This entire video basically goes into Bruce Lee's philosophy on martial arts. That the goal is not to look cool or any shallow reason like that, but rather the self-growth and discipline that you gain over the experience. You start off as a novice, fumbling around the combat system, similar to dancing, martial arts, swimming etc, but as you get the hang of it the difficult techniques cease to give you trouble. It becomes second-nature, and once that's ingrained into you, you continue your growth by seeing how else you can apply your knew-found knowledge. Action games and fighting games are the easiest to apply this theory to. You can read more about it in John Little's book about Bruce "The Warrior Within"
The question I put to you is whether or not that self growth should come from playing video games and not something more edifying or of greater importance?
I feel like the hard mode in Nier: Automata was such a missed opportunity. There's such a massive gulf between normal, where enemies might as well be hitting you with pool noddles, and hard, where the most forgiving boss is Marx who will only knock you down to 25% health on any hit and everyone else will be one-shotting you outright (good luck with Hegel blindsiding you constantly). I believe they HAD to do it because of the 99 cap on healing items, if the bosses were at all forgiving you could have healed to full with no repercussions. I wish they put on a smaller cap on items and given a slighter buff to the enemy's hp and damage instead of the massive one they went with, they can save that for very hard. A while ago I started a no-item normal run and while it's not what I'd call hard, it definitely can kill you if you're not paying attention and it is more compelling than the actual hard mode. In fact, it gives the lifesteal chips a reason for existing unlike every other mode in the game.
Yeah that is my gripe with lazily tacked on hard modes that make your defenses into a piece of paper and one mistake sends you to the gaemover screen. Should make me think more not get more frustrated
I feel like a game's normal difficulty should encompass the intended experience of a game, or that whichever difficulty mode is supposed to be the most well-balanced and well-crafted should state to the player that it's the best option. The only series I can think of that did this was the Halo series with it's Heroic difficulty. It would tell you that "This is the way Halo is meant to be played" when hovering over the option in the difficulty selection menu, so that's what I played on for the most well-crafted experience. It was challenging, but not ball-busting like on Legendary.
I replayed through Halo Combat Evolved on Heroic and found that way more enjoyable than Normal, Then I tried Halo 2 of Legendary and holy shit was that fucking hard. So I guess first play-through I'll stick to the 2nd hardest difficulty and if I'm in the mood to play it again with a challenge it will be the hardest difficulty.
No, the intended difficulty has to be named "Hard" or something similar for marketing reason, because playing on a difficulty called "Normal" these days is like admitting to not being above average in driving skills or penis size.
I found out a friend plays every game on the highest difficulty setting. He never gloated just mentioned it one day and I tried to follow in his footsteps and I found for most games the higher difficult y amplifies both flaws and strengths. I will absolutely recommend upping the difficulty on every game any time you notice it getting routine.
I am honestly the kind of guy who does a first playthrough on normal and then the next playthrough I play on the next highest difficulty but I never change a difficulty in a play through even if I have the option. My playthroughs are always clean one difficulty.
Idk why I've never had the confidence to really go above normal in most cases but next time I'm faced with that difficulty select screen I'll think about you!
I know that feeling very well, I was afraid of hard difficulty in dmc 3 so I didn't play dmc 3 anymore until about 3 months ago. Than I got back and I spend about 1 month just playing dmc 3 whenever I could
Did you just call FPS a non-skill based genre ?... If your only knowledge of FPS ends with Call of Duty, Battlefield or any modern cover shooter, then yeah, you're right. But other than that you are dead wrong.
Whelp I didn't make my self clear I'm sorry about that, by skill based games I meant in-game skills like devil may cry style and normal attacks. Again I'm sorry for not making myself clear
Before watching the video: it'd be great if developers left a note next to difficulty choices saying: "this game was originally designed for [insert difficulty here]", unless they really did design it for multiple difficulties which I find hard to imagine in most cases. That way you'd know which difficulty you should play on. The main reason why say this is because developers sometimes just change HP values for enemies on harder difficulties, turning them into damage sponges which in 99% is just boring.
The importance of that is zero to me. I prefer progressing and owning enemies than dying constantly and having to do everything the hard way. It's more fun to me :) I don't need to prove anything to anyone so I just enjoy the game as is, on the difficulty it sets for me which is usually easy or normal.
Definitely depends on the game in question, at least for me. Uncharted 4 is basically the same experience on Easy as it is on Crushing, largely because its approach to difficulty is uninspired: you do less damage, they do more damage. Furthermore, the limited moveset makes high-level play indistinguishable from stuff the game forces you do to. I actually think the game is generally worse on the higher difficulty, because it discourages the kind of risky, seat-of-your-pants behavior that the game wants you to do. Contrast that to a game like DOOM, which I'd argue must be played on a difficult level you consider to be above your comfort level. Every combat encounter should be stressful and anxiety-inducing, and harder difficulties induce more enemies and less convenient groupings; a big draw of the DOOM games is walking into a room, seeing what enemies are present, deciding on an order to take them out, and figuring out who to isolate them, so the more often this is presented, the better. Moreover, the health-recovery system is predicated on taking calculated risks, so putting the player in that position more often shifts the objective in battle constantly, alleviating a lot of the monotony. The Last of Us took a similar approach as Uncharted 4, but the result was far more successful. Because the story is centered around beating the odds and overcoming an unbearable situation, playing on a harder difficulty allows the gameplay to more closely match the theme. "How the fuck am I supposed to pull this off?!" is an emotion that does, and should, occur often when playing a game like TLOU, and it only manifests when the player is pushed beyond their comfort zone.
Came here to say something similar. Playing Uncharted 3 on hard was a special kind of boring monotonous hell that really soured me on the whole game. Maybe it comes down to mechanical depth, only if it's there the hard mode can scratches that itch
Man, this is true for Japanese developed games, not so much for western games. Western games usually cheap out on difficulty and they simply do increasing buffs... more health to enemies, less health to you, same number of enemies, no alterations on the way you *should* play the game. Japanese games in the other hand usually *should* be played on hard as they're usually developed with that difficulty in mind. Take for instance Platinum Games (textbook example for what you're trying to convey, not surprised you chose NieR to illustrate this fact)... their games are developed to be played in hard. Same thing could be said about tons of Japanese games, not so much about western games. Many games actually change the way you play and put new obstacles or different AI for enemies as you increase difficulty, this, in my eyes, is the best scenario. I love your videos. I can see from the games you play and the comments you make that you share a lot of the games, thoughts, ideas and genres that I enjoy as well. I've played most Japanese games in Hard mode since the PS2 days but there sure are western games (such as HZD) that have tight game design sensibilities. EDIT: BTW, you're one of my favorite youtubers man. I feel I could have a good conversation with you about gaming and game design for hours. I seriously usually feel you're voicing many of the same ideas and thoughts I have about the subject.
For example Kingdom Hearts 2 on Critical mode doesn't just bump up the enemy damage rate it also greatly boosts your damage rate and gives you lots of useful mid game abilities at the beginning and as a result the game feels much faster
I don't particularly think it's right to generalize a whole region like that. Some western games are difficult and some Japanese games are easy. I think we should simply address the difficultly to all games.
@T'was: Not to mention that Souls, one of the current Japanese-made franchises known for its supposed brutal difficulty, has just exactly the kind of lazy and zero-effort enemy health boosts @drubio was criticizing when it goes into its harder NG+ difficulties.
I played Vanquish on Hard difficulty (if I recall correctly) and it was an exhausting experience - I barely made it past the first 2 or 3 levels. And yet I have 'mastered' the Souls Borne games.
My favorite Hard mode experience is Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, No EXP, more specifically! You get abilities at the start of the game to make it a bit easier. I've always treated KH as a simple X button masher back in the day. When I first did a regular Critical Mode run, not once have I bothered to use summons, summon leveling and Cups not withstanding. With No EXP, I've used them where they were most helpful for certain mob fights. Many new ways to play the game opened up and I will go out and say it's my favorite game because of the combat. I hope KHIII can live up to it!
Spicy topic, nice ! Higher difficulties are certainly great in some games but in others it skips "hard" to go straight to bullshit x) CoD on Veteran for example or most shooters where ennemies have hitscans on highest difficulty. But some handle difficulty very well ! I played Horizon on the hardest difficulty and no HUD elements and it was an absolute delight ! There are a lot of visual elements that show you how the machine reacts to your attacks, those damage numbers were unnecessary and playing without them has never hindered me in any way. I also just finished PREY which I played on Normal with no HUD because I like to take my time in immersive sims and replay value is great in this genre of games so I know I'll be doing a Nightmare playthrough at some point :) But Normal felt just right for the type of experience I wanted to have and I died a fair amount of times due to my own mistakes, which is the sweet spot of difficulty in my opinion. The amount of visual storytelling in this game is incredible ! I did all the sidequests and main story without the quest markers and it was very immersive trying to look for clues in the environement. Playing on harder difficulties might have killed that part of the game though as I couldn't have taken that much time carelessly looking at every email and note. Some genres definitely scale better than others with difficulty. I personally prefer my RPGs on Normal or Hard, and rarely use the hardest difficulty. The Witcher 3 on Death March is a great challenge but I certainly had some moments where combat was dragging down my enjoyment as I just wanted it to be over so I could see the rest of the world and the stories the game had still in store for me. Same goes for Skyrim where combat is clunky as hell and every ennemy seems to one shot you on Legendary until you get some decent gear and loads of skill points to level up like a madman. After that good luck trying to die.
Awesome video! My first and only playthrough of Horizon was on Ultra Hard, and I would argue it changed me as a person lolol. But interestingly enough it was the game that made me realize the same ideas you are saying here. It pushed me and made me adapt at every step and I felt so much accomplishment after finishing it.
I'm not really sure when exactly it was that I found you, but I know it was with one of your DMC3 videos. I still say that DMC3 Storytelling one is the best video on youtube because of how damn well you did it, but I won't gush over that here. After that video and a few more, I spotted this several months ago. I'm not a person who likes being challenged. I get that makes me seem lazy, but I don't enjoy being stressed out. Stress makes me exhausted, and I'm exhausted enough for me to deal with what I would consider to be a time where I can have some fun. Sometimes silly, sometime serious, but fun nonetheless. However, I've always kept this video's theme in the back of my mind: "Try challenging yourself once in a while." To the point where after going through Doom 4 and finding it too easy on the standard... I decided to up the difficulty to Nightmare (I'm not a masochist, so Ultra-Nightmare was just not going to happen). It was significantly harder. I found, much like you here in Horizon, that I couldn't use the same tactics as I did before and come out victorious. There was a lot of trial and error, as well as trying different perks and weapons that I barely glanced at... However, I still found the game Fun. Almost exhausting at times, whereas I could only do a level or two per day max, but... It was a lot of fun. I did the very same thing for Dying Light recently as well. I went through the game on normal at my own pace, almost petrified at the limitations you were given during Nightmare mode, but... I eventually played it, found it kinda fun and hella rewarding! It's gotten to the point where anything below has gotten so easy that it's almost boring in comparison. I'm no adrenaline junkie, nor do I still enjoy constantly making things harder for myself to do anything. I'm not always going to play on the hardest difficulties, but... I can definitely see what you see in it. How the challenge can be rewarding, be it something 'digitally tangible' or just self satisfaction. So thank you, for making this video and encouraging me to be better
I'd play a game on Hard if I enjoyed it on Normal. Since the HD-era for western AAA games though (and maybe before that), it's like Normal is Easy and Hard should be Normal so most of the time, I play them on Hard. That being said, sometimes the difficulty isn't handled well. For some devs, the idea of Hard Mode is either bullet-sponge enemies, perfect-aiming enemies, enemies with super-armor up the ass, enemies that kills you in 2 hits, less health for your character, basically just adding a zero to their values. It's just fake difficulty and not fun. At this point, I'd rather play a game that handles Hard better, like Ninja Gaiden.
Great video. I recently SS'd DMC3 and, like you, never thought i would be able to do it even after playing it for such a long time, but once i finally managed to do it... It felt amazing! I feel like i improved so much as a overall player thanks to that masterpiece of a game. Again, really good job on the video!
