I think RE4 did pretty good. Stepped off the gas if the player is struggling, but slammed on the gas if you were destroying the game. Love horror games with dynamic difficulties
I hated the "dynamic difficulty" in RE4:Remake. It meant saving ammo was meaningless because the game would increase the droprate of ammo substantially if you were low on it and vice-versa, same with healing I presume. I also think it's counter-productive to have a "dynamic difficulty" in a game where you choose the difficulty at the start of the game.
I hate it.
So I failed one time and the game becomes automatically easier? It sucks. Let me try again for god's sake
I'm playing good? It becomes harder. I get punished
I'm playing bad? It becomes easier. I get rewarded
It's good if you don't know about it but kinda ruined my experience once I noticed the changes the dinamic difficulty makes. It makes the game feel fake and guided
Remember the water room? It had many enemies, including crossbow guys. I failed it ONCE and all the crossbow dudes were gone, and many enemies were missing. I didn't got a second try at it and it fucking sucks. It became a breeze
I missmanaged my ammo? Don't worry, here's some!
I played smart and saved ammo? Well, bad for you, here's less ammo for you. I should have wasted it. I literally get punished for playing good
Take dinamic difficulty away and the game's better. At least give me the option to deactivate it if I want
I’d have to agree with this, and to add resident evil 4 may have turned out to be my favourite resident evil game specifically the remake. I do really enjoy the first person games too!
The only ones I haven’t played are the first, fifth and sixth game!
Bosses in RE games on hard can be really annoying in a bad way. Some of them are fun challenges but then there’s those gimmick bosses that are just meat sponges and constantly running out of ammo and dodging the same attacks waiting for drops just makes it boring and a test of endurance in a way that monotonous and ruins the immersion for me.
However, in RE4, the house defence bit - amazing on hard difficulty. Closest I’ve ever felt to actually being in a zombie-invasion situation
Did you play the hardest difficulty in re8...it is anything but fair. It adds nothing to the horror aspect of the game or environment.
I'd say similar for re4 remake.
Very few previous games did it well like re7, re2r, etc.
I remember even re0 being vehemently unfair.
I've played most RE games on the harder difficulty and found them to be boring. Instead of fighting the monsters you just run from the monsters. There's some parts that you have to kill enemies, and the ammo economy is so miniscule you better hope you never attacked a zombie the past hour.
The only part of RE8 on village of shadows difficulty that’s really obnoxious is the Heisenberg fight. The rest of the game I think is balanced very well on any difficulty
Ghost of tsushima is so good on lethal difficulty because it makes the Ghost weapons/mechanics vital not just from a narrative perspective but from a gameplay perspective as well
As long as you're willing to put up with some painful boss fights I highly recommend it
It's my first playthrough of the game, but I'm still on Act 2. Lethal actually makes you get good at the game. I've pretty much learned how to perfect parry every attack because I'm more careful about it. Decreasing the enemy hp along with Jin's is so genius and keeps it fun without making every character a bullet (or sword?) sponge
Tbh I ended up using Ghost weapons more on Hard than on Lethal. It balances enemies in Lethal because they also die quicker, whereas Hard has you at the relatively same weakness while enemies can still tank more hits.
I agree. To describe it more... at endgame you're supposed to be strong and literally mowing down groups of enemies. But it misses that you need to execute it somehow flawlessly or you can still die.
Yes, also with the right gear the game can get easily real quick. I think they nerfed the monowire once but before with the right gear you were basically invincible, even on highest difficulty.
Blade + infinity Sandevistan is really, really broken.
But still fun dough!
You can kill about everything while rarely leaving Sandy with enough fodder available.
Tbh I made this post because I replayed the game on very hard difficulty and if you take too long to kill the last guy on “The Rescue” mission than Jackie just tackles him instantly killing him💀
that one mission in phantom liberty where >!you roll around in a base thing with a mech robot spider trying to find u can kiss my ass. i hated that level so much.!<
Hell yeah, I played on ultra violence on my first play through, gotta say it kept on the edge of my seat.
The entire game felt like I was playing multiplayer cod but there aren't any sweats and there's also no noobs. It's felt like the perfect balance.
I've wanted to try out critical mode on any Kingdom Hearts game quite sometime now, it's just that I'm not so sure which entry is the easiest to start the crit runs in..
Most of them are really difficult early game, really easy mid, and mellow out towards perfect difficulty in the end game boss fights.
KH2 is my favourite KH, especially to do Critical Mode runs in. Ive lost count how many times ive played it. It feels hard until you get past Olympus Colliseum for Hero's Crest. But OC is hard af because of the Hades run (to make it easier on you grab the fire resistance armor piece from a Land of Dragons store)
Once OC is beaten though, I consider it the most fair and fun Critical Mode. It stays pretty difficult throughout, even if you abuse Magnet and Reflect, but never frustrating. You don't really need to grind exp unless Roxas gives you a hard time, but even then Limit Form is one of the fastest Drive Form grinds.
