Choose your difficulty

After witnessing the rumpus sparked by Ninja Gaiden being difficult (j00z a n00b1 Iz el1t3 cus Iz playing on h4rd111) and remembering the screaming matches on games like mario sunshine (itz so easy I play it when dead Like my gr4n c4n finish it111) and Devil May Cry (izz rock hard but Iz el1te dudz cus I beats it in 2 minutes111), also the subject on MTW game difficulty in the main hall (yay, it's in proper English) I thought I'd try for a more readable and wide ranging discussion on the subject

Do you like selectable difficulties for games?

Do you like a choice from the get go like in MTW or so you like having to unlock difficulties (die 5 times for easy mode, beat the game for hard etc)

Most importantly: What is your preferred difficulty? Do you like dying many times and fighting your way through a real tough challenge or do you prefer to die 3 times at most on each boss or hard bit and have a relatively smooth trip?



Personally I have played and beaten many games that are acknowledged as very hard, I have also played many easy games. So which did I prefer? Probably the easy ones, Don't get me wrong I had a fantastic few years plugging away at X-Wing and its sequel, TIE Fighter. Each victory was well earned and satisfying, in the end I did have some really good skills but there are some missions I was stuck on for literally months...I still remember half the com chatter for the first mission of the fifth campaign in TIE Fighter for this reason. Repeating bits over and over gets dull, after 5 or so goes I begin to get fed up and feel like I am wasting my precious time. Same goes for many of the other hard games.

That's not to say I love very easy games, I do like a challenge. MTW's battles have lost their appeal, lost it ages ago because I can beat the AI on hard when taking on two 16 unit enemy armies with just my one. Easy, far too easy, mostly because they won’t attack in concert so I get to rout one before taking on the other. It is not as if I am some kind of expert player either, merely average at best. Now Shogun TW is another matter, the AI can still kick my froggy rear from time to time and I really do have to work for victory on a suprising number of occasions. Final Fantasy is another series I have found rather dull because they are too easy, the older ones are hardish but the new ones...hum. I only died twice in Final Fantasy VII , both deaths were on the first boss due to a translation error - I got told to attack it while its tail is up rather than the correct don't attack it while its tail is up, leaving me to get hit my super attacks turn after turn I didn't know you could just pick 'defend' and do nothing, I had been playing some other game where defend just launched a weaker attack. I didn't die once in Final Fantasy VIII, have yet to die in Final Fantasy X, since I have the PAL version I will be able to take on the dark aeons if I feel like it, that is supposed to be really tough but maybe too little, too late. Final Fantasy IX however is another story - that game kills me more than I'd wish All things considered the series doesn't seem to have a fair middle ground, I do actually prefer getting killed in IX to being bored in VII. Hundreds of easy battles are tedious.

I also found Knights of the Old Republic very easy, I think my party died once, twice at most. There were only two fights I found really tough, and one for less fair reasons:
Spoiler Alert! Highlight to read. The fight against Davik is the hardest in the game for me. The Battle with Saul almost always leaves my characters with just a couple of HP remaining. Malak was tough the first time but only because I couldn’t harm his Jedi and had to fight him 8 times [/QUOTE]
Thing is I didn't really care about KOTOR being so easy, I was playing more for the story and dying would have interrupted that.

Off topic that Spoiler Alert is very kool http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...s/bigthumb.gif

Basicly i try to have hardest difficulty on all my games except FPS then i usualy go with normal, i enjoy em more when they are tough i hate games that are easy.

I usually start playing games on the Normal difficulty setting, if that seems to easy I crank it up a bit I like the way Max Payne handles the difficulty, it alters the difficulty while you play. That way you always have a good challenge
I like games that provide a challenge but not to a degree that you have to try something 10-15 times before you finally succeed, then it gets dull indeed http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ons/gc-zzz.gif But games where you can walk right through without any challenge aren't any fun as well

That spolier alert is awesome http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ons/cheers.gif sooo... DaVincian..

I dont like games with difficulty options.. I want only one difficulty level and which is sufficiently realistic.