I would say difficulty could be a double edge sword. The best example I have is Yakuza 0 I played the whole game on hard up until Goros last boss. Then I had to bring the difficulty down to easy because I got so fed up on how impossible it was. It put such a bad taste in my mouth by the end of the game I did not give a shit what happens in the story. Honestly I regret playing it on hard because I don't really feel it added anything for me. It just made some boss fight bull shit with the amount of health they had. Also it hurt the story thematically because Goro and Kiryu shouldn't be struggling in a fight. But with that said I love playing games like Devil May Cry on the harder difficulties because the stronger enemies and bosses really give you the opportunity to really play the game in a way it was meant to be played. So over all I just think you have to pick what games are worth playing on harder difficulties.
"Kiryu and Majima shouldn't be struggling in a fight" never knew fighting off an entire Yakuza family should be easy, now your free to play games however you like and I won't judge you but I mean cmon the game goes out of its way to make the Dojima family seem cruel and powerful, I do think Yakuza games can feel cheap and artificial when under levelled cause you don't have the proper abilities to fight these bosses especially since there's no level recommendation system so new players just going through the main story on hard are gonna get stomped unless they stock up on items so if you ever end up playing through it again take your time and smell the roses, hope I'm not coming across as an elitist just gotta had to defend my baby
I am not saying Yakuza is a bad game I love it. But Goro's last boss is just dumb because it is the only part of the game where they through two bosses at you with no warning. It a big build up to fight the one family head, but then this one guy shows up for basically no reason other then look at this twist. And when I say they shouldn't be struggling I meant the story sets up them up to be on another level almost super human, so seeing them have a hard time in game play just doesn't sit right. Basically after my play through I felt I should have just left it on normal, playing it on hard just made the game a lesser experience. It might be fine on a new game + where you can keep your skills, but for a first go around just play on normal and enjoy the story.
xin0555 DMC3 and most action set up there main characters to be badass and unstoppable but since there super hard it's up to you to live up to the character your playing as, I'd recommend playing on Normal mode if you aren't going to complete each character's side business cause it feels like the game on Hard mode is expecting you too which is why it could've really used a level recommendation system, seriously I stopped buying upgrades intentionally cause I thought i was over levelled only to realize I wasn't levelling up enough
Starting with the TLDR: difficulty is not the only way to engage the player to play the game the way it should be played. I’d say Yakuza is less about fun and engaging gameplay and more about providing spectacle for the player to watch and interact with in combat. I just finished 0 and Kiwami, and Kiwami has some bullcrap boss and enemy design. You get to the end of the game and suddenly everyone and their brother has a gun, and getting constantly shot and knocked over doesn’t feel fun. That being said, I still have bloody good fun when I play those games, even if I don’t think they’re the most deep or challenging. I think the big engagement in Yakuza comes from running around, and meeting weird people and stopping to play Outrun for an hour because you misunderstood the lady at the arcade. To me those janky fights and ridiculous stories are so compelling because of the running around for hours I’ve done just doing mundane crap, watching these characters figure out life.
Steven Case as someone who's played almost every game in the series I wholeheartedly disagree, it does feel janky and bad to get your ass kicked but when your actually doing well it feels great and smooth, it's kinda like how some people say Classic Sonic is janky and un con controllable and others say he's weighty and fun same thing applies to Yakuza's combat Edit I misspelled a couple times
I fully agree. I had the same with The Witcher 3... My first playthrough was on normal and the use of the Qen sign (shield) and spamming quick attack worked until the credits rolled... I've replayed this game last month and cranked it up to Death Marshes (highest difficulty) and all of a sudden I needed to use EVERY strategy to survive.. Clever uses of signs, potions, oils and bombs were critical...The bestiary was actually necessary... This increased the fun factor by a big amount and made the game even more engaging.
That was a good video, thanks for making it. When it comes to Nier A, I feel like the crucial problem that game had with bringing out its mechanical depth was the *lack of a middle ground between challenge and forgiveness*. I believe it's really important, for most people and most games, to have a "place" in terms of difficulty where the player can feel like they're being challenged and forced to learn/adapt, without being too heavily punished for mistakes. Because that, I think, is what makes so many shy away from hard modes. Nier Automata on Normal makes you virtually invincible, Nier Automata on Hard one hit kills you left and right - and there's no in-between! This set of difficulty options doesn't have what it takes to satisfy most people because it will either be too *easy* to encourage experimentation and learning, or too *punishing* to do so. It's really damn crucial to hit that middle ground, in my opinion. Compare it to, say, the initial playthroughs of Devil May Cry 1 or 3. Rarely if ever will you be one or even two hit killed, the enemies and even bosses are forgiving enough that you can almost always make quite a few mistakes before it's back to square one - but they're still difficult enough that you can't just mindlessly mash through them. Only on later difficulties, after one or even several playthroughs of initial learning, do they start raising the punishment to that degree. Or look at the masterstroke of design that is *Furi* - game has a set of teeth-grindingly difficult bosses, particularly on its hard mode, but its smart "continue system" and only moderately high enemy damage makes it basically impossible to lose to a boss without taking at least somewhere between 6-12 hits, and that's without considering the ways to regain health during a fight. I realize not EVERY player will need this measure of forgiveness, it depends on one's talent for difficult games as well as one's own tolerance for repetition and failure. I didn't play Horizon on UH, but from what I gather it's extremely unforgiving and would probably be too much for me, while for you it brought out the best in the game. But I do think it's a crucial point for designers to consider if they want more players to take the "plunge" that you're (rightfully) advocating in this video. Difficulty that just punishes without leaving (not too much) room for mistakes, experimentation and learning will probably never make mainstream success.
''Where are you going?'' - ''To get blackout drunk.'' I don't know what it was about this moment but it gave me the best laught I've had for a while. Thank you.
So, I tried this interesting idea. I'm so used to guns blazing and powering through levels of all the games I've ever beaten. It never occurred to me to play on a harder difficulty because I never saw the point of constantly dyiing all the time. However as someone who was used to playing easy/normal regularly, I decided as a goal to beat The Master Chief Collection on Heroic all the way through and then Legendary. I gotta say you are so right that as the difficulty goes up the games forces you to think about every move you make as well as making the best use out of all your tools, and dying constantly forces you to try new things and improve your gaming style. For that, I'm enjoying Halo Combat Evolved far more than I ever did, and noticing way more than I would normally do compared to just a normal play through....And for that I thank you sir!
That's an interesting perspective, I'll defenetly try playing on hard more often from now on I feel like some types of games (especially rpgs) conditioned me to think playing on hard means you have to grind more, have battles lasting unnecessarily longer and depending on rng I do like having self imposed challenges on RPGs a lot tho, such as finishing a dungeon in persona in one day, doing a bp only run in paper mario or going through a Pokemon game with a team of weaker than average mons
Last fall, I started a new file on Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet (yes, I'm a weeb, yes, I like SAO, and no, you can't change my mind), but without putting anyone in my party. And WOW, I was not expecting it be that hard. The game's fun as is, but it can be a tad mindless. As you can rush in and, for the most part, rely on your allies to keep alive/revive you when you die. But when you're playing solo, a single sniper that notices you, can kill you almost instantly. And that's not taking into account the fact that there's almost never just one sniper. Even if the enemies are decently lower leveled than you, any automaton with a machine gun can really ruin your day, since they aim for your head and getting hit there does extra damage. Playing Fatal Bullet solo turns it from an action game where you have to reflexively gun down everything in you path (unless you use a lightsaber like I did on my first two playthroughs), to almost a puzzle game, where every room of every dungeon is a new scenario, with it's own order of operations to go through in order to get out of there alive. I still haven't beaten the main story, or even started on the free DLC the switch release comes with, all of which is much harder than the base game
Difficulty puts game mechanics and design choices to test, just like the player skill. It either transforms player expression into a masterful display or expose cheesy-artificial challenges that are unsatisfying to beat. DmC is a bad example of this as the hard mode introduces more angel and demon enemies which reduces gameplay variation by more than half, even though gameplay variation is the main strength of that game. I beat the original PS2 version of DMC3 (yeah, the unfairly difficult one) and I felt I was always given more tools to beat than the challenge, and despite the challenge I was the powerful one because I could stagger enemies. Thus instead of making Dante fight at my level, I was invited to fight at Dante's level. (Congrats on S rankings. You are more Stylish now!)
A had a similar experience when I played _Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia_ on *New Game Lvl.1 Hard Mode.* On my Normal run, I would often tank hits and spam my close range weapons without much thought. That simply does not work at higher difficulties. Even mobs deal insane amounts of damage and they move really fast. I ended up using a lot weapons with the stun effect like Topor, which I literally never used in my Normal difficulty run.
A lot of contemporary games haven't challenged me a lot, I realize a lot of deaths I have on those it's because me being reckless yet a lot of time that strategy seems to work. Normal mode nowadays it was easy mode used to be like, and modern easy mode it's prettymuch a walk through the park for people that never played a game and just want to see it. You made some great points in this video, I think it's time I tackle Hard mode more often, and see the real challenge and design of my favorite games.
Glad you enjoyed! If you're looking for a recent game to really challenge you, then I can not recommend Pathologic 2 enough. One of the most intense plays I've had in recent memory.
Nice video, but I would also argue that the enjoyment of games can come from other sources than difficulty and that you can enjoy the game as much as you'll be able to with easy settings while harder ones may hinder your enjoyment. I would never have gone through the 5 hours mark in Nier:Automata had I played it on hard (in fact, I don't even know if I could have left the damn factory...) and thus, I wouldn't have been able to experience my favourite narrative in a game ever. And the story can also be the one you create. I rarely play any civ game in a difficulty higher than prince, not that I can't, but my goal when I play usually isn't to win the game, but to make the nicest, greatest, bestest civilization ever, I want to play the role of a ruler who expands his empire and promotes culture and artistry instead of one who desperately tries to get that one city state before turn 50 to get its resources and be able to defend against my aggressive neighbours. Also, higher difficulty sometime prove to be simply bullshit. Legendary difficulty in X-Com 2 means your guys will get one shot by pretty much any attack at most stages of the game. You can mitigate that issue by playing cleverly, keeping the initiative and always staying in cover, but the random nature of the game means even with the best strategy, you will lose soldiers, sometimes very well-trained ones because you lost a diceroll. And I understand that it's by design, that the devs want us to be able to adapt to sudden trouble and try to bounce back from that, but this is way too extreme. A bad roll in Darkest Dungeon can screw you over hard, but the game's death mechanic prevents your characters from getting instakilled (outside of some rare scenarios) and that manages to mitigate the frustration that comes with randomness. Basically a difficulty too high can force you to rely on exploits or luck to win which isn't more fun than relying on a dominant strategy at low level. So, I'd say experimenting with difficulty is a good idea if you enjoy a game for its mechanics, but not necessarily if you get some other satisfaction from it.
A lot of people have said it already, but I think that harder difficulties need to have some thought put into them. An example of a good one to me would be Ninja Gaiden. The game is already hard on Normal, but when you go back and do it on Hard, they change up the enemies and they change attack patterns and reacts. However, it still doesn't take too long to kill lesser enemies, but they can kill you at the same fast rate if you aren't careful. To me that feels fair and it feels like more of a "It's either you or me" deal versus "We just made enemies tougher and you weaker, figure it out." That feels so lazy to me and it isn't fun.
You mentioned NieR; Automata. Good man! Now, I totally understand your message especially when framed in relation to that game. Personally hit lvl. 67 before going for that [E]nding, and then doing that "thing". Now decided to repeat the game fully then go for Hard after the [C]ool [D]iverging point. Though there are some titles that have me going for Hard basically immediately especially if I've played an older game in a certain franchise. An example would be doing Normal difficulty on Arkham Asylum, before doing Hard in Arkham City onwards the first time through.
This a great point, Codex! I usually play on Normal when I play a game for the first time, and then after finishing multiple playthroughs on one difficultly, I would later increase the games' difficultly. What are you thoughts on dynamic difficulty in games such as Resident Evil 4, or Battle Garegga?
One of the games that makes me want to continuly go for the hardest difficulty which is kingdom hearts 2 final mix, critical always makes you change how you play and understand what you have to even attempt to do, especially on lvl 1 crit mode
I knew that I would feel more satisfied beating God of War on hard than anything easier. I honestly think it's the mode the game was supposed to be played on.