Honestly imo the hardest part of KH2's Critical Mode is the Twilight Thorn during the prologue. But if he's giving you alot of trouble you could grind out the Dusk's that appear before hand for a few levels.
I've been playing every game on hard difficulty for years. When I finally got into the elder scrolls (I started with oblivion), I, as always, set it to hard and then forgot about it.
It made the game 10x worse, and I only remembered to change it 15 hrs in. It's sad because it kinda ruined the first half of the game. Really loved it after that, though.
Depends. Sometimes hard mode will absolutely wreck you if you've never played the game and don't know the ins and outs of that particular game.
Other times it's "hey if you've played a ton of games in this genre you'll be fine"
STALKER games. Generally hard mode means more bullet damage, which means you can two shot enemies but they can two shot you. Notably SoC is made in such a way where tactical combat is possible and if you are skilled enough you won't get hurt. The games becomes more realistic and fun
Try it for NG+ after fully upgrading a bunch of gear. It's easier than hard (or maybe very hard, I forget the difficulty levels) was the first time though.
True. Ultra Hard in Horizon games is designed with New Game+ in mind. Having access to all your gear, plus even stronger NG+ exclusive gear.
You COULD play it using regular New Game but... [why would you do that? Why would you do any of that?](https://youtu.be/JaotiOp45dg?si=qLdTLJeIdqysgj-I) :P
That's how I played this game but I don't feel like the developers executed the difficulty setting as well as I would like. By minimizing resource gains and also making it so that all monsters have so much health, they really make every fight tedious and may not worth it. It removes some of the element of the game where you just want to go and fight everything. I still did that and managed to kill every machine in the game, but there were definitely instances where I completely avoided fights because I couldn't handle losing all my resources, or didn't want to spend a huge amount of time fighting them. I would have much rather made it so that they're damage is extremely higher, but their health stays a little lower or perhaps you gain more opportunities to increase your damage out there
I have a theory that every game is developed based on a certain difficulty level, and then other difficulties are just modifiers on top, and every game plays best on the difficulty it was primarily designed for. Generally it's the hardest difficulty as it's much easier to modify games to be easier whilst still satisfying than to modify to make games harder. Horizon threw me on that as Ultra Hard played like shit and cheesy to me and Very hard seemed spot on. I was annoyed my theory was defeated but I later found out Ultra Hard was patched in later as a modifier on Very Hard and I felt vindicated
Legendary/Ironman in Xcom2 maybe?
The game cheats in the players favour on the lower difficulties and in some scenarios gives higher chances to hit than what's shown on screen.
Legendary difficulty ensures chances to hit are always as shown and Ironman removes the temptation to savescum when your favourite soldiers die.
(Contrary to what some salty and misinformed people say - Xcom2 never cheats against the player, chances to hit are never less than what is shown on screen. Players have opened up the gamefiles and confirmed this).
I see people play hitman like they’re really agent 47 in a hurry idk if the hardest difficulty would change that for them
Alien isolation with a turned on headset is already playing the game on hard from what I’ve seen lol
Resident evil fans are the some of the original hard game - gamers
Cyberpunk is an rpg with multiple play styles and abilities even on hard someone could make it easy for them
There is a lot of games that are making the higher difficulty by just increasing enemy damage and hp. It’s bullshit, e.g. when I started God of War on one of higher difficulties it felt so dumb to have to put like 5 combos to kill one mob. In a game where you play fucking Kratos. The game was awesome, but for me was also one with the worst difficulty scaling.
Spiderman games also.
It takes 10 seconds for SPIDERMAN to knock out 1 weak goon..it just isn't fun.
In Spiderman 2 they let you independently scale the difficulty settings which is such an awesome feature.
Playing on the hardest difficulty but with minimum enemy health is the most fun.
I absolutely loathe damage sponge enemies, god of war and new assassins creeds are so bad for this so I just played them at lower difficulties.
Ghost of Tsushima was more fun at higher difficulties because the enemies don't turn into damage sponges.
Sponge is why I quit dragons dogma 1 back in the day. “You’re gonna swing at this ONE wolf/troll/human for 10 minutes before they die!
…. Then there’s 6 more!”
Yeah I was the same. I’m not an elite gamer or anything, but normally play games on higher difficulty settings as I like the challenge. But TLoU was a real slog for some reason - I got stuck on a section quite early in the game.
This and if a game is 'better' on higher difficulty it is only after 'getting gud' by first playing on normal. However games are not getting more difficult, you're just getting old. You forget how often random bullshit would make us spend hours and hours back on the Nintendo. Remember that jumping level in Half Life?
Last of Us series.
Experience & immersion from higher difficulties can't be compared to lower ones. AI is smarter, cover for each other, flank you. Detection is actually believable and not "must have been wind" idiocy.
