanks to taking it easy and learning the playstyles. And thanks to that, I've played some really good games that I would've normally quit on (Far Cry 3, Spec Ops: The Line, Half Life 1 and 2, Bioshock and Infinite, etc).

Though I will get you one day, Quackshot. Over 20 years and the shitty controls still get the better of me to the point where I just flick off the power and pout. Frustrated me as an innocent child in kindergarten, and frustrates me now as a college graduate.

 

[TehCookie]

I don't find any game challenging when guides exist. However for that reason I don't use guides and do get stuck often in games. I don't see it as a problem since I can cheat my way out, but I like to beat games on my own.

I think gaming is a lot less about skill and more about perseverance, I can't beat the games I could as a kid when I had less responsibilities and fewer games to play.

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

Actually, if anything, my problem with difficulty is that a lot of games nowadays don't have enough of it. I'm not saying I'm some super pro player who never dies. But something about games today just lack bite. Or something. They feel like they're holding your hand.

 

[babinro]

In general, no, but there are exceptions.

Red Steel 2 is a game I never beat or even got that far on because I could never defeat a boss even on the easiest difficulty. Metroid Prime 2 is a game I never completed but many people consider that one legitimately tough.

I recently borrowed Resistance 3 and gave up on it from difficulty despite playing on casual. I could probably keep playing and succeed eventually but I just wanted to enjoy the storyline and the game won't give me that choice.

Red Steel 2 is an example of genuine disappointment resulting from my lack of skill. I'm probably not even 10% into the game and I hit a wall that I simply cannot pass. I had tons of fun getting to this early point and have tried it a few dozen times over several days and yet can't figure it out. People on Let's Plays make it look easy but I just can't do it. The game wasn't worth the purchase simply because of the difficulty I faced. It's my fault to...Red Steel 2 isn't even viewed as a difficult game. I just suck at motion controls I guess.

 

[WoW Killer]

I think difficulty is one of those things where people only make mention of it when it's adverse. In other words, you could have a game with the most perfectly set difficulty, and nobody would even make mention of it, neither good nor bad. You shift that difficulty slider only very slightly against the player, and all of a sudden you'll have all sorts of topics cropping up about how cheap the game is. In this case, no news is good news, as they say.

Wasn't there some lecture by Sid Meier where he talked about difficulty? I think it was him anyway. He basically said that gamers like to say they want hard games, but actually if you look at feedback they'll be a lot happier with easier games, or something. Not sure what to make of that.

You tend to see more complaints about a game being too hard than you do about a game being too easy. One of my favourite games recently has been Borderlands 2, which I thought was difficult in places but not unfairly so, and yet I can remember probably three distinct threads saying it was too difficult. I can't remember many threads that (specifically) say that a game is too easy. More often, people will say, generally, that gaming is becoming easier or "dumbed down". In other words people say it in passing rather than pointing to a specific example where they thought it was a problem. If it's a problem, then usually it's a problem of being too difficult rather than a problem of being too easy.

I had a conversation with my dad recently, and he's somebody who doesn't really know games or gaming, but he has a slight interest in them. And he asked "are games more difficult these days?". Now, most people you'll meet on the internet will tell you games are getting easier, like the latest CoD is a piece of cake to anybody who played the original Super Mario Brothers. But my dad did play SMB, and he's still intimidated by a lot of modern day games. From his perspective, games have got a lot more difficult. I can only guess at the distinction. Like controls are more complex but interfaces are simpler; that's my guess. But yeah, don't be thinking games are simpler these days, because they're not.

To the topic, no there's not any games I've quit recently through difficulty (I've got Dark Souls sitting on my Steam file from a sale period waiting for download if I ever get bored though, lol) but there's several games my dad has quit for that reason. And he's probably quit for absolutely the opposite reason a lot of gamers will state. He's quit because there's not enough instruction. And yet we all complain because there's too much hand holding.

 

[FancyNick]

I actually like challenging games. I really only tend to give up if it's a incredibly difficult side mission or something and even then I still will at least beat the main game. If I drop games it's because they lose my interest or another game grabs it more.

 

[Risingblade]

I gave up on birth by sleep because I couldn't get pass a mini game

 

[BanicRhys]

Banjo Ka-fucking-zooie.
It was the first fucking game I ever fucking owned. Even as we speak, that fucking cartridge, along with my old N64, is sitting, unused, at my grandparents' house. Even now, 15 years later, I cannot kill that fucking green ***** no matter how much I try.

As for more recent games, nope. Some games like Dark Souls and Hearthstone/Starcraft 2 multiplayer have turned me away because of how stressful they are, but not because I was particularly unsuccessful.

 

[Eve Charm]

I think the most frustrating ones are starting to be the new age of point and click adventure where you need to find the single damn pixel to get an item or a new room. Or any rpg that pretty much is " Oh you didn't talk to this npc 2 or 5 times well you didn't get that item or quest you needed to continue." That kinda stuff prefer to just watch the games rather then play them myself now.