DOOM 2016 has a pretty fun "Hard mode" In Nightmare. Yes, as far as enemy placement and attack patterns it's the same as the previous two difficulties and it only really ups damage but it honestly taught me a lot of fundamentals about the game that i didn't care about before. I learned how every enemy should be dealt with. Learned what weapons are effective when and even how to combo weapons. It was a really fun experience especially through the second half of the game when they introduce every enemy. The experience got me even more Hyped for DOOM Eternal because of this and i think i might start it up on nightmare from the jump.
Really appreciate this video. I like video games but I'm not super skilled at them. Easy or normal is all I can manage. I'm glad someone on the internet finally says that is ok. Great video.
I think its for this reason I also adored the new Doom title, that was a fun game to play on the harder difficulties because you started using everything; dodging, attacking, switching weapons, equipment and timing when to use glory kills for health and when to use the chainsaw for ammo. While its not as deep as say DMC4, for a shooter its fantastic and the sequel seems to be growing more into that area utilising everything at your disposal. I may have to try out H:ZD on a harder difficulty because it got a bit dull when i started to just crush thunderfoots.
I played God of War 4 on hard, which was the first time playing a God of War on hard without having finished it before. Though, I mainly play games on hard though as I like to think I'm not half bad at them and can manage pretty well. I think MGS does a good thing of playing on hard, (I also like the no alerts no kills run too) of providing the best experience of the game.
im looking for a video talking about "you should play on hardest to use the most of the toolset" and they used witcher 3 with potions as an example, but i cant find the video and wanted to show a friend haha D: this one is good too :)
Great video! CodexEntry pretty much expressed my own opinion. In my case it was exactly dmc4 who had awakened this crave to get more challenging experience and actually payed off alright. From the latest examples i would mention Uncharted 4 and stand alone Lost legacy and theirs Crushing difficulty modes. Thanks to destructible environment and vertical design it makes for great playground for player to use. I strongly advise everyone to check this out if haven't already.
I can relate to this easily. I had basically the same experience with Horizon - I could just sorta mindlessly stumble my way through most of that game on the normal difficulty. But because it's not like I _never_ died(Aloy's not the most resilient protag out there till you get that secret armor), I never had a reason to turn it up a notch along with my engagement. I do this in most games. "Normal is meant for most people, right? I'm sure I'm like most people, even though I've been playing games for like twenty years now I never feel like I'm particularly good at them". Then I watched my local twitch streamer play it on Ultra Hard after being recommended it by one of the devs, and the way he had to play it looks _so much more fun_. The whistle ability actually seemed balanced. He had to act like a hunter. Every encounter became a struggle he had to figure out. I'm not planning on going through Horizon again any time soon. I'm not super eager to jump back into a story I didn't enjoy all that much, and my patience long since wore thin on the things the game is bad at(human combat, inventory management, some of that open world bloat and boring characters being the most egregious in my eyes). And I don't think turning up the difficulty will improve all games or anything. Once I actually did go through Dragon Age Inquisition on hard mode 'cause people told me that was an appropriate challenge for veteran gamers, and then I had just as miserable a time as usual with good ol' janky Bioware combat. But when Horizon 2 eventually comes out, you can bet your ass I'm gonna try that game on a harder difficulty and actually get a taste of that engaging experience.
I recently played quite a few games on varying difficulties/self imposed challenges and here's my thoughts. When I played BotW on Master Mode it was enjoyable in the early game, but towards mid and end game it just scaled awfully. Everything was an HP sponge, and the regenerating health made every fight a chore. It didn't remove any dominant strategies. If anything, it made the existing ones that aren't fun, even more required. I had a more enjoyable time on normal mode with some self imposed challenges that removed a couple dominant strategies. I played Uncharted 1 and on normal mode it felt like an awful slog with how much damage I took, paired with how slow health regenerates. I spent more time waiting to recover health than playing. I switched the game to easy mode and suddenly melee attacks were viable and I could do some running and gunning. It was way more enjoyable than hiding behind cover, popping out, aiming with an awful controller, then shooting the enemy; only to get shot and wait longer for health to recover. I then played skyrim on legendary difficulty (highest difficulty) and about 16 hours in I permanently went down to master (1 level below). On legendary you died in maybe 4-6 hits, even with heavy armor, so it was unrealistic to even level up your armor skill since you would die so quickly. Everything was also an HP sponge on top of that, and the game just encouraged me to abuse the AI by conjuring allies and using followers as meat shields. After going to Master I feel like it's the sweet spot in terms of damage done to you, but plenty of enemies die too quickly now, so it's not ideal. I've played that game before in the normal difficulty and I'm glad I'm playing on Master now. Generally my philosophy is to always have normal be the difficulty to play the game on a first playthrough, but nowadays I'm not sure. But at the same time the hardest difficulties in games can just be artificial and not fun. I haven't played Horizon yet, and I don't think I'd play on the highest difficulty my first time through, but something more than normal. Since you first played the game on normal, then playing it on the highest difficulty I'm sure you have a much greater knowledge of the game going into it. What difficulty would you recommend for a first playthrough?
usually, I play anything that is between normal to "very hard" difficulties but it also depends on how hard the game is. some games are hard enough on normal already but I do like to replay games I've already beat on normal on a higher difficulty level...
A friend recommended this video and it was a great watch! While I personally can't say how often I'll up the difficulty, I've found it can be a great way to spice up repeat playthroughs. I personally wish the original NieR had a better hard mode, because it really needed a setting that encouraged and rewarded more inventive gameplay. Sadly the numbers are way too highly inflated taking 5x as much damage in most cases.
Bayonetta games are always fun to try on harder difficulties but are more often than not a complete nightmare to Pure Platinum. Speaking as someone who did PP both Bayos on all difficulties through the sheer stubbornness that comes with being a Bayo freak. 😘
My constant challenge is that of working in neuroscience and still finding some time to play games Also another challenge which is always fun is finding constant new ways of saying Nier: archeologyst
generally i play games on Normal but i have been playing DMC3 on DMD as Vergil trying not to use items, so i'm no stranger to challenge. I'd like to provide a few reasons why NOT to play games on hard mode 1. The Frustration Factor excellently demonstrated in the beginning of the video, we've all been there, having a fight that just kicks our butt one too many times. DMC1 Phantom is a fight i have boundless respect for, but nearly put me off DMC1. can i just ignore that? not really, because generally people like to see the rest of the game. one boss, no matter how good it is, is going to get tired eventually. 2. Reduced Damage generally but not always, difficulty increases how much damage you take, and reduces the amount you deal. this can get stupid, like skyrim's 25% damage dealt on Legendary difficulty (why). this can lead to fights feeling like a tedious drag, and double down on dominant strategy rather than reduce it. again, i'm playing Vergil DMD, and i could try to style on enemies, but i tend to just spam the same beowulf combo over and over so i can keep laser focus on the enemies so that i can not die. 3. QoL/Misc stuff most games are painless when it comes to retrying, but older games not necessarily so, DMC1 for example is horrendous for this. continuing with a yellow orb works the way you'd expect, but if you want to restart, you go back to the title screen, wait for the game to load and THEN you can retry...oh and if you die, you HAVE to continue, and paired with how difficult DMC1, could i be blamed if i did put the game down, then and there? 4. (Sub)Optimal Gameplay hard modes can be great for people who want to push their skills, but what about other people? some of us don't want to spend our time mastering games, and the ones who have that time could be considered lucky. these casual losers who probably have stupid adult things like jobs, a more relaxing experience can be preferred where you don't have to remember how to do some complicated combo or look for real impact openings or whatever. i'd recommend going on hard if you find normal a bit shallow and disinteresting, some games really are too easy, such as DmC where i died...once...on Son of Sparda difficulty. sometimes stepping out of your comfort zone can be helpful. other times it just doesn't feel worth it
game designers biggest hurdle is saving the player from themselves. humans are evolutionarly hard coded to optimize the challenge out of a task. raising the difficulty more often results in the player seeing that one bullshit OP strategy/ability as the only viable path forward. my point being raising the difficulty can also have the player do the exact opposite of what you suggest.
I normally seperate in how i want to experience a game. In JRPGs e.g. I don't like to waste time in hard battles but rather continue the story. But if i want to play with focus on the gameplay/combat, i choose the Hard Mode (never Lunatic tho, this is alway rather frustrating than anything else for me).
Hi, I really like your video and if I may add a few points: Japanese games are much better at making the higher difficulties more interesting and in these games I always try to take the maximum difficulty. For Western games, when there are more than three difficulties, I take the second-last one, because the last one is often exaggerated and pushes you to throw yourself out of your window.
I switched to playing games on the hardest difficulty a couple of years ago. I found that when I bought a new game, I played it like I was in a trance state. I knew what was happening in the story, but the gameplay was kinda meh. It was like filler content. My first memories of making the switch to hard was Mafia II. I played through it once on release and wanted to play it agian a couple of months later. When faced with the difficulty options, I was like "ok, lets go for 1000G. Lets play on hard". And it was AWESOME! Every combat encounter was much more tense, I found myself playing smarter, using my equipment / enviroment a lot more and THAT safisfying feeling you get when you see the credits and know you have made it. Also, I was playing a lot more (more cautious, dying here and there, ...) which not only gave me a deeper appreciation for the game, since I think that was the way it was meant to be played, it also made me "get my moneys worth", since I wasn't done with it in a day and a half. Same as with Hotline Miami, were I achieved A+ on every lvl. Hard af at times, but incredibly satisfying.
EDIT: Was unaware of custom difficulty in games like State of Decay and TLOU2. Just do that. Thank you! I believe games can do a better job at difficulty adjustment though. Different people enjoy different aspects of difficulty, and having a way to adjust the games settings or choose from a wider array of challenges can really improve the game feel. Maybe having a difficulty select after a tutorial stage that better telegraphs what the player will experience asides from "We ,the game devs, think it is easy" mode or "Sweats" mode. Not sure how this will be done, but I think it can be with some prototyping. In other words: Some people love grinding away at a health bar, some people love learning about the depth within a gameplay system, some people love watching cutscenes, and some people love watch a game play itself after hitting a button repeatedly. Allow us to identify ourselves in your games.
I like that you share my opinion well kinda. I always tell people to play on Max difficulty to have a challenge and because they will probably end up playing the game once. So why not make it hard and enjoyable and not boringly easy.
This logic only holds if your raison d'etre is to play video games i.e. you're young enough. When you get older and have a job or family, you'll be able to accord less time and energy to video gaming. Subsequently, your ability will diminish and you'll find yourself needing to play at a lower difficulty. It's not nice but it's life.
This is why I like when games give you the option to switch difficulty on the fly. There was a point when I was playing Witcher 3 that I felt 0 challenge, and being able to switch to death march several hours in, really helped ground that experience for me (same with ACO as a matter of fact). I don't mind when games have just 1 difficulty either, like the Monster Hunters and Dark Souls of the world. Those games are unflinching in their design choices and honestly, considering the market today, I personally find that brave. The fact is, many gamers just don't have the time to invest to ''git gud''. Games that offer no assistance to that demographic just won't make a sale, despite everything else about the game appealing to them. However, there's really something to experiencing a wall, both narratively and mechanically; when a game says this guy is hard as shit to beat, and yea, he's hard as shit to beat. That moment of finally toppling that enemy is just honestly and simply, incredible. I don't wish all games try to kick your teeth in, but games I think need to at least do enough to not allow their players to engage with the mechanics on autopilot. I like feeling tested in games. I like when games have enough mechanical depth on the table, that even 10-20, maybe even 50hrs in, you're still grasping different facets of play. I don't think that it's all there is to games, but I completely agree that it's something unique to the medium that should be embraced. Great video man, glad to see this channel getting more traffic.
I always worry that hard mode will just waste my time with bigger health bars and less frequent checkpoints. I like difficulty, but I like it in short bursts, if I have to redo 3 minutes after each death, I'm bored. But I'm more of a type who speedruns on casual difficulties, but my first time is always on normal, no matter how hard it is. I like hard normals, but I don't start on hard because I tend to regret it during first run, it's something to do later.
This is why you always play the mainline KH games on the hardest possible difficulty (and not the handhelds because handhelds are just the same as lower difficulty but it takes longer). KH from beginner to arguably proud is just a x button masher. I don't blame them because yeah it works. Crit and Crit lv1? Using all the tools available to you makes the game so much more fun.