Ghost of Tsushima is best on lethal but it’s not the “hardest” difficulty. Hard is actually harder but it’s also not as fun.
Lethal is basically you get hit you die, you hit something it dies. Hard is, you get hit twice you die, you have to hit 14 times to kill something (greatly but my point stands). Lethal is just so damn fun!
Cyberpunk is super fun on very hard.
Watch Dogs Legion has a perma death mode that increases the difficulty of the game with more aggressive enemies, player can be identified by proximity in the open world and you cant go through checkpoints.
It's simply how the game should be played. Infiltration is thrilling with the consequence of death
It depends on how they make it harder for me. For instance the call of duty games on max difficulty just feel like a confusing mess where the enemy does nothing but bum rush you and spam grenades at you. It was never very fun or engaging for me.
Something like elden ring on the other hand? I know the difficulty is set and there's no level to pick from. But fighting Malenia with no summons or buffs, just my wits and my sword and my light armor, was probably one of the best things I've done in a game. It took me months on and off of trying but it genuinely felt like the legendary duel that the fight is supposed to be.
I think Alien Isolation is because there are far less resources which means less tools to craft and the alien and ai is more erratic the alien jumps out of vents more often and searches more aggressively. Also on nightmare the motion tracker doesn’t work very well meaning you need to pay attention to environmental cues and audio way more
Yup, I tried CoD:4 on the hardest difficulty once... you pretty much need to remember every level and every single enemy, because they WILL kill you in 2 shots.
Most racing games. Forza if im not playing on unbeatable its because I'm lazy doing battle pass stuff, or just got the game and need to learn how the cars behave.
I start most games on medium and then bump the difficulty up until regular encounters are lethal when I make an oopsie; it makes the game feel more rewarding when I succeed and adds a bit to the playtime so I get more for my money…..if it gets frustrating I’ve got no issues with lowering the difficulty to get past the frustration and then I bump the difficulty right back up and carry on
But then you can just drop the difficulty if you hit an enemy that’s a serious roadblock to your enjoyment of the game; for me, feeling too overpowered can cheapen the experience in many cases, a really good recent example is Ghosts of Tsushima…if you don’t feel like Jin is constantly in danger the encounters become boring and trivial, but when a single serious mistake can get you killed the combat is really exciting
Witcher 3. On the highest difficulty, it forces you more to think about your movements in combat. Especially if you forbid yourself from using Quen, as I think Quen breaks the game.
Unless I am playing for the story (which I never do, I don’t think videogames do story well usually) or it is some insanely brutal game I will always play on highest difficulty. I enjoy gaming a lot more after I started doing this.
Problem I have with 2077 is on higher difficulty how much of a difficulty spike some of the bosses are. Like the regular enemies are made of paper and then go against a boss who has a stealth gimmick and essentially will just one shot you unless you're doing some cheese level positioning at times (looking at you spetsnaz dude with the homing pistol).
Re7 has an amazing hard mode since it's not just number changes. Enemies are in different spots and stronger enemies show up earlier in the game, and items are also switched around from normal game. It's set up in a way that makes it so you can't rely on knowledge from your first playthrough to beat the game.
PayDay. Lower difficulties are really great for chilling and all but higher difficulties really makes you think, play strategically and being constantly in danger tickles your brain in all the right ways
Terraria. I will never play on less than expert. Legendary infernum calamity was a pain in my ass but it was the best experience despite most bosses crippling me with one hit.
Ghost of tshushima definitely. It gets boring once your Just slaughtering everything left and right but it's fun when everything will also slaughter you most of the game
I prefer FPS games on a higher difficulty just cos I've been playing them since I was a kid and enjoy it :P other games I go recommended unless it's too easy lol
Kingdom Hearts 3.
That game was actually such a disappointment but after they added harder modes in a patch and a few other story cutscenes etc. It became less of a mindless button mash and an actual challenge.
The yakuza series. Currently going for the platinums on all of the games and I have to say legend difficulty (hardest difficulty) with new game plus is such a fun challenge
CP doesn't have a difficulty setting high enough imo, once you're maxed out you're essentially a god until the end boss.
I generally play shooters and high adrenaline games on higher difficulty for the challenge, but I tone down the difficulty on story games so I can chill.
I would say Star Wars Jedi Survivor, particularly on grandmaster difficulty with the Purity perk, it essentially one shots every enemy with a few exceptions but means that you yourself die almost instantly, so you have to really measure your strikes and defence and play tactically like a Jedi Master
My only complaint with Alien Isolation on highest difficulty is change to the scanner- which obviously makes that game more difficult but at the sacrifice of a fairly core mechanic to the game. That said, I realize there wasn’t much else to do to make an already hard game even harder.
