Am I alone? Game difficulty.

[J3LL0]

Hard games are much more fun when you have a friend with you to relieve the tension.

I disagree with that statement 100%. When I play Rock Band on expert with my friends I notice a definite pattern. Me and another kid hit everything on expert drums and guitar and our singer fails out faster then we can get Overdrive to save him. We get so mad at him sometimes we don't even want to talk to him!

We preserver and keep going though because of the challenge. I think that the possibility of being better then someone else what drives a lot of gamers out there. That is what makes me so determined to get good at games like CoD4, Halo, and Rock Band

 

[tiredinnuendo]

I love upping the difficulty if I'm playing with other people. This includes both co-op gaming and the older version of co-op, which we called, "Pass the controller when you die." Under those circumstances, spectacular failure is just as fun as spectacular success is. Plus, if you played today's games on normal and tried the "Pass the controller" rule, the controller would never get passed.

- J

 

[Bamcrash]

i feel that people who do this get a sense of pride when they do it. they chose the hardest difficulty first because they want to be the first to shout "this game is my *****!!!!!!!!!" on a side note, my tipical gaming pattern is beat it on normal, hard, look for easter eggs/glithes, go for achievments.

 

[defcon 1]

I believe most people do it just to be labeled "hard-core." I enjoy a challenge but I can only handle so much before the game stops being fun. There's a difference between a challenge and too much of a challenge.

Take this analogy into consideration. I like spicy food, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go into extremes by dousing my meal in raging hot death-sauce and not order a beverage.

 

[Bling Cat]

im probably a self-masochist, im one of those people who "enjoys" putting the difficulty up to the point where the butterflys kill you. its the sense of awesomeness at the end, and the ability to rub it in to all your friends who havent done it. but i do get annoyed at games that say the difficulty is normal, or medium or whatever, but then have parts that more resemble insanely difficult. take stranglehold. on normal on that game, the AI for the most part is decent and theres not to much challenge. then suddenly a switch will get flicked and the enemies become super accurate. like "your falling through the air and every shot hits you" accurate. its those things that grind my nerves. that and COD4 veteran difficulty.

 

[misterk]

Some games I'll play on super hard, and I think platformers exist to tempt you to throw your controller at the screen, but generaly I'm not that fussed. I guess it depends. If I'm finding a game annoyingly difficult I rarely have any qualms about turning down the difficulty if at all possible.

 

[Arbre]

I've been noticing more and more among my acquaintances that the only way they can have fun playing a game is to play with the difficulty pushed slightly past skull fuck. Now I gain no amusement from an impossibly hard challenge, in fact it has lead to four broken controllers and a fried ps2/tv combo in the past 5 years(Pro-tip: Throwing a mostly full soda can at your tv in a fit of rage, not so smart.)I play games to blow off steam, so putting a game on ultramegahard is counterintuitive to me. So this trend strikes me as odd.

Normally, I would accept this as different mindset, except I noticed that they weren't having fun either. The normal string of expletives had been replaced with what could only be described as "almost curses", where the word turns into a growl before you can finish it, knuckles were white from squeezing the piss out of controllers, and their faces looked like they just suffered a mild heart attack.

I asked why, if they get so pissed, do they play the game on impossible?
Their response was: "It's a challenge"

Now, if you noticed what I did, they didn't actually say it's fun. So, because they didn't answer my question with a satisfactory response,and I couldn't pester them for a clearer answer as they were about to have an aneurysm I now pose the question to you:

Why do you play games with the difficulty cranked up if all it does is make you insanely angry?

Because if I beat it, it really feels like I've done something. That said, if I die way too often, towards the very end of a game, I might allow the easy mode, because I've finished more than 90% of it and that's enough of pain for me. But I like that pain as well.
Haha.

 

[Mr. Bubbles]

I actually do that myself. I play a game on a difficulty that I obviously have no business playing, get into a blind rage after a while, stop out of frustration... and start up again in a few minutes. Haven't a clue why, to be honest. I suppose it's for the challenge (as your friends say), and for the feeling of awesomeness (and relief) when I finally get past a really frustrating part. No pain, no gain as they say.

 

[Jumplion]

I usualy beat the game once, and THEN bump up the difficulty.

I think it's probably the reward of overcoming a seemingly impossible task and then finishing it. Though i do think the reward is slightly soured by the anger and frustration before you beat it.

When i can't beat a level, i just take deep breaths and stop playing for a few days, come back and try to beat it again. I usualy beat it on the second time, though i still get angry...