Have the same exact mentality, man. It's not about playing on hard for the sake of it, it's about playing the game that will force you to understand and use it's mechanics to the fullest. I just recentely played Castlevania Symphony of the Night Hardtype-hack - and it was very interesting. I get bored with easy games too fast, hate when games lock their difficulty levels behind "finish on this difficulty first" - i don't have time to play your game on boring difficulty just to get permission to play on the interesting one. I remember playing Guacamelee on hard by using cheat-code to unlock it from the start and thinking to myself - i love this game, but i would find it boring on normal (wich was highest difficulty without using cheat-codes), so why the even lock it, i don't have time to play this twice, i got enough games already in my backlog! I even legit get more exited for the game if i hear it has alot of difficulties to choose from, or if they add more in patches (like in the Horizon example). Sometimes tho if game's balance fundamentally broken even choosing hard mode do not save it(Automata, Dragon's Dogma)
I am the kind of guy who plays a game on normal first and than crunks up the dificulty with each playthrough until I have beaten the game on the hardest dificulty. But I am quite the oposide of of a perfectionist. Its enough fore me to beat Bayonetta on infinite Climax and to defeat Father Rodin and the Lost Chapter Angel Slayer. But pure platinum everything? Not worth it.
first time I played god of war I put it on god of war difficulty. took me half an hour to beat the tutorial monsters, 2 hours to beat the draugrs that you find when that bridge falls. I was dying all the time. I was a bit annoyed, certainly, but the feeling of completing the bosses was quite neat, and it felt like the things I learned about the combat and the monsters actually were important. Now by the end of the game I feel like I'm really using the best of the timing, skills and items I get on the game. Took down 5 of the 8 optional valkyries, one I beat in 5 attempts only lul. It may be tough or even cringy sometimes, but it feels to me that I spent better the time with this game than I would have on lower difficulty. I saw some youtubers that never upgraded the son atreus' bow, but on my playthrough I always kept him max rank on everything and was always glad when his skill cooldown was up. Raising difficulty depends on what games we are playing too. Devil may cry on hard difficulty? great. God of war? nice. But some other games have such a bad mechanic that raising difficulty makes it worse. That's not the fault of the players, but of lazy developers that think an enemy that is almost impossible to beat equals to fun. A game that makes us explore its unique mechanics for a variety of options is fun instead, and raising difficulty is one way to do that.
Hades does this perfectly with the pact of punishment. Set the parameters in conjuction of the heat and do your run. Normally I wouldn't do this in other games and although my highest level is 14 I would have never even wanted to try doing so if the game said to play on harder difficulties.
only halfway through the video and I gotta say, i had the same EXACT experience with Horizon. It really engaged me and made things terrifically rewarding at dick kicker difficulty
"if a game is yelling at you to do something that you are literally not able to reasonably do then the game may have fucked up somewhere". Actually had a recent experience that this applies to in Uncharted 4. I went back to platinum the PS3 trilogy, which entails the highest difficulty, and now I'm finally playing the fourth game for the first time. Started it on the highest difficulty since for once in the series it was unlocked from the get go. On this difficulty AI are extremely sensitive to anything you do so it's really easy to be detected. In an early chapter the game teaches you how to do a vertical stealth takedown, you and another character stealth kill someone in sync before the game tells you that killing from tall grass lets you hide the bodies, and then the other character says "let's see if we can keep this up". Without a doubt the game was telling me to tackle this next enemy encounter with stealth yet I couldn't for the life of me find a route that let me get more than one kill without being spotted. All the enemies are bunched up save for two and the only times during those two's patrol paths that allow you to kill from tall grass are exactly when some other enemy is starring you down. I had no choice but to go in guns blazing. It's been a recurring thing in many encounters since. It baffled me too because the series has always allowed for some stealthy approaches in many enemy encounters. Either enemy encounters weren't well thought out or the hardest difficulty wasn't designed with stealth in mind. Just thought I'd share my frustration as I have to agree with the whole higher difficulties shining a brighter spotlight on the game mechanics. I used to steer clear of higher difficulties but now I usually go for them right away (mostly because it means less playthroughs for completion). I'm still ass at hack n slash games but one day I intend to purchase the DMC PS4 re-releases and platinum every single one of them (already scooped up 4 on sale), one day. Great video as always man!
There was a severe lack of ropecaster in the Horizon footage. That weapon (which I had ignored on initial playthrough) was my saving grace in ultra-hard.
idk, i never found much of a use for it. Like, I tried using it for the stormbird fight and it took literally like 40 seconds to pin it down for like 15. Just hit a point where I was just like 'screw it, i'll just use elemental damage' and never really spent much time with it after. Then again, I was using the green one so it's probably just me being dumb so there ya go
Codex Entry I had the Hunter lodge one with three slots, and if you stack it's handling the cords zip out at lightning speed. As for elemental damage, I didn't find anything other than freeze terribly useful. Rope fulfilled the same role as electric, fire was just sorta there, and I never saw corruption work particularly well at all?
I S-ranked DMC 3 when it came out. That feeling of accomplishment will forever stay with me. Unfortunately no game since then could grip me hard enough that I felt it would be worth doing the same again. DMC 4 felt too slow compared to the third entry to me. I hope DMC 5 will be faster and have a better story. If it does I may S rank that game. Since I just play on PC these days I am also eagerly awaiting Monster Hunter World since that seems to have a set difficulty level like Dark Souls which is to this date the standard I set to properly balanced video games.
My satisfaction for clearing ultra-hard on Zero Dawn was dented a bit when I beat it, only to find out the achievement for beating on that difficulty was only on new game+. While I started from scratch and happened to idiotically overwrite it on my cleared 1st playthrough. WELP, I did it. Score one for me. Bringing the goddam ice age to every storm bird I encountered was worth it.
maybe i didn't heard it, or i just phased it through, but i feel that sometimes , if you always play on hard on a specific genre of gaming, you ruin the experience of others games. example : Nioh was such a cake walk for me, i never experienced what most player shouted to be the hardest things ever. just because i grew up with from software since 2004
I'm weird in that I like difficulty in games, but I don't pursue it very often unless it's on a repeat playthrough of a game where I KNOW the gameplay is fun. For example, I'm good at the combat in Spider-man or Batman Arkham ___: therefore I can pursue the highest difficulty knowing I'll enjoy it. On the other hand, I don't like difficulty for anything turn-based, save for Fire Emblem and even that not on the highest difficulty: if I want to do a repeat playthrough of those it's usually just to breezily enjoy the story, so I'll put it on the lowest difficulty. But hey, it sounds like it may be more fun to challenge myself a bit more even on FIRST playthroughs not just repeat and with games I don't usually hard mode. Maybe I'll take the time to give it a shot at some point :)
I enjoy the souls games so much that they practically destroyed my love of easy games I'm trying to find a game that feels like Dark Souls so I intentionally play games on higher settings sometimes I'll play it on an easier setting so I can get used to the mechanics then play it on a higher setting I can't play Modern Warfare 1 and 2 on recruit anymore I can only play it on veteran
While it's totally true that making a game more punishing is an effective way to get players to explore its combat system more deeply, I feel like giving a positive reason to do the same should be important too. I guess that's a harder thing to achieve when people do just use whatever is the simplest way to get the job done, but personally I find myself more drawn to explore my options in a game just for the sake of the pleasure of doing so, rather than being punished for not knowing some strategy that exists hidden away in the mechanics. I guess that's why I tend to appreciate some games for their combat that other people call dumb and button-mashy. I like to explore those games and see what I can do with those system simply because I like looking cool and having some variety, even if I don't technically need to. That probably still doesn't make me as good as a player that has been forced to really deeply understand the mechanics in order to succeed at all, but it certainly makes for a lot less frustration. This video does kind of make me want to go back and play Nier on a harder difficulty though. I always avoided that before because the game felt like it was meant to be played on Normal. I've heard stories about how the intro is really awful on harder modes, and I really don't like the idea of having to go without lock-on. The game also actively discourages playing above Normal too, and hearing the developers talk about the game, it was clear they were trying hard to make the combat as approachable as possible. But still, I can tell there's a lot more there I didn't explore, and I'd like to.
Did you finish Horizon Zero Dawn Ultra Hard on NG+? Just curious as I want to know if you started from rock bottom in Ultra Hard, or if you had a head start, and if you did have a head start, did it ruin the experience for you? Did it feel like you were cheating?
This advice also works in turn-based 4X games. Play on easier difficulty to learn what's good, then switch to a higher difficulty once the game becomes too easy.
I decided to play rachet and clack on hard for the first time, the game is NOT build for it, the controls are way to finicky and dodging bullets is basically impossible, but i will do that when i play god of war... whenever that happens
im glad that you actively acknowledge that this is more of a "you" thing and that youre NOT saying that you think ALL gamers should be playing it this way or that you think this is how the average gamer thinks. with that said, you definitely have a point in that playing on above-normal or hardest difficulty certainly brings in a LOT of satisfaction upon completion and that you can fully utilize what the game has to offer. unfortunately, the problem comes from how much time and energy out of our day required to accomplish that and were just talking about 1, single game here. we all have jobs and other life responsibilities to balance out and thats not even mentioning social obligations. combine that with the desire to play other games or even do something else like watch a movie for example. im not actively trying to bring you or your opinion down here. i just want to give you the cost required to achieve that kind of satisfaction for a playing a video game, not exactly something you would want to put down on the average job resume.
All of these are totally valid concerns, but I would also be a little slower to imply that just because a skill isn't marketable means it's not worth having. I think there's merit in attempting to master something that may not inherently be useful to you in the moment. For instance, most people who master martial arts aren't going to engage in a whole lot of hand to hand combat outside of their training or formal exhibition. However, even if that martial artist never has to throw a single sincere punch in their life, the journey to master a skill to that extent can potentially teach you a good bit about yourself. Lord knows that games have been able to teach me patience and humility on more than a couple occasions, and I'd say mastering any skill can grant you that kind of insight. And all of this is before we even take into account the most important fact that doing things that bring us satisfaction is important, maybe even the most important thing for us as individuals. Paying your bills and keeping up with people is vital and all, but so doing things that make us happy. I think that has intrinsic value on it's own. But you are right, it is a balancing act. You should always live up to your obligations and responsibilities and if games start to feel more like obligation than relaxation then yeah, maybe an adjustment is warranted, but either way you still need to make time for things that bring you joy.
@@CodexEntry again you put up valid points as well. obviously yes, the journey can give you many skills and virtues useful in life but in my experience, the journey has to be equal to the payoff. your example of mastering martial arts is something not only that could be brought up on a job resume/interview but could be brought up in almost any type of conversation with just about anyone because that is seen as something "worthy" of your time. video games are still seen as a "childish" thing by the average adult, especially with the older people. telling them youve mastered one specific game (and not as a joke) just sends you deeper into that hole. you should be proud of an accomplishment that you want to tell people about it but if it ends up with being seen as a disappointment or a complete waste of time by others, its just another reason why many people out there dont bother playing on the hardest difficulty.