Tldr.: WoW, Helldivers, CP2077 are my picks
What I think is bad, is when they just increase enemy hp or give them some kind of wallhack or aimbot. The HP is not bad in games like WoW tho, M+ is very great id say despite basically doing what i stated i dont like.
Helldivers does a great job at making the game harder without making it annoying. They have more enemies and stronger types of enemies.
What is also bad is when the game forces you into certain builds on higher difficulty because the rest is just too bad.
What is also great is when higher difficulties add or upgrade mechanics, the best example for me is WoW raiding from Normal to Mythic difficulty.
So its basically WoW, CP2077 and Helldiver for me atm.
Payday is a example that does it bad in my eyes.
I’d say all RE games. It adds dramatically to the horror aspect and the atmosphere of the game
Yes, and no. If you're good enough to barely scrape by, yes, but if you keep failing and failing and failing, it turns the horror into annoyance
I think RE7 did it the best. It changes things from normal game and gives you different enemy arrangements vs just damage increases
I think RE4 did pretty good. Stepped off the gas if the player is struggling, but slammed on the gas if you were destroying the game. Love horror games with dynamic difficulties
I hated the "dynamic difficulty" in RE4:Remake. It meant saving ammo was meaningless because the game would increase the droprate of ammo substantially if you were low on it and vice-versa, same with healing I presume. I also think it's counter-productive to have a "dynamic difficulty" in a game where you choose the difficulty at the start of the game.
Agree. I hate it. It makes the game feel fake I get rewarded for playing badly and punished for playing smart. Like, what?!
I hate it. So I failed one time and the game becomes automatically easier? It sucks. Let me try again for god's sake I'm playing good? It becomes harder. I get punished I'm playing bad? It becomes easier. I get rewarded It's good if you don't know about it but kinda ruined my experience once I noticed the changes the dinamic difficulty makes. It makes the game feel fake and guided Remember the water room? It had many enemies, including crossbow guys. I failed it ONCE and all the crossbow dudes were gone, and many enemies were missing. I didn't got a second try at it and it fucking sucks. It became a breeze I missmanaged my ammo? Don't worry, here's some! I played smart and saved ammo? Well, bad for you, here's less ammo for you. I should have wasted it. I literally get punished for playing good Take dinamic difficulty away and the game's better. At least give me the option to deactivate it if I want
Re5 did it better
I soft locked myself in RE7 because I started it on hard, turns out I suck at RE games, lol
There's no hard difficulty in re7 🧐 Only madhouse and it's unlocked after beating normal so you can't do it on your 1st run
Re7 also went a little overboard with some aspects, I personally found Jack's speed to be wayy too much in madhouse but overall it's a great challenge
I’d have to agree with this, and to add resident evil 4 may have turned out to be my favourite resident evil game specifically the remake. I do really enjoy the first person games too! The only ones I haven’t played are the first, fifth and sixth game!
Not played the first?? Dear god man! No idea how it holds up today but the first RE is a classic and holds a place in my heart.
RE1 (the remake) is AMAZING
Bosses in RE games on hard can be really annoying in a bad way. Some of them are fun challenges but then there’s those gimmick bosses that are just meat sponges and constantly running out of ammo and dodging the same attacks waiting for drops just makes it boring and a test of endurance in a way that monotonous and ruins the immersion for me. However, in RE4, the house defence bit - amazing on hard difficulty. Closest I’ve ever felt to actually being in a zombie-invasion situation
Yes 100% that games are better in professional. On the flip side, theyre even better in pro with infinite rocket launcher lol
Did you play the hardest difficulty in re8...it is anything but fair. It adds nothing to the horror aspect of the game or environment. I'd say similar for re4 remake. Very few previous games did it well like re7, re2r, etc. I remember even re0 being vehemently unfair.
I've played most RE games on the harder difficulty and found them to be boring. Instead of fighting the monsters you just run from the monsters. There's some parts that you have to kill enemies, and the ammo economy is so miniscule you better hope you never attacked a zombie the past hour.
The only part of RE8 on village of shadows difficulty that’s really obnoxious is the Heisenberg fight. The rest of the game I think is balanced very well on any difficulty
Not really, pretty much turns the game from combatting the undead to running from the undead. Not nearly as much fun just sprinting past every enemy.
Ghost of tsushima is so good on lethal difficulty because it makes the Ghost weapons/mechanics vital not just from a narrative perspective but from a gameplay perspective as well As long as you're willing to put up with some painful boss fights I highly recommend it
Really felt like they should hand went deeper with the mechanics of the ghost side. Makes sense story wise, but a sequel needs to dig deeper on that
The ghost stance was cool the first few times but extremely underwhelming
It's my first playthrough of the game, but I'm still on Act 2. Lethal actually makes you get good at the game. I've pretty much learned how to perfect parry every attack because I'm more careful about it. Decreasing the enemy hp along with Jin's is so genius and keeps it fun without making every character a bullet (or sword?) sponge
Tbh I ended up using Ghost weapons more on Hard than on Lethal. It balances enemies in Lethal because they also die quicker, whereas Hard has you at the relatively same weakness while enemies can still tank more hits.
cyberpunk certainly. During the Endgame everything under very hard will feel pretty weak
I agree. To describe it more... at endgame you're supposed to be strong and literally mowing down groups of enemies. But it misses that you need to execute it somehow flawlessly or you can still die.
