Poll: Will you drop the difficulty if you're having trouble?

[MAUSZX]

Probably you won't read this since this discussion is long. I think the Witcher 2 it's hard to get the idea of the fighting system at the beginning, but after some time you get the mechanic. Now about the answer, I do it because of the challenge, but also because of pride, I will not surrender, unless is Catherine, I played that game in normal from the beginning because I knew it was very hard.

 

[OpticalJunction]

Sure if it gets to be more frustrating than fun. I usually turn it back to the regular setting afterwards though.

 

[Thunderblue6]

When I was playing Halo 4 for the first time I played it on legendary to get the "real ending" and I must have died 100s of times but it was still quite fun

 

[Nomanslander]

Depends on the level of b.s. in the difficulty. If the game is taking cheap shots killing me and I start to lose interest in the game, yes, I'll drop the difficulty. But if I like the challenge, then, no!

 

[tippy2k2]

Probably you won't read this since this discussion is long. I think the Witcher 2 it's hard to get the idea of the fighting system at the beginning, but after some time you get the mechanic. Now about the answer, I do it because of the challenge, but also because of pride, I will not surrender, unless is Catherine, I played that game in normal from the beginning because I knew it was very hard.

Oh ye of little faith; of course I read every comment in my thread!

I have actually kicked The Witcher 2 back up to Normal and so far so good. However, I've also just been running around and not doing anything very useful except for stabbing the dudes that look like Gollum so maybe I need to run into something a bit more difficult before I get cocky...

 

[rapidoud]

No . I try to find out what i'm doing wrong so i can get better at the game , and at games in general . Skills from games carry over to others . Also i have been gaming for so log and i have learned so much , that i can play through most games on hard on my first playthrough. Gaming being my main hobby , i strive to better myself in all aspects . So i welcome challenge and frustration wholeheartedly knowing it will make me a better gamer .

No they don't.

The skills from Hearts of Iron 3 don't translate to Call of Duty.

For everyone it should be yes; some games spike the difficulty up insanely high (Battletoads much?) due to poor design, and just putting yourself through misery for some false sense of ego is just pointless, and not something everyone has time for.

Dying for 10-30 minutes could be natural for a game, but dying for an hour+ due to a broken boss with fake difficulty (or a crappily designed one) is just a waste of my time as the devs couldn't create a proper boss battle.

In some cases I may even quit instead; for The Witcher 2 I got started off with the dragon, and the dragon is one of the most broken pieces of gaming I have ever had the not enjoyment of playing; you just take damage randomly, and it's purely trial and error to get through without any help from the game's visuals.

If the game's this hard already from being stupidly broken and extremely vague, then the game design isn't going to improve from turning down the difficulty.

It's one of the reasons I gave up on The Witcher 2 and labelled it as a poor game.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

Sometimes I do, especially on my first playthrough of a game. I do it a lot in Elderscrolls games too because the first few levels are pretty damn hard and unfun (for me) until I can get a better grip on my character.

When I'm on my 2nd or further playthroughs I usually crank up the difficulty and refuse to back down because I made a commitment to be teh herdcorz.

 

[Elvaril]

I will turn it down, but I am going to give it a damn good shot on the higher difficulty first though. I have only ever lowered the difficulty three times in games. The first was Halo 2. After 2 hours playing on legendary and only getting barely halfway through the first level, I finally gave up and lowered the DL down to Heroic. (Note I did go back last week and finally beat it on Legendary.)
The second and third times were both in Skyrim. I had played a bit of Oblivion, but only through the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild story lines and did not do much else, so I was going into Skyrim fairly fresh to the series. Being foolish, I started out on Master difficulty and regularly got my ass handed to me by everything I encountered. Dropped it down to Expert and felt that I was at a high enough challenge level. Though now after 350+ hours I feel that I should probably attempt to raise the DL back up to expert. Third time was in the Dawnguard DLC fighting the final guy. It was not a particularly difficult fight. The only problem was that I could not out dps his healing so I had to lower the DL down to whatever is below Expert and then raised it back up immediately after the person died. I probably was just not well geared enough for my level, but it still had to be done cause I was pretty much stuck there until he died.

 

[Grottnikk]

I usually play on Normal unless that's too easy. If I'm having trouble, I'll usually look around to find out what I'm doing wrong and change my play style.

 

[Mad Artillery]

Whats the point if it's not difficult?