This is kind of like Under the Mayo's challenge matters video except a good number of people just kept acting condescending towards him about it. I would probably try to play Nier Automata on harder modes, but the game's narrative is what gets talked about the most and I don't even think the narrative is good. I personally don't see what others do in that game's story. I just find it boring and poorly written. Anyways, that aside, I get the idea of playing on hard mode, I really do, but there is just one problem with this that prevents me from playing on hard with every game: not all hard modes are made equal, some games are just inherently more fun on easy because they don't waste your time nearly as much, for example cover shooters or a lot of games with hitscan weapons or not very fun on hard since it lowers the amount of chances you are even allowed to make mistakes. Cover shooters will have your health take longer to regen on hard so easy might be more fun since you are allowed to actually act like an action movie hero. Hitscan shooters to some degree too since you aren't chastised for not knowing every enemy placement and where all the health packs are. Then there are some games with awful mechanics that might not be fun on hard. I don't think I can handle playing Yakuza Dead Souls with it's weird aiming mechanics on anything above easy. Some games are also just straight up bad on easy like modern military shooters. Also, a lot of hard modes are just the devs lowering and raising HP a lot of the time too, I get the idea but so many hard modes don't have much thought put into them. I don't mind a game letting you change the difficulty, it gives me room to experiment and I can try it out where on a first playthrough where you can't change, you might accidentally select a difficulty too easy or too hard or where it will randomly spike and might make me give up. I liked that Spider-Man 2(PS5) lets you change whenever you want. The middle difficulty Spectacular was a good challenge if you ask me. Some games don't even have a hard mode and are easy even on the default difficulty and you don't get hard mode until you beat the game like MGS3 and Super Metroid. At this point, game difficulty is just something that will ever really be solved. I just play whatever I feel like
Im playing hollow knight right now, and for me, the difficulty factor takes away thav sense of protagonism, the game will mop the floor with your face until you deserve to defeat that boss and move on, nothing is taken for granted, and getting mad as fuck only makes it more satisfying when you finally beat them, sometimes it gets personal and damn it feels good to see how much you improved, thats why i think we like hard games in the first place
Игры
This entire video basically goes into Bruce Lee's philosophy on martial arts. That the goal is not to look cool or any shallow reason like that, but rather the self-growth and discipline that you gain over the experience. You start off as a novice, fumbling around the combat system, similar to dancing, martial arts, swimming etc, but as you get the hang of it the difficult techniques cease to give you trouble. It becomes second-nature, and once that's ingrained into you, you continue your growth by seeing how else you can apply your knew-found knowledge. Action games and fighting games are the easiest to apply this theory to. You can read more about it in John Little's book about Bruce "The Warrior Within"
The question I put to you is whether or not that self growth should come from playing video games and not something more edifying or of greater importance?
@@kpjlflsknflksnflknsa What's the difference?
pro tip: you can watch movies on kaldroStream. I've been using it for watching lots of of movies lately.
@Chaim Gael yea, have been using Kaldrostream for months myself :)
@Chaim Gael Definitely, have been using Kaldrostream for months myself :)
I feel like the hard mode in Nier: Automata was such a missed opportunity. There's such a massive gulf between normal, where enemies might as well be hitting you with pool noddles, and hard, where the most forgiving boss is Marx who will only knock you down to 25% health on any hit and everyone else will be one-shotting you outright (good luck with Hegel blindsiding you constantly). I believe they HAD to do it because of the 99 cap on healing items, if the bosses were at all forgiving you could have healed to full with no repercussions. I wish they put on a smaller cap on items and given a slighter buff to the enemy's hp and damage instead of the massive one they went with, they can save that for very hard.
A while ago I started a no-item normal run and while it's not what I'd call hard, it definitely can kill you if you're not paying attention and it is more compelling than the actual hard mode. In fact, it gives the lifesteal chips a reason for existing unlike every other mode in the game.
I played Nier: Automata on very hard on my "first" playthrough.
Yeah that is my gripe with lazily tacked on hard modes that make your defenses into a piece of paper and one mistake sends you to the gaemover screen. Should make me think more not get more frustrated
games should really not have a 99-item cap, or do what KH did and limit the amount of items you can bring into battles.
I feel like a game's normal difficulty should encompass the intended experience of a game, or that whichever difficulty mode is supposed to be the most well-balanced and well-crafted should state to the player that it's the best option. The only series I can think of that did this was the Halo series with it's Heroic difficulty. It would tell you that "This is the way Halo is meant to be played" when hovering over the option in the difficulty selection menu, so that's what I played on for the most well-crafted experience. It was challenging, but not ball-busting like on Legendary.
I replayed through Halo Combat Evolved on Heroic and found that way more enjoyable than Normal, Then I tried Halo 2 of Legendary and holy shit was that fucking hard. So I guess first play-through I'll stick to the 2nd hardest difficulty and if I'm in the mood to play it again with a challenge it will be the hardest difficulty.
No, the intended difficulty has to be named "Hard" or something similar for marketing reason, because playing on a difficulty called "Normal" these days is like admitting to not being above average in driving skills or penis size.
I found out a friend plays every game on the highest difficulty setting. He never gloated just mentioned it one day and I tried to follow in his footsteps and I found for most games the higher difficult y amplifies both flaws and strengths. I will absolutely recommend upping the difficulty on every game any time you notice it getting routine.
I am honestly the kind of guy who does a first playthrough on normal and then the next playthrough I play on the next highest difficulty but I never change a difficulty in a play through even if I have the option. My playthroughs are always clean one difficulty.
Idk why I've never had the confidence to really go above normal in most cases but next time I'm faced with that difficulty select screen I'll think about you!
I know that feeling very well, I was afraid of hard difficulty in dmc 3 so I didn't play dmc 3 anymore until about 3 months ago. Than I got back and I spend about 1 month just playing dmc 3 whenever I could
Also I don't enjoy fps games in hard difficulties I just play in normal or easy, non skill based games are trash
Don't fite me
Did you just call FPS a non-skill based genre ?...
If your only knowledge of FPS ends with Call of Duty, Battlefield or any modern cover shooter, then yeah, you're right.
But other than that you are dead wrong.
Whelp I didn't make my self clear I'm sorry about that, by skill based games I meant in-game skills like devil may cry style and normal attacks. Again I'm sorry for not making myself clear
Before watching the video: it'd be great if developers left a note next to difficulty choices saying: "this game was originally designed for [insert difficulty here]", unless they really did design it for multiple difficulties which I find hard to imagine in most cases. That way you'd know which difficulty you should play on. The main reason why say this is because developers sometimes just change HP values for enemies on harder difficulties, turning them into damage sponges which in 99% is just boring.
Totally agree with this I always try to play how devs intend to but I can’t ever get difficulty right
I always played on normal for this reason, though I might start going for hard after this.
The designed difficulty is probably the one forcing the players to use everything the game has to offer to beat it, so the hardest one?
The importance of that is zero to me. I prefer progressing and owning enemies than dying constantly and having to do everything the hard way. It's more fun to me :) I don't need to prove anything to anyone so I just enjoy the game as is, on the difficulty it sets for me which is usually easy or normal.
Definitely depends on the game in question, at least for me. Uncharted 4 is basically the same experience on Easy as it is on Crushing, largely because its approach to difficulty is uninspired: you do less damage, they do more damage. Furthermore, the limited moveset makes high-level play indistinguishable from stuff the game forces you do to. I actually think the game is generally worse on the higher difficulty, because it discourages the kind of risky, seat-of-your-pants behavior that the game wants you to do.
Contrast that to a game like DOOM, which I'd argue must be played on a difficult level you consider to be above your comfort level. Every combat encounter should be stressful and anxiety-inducing, and harder difficulties induce more enemies and less convenient groupings; a big draw of the DOOM games is walking into a room, seeing what enemies are present, deciding on an order to take them out, and figuring out who to isolate them, so the more often this is presented, the better. Moreover, the health-recovery system is predicated on taking calculated risks, so putting the player in that position more often shifts the objective in battle constantly, alleviating a lot of the monotony.
The Last of Us took a similar approach as Uncharted 4, but the result was far more successful. Because the story is centered around beating the odds and overcoming an unbearable situation, playing on a harder difficulty allows the gameplay to more closely match the theme. "How the fuck am I supposed to pull this off?!" is an emotion that does, and should, occur often when playing a game like TLOU, and it only manifests when the player is pushed beyond their comfort zone.
Came here to say something similar. Playing Uncharted 3 on hard was a special kind of boring monotonous hell that really soured me on the whole game. Maybe it comes down to mechanical depth, only if it's there the hard mode can scratches that itch
Man, this is true for Japanese developed games, not so much for western games. Western games usually cheap out on difficulty and they simply do increasing buffs... more health to enemies, less health to you, same number of enemies, no alterations on the way you *should* play the game. Japanese games in the other hand usually *should* be played on hard as they're usually developed with that difficulty in mind. Take for instance Platinum Games (textbook example for what you're trying to convey, not surprised you chose NieR to illustrate this fact)... their games are developed to be played in hard. Same thing could be said about tons of Japanese games, not so much about western games. Many games actually change the way you play and put new obstacles or different AI for enemies as you increase difficulty, this, in my eyes, is the best scenario.
I love your videos. I can see from the games you play and the comments you make that you share a lot of the games, thoughts, ideas and genres that I enjoy as well. I've played most Japanese games in Hard mode since the PS2 days but there sure are western games (such as HZD) that have tight game design sensibilities.
EDIT: BTW, you're one of my favorite youtubers man. I feel I could have a good conversation with you about gaming and game design for hours. I seriously usually feel you're voicing many of the same ideas and thoughts I have about the subject.
For example Kingdom Hearts 2 on Critical mode doesn't just bump up the enemy damage rate it also greatly boosts your damage rate and gives you lots of useful mid game abilities at the beginning and as a result the game feels much faster
try god of war hardest mode. the enemies attack's timing drastically change
I don't particularly think it's right to generalize a whole region like that. Some western games are difficult and some Japanese games are easy. I think we should simply address the difficultly to all games.
@T'was: Not to mention that Souls, one of the current Japanese-made franchises known for its supposed brutal difficulty, has just exactly the kind of lazy and zero-effort enemy health boosts @drubio was criticizing when it goes into its harder NG+ difficulties.
I played Vanquish on Hard difficulty (if I recall correctly) and it was an exhausting experience - I barely made it past the first 2 or 3 levels. And yet I have 'mastered' the Souls Borne games.
My favorite Hard mode experience is Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, No EXP, more specifically! You get abilities at the start of the game to make it a bit easier.
I've always treated KH as a simple X button masher back in the day.
When I first did a regular Critical Mode run, not once have I bothered to use summons, summon leveling and Cups not withstanding. With No EXP, I've used them where they were most helpful for certain mob fights.
Many new ways to play the game opened up and I will go out and say it's my favorite game because of the combat.
I hope KHIII can live up to it!
Spicy topic, nice !
Higher difficulties are certainly great in some games but in others it skips "hard" to go straight to bullshit x)
CoD on Veteran for example or most shooters where ennemies have hitscans on highest difficulty.
But some handle difficulty very well !
I played Horizon on the hardest difficulty and no HUD elements and it was an absolute delight ! There are a lot of visual elements that show you how the machine reacts to your attacks, those damage numbers were unnecessary and playing without them has never hindered me in any way.
I also just finished PREY which I played on Normal with no HUD because I like to take my time in immersive sims and replay value is great in this genre of games so I know I'll be doing a Nightmare playthrough at some point :)
But Normal felt just right for the type of experience I wanted to have and I died a fair amount of times due to my own mistakes, which is the sweet spot of difficulty in my opinion.
The amount of visual storytelling in this game is incredible ! I did all the sidequests and main story without the quest markers and it was very immersive trying to look for clues in the environement. Playing on harder difficulties might have killed that part of the game though as I couldn't have taken that much time carelessly looking at every email and note.
Some genres definitely scale better than others with difficulty. I personally prefer my RPGs on Normal or Hard, and rarely use the hardest difficulty.
The Witcher 3 on Death March is a great challenge but I certainly had some moments where combat was dragging down my enjoyment as I just wanted it to be over so I could see the rest of the world and the stories the game had still in store for me.
Same goes for Skyrim where combat is clunky as hell and every ennemy seems to one shot you on Legendary until you get some decent gear and loads of skill points to level up like a madman. After that good luck trying to die.
Awesome video!
My first and only playthrough of Horizon was on Ultra Hard, and I would argue it changed me as a person lolol. But interestingly enough it was the game that made me realize the same ideas you are saying here. It pushed me and made me adapt at every step and I felt so much accomplishment after finishing it.
I'm not really sure when exactly it was that I found you, but I know it was with one of your DMC3 videos. I still say that DMC3 Storytelling one is the best video on youtube because of how damn well you did it, but I won't gush over that here.
After that video and a few more, I spotted this several months ago. I'm not a person who likes being challenged. I get that makes me seem lazy, but I don't enjoy being stressed out. Stress makes me exhausted, and I'm exhausted enough for me to deal with what I would consider to be a time where I can have some fun. Sometimes silly, sometime serious, but fun nonetheless.
However, I've always kept this video's theme in the back of my mind: "Try challenging yourself once in a while." To the point where after going through Doom 4 and finding it too easy on the standard... I decided to up the difficulty to Nightmare (I'm not a masochist, so Ultra-Nightmare was just not going to happen). It was significantly harder. I found, much like you here in Horizon, that I couldn't use the same tactics as I did before and come out victorious. There was a lot of trial and error, as well as trying different perks and weapons that I barely glanced at... However, I still found the game Fun. Almost exhausting at times, whereas I could only do a level or two per day max, but... It was a lot of fun.