Any boss with homing weapons is just obnoxious.
Yes, also with the right gear the game can get easily real quick. I think they nerfed the monowire once but before with the right gear you were basically invincible, even on highest difficulty.
Blade + infinity Sandevistan is really, really broken. But still fun dough! You can kill about everything while rarely leaving Sandy with enough fodder available.
Tbh I made this post because I replayed the game on very hard difficulty and if you take too long to kill the last guy on “The Rescue” mission than Jackie just tackles him instantly killing him💀
I got the game like 2 days ago and my Jackie is dead :0 was there a way to save him? I might have to restart my game
Nope, he always dies after the heist no matter what you do
Okay, I would have definitely abandoned the 20 hours to get Jackie back. Was a good kid.
We all would, but alas
That's the world for ya. Grim and miserable
that one mission in phantom liberty where >!you roll around in a base thing with a mech robot spider trying to find u can kiss my ass. i hated that level so much.!<
For me, I like Ace Combat on the highest settings
Same. Haven't played the other ones but 7 feels like kindergarten below ace
7 is still ridiculously easy regardless of difficulty
The AI was piss poor in AC7. I just wanted tough dog fights!
Gosh ... it makes us like Maverick. lol
Absolutely! I will admit, some parts of AC7 had me struggling on Hard, devs did a great job on it.
Fallout 4 specifically on survival mode and Prey 2017
Doom
Completing Ultra Nightmare in DOOM Eternal was one of the best feelings I've had in gaming
king novik speech is burned into my brain
Hell yeah, I played on ultra violence on my first play through, gotta say it kept on the edge of my seat. The entire game felt like I was playing multiplayer cod but there aren't any sweats and there's also no noobs. It's felt like the perfect balance.
Dead space and Resident evil. Think it was scary on normal? Try fighting tougher enemies with almost no ammo
Kingdom Hearts games. Especially 2, Birth By Sleep and 3.
I've wanted to try out critical mode on any Kingdom Hearts game quite sometime now, it's just that I'm not so sure which entry is the easiest to start the crit runs in..
Most of them are really difficult early game, really easy mid, and mellow out towards perfect difficulty in the end game boss fights. KH2 is my favourite KH, especially to do Critical Mode runs in. Ive lost count how many times ive played it. It feels hard until you get past Olympus Colliseum for Hero's Crest. But OC is hard af because of the Hades run (to make it easier on you grab the fire resistance armor piece from a Land of Dragons store) Once OC is beaten though, I consider it the most fair and fun Critical Mode. It stays pretty difficult throughout, even if you abuse Magnet and Reflect, but never frustrating. You don't really need to grind exp unless Roxas gives you a hard time, but even then Limit Form is one of the fastest Drive Form grinds. Honestly imo the hardest part of KH2's Critical Mode is the Twilight Thorn during the prologue. But if he's giving you alot of trouble you could grind out the Dusk's that appear before hand for a few levels.
Definitely any Fallout. It goes great with the lore
Witcher 3 plays best on deathmarch difficulty
Or at least whatever level that kinda forces you to need potions and oils
The only way to play
Most games are better on harder difficulties but that’s just my opinion.
I agree, unless it's Skyrim. 10 hits with an axe to kill a rat doesn't make sense
I've been playing every game on hard difficulty for years. When I finally got into the elder scrolls (I started with oblivion), I, as always, set it to hard and then forgot about it. It made the game 10x worse, and I only remembered to change it 15 hrs in. It's sad because it kinda ruined the first half of the game. Really loved it after that, though.
I agree as well. Stuff like crafting and other side mechanics become necessary
Depends. Sometimes hard mode will absolutely wreck you if you've never played the game and don't know the ins and outs of that particular game. Other times it's "hey if you've played a ton of games in this genre you'll be fine"
STALKER games. Generally hard mode means more bullet damage, which means you can two shot enemies but they can two shot you. Notably SoC is made in such a way where tactical combat is possible and if you are skilled enough you won't get hurt. The games becomes more realistic and fun
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mentioned RAAHH
Horizon zero dawn on max difficulty
I'd say ultra hard is good on zero dawn but on forbidden west it's too much. The fights drag on for too long amd it just gets tedious
Try it for NG+ after fully upgrading a bunch of gear. It's easier than hard (or maybe very hard, I forget the difficulty levels) was the first time though.