 

[ronald1840]

I just finished the Lineage & Legacies Arc on Tales of Graces F (PS3). I played through the Main Arc and all the way up to the final boss. Asbel, Sophie, Pascal, and Cheria have been my set party since the very beginning and I was pretty confident in my Pascal skills since that's who I actually play as; Asbel's on AI.

It was after my fourth attempt that I decided to take a step back and re-evalute some things. I figured that the only way I was going to win was the same way I beat Final Fantasy XIII: go back and grind up titles and skills for some weeks, and come back to finish the game.

I understand the whole gamer-credibility thing. The confidence in my JRPG skillz(z) took a little hit; especially after finishing the Xenosaga trilogy (PS2), but I wasn't having fun anymore. I've done everything in the game except this one boss and there are other games I want to play. So I bumped the difficulty down to Easy and sailed right through to the credits. I loved the post-game cutscenes and how they wrapped up everyone's story, and especially the ending theme.

I loaded back into the game just for one last look when I got a request to go back to Lhant manor and am now in what I think's the game's optional dungeon; Zhonecage. I'm on the 4th level now and have bumped the difficulty back up to Normal.

I'll never go straight to the settings, but after a certain number of tries then I have no problem turning down the difficulty, but this only applies to situations when I know I'm at the end of the game and only RPGs/JRPGs. I want to have fun and no one gave me a medal for beating Dark Souls so there's no point in trying to impress anybody.

 

[BartyMae]

These poll options are kind of crappy. I want to say no, but not for either of the reasons listed...

 

[Macgyvercas]

As Yahtzee once said:

"Yes, maybe I would like to skip this level. Then maybe I'll eat a few French fancies and take a lovely scented bath to clean my massive vagina. Now get out of the fucking way, this shit will not beat me."

 

[tippy2k2]

These poll options are kind of crappy. I want to say no, but not for either of the reasons listed...

Well then I will stated what I said to another poster earlier:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.401569-Poll-Will-you-drop-the-difficulty-if-youre-having-trouble?page=4#16557839

Each option I put up there are all options that have been actually said in The Escapist potcat. There is also an "Other" option if somehow none of those apply to you. I would like to ask though:

What is your reasoning then?

 

[Monster_user]

Whats the point if it's not difficult?

To goof off, and/or enjoy the story.

Halo, and Red Faction, the one thing I enjoyed doing was sticking grenades to the hysterical opponents. Love those grunts in Halo, so entertaining in moderation.

If your facing a challenge, the adrenaline gets flowing, you get hyper, you get aggravated at the game. I don't want that. I want to relax, eat some popcorn, and laugh. Peaceful.

I used to believe that I had to beat the game on the hardest difficulty, when I was younger. I had to prove that I could. Wore out a ton of N64 controllers that way. 007, Rogue Squadron, F-Zero X, Cruis'n World, Mario Party 1, etc. Now I don't care for that. I don't benefit from the challenge, and I don't often enjoy the competitiveness. Jusy show the story, and let me enjoy the world.

The Longest Journey, and Zelda Ocarina of Time are among my favorite games. Not too hard, but they have a rich atmosphere.

 

[krazykidd]

No . I try to find out what i'm doing wrong so i can get better at the game , and at games in general . Skills from games carry over to others . Also i have been gaming for so log and i have learned so much , that i can play through most games on hard on my first playthrough. Gaming being my main hobby , i strive to better myself in all aspects . So i welcome challenge and frustration wholeheartedly knowing it will make me a better gamer .

No they don't.

The skills from Hearts of Iron 3 don't translate to Call of Duty.

For everyone it should be yes; some games spike the difficulty up insanely high (Battletoads much?) due to poor design, and just putting yourself through misery for some false sense of ego is just pointless, and not something everyone has time for.

Dying for 10-30 minutes could be natural for a game, but dying for an hour+ due to a broken boss with fake difficulty (or a crappily designed one) is just a waste of my time as the devs couldn't create a proper boss battle.

In some cases I may even quit instead; for The Witcher 2 I got started off with the dragon, and the dragon is one of the most broken pieces of gaming I have ever had the not enjoyment of playing; you just take damage randomly, and it's purely trial and error to get through without any help from the game's visuals.

If the game's this hard already from being stupidly broken and extremely vague, then the game design isn't going to improve from turning down the difficulty.

It's one of the reasons I gave up on The Witcher 2 and labelled it as a poor game.