I did the very same thing for Dying Light recently as well. I went through the game on normal at my own pace, almost petrified at the limitations you were given during Nightmare mode, but... I eventually played it, found it kinda fun and hella rewarding! It's gotten to the point where anything below has gotten so easy that it's almost boring in comparison.
I'm no adrenaline junkie, nor do I still enjoy constantly making things harder for myself to do anything. I'm not always going to play on the hardest difficulties, but... I can definitely see what you see in it. How the challenge can be rewarding, be it something 'digitally tangible' or just self satisfaction. So thank you, for making this video and encouraging me to be better
I'd play a game on Hard if I enjoyed it on Normal. Since the HD-era for western AAA games though (and maybe before that), it's like Normal is Easy and Hard should be Normal so most of the time, I play them on Hard. That being said, sometimes the difficulty isn't handled well. For some devs, the idea of Hard Mode is either bullet-sponge enemies, perfect-aiming enemies, enemies with super-armor up the ass, enemies that kills you in 2 hits, less health for your character, basically just adding a zero to their values. It's just fake difficulty and not fun. At this point, I'd rather play a game that handles Hard better, like Ninja Gaiden.
Great video. I recently SS'd DMC3 and, like you, never thought i would be able to do it even after playing it for such a long time, but once i finally managed to do it... It felt amazing!
I feel like i improved so much as a overall player thanks to that masterpiece of a game.
Again, really good job on the video!
I would say difficulty could be a double edge sword. The best example I have is Yakuza 0 I played the whole game on hard up until Goros last boss. Then I had to bring the difficulty down to easy because I got so fed up on how impossible it was. It put such a bad taste in my mouth by the end of the game I did not give a shit what happens in the story. Honestly I regret playing it on hard because I don't really feel it added anything for me. It just made some boss fight bull shit with the amount of health they had. Also it hurt the story thematically because Goro and Kiryu shouldn't be struggling in a fight. But with that said I love playing games like Devil May Cry on the harder difficulties because the stronger enemies and bosses really give you the opportunity to really play the game in a way it was meant to be played. So over all I just think you have to pick what games are worth playing on harder difficulties.
"Kiryu and Majima shouldn't be struggling in a fight" never knew fighting off an entire Yakuza family should be easy, now your free to play games however you like and I won't judge you but I mean cmon the game goes out of its way to make the Dojima family seem cruel and powerful, I do think Yakuza games can feel cheap and artificial when under levelled cause you don't have the proper abilities to fight these bosses especially since there's no level recommendation system so new players just going through the main story on hard are gonna get stomped unless they stock up on items so if you ever end up playing through it again take your time and smell the roses, hope I'm not coming across as an elitist just gotta had to defend my baby
I am not saying Yakuza is a bad game I love it. But Goro's last boss is just dumb because it is the only part of the game where they through two bosses at you with no warning. It a big build up to fight the one family head, but then this one guy shows up for basically no reason other then look at this twist. And when I say they shouldn't be struggling I meant the story sets up them up to be on another level almost super human, so seeing them have a hard time in game play just doesn't sit right. Basically after my play through I felt I should have just left it on normal, playing it on hard just made the game a lesser experience. It might be fine on a new game + where you can keep your skills, but for a first go around just play on normal and enjoy the story.
xin0555 DMC3 and most action set up there main characters to be badass and unstoppable but since there super hard it's up to you to live up to the character your playing as, I'd recommend playing on Normal mode if you aren't going to complete each character's side business cause it feels like the game on Hard mode is expecting you too which is why it could've really used a level recommendation system, seriously I stopped buying upgrades intentionally cause I thought i was over levelled only to realize I wasn't levelling up enough
Starting with the TLDR: difficulty is not the only way to engage the player to play the game the way it should be played.
I’d say Yakuza is less about fun and engaging gameplay and more about providing spectacle for the player to watch and interact with in combat. I just finished 0 and Kiwami, and Kiwami has some bullcrap boss and enemy design. You get to the end of the game and suddenly everyone and their brother has a gun, and getting constantly shot and knocked over doesn’t feel fun. That being said, I still have bloody good fun when I play those games, even if I don’t think they’re the most deep or challenging. I think the big engagement in Yakuza comes from running around, and meeting weird people and stopping to play Outrun for an hour because you misunderstood the lady at the arcade. To me those janky fights and ridiculous stories are so compelling because of the running around for hours I’ve done just doing mundane crap, watching these characters figure out life.
Steven Case as someone who's played almost every game in the series I wholeheartedly disagree, it does feel janky and bad to get your ass kicked but when your actually doing well it feels great and smooth, it's kinda like how some people say Classic Sonic is janky and un con controllable and others say he's weighty and fun same thing applies to Yakuza's combat
Edit I misspelled a couple times
I fully agree.
I had the same with The Witcher 3... My first playthrough was on normal and the use of the Qen sign (shield) and spamming quick attack worked until the credits rolled... I've replayed this game last month and cranked it up to Death Marshes (highest difficulty) and all of a sudden I needed to use EVERY strategy to survive.. Clever uses of signs, potions, oils and bombs were critical...The bestiary was actually necessary... This increased the fun factor by a big amount and made the game even more engaging.
I had a similar experience with “Not a hero”. It was very satisfying to pull of the optional objectives instead of doing the bare minimum to get by.
That was a good video, thanks for making it.
When it comes to Nier A, I feel like the crucial problem that game had with bringing out its mechanical depth was the *lack of a middle ground between challenge and forgiveness*.
I believe it's really important, for most people and most games, to have a "place" in terms of difficulty where the player can feel like they're being challenged and forced to learn/adapt, without being too heavily punished for mistakes. Because that, I think, is what makes so many shy away from hard modes. Nier Automata on Normal makes you virtually invincible, Nier Automata on Hard one hit kills you left and right - and there's no in-between! This set of difficulty options doesn't have what it takes to satisfy most people because it will either be too *easy* to encourage experimentation and learning, or too *punishing* to do so. It's really damn crucial to hit that middle ground, in my opinion.
Compare it to, say, the initial playthroughs of Devil May Cry 1 or 3. Rarely if ever will you be one or even two hit killed, the enemies and even bosses are forgiving enough that you can almost always make quite a few mistakes before it's back to square one - but they're still difficult enough that you can't just mindlessly mash through them. Only on later difficulties, after one or even several playthroughs of initial learning, do they start raising the punishment to that degree. Or look at the masterstroke of design that is *Furi* - game has a set of teeth-grindingly difficult bosses, particularly on its hard mode, but its smart "continue system" and only moderately high enemy damage makes it basically impossible to lose to a boss without taking at least somewhere between 6-12 hits, and that's without considering the ways to regain health during a fight.
I realize not EVERY player will need this measure of forgiveness, it depends on one's talent for difficult games as well as one's own tolerance for repetition and failure. I didn't play Horizon on UH, but from what I gather it's extremely unforgiving and would probably be too much for me, while for you it brought out the best in the game. But I do think it's a crucial point for designers to consider if they want more players to take the "plunge" that you're (rightfully) advocating in this video. Difficulty that just punishes without leaving (not too much) room for mistakes, experimentation and learning will probably never make mainstream success.
hey, just wanted to drop in and say this is probably the best video you've made (that I've watched) so far. good job, keep it up.
''Where are you going?''
- ''To get blackout drunk.''
I don't know what it was about this moment but it gave me the best laught I've had for a while. Thank you.
So, I tried this interesting idea. I'm so used to guns blazing and powering through levels of all the games I've ever beaten. It never occurred to me to play on a harder difficulty because I never saw the point of constantly dyiing all the time. However as someone who was used to playing easy/normal regularly, I decided as a goal to beat The Master Chief Collection on Heroic all the way through and then Legendary. I gotta say you are so right that as the difficulty goes up the games forces you to think about every move you make as well as making the best use out of all your tools, and dying constantly forces you to try new things and improve your gaming style. For that, I'm enjoying Halo Combat Evolved far more than I ever did, and noticing way more than I would normally do compared to just a normal play through....And for that I thank you sir!
That's an interesting perspective, I'll defenetly try playing on hard more often from now on
I feel like some types of games (especially rpgs) conditioned me to think playing on hard means you have to grind more, have battles lasting unnecessarily longer and depending on rng
I do like having self imposed challenges on RPGs a lot tho, such as finishing a dungeon in persona in one day, doing a bp only run in paper mario or going through a Pokemon game with a team of weaker than average mons
Last fall, I started a new file on Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet (yes, I'm a weeb, yes, I like SAO, and no, you can't change my mind), but without putting anyone in my party. And WOW, I was not expecting it be that hard. The game's fun as is, but it can be a tad mindless. As you can rush in and, for the most part, rely on your allies to keep alive/revive you when you die. But when you're playing solo, a single sniper that notices you, can kill you almost instantly. And that's not taking into account the fact that there's almost never just one sniper. Even if the enemies are decently lower leveled than you, any automaton with a machine gun can really ruin your day, since they aim for your head and getting hit there does extra damage. Playing Fatal Bullet solo turns it from an action game where you have to reflexively gun down everything in you path (unless you use a lightsaber like I did on my first two playthroughs), to almost a puzzle game, where every room of every dungeon is a new scenario, with it's own order of operations to go through in order to get out of there alive. I still haven't beaten the main story, or even started on the free DLC the switch release comes with, all of which is much harder than the base game
Difficulty puts game mechanics and design choices to test, just like the player skill. It either transforms player expression into a masterful display or expose cheesy-artificial challenges that are unsatisfying to beat. DmC is a bad example of this as the hard mode introduces more angel and demon enemies which reduces gameplay variation by more than half, even though gameplay variation is the main strength of that game. I beat the original PS2 version of DMC3 (yeah, the unfairly difficult one) and I felt I was always given more tools to beat than the challenge, and despite the challenge I was the powerful one because I could stagger enemies. Thus instead of making Dante fight at my level, I was invited to fight at Dante's level.
(Congrats on S rankings. You are more Stylish now!)
A had a similar experience when I played _Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia_ on *New Game Lvl.1 Hard Mode.*
On my Normal run, I would often tank hits and spam my close range weapons without much thought.
That simply does not work at higher difficulties. Even mobs deal insane amounts of damage and they move really fast.
I ended up using a lot weapons with the stun effect like Topor, which I literally never used in my Normal difficulty run.
A lot of contemporary games haven't challenged me a lot, I realize a lot of deaths I have on those it's because me being reckless yet a lot of time that strategy seems to work. Normal mode nowadays it was easy mode used to be like, and modern easy mode it's prettymuch a walk through the park for people that never played a game and just want to see it. You made some great points in this video, I think it's time I tackle Hard mode more often, and see the real challenge and design of my favorite games.
Glad you enjoyed! If you're looking for a recent game to really challenge you, then I can not recommend Pathologic 2 enough. One of the most intense plays I've had in recent memory.
Your content it entertaining, informative and funny. Kudos that's not a combination may channels pull off.
The ideal difficulty is one that encourages you to engage with the game's systems while still being fun.
The same thing happened to me when I was playing Dragon Age: Origins. The insanity run was actually quite fun.
Nice video, but I would also argue that the enjoyment of games can come from other sources than difficulty and that you can enjoy the game as much as you'll be able to with easy settings while harder ones may hinder your enjoyment. I would never have gone through the 5 hours mark in Nier:Automata had I played it on hard (in fact, I don't even know if I could have left the damn factory...) and thus, I wouldn't have been able to experience my favourite narrative in a game ever.
And the story can also be the one you create. I rarely play any civ game in a difficulty higher than prince, not that I can't, but my goal when I play usually isn't to win the game, but to make the nicest, greatest, bestest civilization ever, I want to play the role of a ruler who expands his empire and promotes culture and artistry instead of one who desperately tries to get that one city state before turn 50 to get its resources and be able to defend against my aggressive neighbours.