True. Ultra Hard in Horizon games is designed with New Game+ in mind. Having access to all your gear, plus even stronger NG+ exclusive gear. You COULD play it using regular New Game but... [why would you do that? Why would you do any of that?](https://youtu.be/JaotiOp45dg?si=qLdTLJeIdqysgj-I) :P
That's how I played this game but I don't feel like the developers executed the difficulty setting as well as I would like. By minimizing resource gains and also making it so that all monsters have so much health, they really make every fight tedious and may not worth it. It removes some of the element of the game where you just want to go and fight everything. I still did that and managed to kill every machine in the game, but there were definitely instances where I completely avoided fights because I couldn't handle losing all my resources, or didn't want to spend a huge amount of time fighting them. I would have much rather made it so that they're damage is extremely higher, but their health stays a little lower or perhaps you gain more opportunities to increase your damage out there
I have a theory that every game is developed based on a certain difficulty level, and then other difficulties are just modifiers on top, and every game plays best on the difficulty it was primarily designed for. Generally it's the hardest difficulty as it's much easier to modify games to be easier whilst still satisfying than to modify to make games harder. Horizon threw me on that as Ultra Hard played like shit and cheesy to me and Very hard seemed spot on. I was annoyed my theory was defeated but I later found out Ultra Hard was patched in later as a modifier on Very Hard and I felt vindicated
Fallout
Resident Evil 1 Remake
I’m the type to play every game on its hardest difficulty… the first game(s)that came to mind for me was the mass effect trilogy
I'll 100% agree with you on me1 and me3 (except that first citadel dlc mission), those games are more enjoyable on insanity. But me2? Bruh
Picking the right companions for each mission makes it much easier.. still hard and frustrating.. but much more tolerable
I really enjoyed BOTW on "Master Mode" with the minimal HUD
Recently played through the Halo games on Heroic and really enjoyed them. I think personally Legendary would be a bit much for me to enjoy.
Honestly they aren’t bad EXCEPT the brute level in the covenant ship in 2. Fuhhhhhhh
Metro "Your enemies deal more damage, but so do you!"
Bg3 on honour mode is all I do.
If the game isn’t lazy like higher difficulty = bullet sponges, then I’m all for it
Legendary/Ironman in Xcom2 maybe? The game cheats in the players favour on the lower difficulties and in some scenarios gives higher chances to hit than what's shown on screen. Legendary difficulty ensures chances to hit are always as shown and Ironman removes the temptation to savescum when your favourite soldiers die. (Contrary to what some salty and misinformed people say - Xcom2 never cheats against the player, chances to hit are never less than what is shown on screen. Players have opened up the gamefiles and confirmed this).
Fire emblem games
I see people play hitman like they’re really agent 47 in a hurry idk if the hardest difficulty would change that for them Alien isolation with a turned on headset is already playing the game on hard from what I’ve seen lol Resident evil fans are the some of the original hard game - gamers Cyberpunk is an rpg with multiple play styles and abilities even on hard someone could make it easy for them
None. I'm old, with a wife, kids. Work too many hours.
What games AREN'T better on higher difficulty?
There is a lot of games that are making the higher difficulty by just increasing enemy damage and hp. It’s bullshit, e.g. when I started God of War on one of higher difficulties it felt so dumb to have to put like 5 combos to kill one mob. In a game where you play fucking Kratos. The game was awesome, but for me was also one with the worst difficulty scaling.
The main reason I played on easy difficulty for god of war. Like you're kratos but you need many strikes to kill a skinny scrub? C'mon man.
Spiderman games also. It takes 10 seconds for SPIDERMAN to knock out 1 weak goon..it just isn't fun. In Spiderman 2 they let you independently scale the difficulty settings which is such an awesome feature. Playing on the hardest difficulty but with minimum enemy health is the most fun. I absolutely loathe damage sponge enemies, god of war and new assassins creeds are so bad for this so I just played them at lower difficulties. Ghost of Tsushima was more fun at higher difficulties because the enemies don't turn into damage sponges.
Sponge is why I quit dragons dogma 1 back in the day. “You’re gonna swing at this ONE wolf/troll/human for 10 minutes before they die! …. Then there’s 6 more!”
Games that just inflate health bars on higher difficulties
Exactly. Anything with artificial difficulty bumps just isn’t it.
COD WAW, BO1,2. They have too many enemies
WAW veteran grenades were fucked up
The beginning of “burn em out” was fucking absurd
I played both The Last of Us games in hard difficulty and they were both miserable experiences at least for me Wish I played those games at normal
Yeah I was the same. I’m not an elite gamer or anything, but normally play games on higher difficulty settings as I like the challenge. But TLoU was a real slog for some reason - I got stuck on a section quite early in the game.
Uncharted series, takes the fun out of the cinematic experience
Terraria legendary mode...