 

[killhour]

What bothers me, is that people expect to be able to beat the game. 10 years ago, there were games that only a few people ever 'beat'. Why is it that a game should let you win? I say "The harder, the better."

 

[Ego247]

When it comes down to difficulty on a game i usually play the game through and then if it was a good game and i can be bothered put it up a bit but only if i'm enjoying it, i find myself incapable of playing a game to the point of throwing my controller up the wall and cursing over and over as it's my free time if i want to be that angry i'll purposely tell a friend of mine to sleep with my girfriend and leave a video tape for me to watch as i enjoy the 1 hour of hot steamy fun. But everyones got there own personal limit they can take, some people like a challenge others don't, i just play it as long as its still enjoyable, like Metal gear solid series i could play over and over no matter what the difficulty. I doubt when someones cursing and getting frustrated there enjoying the game, if that's enjoyment i'll go stick my head in a toaster, if that was physically possible.

 

[x434343]

I don't play on the hardest difficulty if I don't think it'll help in multiplayer. CoD4 on regular is great MP training, for example.

 

[Mr_Cynical]

One word: Achievments...

 

[x434343]

Addenum: On Trying Rock Band with the Gutar on Medium... FUCK ENTER SANDMAN.

No. Stop. Don't tell me it's possible. It just isn't. The entire fucking song is based on half-notes. Which is fine with a long line of colors, and even with 2 colors, but with four? FUCK THEM. I get halfway through the motherfucking solo and it says that I fucked up. FUCK ENTER SANDMAN.

 

[Scolar Visari]

If I don't have to fight tooth and nail for every victory then the games to easy. I like games that punish you for every mistake you make. Then again if the difficulty is nearing broken then I only do it for the acheivments.

 

[trooper87]

Addenum: On Trying Rock Band with the Gutar on Medium... FUCK ENTER SANDMAN.

No. Stop. Don't tell me it's possible. It just isn't. The entire fucking song is based on half-notes. Which is fine with a long line of colors, and even with 2 colors, but with four? FUCK THEM. I get halfway through the motherfucking solo and it says that I fucked up. FUCK ENTER SANDMAN.

Actually fuck Enter Sandman on HARD. I can play hard well but Enter Sandman is just one of those I tried 3 times and failed each time before I even got to the first VERSE and won't play on hard again. Unless I actually get better Expert songs like Enter Sandman: SKIP!

 

[Lex Darko]

I stopped playing games for achievements when I played Bioshock. Now I actually buy PS3 versions of multiplatform games to actually avoid the achievements.


With game difficulty I usually don't put it to high any more, for example with CoD4 I played the game on Hardened only I did one mission on Veteran and quickly realized that it was only more difficult by the numbers. Which is my way of saying, there is no significant change in the A.I.'s actual behavior, and that the only things that have been changed are things that can be accounted for in spreadsheet.

CoD4, Gears of War, Halo 3, and BioShock are great examples of games that only get harder by the numbers and not where it really accounts like npc behavior (other than cheating levels of accuracy and npc instantly knowing your exact position).

 

[x434343]

Addenum: On Trying Rock Band with the Gutar on Medium... FUCK ENTER SANDMAN.

No. Stop. Don't tell me it's possible. It just isn't. The entire fucking song is based on half-notes. Which is fine with a long line of colors, and even with 2 colors, but with four? FUCK THEM. I get halfway through the motherfucking solo and it says that I fucked up. FUCK ENTER SANDMAN.

Actually fuck Enter Sandman on HARD. I can play hard well but Enter Sandman is just one of those I tried 3 times and failed each time before I even got to the first VERSE and won't play on hard again. Unless I actually get better Expert songs like Enter Sandman: SKIP!

Oh, no. I'm fairly great on Medium. I just tried it about 10 fucking times. The only other one I had problems with was like Wave of Mutilation.

 

[richtm]

My preference is to let the player have a choice. I like the trend today of the average gamer being able to get through normal mode without too much controller smashing. We aren't using memory limited cartridges anymore and designers can flesh out length in other ways.

That said I like to see the masochistic hard difficulties in the game. I like to breeze once through normal to enjoy the story at a decent pace and then step it up a notch each successive play through and see how far I get before I shatter the disk in my bare hands and have to go buy a new game and get medical attention.

Finally I really like my frequent checkpoints (or quicksave). I can handle trying an encounter 50+ times, but if it's the encouter plus introductory cutscene/fodder enemies/long walk 50+ times well that's a broken disk. And if it's fail and retry the whole level well that game just go... what are the language rules on this forum? Do we get the same freedom as yahtzee?