Poll: would you lower the difficulty?

[Worgen]

I had to do it on heroes V and I still feel dirty about it, in games like that I tend to have a slow play style but if you don't hurry or you just get unlucky the ai will end up with a huge army that you have no hopes of beating and after that happened and I lost 5 hours of progress I knocked down the difficulty and just hammered though the game.

 

[blaqknoise]

I would, but I usually don't have to.

I normally play games on "regular" or "normal" difficulty.

 

[Something Amyss]

I've only done this once in my life, and that was in the first DMC on my first try.

I don't feel the need to do it normally (or anymore, at all). But I'm fine with others doing it.

 

[newdarkcloud]

If it get's so difficult that it's no longer fun, just frustrating and tedious, I WILL reduce the difficulty. No questions.

 

[kommando367]

I have a point of no return thing where if I'm 90% through a game when I get to a hard section section, I'll push through it even if it takes days of trail and error.

Even before then, I'll only lower difficulty if the thing I'm trying to beat is insanely difficult.

That's also why I really hate difficulty lowering prompts, especially in God of War 1 where I die 17 times on some kind of bastard hard platforming section and kept being prompted to lower the combat difficulty.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Yes. Anyone who is ashamed of lowing the difficulty needs to ask themselves why that is. I would say its because you need to defend your manhood but it happens to ladies to, so I'm just going to say its to defend an invisible sense of self worth and toughness. I don't define myself by how tough I am in games. I find being flexible enough to give that up to enjoy my game is far better for me.

 

[DirgeNovak]

I play games to have fun and enjoy the story. If a section is just too hard for me and keeps me from having fun and/or continuing the story, yes, I will lower the difficulty. I just love that you can switch it on the fly in most games now. That said, I generally play on easy for my first playthrough of most games, and I rarely lower it to very easy even when the game has that option (e.g. Bethesda games). I still have my pride...

 

[chimeracreator]

I play games to have fun. Now part of that is often about overcoming some sort of perceived challenge so I normally keep the difficulty set to the default. However in some cases where I get stuck in some horrible way I will lower the difficulty. For example in Dragon Age I went into the final battle without any mages at all. I went through boss mini-bosses on normal and got near the gates of the castle.

By that time I had run out of all of my healing potions with a group of 3 warriors and had them eating elf leaf while fighting ogres and the like. So I said to hell with it and before that supply ran out I turned the difficulty down to easy so I could actually finish the game. Twenty minutes later I found a nice shop in the middle of the battle field so I was able to turn it back to normal difficulty for the final fight, but yep, I turned it out because my choices resulted in the game breaking.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

I've only done it once, and quite recently too in Oblivion.
I just want to finally beat this ocean of bland and not have to grind my way through this uninteresting world.

Interesting...I just walked away...strange that you felt a need to "beat" this game, I felt nothing.

I'm not averse to turning down the difficulty, I just can't temember an occasion I've needed to do it. I have walked away from games with absurd difficulty spikes though. I guess I'm more liable to just walk away unless the game is particularly compelling.

Well I have been jonesing for an Elder Scrolls fix since I lost possession of Skyrim and figured Oblivion would fill that hole. Though now that I have started it I now realise there is no chance. The world is a lot blander than I remember and even more lifeless and stiff than Skyrim.
I would also like to add that I have owned this game since 06 and have never gotten past the first oblivion gate, so I figured it was time I finally get through this game.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

It actually depends on what I'm trying to get out of the game more then the actual difficulty. I find this to be particularly true with Bethesda games, the difficulty progression is just a chore and not a challenge, so I keep it at normal so the combat and leveling inefficiencies don't hamper my adventuring.

I kind of wish Darks Souls (lesser extent Demons Souls) started with a New Game plus option rather then playing once then getting it (I know the multiplayer disparity would be awful). After beating the game once, I felt like changing my character from scratch, but I hated playing through the game at the same difficulty since it became more a grind then a challenge (since the challenge is in not knowing).