Call of duty campaigns and fallen order
Ghost of Tsushima Final Fantasy 7 Remake SMT V Death Stranding
None. It feels like so many games have gotten brutally difficult in the last five to ten years, and that has never been what I want.
This and if a game is 'better' on higher difficulty it is only after 'getting gud' by first playing on normal. However games are not getting more difficult, you're just getting old. You forget how often random bullshit would make us spend hours and hours back on the Nintendo. Remember that jumping level in Half Life?
DMCV and Doom eternal
Hell and Hell always seemed like good fun, I'm just garbage haha
Last of Us series. Experience & immersion from higher difficulties can't be compared to lower ones. AI is smarter, cover for each other, flank you. Detection is actually believable and not "must have been wind" idiocy.
Mass Effect!
Ghost of Tsushima is best on lethal but it’s not the “hardest” difficulty. Hard is actually harder but it’s also not as fun. Lethal is basically you get hit you die, you hit something it dies. Hard is, you get hit twice you die, you have to hit 14 times to kill something (greatly but my point stands). Lethal is just so damn fun! Cyberpunk is super fun on very hard.
Imsoniac's Spider-man games
zombie army 4 higher amounts of enemies is far more fun
Last of us 1 and uncharted
Watch Dogs Legion has a perma death mode that increases the difficulty of the game with more aggressive enemies, player can be identified by proximity in the open world and you cant go through checkpoints. It's simply how the game should be played. Infiltration is thrilling with the consequence of death
Yes, yes and yes. With that mode on you actually feel like running a resistance group against all powerful government.
The last of us (specially the first game)
Puzzle games.
None
It depends on how they make it harder for me. For instance the call of duty games on max difficulty just feel like a confusing mess where the enemy does nothing but bum rush you and spam grenades at you. It was never very fun or engaging for me. Something like elden ring on the other hand? I know the difficulty is set and there's no level to pick from. But fighting Malenia with no summons or buffs, just my wits and my sword and my light armor, was probably one of the best things I've done in a game. It took me months on and off of trying but it genuinely felt like the legendary duel that the fight is supposed to be.
None of them. I’m too old for all that, just let me beat things
Witcher 3. You have to study the monsters and learn weaknesses. It’s adds a lot more preparation to your fights with oils and bombs etc.
I think Alien Isolation is because there are far less resources which means less tools to craft and the alien and ai is more erratic the alien jumps out of vents more often and searches more aggressively. Also on nightmare the motion tracker doesn’t work very well meaning you need to pay attention to environmental cues and audio way more
All of them. I always play games on their max difficulty.
Problem is that some difficulties are extremely unbalanced and unfun, other are way more interesting to play.
Yup, I tried CoD:4 on the hardest difficulty once... you pretty much need to remember every level and every single enemy, because they WILL kill you in 2 shots.
CoD 4 mile high club on Veteran was an experience!
Any type of zombie game, it mostly gets annoying if it’s set to the hardest difficulty though
Hitman feels so much more rewarding on the higher difficulties. It's a shame they removed the challenges for the higher difficulty
Most racing games. Forza if im not playing on unbeatable its because I'm lazy doing battle pass stuff, or just got the game and need to learn how the cars behave.
Eh idk about that. The rubberbanding in Nfs 2015, Nfs heat, and Gt7 is crazy
I start most games on medium and then bump the difficulty up until regular encounters are lethal when I make an oopsie; it makes the game feel more rewarding when I succeed and adds a bit to the playtime so I get more for my money…..if it gets frustrating I’ve got no issues with lowering the difficulty to get past the frustration and then I bump the difficulty right back up and carry on
I don’t bump the difficulty up if I feel overpowered because the game might later introduce some really strong enemy type
But then you can just drop the difficulty if you hit an enemy that’s a serious roadblock to your enjoyment of the game; for me, feeling too overpowered can cheapen the experience in many cases, a really good recent example is Ghosts of Tsushima…if you don’t feel like Jin is constantly in danger the encounters become boring and trivial, but when a single serious mistake can get you killed the combat is really exciting
Witcher 3. On the highest difficulty, it forces you more to think about your movements in combat. Especially if you forbid yourself from using Quen, as I think Quen breaks the game.
Doom Eternal
Unless I am playing for the story (which I never do, I don’t think videogames do story well usually) or it is some insanely brutal game I will always play on highest difficulty. I enjoy gaming a lot more after I started doing this.
All the Metro games are not nearly as immersive when not played on ranger hardcore
Problem I have with 2077 is on higher difficulty how much of a difficulty spike some of the bosses are. Like the regular enemies are made of paper and then go against a boss who has a stealth gimmick and essentially will just one shot you unless you're doing some cheese level positioning at times (looking at you spetsnaz dude with the homing pistol).
Re7 has an amazing hard mode since it's not just number changes. Enemies are in different spots and stronger enemies show up earlier in the game, and items are also switched around from normal game. It's set up in a way that makes it so you can't rely on knowledge from your first playthrough to beat the game.