Also, higher difficulty sometime prove to be simply bullshit. Legendary difficulty in X-Com 2 means your guys will get one shot by pretty much any attack at most stages of the game. You can mitigate that issue by playing cleverly, keeping the initiative and always staying in cover, but the random nature of the game means even with the best strategy, you will lose soldiers, sometimes very well-trained ones because you lost a diceroll. And I understand that it's by design, that the devs want us to be able to adapt to sudden trouble and try to bounce back from that, but this is way too extreme. A bad roll in Darkest Dungeon can screw you over hard, but the game's death mechanic prevents your characters from getting instakilled (outside of some rare scenarios) and that manages to mitigate the frustration that comes with randomness. Basically a difficulty too high can force you to rely on exploits or luck to win which isn't more fun than relying on a dominant strategy at low level.
So, I'd say experimenting with difficulty is a good idea if you enjoy a game for its mechanics, but not necessarily if you get some other satisfaction from it.
you should definitely look into the Vanillaware games
A lot of people have said it already, but I think that harder difficulties need to have some thought put into them. An example of a good one to me would be Ninja Gaiden. The game is already hard on Normal, but when you go back and do it on Hard, they change up the enemies and they change attack patterns and reacts. However, it still doesn't take too long to kill lesser enemies, but they can kill you at the same fast rate if you aren't careful. To me that feels fair and it feels like more of a "It's either you or me" deal versus "We just made enemies tougher and you weaker, figure it out." That feels so lazy to me and it isn't fun.
You mentioned NieR; Automata. Good man!
Now, I totally understand your message especially when framed in relation to that game. Personally hit lvl. 67 before going for that [E]nding, and then doing that "thing". Now decided to repeat the game fully then go for Hard after the [C]ool [D]iverging point. Though there are some titles that have me going for Hard basically immediately especially if I've played an older game in a certain franchise. An example would be doing Normal difficulty on Arkham Asylum, before doing Hard in Arkham City onwards the first time through.
This a great point, Codex! I usually play on Normal when I play a game for the first time, and then after finishing multiple playthroughs on one difficultly, I would later increase the games' difficultly. What are you thoughts on dynamic difficulty in games such as Resident Evil 4, or Battle Garegga?
One of the games that makes me want to continuly go for the hardest difficulty which is kingdom hearts 2 final mix, critical always makes you change how you play and understand what you have to even attempt to do, especially on lvl 1 crit mode
Awesome vid
I knew that I would feel more satisfied beating God of War on hard than anything easier. I honestly think it's the mode the game was supposed to be played on.
No pain no glory,the harder the game is the greater the glory.
AVGN may want to disagree since he played Transformers on the Famicom.
DOOM 2016 has a pretty fun "Hard mode" In Nightmare. Yes, as far as enemy placement and attack patterns it's the same as the previous two difficulties and it only really ups damage but it honestly taught me a lot of fundamentals about the game that i didn't care about before. I learned how every enemy should be dealt with. Learned what weapons are effective when and even how to combo weapons. It was a really fun experience especially through the second half of the game when they introduce every enemy. The experience got me even more Hyped for DOOM Eternal because of this and i think i might start it up on nightmare from the jump.
Really appreciate this video. I like video games but I'm not super skilled at them. Easy or normal is all I can manage. I'm glad someone on the internet finally says that is ok. Great video.
I think its for this reason I also adored the new Doom title, that was a fun game to play on the harder difficulties because you started using everything; dodging, attacking, switching weapons, equipment and timing when to use glory kills for health and when to use the chainsaw for ammo. While its not as deep as say DMC4, for a shooter its fantastic and the sequel seems to be growing more into that area utilising everything at your disposal. I may have to try out H:ZD on a harder difficulty because it got a bit dull when i started to just crush thunderfoots.
Nerd Archipelago.
Naughty Oregano.
Flawless.
I played God of War 4 on hard, which was the first time playing a God of War on hard without having finished it before. Though, I mainly play games on hard though as I like to think I'm not half bad at them and can manage pretty well.
I think MGS does a good thing of playing on hard, (I also like the no alerts no kills run too) of providing the best experience of the game.
Currently playing tomb raider on ps4 on survival plus or something where you can only save at campfires. I find that fun in a way
im looking for a video talking about "you should play on hardest to use the most of the toolset" and they used witcher 3 with potions as an example, but i cant find the video and wanted to show a friend haha D: this one is good too :)
Great video! CodexEntry pretty much expressed my own opinion. In my case it was exactly dmc4 who had awakened this crave to get more challenging experience and actually payed off alright. From the latest examples i would mention Uncharted 4 and stand alone Lost legacy and theirs Crushing difficulty modes. Thanks to destructible environment and vertical design it makes for great playground for player to use. I strongly advise everyone to check this out if haven't already.
Was that "Be" by Common at the end? 😃
This sounds seriously awesome.
I can relate to this easily. I had basically the same experience with Horizon - I could just sorta mindlessly stumble my way through most of that game on the normal difficulty. But because it's not like I _never_ died(Aloy's not the most resilient protag out there till you get that secret armor), I never had a reason to turn it up a notch along with my engagement. I do this in most games. "Normal is meant for most people, right? I'm sure I'm like most people, even though I've been playing games for like twenty years now I never feel like I'm particularly good at them". Then I watched my local twitch streamer play it on Ultra Hard after being recommended it by one of the devs, and the way he had to play it looks _so much more fun_. The whistle ability actually seemed balanced. He had to act like a hunter. Every encounter became a struggle he had to figure out.
I'm not planning on going through Horizon again any time soon. I'm not super eager to jump back into a story I didn't enjoy all that much, and my patience long since wore thin on the things the game is bad at(human combat, inventory management, some of that open world bloat and boring characters being the most egregious in my eyes). And I don't think turning up the difficulty will improve all games or anything. Once I actually did go through Dragon Age Inquisition on hard mode 'cause people told me that was an appropriate challenge for veteran gamers, and then I had just as miserable a time as usual with good ol' janky Bioware combat. But when Horizon 2 eventually comes out, you can bet your ass I'm gonna try that game on a harder difficulty and actually get a taste of that engaging experience.
I recently played quite a few games on varying difficulties/self imposed challenges and here's my thoughts. When I played BotW on Master Mode it was enjoyable in the early game, but towards mid and end game it just scaled awfully. Everything was an HP sponge, and the regenerating health made every fight a chore. It didn't remove any dominant strategies. If anything, it made the existing ones that aren't fun, even more required. I had a more enjoyable time on normal mode with some self imposed challenges that removed a couple dominant strategies.
I played Uncharted 1 and on normal mode it felt like an awful slog with how much damage I took, paired with how slow health regenerates. I spent more time waiting to recover health than playing. I switched the game to easy mode and suddenly melee attacks were viable and I could do some running and gunning. It was way more enjoyable than hiding behind cover, popping out, aiming with an awful controller, then shooting the enemy; only to get shot and wait longer for health to recover.
I then played skyrim on legendary difficulty (highest difficulty) and about 16 hours in I permanently went down to master (1 level below). On legendary you died in maybe 4-6 hits, even with heavy armor, so it was unrealistic to even level up your armor skill since you would die so quickly. Everything was also an HP sponge on top of that, and the game just encouraged me to abuse the AI by conjuring allies and using followers as meat shields. After going to Master I feel like it's the sweet spot in terms of damage done to you, but plenty of enemies die too quickly now, so it's not ideal. I've played that game before in the normal difficulty and I'm glad I'm playing on Master now.
Generally my philosophy is to always have normal be the difficulty to play the game on a first playthrough, but nowadays I'm not sure. But at the same time the hardest difficulties in games can just be artificial and not fun. I haven't played Horizon yet, and I don't think I'd play on the highest difficulty my first time through, but something more than normal. Since you first played the game on normal, then playing it on the highest difficulty I'm sure you have a much greater knowledge of the game going into it. What difficulty would you recommend for a first playthrough?
usually, I play anything that is between normal to "very hard" difficulties but it also depends on how hard the game is.
some games are hard enough on normal already
but I do like to replay games I've already beat on normal on a higher difficulty level...
A friend recommended this video and it was a great watch! While I personally can't say how often I'll up the difficulty, I've found it can be a great way to spice up repeat playthroughs. I personally wish the original NieR had a better hard mode, because it really needed a setting that encouraged and rewarded more inventive gameplay. Sadly the numbers are way too highly inflated taking 5x as much damage in most cases.
2:36 "Ya know? Scum!"
Bayonetta games are always fun to try on harder difficulties but are more often than not a complete nightmare to Pure Platinum. Speaking as someone who did PP both Bayos on all difficulties through the sheer stubbornness that comes with being a Bayo freak. 😘
me playing on new funky mode: *sounds legit*
My constant challenge is that of working in neuroscience and still finding some time to play games
Also another challenge which is always fun is finding constant new ways of saying Nier: archeologyst
generally i play games on Normal but i have been playing DMC3 on DMD as Vergil trying not to use items, so i'm no stranger to challenge. I'd like to provide a few reasons why NOT to play games on hard mode
1. The Frustration Factor
excellently demonstrated in the beginning of the video, we've all been there, having a fight that just kicks our butt one too many times. DMC1 Phantom is a fight i have boundless respect for, but nearly put me off DMC1. can i just ignore that? not really, because generally people like to see the rest of the game. one boss, no matter how good it is, is going to get tired eventually.
2. Reduced Damage
generally but not always, difficulty increases how much damage you take, and reduces the amount you deal. this can get stupid, like skyrim's 25% damage dealt on Legendary difficulty (why). this can lead to fights feeling like a tedious drag, and double down on dominant strategy rather than reduce it. again, i'm playing Vergil DMD, and i could try to style on enemies, but i tend to just spam the same beowulf combo over and over so i can keep laser focus on the enemies so that i can not die.
3. QoL/Misc stuff
most games are painless when it comes to retrying, but older games not necessarily so, DMC1 for example is horrendous for this. continuing with a yellow orb works the way you'd expect, but if you want to restart, you go back to the title screen, wait for the game to load and THEN you can retry...oh and if you die, you HAVE to continue, and paired with how difficult DMC1, could i be blamed if i did put the game down, then and there?
4. (Sub)Optimal Gameplay
hard modes can be great for people who want to push their skills, but what about other people? some of us don't want to spend our time mastering games, and the ones who have that time could be considered lucky. these casual losers who probably have stupid adult things like jobs, a more relaxing experience can be preferred where you don't have to remember how to do some complicated combo or look for real impact openings or whatever.
i'd recommend going on hard if you find normal a bit shallow and disinteresting, some games really are too easy, such as DmC where i died...once...on Son of Sparda difficulty. sometimes stepping out of your comfort zone can be helpful. other times it just doesn't feel worth it
game designers biggest hurdle is saving the player from themselves. humans are evolutionarly hard coded to optimize the challenge out of a task. raising the difficulty more often results in the player seeing that one bullshit OP strategy/ability as the only viable path forward. my point being raising the difficulty can also have the player do the exact opposite of what you suggest.
I don't understand the dominate strategy thing I always try everything, and I feel you are more able to do that on normal than hard
I normally seperate in how i want to experience a game. In JRPGs e.g. I don't like to waste time in hard battles but rather continue the story. But if i want to play with focus on the gameplay/combat, i choose the Hard Mode (never Lunatic tho, this is alway rather frustrating than anything else for me).
Hi, I really like your video and if I may add a few points: Japanese games are much better at making the higher difficulties more interesting and in these games I always try to take the maximum difficulty. For Western games, when there are more than three difficulties, I take the second-last one, because the last one is often exaggerated and pushes you to throw yourself out of your window.
I switched to playing games on the hardest difficulty a couple of years ago. I found that when I bought a new game, I played it like I was in a trance state. I knew what was happening in the story, but the gameplay was kinda meh. It was like filler content.
My first memories of making the switch to hard was Mafia II. I played through it once on release and wanted to play it agian a couple of months later. When faced with the difficulty options, I was like "ok, lets go for 1000G. Lets play on hard". And it was AWESOME!
Every combat encounter was much more tense, I found myself playing smarter, using my equipment / enviroment a lot more and THAT safisfying feeling you get when you see the credits and know you have made it.
Also, I was playing a lot more (more cautious, dying here and there, ...) which not only gave me a deeper appreciation for the game, since I think that was the way it was meant to be played, it also made me "get my moneys worth", since I wasn't done with it in a day and a half.
Same as with Hotline Miami, were I achieved A+ on every lvl. Hard af at times, but incredibly satisfying.
