What's your default starting difficulty?

['-_-]

Easy, cause 8 times out of 10 I play to know the story line and be told a good story.

 

[Son of a Mitch]

If it's a kind of game that I've played before, then I go to the hardest. I played Halos 2 and 3 before CE and Reach, so my first runs on those were legendary solo. Same for CoD World at War and MW2. But for other games that I'm not familiar with, I go to medium difficulty to get down the controls, and then hardest for the 2nd run. Easy runs are just for achievement farming so that I don't waste time.

 

[newguy77]

I've been getting into going on the hardest difficulty. I used to go on normal mode, but I don't mind dying and trying different strategies that much.

 

[Pontus Hashis]

Hard, unless it's a new RTS or a reaaaaaaaaaaaally long RPG, the easy/normal respectively.

 

[deserteagleeye]

I always start at the hardest difficulty possible. I like to think that I there's something special at the end of such a massacre.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Normal. Games are developed on Normal and they usually just apply multipliers to get anywhere else so I feel that normal is fine.

 

[Amphoteric]

Depends on how difficult the game is...

Very hard on Fallout 3 is easy compared to very hard in oblivion.

 

[Jake0fTrades]

Depends. If it's a new series for me to get used to: normal. If it's a franchise I'm familiar with, I jump straight to hard.

 

[AndrewC]

Usually Normal, if it's Halo or Gears I'll do Heroic or Hardcore.

 

[Bihac]

If it's a game I own: Then I'll start on hard or insane (if it's not locked).
If it's a game I'm borrowing from a friend, then I'll play on normal, so I can get the full story at least before I have to return it.

 

[Ice Car]

It depends on the game. If it's a new entry in a franchise I already know, I'll probably play on normal or even hard difficulty first time. For example, maybe a new Advance Wars game. I'll probably jump in and do the harder missions/war room matches first.

 

[Abengoshis]

Hard. If the game is completable at the hardest difficulty I go for that, because it is the biggest challenge. It it just throws in a super-hard-impossible mode which is literally impossible to complete I'll play that after playing the second hardest mode xD.

 

[Poster1234]

I usually start on normal, so that I can get some challenge, but can also replay the game afterwards with a higher difficulty setting.
The only times I ever wanted to downgrade the difficulty after the start were Empire Earth (russian campain, misson two) and Starcraft Brood War (around the end of the zerg campain).
Then, I noticed that thoses two games didn't have any difficulty setting...

 

[Spygon]

Normal first play through or if i feel i am tearing through the game to easily i go up to hard.

 

[Curlythelock]

I always play on normal first so I can experience the game and story without having to repeat each section 10 times on the first play through. If I really like the game and play it again it will be on the harder difficulty settings.

 

[Treblaine]

The problem with difficulty "settings" is going between them kind of breaks the game as you realise how shallow the challenge is.

All too often with higher difficulty you are not given more aggressive enemies but merely stat nerfs, like massively reduced personal health or massively increased enemy health.

My problem with this is is doesn't force you to play the game better, but to play it more defensively.

See if they take more damage to kill then techniques that you have learned like running up to just the idea distance and killing them with a single shotgun blast no longer works, and with one blast no their enough you are open to a viscous counter attack.

I think that difficulty should EXPAND on your skill, so have the enemy move faster and more erratically and with better use of cover that challenges you to aim quicker.

Enemies need to be more aggressive on higher difficulty, you need to keep up the pressure and can't just retreat and collect yourself like you can on Easier difficulties. It's like playing online multiplayer of "noob-servers" versus a pro clan-match.

Of course I realize how easy and fool-proof it is to just dial up enemy-HP with difficulty and how REALLY REALLY HARD it is to try to alter AI without breaking the game, I still think there must be some middle ground as honestly I don't feel challenged by each enemy taking a few more bullets to kill... just annoyed.

I actually do like that speeding up idea, it makes the enemies harder to hit so it gives the illusion they are playing "smarter/better" when their actions are just sped up while its up to you having quicker reflexes/strategy to take them out.

but then again I am not the most knowledgeable person at coding games..so that may be harder than it seems.

I know enough about animation to know that coding for animation and AI is very fickle, it

Other ways yo give better challenge that are easier to code for:

Less health packs
So in combat you still take the same number of hits to die. That is, if you have 50hp you KNOW how much of a beating you can take, so you aren't going to be surprised that some mook with a pistol kills you with 3 shots when you had full health.
But when it gets harder and harder to recover your health it becomes of increasing importance to come out on-top in battles. You have to dodge bullets like rain and kill quickly or else you could end up with cripplingly low health.

MORE enemies strategically located
Maybe more strain on CPU, but this would be easy for coding if the dev sends two attacking at a time. Now enemies move in groups rather than lone individuals.

However a lot of AI is programmed to work with a certain density with how they interact. It would be all too easy to end up with a kind of "three stooges in doorway" effect with them navigating the environment they spend to much time running into each other that they are easy picking.

So extra-enemies on higher difficulty would have to depend on a very fundamental AI coding or they are set to attack from very different angles or arrive one after another.

Enemies scale sooner
Enemy scaling I mean in the sense of distinct TYPES of enemies who essentially are the same type of enemy but faster and tougher, like the white combine appearing more and more often then completely superseding the regular combine troops.

So basically, as difficulty is raised you get higher proportion of the "elites" for a givven progress through the game.

I don't know how well this would work with pacing, be I'd like to know if any game does this. I suppose an equivalent would be the same enemies but using more "super weapons" like rocket launchers.

 

[hecticpicnic]

Normal/hard.Hard is usually with franchises i've played before or a genre i'm good at.
Normal for RPGs and games i'm new to

 

[hooblabla6262]

Hardest difficulty available. If the hardest difficulty is locked, I refuse to replay the game because that is a stupid gimmick for re-playability.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Normal. On account of it says "normal" on it. Easy makes me feel like a pussy, and hard scares me.

On related notes: this thread needs a poll.

 

[Saulkar]

For first person shooters and horror games it is up front the hardest difficulty for me. When it comes to RTS that I am new to I always choose the easiest before going to the hardest.