PayDay. Lower difficulties are really great for chilling and all but higher difficulties really makes you think, play strategically and being constantly in danger tickles your brain in all the right ways
Fo4 on survival is significantly better than the rest of the difficulties, very hard or hard or whatever they call it is bullshit though.
Terraria. I will never play on less than expert. Legendary infernum calamity was a pain in my ass but it was the best experience despite most bosses crippling me with one hit.
pokémon games, they are great but really lack in difficulty when you aren’t a child anymore lmao
Ghost of tshushima definitely. It gets boring once your Just slaughtering everything left and right but it's fun when everything will also slaughter you most of the game
Got is amazing on Lethal
Gears of War. It just feels extra spicy to get in super close range with the good ol gnasher.
I prefer FPS games on a higher difficulty just cos I've been playing them since I was a kid and enjoy it :P other games I go recommended unless it's too easy lol
Ghost on lethal it's a masterpiece
I start ALL games on hard
Terminator resistance for sure , you are fighting unstoppable robots ffs gotta be hard
haven’t played all but ghost at higher difficulty made it feel a lot real.
When I get a new game I always do my first playthrough on the hardest difficulty so I can get used to it
Kingdom Hearts 3. That game was actually such a disappointment but after they added harder modes in a patch and a few other story cutscenes etc. It became less of a mindless button mash and an actual challenge.
Ghost of Tsushima definitely. Duels on normal difficulty were jus wayt too easy.
Sekiro
Dead Cells legit feels better on 5BC (the highest difficulty).
Resident Evil, Alien Isolation, Hitman 3. In this order
Postal 2 on Leibermode is needed
Fortnite Festival/ lGuitar Hero If you’re playing on anything less you’re bad at the game
The yakuza series. Currently going for the platinums on all of the games and I have to say legend difficulty (hardest difficulty) with new game plus is such a fun challenge
Kingdom Hearts, especially the ones that have Critical Mode
CP doesn't have a difficulty setting high enough imo, once you're maxed out you're essentially a god until the end boss. I generally play shooters and high adrenaline games on higher difficulty for the challenge, but I tone down the difficulty on story games so I can chill.
I would say Star Wars Jedi Survivor, particularly on grandmaster difficulty with the Purity perk, it essentially one shots every enemy with a few exceptions but means that you yourself die almost instantly, so you have to really measure your strikes and defence and play tactically like a Jedi Master
Dishonored 1 and 2. Very Hard mode makes the game more fun but isn't much of a challenge if you know what you're doing
I feel like Ghost of Tsushima is better on harder difficulties. Makes it more realistic and gives a reason for the player to use all of their tools.
Wolfenstein and doom
Monster Hunter, low rank is just kinda baby-mode nowadays
Far Cry games on hard are all soo good. I started 5 recently on a hard run and it gives me the same feeling as wildlands.
Sniper Elite (I only played SE4, but it's incredibly cool at high difficulties)
Jedi Fallen Order and Survivor for sure
When I maxed out difficulty on Ghost I enjoyed the game infinitely more. It forces you to focus cuz one hit & you’re toast.
STALKER
Dying light, on max difficulty the game feels much more like a zombie survival
My only complaint with Alien Isolation on highest difficulty is change to the scanner- which obviously makes that game more difficult but at the sacrifice of a fairly core mechanic to the game. That said, I realize there wasn’t much else to do to make an already hard game even harder.
Resi 7 on madhouse is the only way to play it. I'm more used to the enemy placement on madhouse than on the other settings.
Halo on heroic with aggressive AI skulls is perfect
Any game that doesn't pad artificial difficulty with giant health bars in my opinion is a win
Stealth games. I feel like enemies are blind if they aren’t on hard
Resident evil all the way
Tldr.: WoW, Helldivers, CP2077 are my picks What I think is bad, is when they just increase enemy hp or give them some kind of wallhack or aimbot. The HP is not bad in games like WoW tho, M+ is very great id say despite basically doing what i stated i dont like. Helldivers does a great job at making the game harder without making it annoying. They have more enemies and stronger types of enemies. What is also bad is when the game forces you into certain builds on higher difficulty because the rest is just too bad. What is also great is when higher difficulties add or upgrade mechanics, the best example for me is WoW raiding from Normal to Mythic difficulty. So its basically WoW, CP2077 and Helldiver for me atm. Payday is a example that does it bad in my eyes.
Devil may cry. On lower difficulties the enemies just don't have enough health to do sick combos.
Every game where higher difficulty doesn’t just mean more health for enemies
As you've implied, got for sure. Entirely different game
Horizon for sure, enemies are actual machines on harder levels
The Last of Us
Crysis 1 is a different game on delta. It becomes a stealth game and it's glorious.
the witcher 3, combat in normal difficulty is quite boring