I find most FPSs, especially recent ones, have such a low difficulty level even at the highest setting that it neither hampers the initial experience, but doesn't offer much in the way of replayability. In general, unless the MP is competent, FPSs are rentals only.

RTSs are always at the highest difficulty since the challenge is 80% of the game (which is why I prefer MP in this case), the rest is "OMG ARMIES AND EXPLOSIONS AT MY FINGERTIPS"... nearly 2 and 1/2 decades of RTSing and that 20% is still my biggest drive to play them :/

Beyond that, if a game is just grinding my patience away, I will drop the difficulty just to get by... if a game makes me do that however, I usually have OTHER issues with the game and rarely finish them.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I am a gaming masochist. Games are to be played on infuriatingly hard difficulty settings. If you are not pressing the quick save key every 45 seconds, you are not gaming!

Bah! Real gamers don't quicksave. They delete their savefile if they die.

No.

Real gamers have set up a system so the moment they die in game, the homemade C4 within their computer/console goes off, destroying them and anyone else within the building.

the taliban must be garbage at video games then

*bad joke*

 

[fireaura08]

I've only lowered the difficulty once, and that was for Bayonetta's first boss.

 

[StormShaun]

I do it sometimes, but not a whole load. If the level/boss/whatever is really hard or really cheap I tend to turn it down and I either complete the level or whatever or it makes no changed and I go back to the other difficulty and stick to that.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

There is fun in frustration, but only so much of frustration in fun, to make both a point and a linguistic joke. Overcoming frustration can be fun, but if the frustration drags on too long, there is no fun involved.

Though, I'm also of the opinion that cheat codes need to return to games, because I like being an unstoppable god with superpowers. Overcoming challenges isn't usually my schtick, platforming games notwithstanding (we all have our favorite cruxes), so turning on infinite magic, health, ammo, etc. and storming through enemies, experiencing the story, and having the efforts of the collective masses ping off my impenetrable skin is more fun that overcoming some minor challenges. Lacking cheats, I'm okay with easier difficulty settings, not needing to prove myself capable of such feats as beating God of War 3 on Chaos difficulty.

 

[skywolfblue]

I will absolutely lower the difficulty if I'm having trouble.

Usually my 3rd death to the same thing is about my turning point. That is the line where most things go from being "challenging fun" to being "needlessly masochistic".

 

[Screamarie]

Most games I stick to normal difficulty. I rarely go hard, simply because I'm not in it for a frustrating challenge, just to go through the story and get to know the characters.

But for games like Mass Effect, essentially shooter games, I bring it down to easy because I don't play shooter games hardly ever, I just never get enough practice in to get good at it.

But if I'm having a particularly difficult time, I'll bring the difficulty down until I can get to an area where I can continue at normal difficulty.

 

[Sperium 3000]

Recently, I realised I've preferred harder, more difficult games. This wasn't true a couple years ago, when I would set it to easy if I so much as died twice in three minutes. Nowadays, I truly play for the challenge of it.

 

[StBishop]

I lost my entire post... It was a couple of paragraphs long.

I fucking hate safari.

TL;DR - Safari lost my post edition: No, I think it's for people who're bad at games. It makes me feel like I'm cheating and in my mind if I cheat it's worse than giving up or losing. So no, I will leave a game for a while and come back to it if I get stuck on bosses.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I will never go below the difficulty the game is meant to be played at (Normal, generally). For this reason I actually had a hiatus from Ninja Gaiden Sigma for a few months before picking it up again and beating the boss, because I would not accept going to Dog level. In fact, it pissed me off that they kept asking every time I died.

As for other people, well, I don't particularly care, but any sensible person can see you don't get bragging rights for doing it on easy when you're talking to someone who did it on hard. And Competitive modes can't really be any less or more difficult unless the player imposes restrictions on themselves, so I don't care there either because there isn't really that mechanic.

 

[Jason Corner]

i experienced this recently whilst playing The Witcher 2. i couldn't complete a certain part, so i turned down the difficulty. After i had completed it i felt i had some how cheated, so went back and did it again on normal :S