Topic: What game difficulty do you play on ?

I always start at the standard difficulty and if something gets tough I switch to easy or story. I cna get frustrated quite easily by challenging parts in games and that's why it's better for me to keep away from more challenging games. But yeah it's simple everyone should play at the difficulty they want. You are no better or lesser gamer if you play on easy or ultra hard. We are all gamers and enjoy different things

Good question!

Obviously it varies from game to game but, generally speaking, I'll try normal / default difficulty first. More often than not, if I'm gonna change that, it'll be to bump it down.

The only times I've caught myself playing on anything harder, it's been because of a specific objective or trophy, like getting through all of the Uncharted games on Crushing, or the permadeath "I Am The Knight" mode in Batman: Arkham Origins. I have to really want it, and to know that my love for the game in question is gonna survive any and all controller-crushing frustration.

As a rule, I'm not a big fan of being challenged by my games. I play to relax, and I don't find stress, tension or being reminded of my own shortcomings relaxing. It's one of a couple of reasons why I'll never play a FromSoft game, and why I mostly steer clear of online multiplayer.

But of course, as others have said, it's great that gaming is broad enough to cater for all tastes!

Personally, i play on normal on most games.

The one exception is, when given the option, I’ll default to easy mode when i play a JRPG that I’m interested in. Just because I’m not interested in the sudden difficulty spikes and grinding, I’m more interested in the story and character journey.

Normal all the way, although play on a harder difficulty when replaying a game like The Last of Us Part II or Horizon Zero Dawn.

It's good some developers give us the option, rather than chase 'credibility' by sticking to a default hard mode.

😉

@Col_McCafferty Some games (usually RPG's) allow you to mitigate the difficulty without having a toggle or a slider on an options screen - often by "grinding" stats. "Elden Ring" is a good recent example.

@RogerRoger that’s a really good answer & some really good points 👍

catering to everyone by allowing us to play how we want is the best for sure . game difficulties is one of the few things that lets it be possible .

@Kairu same

@nomither6 Thanks! And I'd agree with you there, as well.

Some folks want tough challenges, others want to just chill out on a cool adventure. There are those of us who're capable of certain feats, and others who aren't, and that's okay. I don't see the harm in including a full suite of difficulty options in every game. Let the player make the choice.

But again, that's just my personal perspective. I do understand people's passion on this topic, even if I don't necessarily agree with the answers said passion can generate at times.

It depends for me. I’ll usually play on normal unless the platinum requires a harder difficulty. Some grindy games I’ll play on easy though, like the newer Assassin’s Creed games. I have a lot more respect for adaptive difficulty options after watching my mum play some games though.

Generally I prefer when there isn’t a difficulty option, but I tend to go for normal when there is. Most of the games I play recently have been complex isometric RPGs and I will get destroyed on anything over normal. Maybe for a third person story based game like the new Dead Space I would be likely to play on hard.

I’m playing Dragons Dogma and every time I die (a lot) it’s suggesting I try again on easy mode.

@JudgeDredd it was the wordplay that got you , i bet . titling the hardest difficulty “authentic” was a genius move , lol .

@kyleforrester87 don’t give into the games “hardcore-gamer supremacy” dogma & keep pushing ! the game is taunting you , don’t give in .

It can be frustrating as a gamer to have difficulty non-standardized. Most games get things pretty close through focus group testing, but I find that one game’s “normal” mode is another games “hard.” Even throwing out the classic example of FromSoft and similar games, sometimes there just isn’t much balancing. I’m playing Kena: Bridge of Spirits now and this game is probably the most egregious example of this phenomenon. Another would be God of War where, at least for the Valkyries, normal was really tough and even easy was no cakewalk. It’s fine, I just think it’s not always possible to know how hard a game is for someone until you play it. For me, certain genres feel pretty hard even on the lowest setting! 😅

Depends on the genre - for adventure stuff, generally I play on easy, as I want to play for the story, world and atmosphere, and even on easy I can occasionally hit more challenging sections. For games where I WANT to be tested - primarily racing games - I tend to set difficulty towards the harder settings, as I find the challenge of simply placing well and having a good race often way more satisfying than cruising to a win. Generally, I need to feel very comfortable with the controls, to the point where they become instinctive, before I will consider upping the difficulty in my playthrough.

I start at the most easy setting and almost always stay there. I find little to enjoy with making enemies bullet sponges, enemies weapons more powerful than mine, i die real easy, and ammo that may already be scarce is now more scarce. Trophies awarded for finishing on high difficult settings do not interest me, however i enjoying attempting difficult or grindy challenges if they interest me, trophy or no trophy.

I do use higher difficulty settings for some parts of a game like getting more xp by temporarily selecting the highest difficulty for particular activities. Example: switching to Nightmare in Dying Light for the higher amount of xp received when turning in Relief Packages. However to play DL on Nightmare has unrealistic combat where assault rifle bullets just bounce off of the heads of the infected and i have to hack and hack and hack and hack with a machete to take down just one of the weaker infected. That's not fun or challenging to me.

I can play DDR Arcade until this level. 😎

Blindfolded, difficulty on Expert, facing backward from monitor.

@NoCode23 reminds me of playing some fighting games on the highest difficulty and the game literally cheats by having the Ai predict your button inputs and the enemy immediately reacting with a counter in a split second & then having their damage increased while you just do chip-damage . giving them higher health makes sense , but to make them do so much damage to you is cheap .

some games really dont do higher difficulty right , good point .

put some shoes on. easy. always play the first time was as can be.

My general rule of thumb is to play it on normal.

Exceptions being if it’s a JRPG, I’ll flip it to easy.

Also I’ll toggle it to easy, if I can without disabling trophies, for trophy cleanup after completing the main story.

I don’t have the patience or time to play on hard or hardest difficulty, at this stage in my life.

Interesting topic. As of late I have actually come to start most most games on the hard difficulty if there is an option to get a more challenging experience then normal. I would say that I manage that in most cases although sometime I have to switch to normal. Its funny though that difficulty is not discussed more often because it can really impact the experience you get.