I like the selectable difficulty, but that's just because I tend to use the first couple times through any game on easy as a tutorial of sorts. What I really hate, though, is games where the only thing more difficult about 'difficult' is the fact that the AI gets a 50% off bonus on production or something obnoxious like that. That just seems like cheating to me. But until a computer can outsmart me with some regularity, I guess that's the way it's gotta be.

I do enjoy turn-based strategy on the toughest setting, though. SMAC and Age of Wonders on the most difficult setting both manage to delay that moment where you know you've won until much closer to the end of the game.

I like difficulty options, because sometimes I am a noob and play on easy, there i said it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ons/tongue.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif . I play on easy for awhile to get the hang of the game, then i turn it up to hard just to see how much challenge the game can give me. However it can really depend on what type of game i'm playing, if its an FPS i tend to stick to normal, as i dont like magic headshots the enemy almost always gets on the higher levels.

If its an rts or strategy game (such as mtw) i play on easy till i figure out all the controls, then after i play a few games through I turn the game up one level at a time. I play on Expert now, but only because it's fun and gives good writing material. (plus MM doesn't hurt either)

and then there's games like KOTOR. I played through KOTOR on Normal, i tried hard, but i couldn't do it. On the hard setting I was focused more on not dying than actually paying attention to the story, so i changed to back and played through.

Spoiler Alert! Highlight to read. Malak was a pain for me... Took me 5 tries but i finally killed him, he deserves the darkness i gave him after all that. being evil was fun [/QUOTE]

But the one phrase that got so damn annoying was this..

Spoiler Alert! Highlight to read. "Lord Malak was most Displeased when he learned you had escaped Taris alive, he has promised a great reward to whoever destroys you" i swear if i hear that one more time, I might go insane[/QUOTE]

overall, i'd say I play on normal settings.

I like having more difficulty ratings, or at least in strategy games. When I first play such a game, I always select easy. Why? Because in my first games I do not play as much as 'mess around', trying to see how it works. I attempt to understand the game. Winning isn't that important for me, I just want to know why something does or does not work. For this reason I hate cheating AI's, because then there is no 'why'. Only after this I start increasing the difficulty.

I like difficulty settings. That way, if the game is less than enthraling, you can at least have the satisfaction of not having to go nuts to see the whole thing (kind of getting your $$$ worth) before you go on to another game.

Flight sims are different. Must be played at full realism at all times. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ons/smokin.gif

It depends. There are two kinds of 'difficulty switches'. The first is a good thing, the second is not. The first is the kind where it asks you at the start, and makes it easier/harder to your satisfaction and doesn't make any issue of it. That's just a good thing - lets hardcore, masochistic games live dangerously, and lets less serious gamers (or more serious ones who just want to play around or live a power trip).

However, there's a second type - where they ask you the difficulty you want, but then only allow certain unlockables if you choose hard, impossible, or I am suicidal difficulty. If the game limits you from accessing content, it ceases to be a difficulty selector, and becomes a Are you willing to suffer to get everything you paid for? selector, and that's not cool.

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]. I didn't die once in Final Fantasy VIII,

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WTF YOu have skillz mate. I've died countless times on this the first pc game I bought and played as a young child and have gone on to play over the years. Best I've got is halfway through disk 2. Then my comp fucked up and I can't be bother re fighting some of the harder battles.

I usually play on games on easy to get used to the controls as it appears most people do.

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]I usually start playing games on the Normal difficulty setting, if that seems to easy I crank it up a bit I like the way Max Payne handles the difficulty, it alters the difficulty while you play. That way you always have a good challenge

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I like the way that Max payne increases the difficulty level, but I had some times in Max Payne 2 where i found it got insanly difficult and it took me a number of times to work out where the enemies were which got annoying after a while.

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Efrem Da King @ Mar. 05 2004,05:29)]

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]. I didn't die once in Final Fantasy VIII,

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WTF YOu have skillz mate. I've died countless times on this the first pc game I bought and played as a young child and have gone on to play over the years. Best I've got is halfway through disk 2. Then my comp fucked up and I can't be bother re fighting some of the harder battles.

