Poll: Do you lower the difficulty setting if you find a game too hard? (Somewhat Skyrim related)

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

I start on the easiest then play the hardest if there is a reward. I keep the difficulty on very is for fallout 3 and new vegas because it doesn't make sense for a few .308's to the head to not be able to kill anything or my pulse gun not to short circuit any robot. I'm preserving a semblance of reality but really I'm just very stingy with my ammo. Doesn't feel right to have less than 5000 rounds of each ammo type on me.

 

[Something Amyss]

I used to crank up the difficulty on games. Playing Tetris on its hardest or Street Fighter 2 at its hardest made lower difficulties seem easy by comparison.

I still crank the difficulty sometimes, but others...It's kinda fun to stomp all over things, you know?

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

The reason for this is something my father said to me when i was a child .*Cue flashback*

DAD: what are you doing?
Me: playing contra 3
Dad: really , what difficulty are you playing on?
Me: easy
Dad: hahaha you're such an amature son,real men play on hard.( i swear these were his exact words)
Me: but *sad face
Dad: it's okay when you get older you'll be able to play on hard like me *walks away*
me: ... *resets snes and restart on hard*

Since that day when i was 6 or 7 i have never played a game on easy again. And seriously i thank my dad for saying that to me on that day , i can enjoy a decent challenge now.

For once I can actually say "cool story, bro" without even a hint of sarcasm. The end of that is totally "boy becomes a man".

I only turn it down (or in some cases turn cheats on) if the game is unplayably broken/buggy in some way but I'm far enough into it that I want to see how it ends. Otherwise, screw it. I'll figure out some way to win eventually. Either that or get sick of the game and go play something else for a while before maybe trying again. Heh.

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[Arina Love]

lol i play on the lowest difficulty there is from the beginning!

 

[Sagacious Zhu]

Skyrim's difficulty is all over the place. I can comfortably go toe to toe with a dragon on the middle setting but I had to go down to easy when a group of fire mages gang-banged me with flame spells, then back up to hard when I found that I was slaughtering bandits too easily.

 

[captaincabbage]

F**k no, I toughen up and take another crack from a different direction. Experiment until you find your path to success. You don't improve if you just make things easier when you're stuck and having trouble. And when you do succeed, the effort put into your trial makes the victory even sweeter.

What if you're in a no-win situation?

OT: Yes I totally do. If a game is being a c**t on purpose then I'll just lower the difficulty. I want to have fun, not be ass-raped by a greatsword, Skyrim.

 

[Polyg0n]

I usually play on hard difficulty, but if I just can't get past some point then I might lower the difficulty, but I always put it back on hard after I've gotten past than hard spot. With Skyrim I actually put it up a notch to Expert after 1h of playing because it was too easy.

 

[r0kle0nZ]

You can call me like noobish, but I play on the lowest difficulties. Before I used to go full on VETERAN difficulty and LEGENDARY, but I just saw myself getting frustrated and frustrated at games. I play on lower difficulties because I enjoy myself at those difficulties.

And also stupid Greatswords three-shotting me. Like what the hell man?

 

[chris11246]

I only lower it if I'm stuck for hours on a really frustrating part other than that Ill keep it where it is

 

[BreakfastMan]

Yeah, I have done both. If I am not having fun (game too hard or easy, though I do prefer them to be more on the easy side...), I will change the difficulty. It is my game, damn it, I will play it how I want, whether or not I am considered "pussy" be damned!

As for examples...

Dragon Age: Origins was very hard the first time I played it, so I lowered the difficulty to the lowest it could go. It was still fairly difficult, but it was a much more enjoyable experience.

For the other side, I upped the difficulty on Fallout 3 to maximum after a while. The game was still fairly easy and I leveled up much faster that way. I have also considered upping the difficulty on Neverwinter Nights 2 (both original campaign and MOB), because holy crap, that game is insanely easy most of the time. I never did it though, mainly out of sheer laziness.

 

[MidnightSt]

it depends. there are games i go into just to have fun with not much challenge, and there are games i want to literally beat in the way of "yeah, you tried to break me, but you couldn't, hah". it also depends on my current mood, there are games where i've got several saves, some are on harder settings for the "i want to fight with you and win", and some are on easier for "now i just want to screw around". i can't remember any specific examples, but i usually set the difficulty according to this up straight on the beginning and try to keep it that way. in both cases, however, having to lower difficulty when already playing (if the game even supports that) gives me kind of defeating feeling.

i also tend to use cheats in a similar way, i rarely used them to overcome something i couldn't normally, just to have fun with being insanely powerful/unbeatable for a while.

 

[Coldster]

I've only had to lower the difficulty on a game once. This was when I bought Oblivion last year and the game must of thought I was the next coming of Hercules or something because after the first mission it put me automatically to the highest difficulty. After barely making it to the first Oblivion gate, I was just about to give up because it was just SO HARD! Luckily my friend told me how to lower the difficulty and then I was fine. =)

I don't think I've ever increase the difficulty midway through a game though...

 

[Quantum Star]

My pride refuses to let me go back to a lower difficulty level if I've started on a higher one.

 

[Danz D Man]

For games like Oblivion/Skyrim, I really don't like changing the difficulty, I just revert to cheaper and cheaper tactics. It kinda throws me out of the game immersion if everything dies in 1 hit all of a sudden.

Other than that, I always play on Normal settings for the first run anyway, which I can usually handle.

 

[xplosive59]

I started off in Skyrim on Apprentice as I heard from people that on normal it becomes annoying at some parts, im refusing to go lower though as it seems balanced.

 

[Bvenged]

I completed Fallout 3 on expert & NV on HC normal; Oblivion I did on hard.
With Skyrim, I had to knock down the difficulty half way through the main quest from adept to apprentice. Probably something to do with I've not played TES on console until now, and while Fallout has similar controls and similar game mechanics; it's not swords & magic and I never bothered with melee.
Without speculating, my official answer is long-winded. I downgraded to apprentice difficulty on the grounds of:

I like a challenge, games that aren't challenging just aren't fun. inverse to that - I was getting my head kicked in time and time again from groups of enemies during spoiler related encounters, whilst unsuccessfully attempting to be a battlemage. On apprentice I would die rarely, thus it is too easy - although I have less fun dying more than trice just as little as 2-hitting some humans/elves and blitzing through foes.
I think my ideal difficulty lies somewhere between adept & apprentice for now.

Since I completed the main quest this morning, I've started again with my new found how the game works knowledge under my belt, so I'm playing through ALL OF IT as a second similar, but much preferred, character. An illusion & conjurer, sword & dagger duel wield "thief" - though I try not to relate myself to bad things despite my desire to join up with thieves/D.Brotherhood.

 

[DanielDeFig]

It's rare, but yes I do do lower the difficulty when it's in the way of me having fun.

The temporary thrill of finally succeeding at a task becomes useless if you have to go through it for every single task. And sometimes you're so frustrated that you can't even get enjoyment from finally completing a task after all the tries it took to finally complete it.

Interestingly enough, it was only a few years ago that I stopped choosing "easy" as my default difficulty (Switched to "normal"), and the only time I can remember having to downgrade the difficulty in order to enjoy a game was when I played Dragon Age: Origins (I also remember having to switch to Mage and avoid any quests in the capital if I wanted to survive, even on "easy")

 

[biggles1]

Personally, I play virtually all games on the most basic easy level at the start. This means I get to enjoy the story and game play of the game, without being troubled by insta-death. This also crucially means I can gain experience in the game levels. After finishing said game on easy, I will generally ramp up the difficulty in order to challenge myself.