Skills from Heart of Iron 3 may not translate DIRECTLY to CoD , but i'm sure it does indirectly . Such as being able to make strategic decision . What i mean buy that is . You play an RTS , what are skills you learn ? You learn to think strategicly , you learn to manage your resources , you learn to no rush into enemy territory , you learn to not be reckless . All things , when applies properly to CoD can save your life .

A game doesn't need to be the same genre for you to learn from it .

Also while i'll agree some games have difficulty spikes , most games most games do it at a point where you SHOULD know better . Where you should have learned and acquired the skills needed to past that section . The exception to this is games that REQUIRE grinding ( Jrpgs )but even then a proper strategy CAN help you advance when it shouldn't be possible . I'll give an example . I played Grandia 3 a couple of years ago . I made it all the way to the final boss and was getting DESTROYED . I looked up a walkthrough and realised i was 20 levels underleveled . 20 levels ! I was supposed to be level 50 by the final boss but i was level 30 . Apparently i passed through more than half the game being underleved significatly . Thats quite ridiculous if you ask me . What happened was , i managed to make up a combat strategy effective enough to beat bosses i shoulddn't have been able to beat .

It's all a matter of getting better at games , which , in my opinion , should happened naturally while you play . I'm honestly curious to what games/sections people are replaying for hours at a time and failing , because i seriously don't understand how that's possible . Developpers don't make games to purposely frustrate people , most of the time the people are doing it wrong .

 

[BartyMae]

What is your reasoning then?

I'm not completely sure. I enjoy having a challenge, and not being able to deal immediately with that challenge does not necessarily equate with having a bad time. If I was REALLY having a hard time, (i.e. I don't think I can beat it and I've tried a myriad of ways of attempting to deal with it), and I didn't have problems up until then, (and I have no choice but to deal with the problem), I'm more likely to cheat than anything else, honestly. A little memory editing here and there...and we're back on track!

 

[Callate]

I said a lot of rude things to Silent Hill 3 when it suggested I downgrade the difficulty during that damned carousel fight, but I haven't actually toned down a game's difficulty yet. I usually only play on "normal" difficulty, though- I'm no masochist.

EDIT: Oh, and I should probably add: I did look up a video walkthrough of Hotline:Miami after being killed a more than a dozen times by that ninja girl. But I don't really feel bad about that- that fight was incredibly cheap, and if you didn't know precisely what to do, instant death and repeat the steps that got you there ad nauseum.

 

[tippy2k2]

I'm not completely sure. I enjoy having a challenge, and not being able to deal immediately with that challenge does not necessarily equate with having a bad time. If I was REALLY having a hard time, (i.e. I don't think I can beat it and I've tried a myriad of ways of attempting to deal with it), and I didn't have problems up until then, (and I have no choice but to deal with the problem), I'm more likely to cheat than anything else, honestly. A little memory editing here and there...and we're back on track!

It sounds like you'd be in the "No; the game will not best me!"

I updated my OP with more in-depth analysis of each poll option a few days ago and this sounds like you:

No; the game will not best me!
You play for the challenge. You don't like giving up and dropping the difficulty feels like giving up. If you drop the difficulty, you're giving up the challenge and so what's the point?

(AKA The challenge makes it fun or at the very least, not unfun as you stated)

However, it's obviously your vote so I won't force you to vote for this (or any option really).

 

[Mikejames]

A lot of great games are bollocks at combat, so I see no problem in turning those down, but even if they're focused on being action-heavy I'm not ashamed of playing on easy when the difficulty starts to make it into a repetitive time-sink.

A challenge is one thing, but it's my recreation, not my job.

Yes. Absolutely. Without a second thought. I understand why some people play games for the challenge. One of my friends talks about the satisfying feeling you get from beating a really difficult section of a game. But I've done that before, and you know what I get out of it? Nothing. If I'm playing the same damn section for hours before finally beating it, I don't think "FUCK YEAH I JUST DID THAT", I think "Fucking FINALLY. Maybe I can move on to something FUN now."

I can second this. I may have a love/hate relationship with Dark Souls, but when I finally kill an enemy after dieing thirty times I'm not sitting back satisfied in my victory, I'm fuming about how I just spent several hours on an unnecessarily frustrating boss fight. Less challenge may water down some experiences, but the opposite end of the spectrum isn't the way to go for me.