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The secret is in the way I played - carding Levelling up normally was a waste of time, it made your characters so weak they couldn't fight ordinary monsters...use the card command to kill all enemies and you will still gain AP for guardian forces but no XP. Your characters stay on their default levels, the monsters stay weak but your GF grow. Then you hit disc 3, get two GF with the abilityx4 thingy and equip the abilities that give you a bonus to str, def, mag, mag def on each level up and work your way up to level 100 with all characters. Now you can compete on even footing.

Before anyone tells me this is why the game is so easy let me toss in a few facts. The way the game is set up with bosses etc it really gives you the impression this is what you are supposed to be doing - bosses never, ever give a single point of XP. Never. What they do give is a boatload of AP, they make your GF stronger but not your characters. Usual practise is to have a pile of both XP and AP, the fact VIII doesn't do that is very suspicious.

Secondly the card ability can be gained as soon as you beat the first boss, there are enemies on the beach you can card easily to gain more AP for your other forces and you can have all the important abilities on your GFs inside of a couple of hours at the start.

Thirdly the hmm, fourth? fifth? GF you gain has the encounter none ability so you can avoid all but boss fights, you can get that within 5 hours of play.

Fourthly all those cards you are collecting can be refined into items to beef up your weapons, refine into powerful spells for junctioning etc. You don't get many of those items by fighting or stealing.

Fifthly carding is very fine balance...one hit too many and the enemy expiries, giving you XP and making you weaker. Carding enemies is actually harder than just killing them.

I won't claim the levelling part was totally easy...taking on the most powerful enemies on the Island Closest to Hell with level 7 characters made for interesting fighting (on that island they are all level 100 enemies regardless of your own level, ruby dragons and the like) but since you went up 5+ levels per fight, and with one of Quistis's blue magic abilities you could get one or two hit kills you could survive easily enough with the 7000HP you got with junctions. Once you got one characters up to level 100 you could use him to help the second character you trained, then you had a party of three while training the third, and so on. The first character was always the hardest, but if you had the 2 GF with abilityx4 you could train two at once with some very careful juggling of GF bonus abilities.

I could have taken the idea a lot further, used Seifer at the start to level all my current GFs up to level 100 – if you kill Squall and Zell they don’t gain XP, only Seifer does. Let him kill enemies in the square of the first town during the exam and your GFs will level up along with him. Even better the enemies level up too so you can draw high level magic and get good items. Then Seifer leaves after the exam and his levels don’t matter. I could alos have devoured enemies when I reached level 100 to get further stat bonuses, also refined items into stat sources. You can refine your low level magic into high level magic, something like 400 cure ->100 cura, 400 curas -> 100 curagas. I never bothered with any of this bar magic refining, it seemed rather unnecessary.

There is a guide to this style on gamefaqs, the guide takes the idea far further than I ever did. 'Ultimate character guide' or somesuch.

Do you like selectable difficulties for games?

No, but it's good to have them, as the developers may consider making a game mild in order for all to have acces to .. victory. In this way I'm sure my expert dificulty is really expert - not in TW yet though.

This is a tough question to answer. Games that are so hard you have to keep reloading due to defeat are a pain the butt, especially if it's a role-playing game or one that requires a large investment of time.

But on the other hand, games where there is no risk of defeat lack challenge and interest (unless they are very cinematic, like Kotor).

I want to win without tearing my hair out, but I do want to have to work for it.

I am not sure I can define my preference in any generic terms. I guess multiple difficulty levels are good.

My best answer is probably very game specific, for example:

Civ2: I liked starting on King, gradually worked up to impossible. Pretty good balance. Imperialism 2 on hard is even better balanced.

The Panzer General Series: PG1 got too easy too quick; Allied General was too hard for me; PG2 and PacGen were just right.

Baldur's Gate: BG1 got too easy with bows; IWD1 and IWD2 were about right throughout, BG2 was good earlier on.

NWN: the OC was absurdly easy, SoU and HoTU seem about right.

MTW: I still like the battles vs the AI (I must suck), it's the strategy board AI problems that make games a little too easy - primarily lack of trade and poor unit builds (WesMod handles these deficiencies well).

I am afraid my answer must be very uninformative - I am like Goldilocks and want the difficulty just right.

I usually play on normal, as that is the difficulty where the computer does not cheat, though that is not always the case. I like to play with the AI being at its best while not having any special bonuses (or me having no special handicaps), so whatever level provides that is the one of my choice(in MTW that's hard).

.........I get it. You were playing the system I disaprove. I play a game to play it how it was meant to be played.

I hate difficulty options, because I can't know which option is suitable for me, before playing the game.Sometimes I find out hard was annoying, and sometimes normal is too easy for me.So every time I buy an action game, I waste a couple of hours trying to decide which difficulty is the best.

The decision is not so hard by strategy games.I usually choose the hardest difficulty setting when I play strategy games.For example, I never played MTW in any difficulty other than expert.

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Efrem Da King @ Mar. 05 2004,22:44)].........I get it. You were playing the system I disaprove. I play a game to play it how it was meant to be played.

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Is it? The game points you at those tactics incredibly blatantly. It seems to me there are two ways to play the game, levelling and not levelling. Each has its own easy and hard parts balancing out in the end. The playing the system and cheese comes from doing things like using Seifer to level up your GF and get high level spells, or refining level 1 spells into level 3 spells you can't access yet. So long as you avoid the cheese you run into some bosses way ahead of your levels, making life harder. That's how I see it anyway. It's no more playing the system than spending a half hour levelling up in FFVII, at least IMO.

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]What they do give is a boatload of AP, they make your GF stronger but not your characters. Usual practise is to have a pile of both XP and AP, the fact VIII doesn't do that is very suspicious.

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They make your girlfriend stronger? EEW

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Komutan @ Mar. 06 2004,11:20)]I hate difficulty options, because I can't know which option is suitable for me, before playing the game.Sometimes I find out hard was annoying, and sometimes normal is too easy for me.So every time I buy an action game, I waste a couple of hours trying to decide which difficulty is the best.

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What if there aren't selectable levels of difficulty and the only level of difficulty turns out to be unsuitable for you? Are you better off not having an option?

I most definitely like selectable difficulty levels but I want to know exactly what the difference is. In strategy games I want to know whether the AI and player are put on unequal footing. In the case of shooters I want to know if higher levels mean more enemies, better enemies, less ammo and such things. In my view, shooters where you're always low on ammo and therefore can't shoot all that much are missing the point.
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Preferably, strategy games should avoid making the mistake that MTW does, in not allowing for full intelligence of the AI at any level without throwing in AI cheating bonuses.

In general I do not like the try and try again concept in games. Making repeated attempts at finding the only solution the designer had intended frustrates me and seems like a cheap way to reduce the content needed for the game, and a sad excuse for replayability.

I like to have chance to make it through a game without dying, thinking 'this is my only life so I better stay alive'. It makes it more exciting than just playing for the sake of delaying the next reload. I tried to play through Privateer 2 without dying, restarting from scratch if I died (had played it all the way through with some deaths first). It made it a totally different ballgame that really kept up the excitement. In the end I couldn't do it. There would always be at least one case of a jump point where enemies entered the point faster than you could kill them. In the end you ran out of decoys against the missiles and then the armour went and you with it.

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Cazbol @ Mar. 10 2004,09:22)] Are you better off not having an option?

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I am better off not having to decide http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wink.gif Otherwise, I always have a doubt in my mind as I am playing the game.Maybe, the game would be more fun in the other setting.So it is psychological.

I agree to you on the points you have made.I don't like the try and try again concept too.I usually limit my saves.In games like M:TW or Civilization, I never reload.In games like Warcraft or C&C, I only save and reload the start of a level.In action games, I limit my saves depending on the difficulty.

Thats why I don't like games like Commandos or Desperados much.You can't play these games without constantly saving and reloading.