EDIT: Was unaware of custom difficulty in games like State of Decay and TLOU2. Just do that. Thank you!
I believe games can do a better job at difficulty adjustment though. Different people enjoy different aspects of difficulty, and having a way to adjust the games settings or choose from a wider array of challenges can really improve the game feel.
Maybe having a difficulty select after a tutorial stage that better telegraphs what the player will experience asides from "We ,the game devs, think it is easy" mode or "Sweats" mode. Not sure how this will be done, but I think it can be with some prototyping.
In other words: Some people love grinding away at a health bar, some people love learning about the depth within a gameplay system, some people love watching cutscenes, and some people love watch a game play itself after hitting a button repeatedly. Allow us to identify ourselves in your games.
In my first playthrough of the game I played on hard, and played on very hard on my second new game plus
I’m doing a 3 hearts run on Majoras mask now I’m stuck on the last boss
I like that you share my opinion well kinda. I always tell people to play on Max difficulty to have a challenge and because they will probably end up playing the game once. So why not make it hard and enjoyable and not boringly easy.
This logic only holds if your raison d'etre is to play video games i.e. you're young enough. When you get older and have a job or family, you'll be able to accord less time and energy to video gaming. Subsequently, your ability will diminish and you'll find yourself needing to play at a lower difficulty. It's not nice but it's life.
This is why I like when games give you the option to switch difficulty on the fly. There was a point when I was playing Witcher 3 that I felt 0 challenge, and being able to switch to death march several hours in, really helped ground that experience for me (same with ACO as a matter of fact).
I don't mind when games have just 1 difficulty either, like the Monster Hunters and Dark Souls of the world. Those games are unflinching in their design choices and honestly, considering the market today, I personally find that brave. The fact is, many gamers just don't have the time to invest to ''git gud''. Games that offer no assistance to that demographic just won't make a sale, despite everything else about the game appealing to them. However, there's really something to experiencing a wall, both narratively and mechanically; when a game says this guy is hard as shit to beat, and yea, he's hard as shit to beat. That moment of finally toppling that enemy is just honestly and simply, incredible.
I don't wish all games try to kick your teeth in, but games I think need to at least do enough to not allow their players to engage with the mechanics on autopilot. I like feeling tested in games. I like when games have enough mechanical depth on the table, that even 10-20, maybe even 50hrs in, you're still grasping different facets of play. I don't think that it's all there is to games, but I completely agree that it's something unique to the medium that should be embraced. Great video man, glad to see this channel getting more traffic.
I always worry that hard mode will just waste my time with bigger health bars and less frequent checkpoints. I like difficulty, but I like it in short bursts, if I have to redo 3 minutes after each death, I'm bored.
But I'm more of a type who speedruns on casual difficulties, but my first time is always on normal, no matter how hard it is. I like hard normals, but I don't start on hard because I tend to regret it during first run, it's something to do later.
This is why you always play the mainline KH games on the hardest possible difficulty (and not the handhelds because handhelds are just the same as lower difficulty but it takes longer). KH from beginner to arguably proud is just a x button masher. I don't blame them because yeah it works. Crit and Crit lv1? Using all the tools available to you makes the game so much more fun.
Have the same exact mentality, man. It's not about playing on hard for the sake of it, it's about playing the game that will force you to understand and use it's mechanics to the fullest. I just recentely played Castlevania Symphony of the Night Hardtype-hack - and it was very interesting. I get bored with easy games too fast, hate when games lock their difficulty levels behind "finish on this difficulty first" - i don't have time to play your game on boring difficulty just to get permission to play on the interesting one.
I remember playing Guacamelee on hard by using cheat-code to unlock it from the start and thinking to myself - i love this game, but i would find it boring on normal (wich was highest difficulty without using cheat-codes), so why the even lock it, i don't have time to play this twice, i got enough games already in my backlog!
I even legit get more exited for the game if i hear it has alot of difficulties to choose from, or if they add more in patches (like in the Horizon example). Sometimes tho if game's balance fundamentally broken even choosing hard mode do not save it(Automata, Dragon's Dogma)
I am the kind of guy who plays a game on normal first and than crunks up the dificulty with each playthrough until I have beaten the game on the hardest dificulty. But I am quite the oposide of of a perfectionist. Its enough fore me to beat Bayonetta on infinite Climax and to defeat Father Rodin and the Lost Chapter Angel Slayer. But pure platinum everything? Not worth it.
I always play on Normal, I legit haven't upped any game's difficulty for the last 6 years, i'mma try hard after this
first time I played god of war I put it on god of war difficulty. took me half an hour to beat the tutorial monsters, 2 hours to beat the draugrs that you find when that bridge falls. I was dying all the time. I was a bit annoyed, certainly, but the feeling of completing the bosses was quite neat, and it felt like the things I learned about the combat and the monsters actually were important. Now by the end of the game I feel like I'm really using the best of the timing, skills and items I get on the game. Took down 5 of the 8 optional valkyries, one I beat in 5 attempts only lul.
It may be tough or even cringy sometimes, but it feels to me that I spent better the time with this game than I would have on lower difficulty. I saw some youtubers that never upgraded the son atreus' bow, but on my playthrough I always kept him max rank on everything and was always glad when his skill cooldown was up.
Raising difficulty depends on what games we are playing too. Devil may cry on hard difficulty? great. God of war? nice. But some other games have such a bad mechanic that raising difficulty makes it worse. That's not the fault of the players, but of lazy developers that think an enemy that is almost impossible to beat equals to fun. A game that makes us explore its unique mechanics for a variety of options is fun instead, and raising difficulty is one way to do that.
Horizon on hardest difficulty ?
"Nothing a Tearblast Arrow can't handle : The Video Game"
Seriously, that thing is OP...
I need a list of all the things he called Nier so I too can call it those
I tried shmup games on extreme after I watch this video, it actually made the games more fun
(Sorry for my bad english)
Your English is great, glad you had a positive experience!
Hades does this perfectly with the pact of punishment.
Set the parameters in conjuction of the heat and do your run.
Normally I wouldn't do this in other games and although my highest level is 14 I would have never even wanted to try doing so if the game said to play on harder difficulties.
only halfway through the video and I gotta say, i had the same EXACT experience with Horizon. It really engaged me and made things terrifically rewarding at dick kicker difficulty
The unscripted encounters with the stormbirds felt like serial assault self defense (the fight no one consents to)
"if a game is yelling at you to do something that you are literally not able to reasonably do then the game may have fucked up somewhere". Actually had a recent experience that this applies to in Uncharted 4. I went back to platinum the PS3 trilogy, which entails the highest difficulty, and now I'm finally playing the fourth game for the first time. Started it on the highest difficulty since for once in the series it was unlocked from the get go. On this difficulty AI are extremely sensitive to anything you do so it's really easy to be detected. In an early chapter the game teaches you how to do a vertical stealth takedown, you and another character stealth kill someone in sync before the game tells you that killing from tall grass lets you hide the bodies, and then the other character says "let's see if we can keep this up". Without a doubt the game was telling me to tackle this next enemy encounter with stealth yet I couldn't for the life of me find a route that let me get more than one kill without being spotted. All the enemies are bunched up save for two and the only times during those two's patrol paths that allow you to kill from tall grass are exactly when some other enemy is starring you down. I had no choice but to go in guns blazing. It's been a recurring thing in many encounters since. It baffled me too because the series has always allowed for some stealthy approaches in many enemy encounters. Either enemy encounters weren't well thought out or the hardest difficulty wasn't designed with stealth in mind. Just thought I'd share my frustration as I have to agree with the whole higher difficulties shining a brighter spotlight on the game mechanics. I used to steer clear of higher difficulties but now I usually go for them right away (mostly because it means less playthroughs for completion). I'm still ass at hack n slash games but one day I intend to purchase the DMC PS4 re-releases and platinum every single one of them (already scooped up 4 on sale), one day. Great video as always man!
Man the same can be said about The Last of US Grounded Mode. Is another experience.
There was a severe lack of ropecaster in the Horizon footage. That weapon (which I had ignored on initial playthrough) was my saving grace in ultra-hard.
idk, i never found much of a use for it. Like, I tried using it for the stormbird fight and it took literally like 40 seconds to pin it down for like 15. Just hit a point where I was just like 'screw it, i'll just use elemental damage' and never really spent much time with it after. Then again, I was using the green one so it's probably just me being dumb so there ya go
Codex Entry I had the Hunter lodge one with three slots, and if you stack it's handling the cords zip out at lightning speed. As for elemental damage, I didn't find anything other than freeze terribly useful. Rope fulfilled the same role as electric, fire was just sorta there, and I never saw corruption work particularly well at all?
I S-ranked DMC 3 when it came out. That feeling of accomplishment will forever stay with me. Unfortunately no game since then could grip me hard enough that I felt it would be worth doing the same again. DMC 4 felt too slow compared to the third entry to me. I hope DMC 5 will be faster and have a better story. If it does I may S rank that game. Since I just play on PC these days I am also eagerly awaiting Monster Hunter World since that seems to have a set difficulty level like Dark Souls which is to this date the standard I set to properly balanced video games.
My satisfaction for clearing ultra-hard on Zero Dawn was dented a bit when I beat it, only to find out the achievement for beating on that difficulty was only on new game+. While I started from scratch and happened to idiotically overwrite it on my cleared 1st playthrough. WELP, I did it. Score one for me. Bringing the goddam ice age to every storm bird I encountered was worth it.
maybe i didn't heard it, or i just phased it through, but i feel that sometimes , if you always play on hard on a specific genre of gaming, you ruin the experience of others games.
example : Nioh was such a cake walk for me, i never experienced what most player shouted to be the hardest things ever. just because i grew up with from software since 2004
I'm weird in that I like difficulty in games, but I don't pursue it very often unless it's on a repeat playthrough of a game where I KNOW the gameplay is fun. For example, I'm good at the combat in Spider-man or Batman Arkham ___: therefore I can pursue the highest difficulty knowing I'll enjoy it. On the other hand, I don't like difficulty for anything turn-based, save for Fire Emblem and even that not on the highest difficulty: if I want to do a repeat playthrough of those it's usually just to breezily enjoy the story, so I'll put it on the lowest difficulty.
But hey, it sounds like it may be more fun to challenge myself a bit more even on FIRST playthroughs not just repeat and with games I don't usually hard mode. Maybe I'll take the time to give it a shot at some point :)
I enjoy the souls games so much that they practically destroyed my love of easy games I'm trying to find a game that feels like Dark Souls so I intentionally play games on higher settings sometimes I'll play it on an easier setting so I can get used to the mechanics then play it on a higher setting I can't play Modern Warfare 1 and 2 on recruit anymore I can only play it on veteran
While it's totally true that making a game more punishing is an effective way to get players to explore its combat system more deeply, I feel like giving a positive reason to do the same should be important too. I guess that's a harder thing to achieve when people do just use whatever is the simplest way to get the job done, but personally I find myself more drawn to explore my options in a game just for the sake of the pleasure of doing so, rather than being punished for not knowing some strategy that exists hidden away in the mechanics. I guess that's why I tend to appreciate some games for their combat that other people call dumb and button-mashy. I like to explore those games and see what I can do with those system simply because I like looking cool and having some variety, even if I don't technically need to. That probably still doesn't make me as good as a player that has been forced to really deeply understand the mechanics in order to succeed at all, but it certainly makes for a lot less frustration.
This video does kind of make me want to go back and play Nier on a harder difficulty though. I always avoided that before because the game felt like it was meant to be played on Normal. I've heard stories about how the intro is really awful on harder modes, and I really don't like the idea of having to go without lock-on. The game also actively discourages playing above Normal too, and hearing the developers talk about the game, it was clear they were trying hard to make the combat as approachable as possible. But still, I can tell there's a lot more there I didn't explore, and I'd like to.
Did you finish Horizon Zero Dawn Ultra Hard on NG+? Just curious as I want to know if you started from rock bottom in Ultra Hard, or if you had a head start, and if you did have a head start, did it ruin the experience for you? Did it feel like you were cheating?
It was a normal NG on ultra hard. For the first 5 hours, all I had was the basic bow and the rope caster.
Infitite dt in devil may cry 3 best reward ever.
sadly i dont have the time for "hard mode"
Naughty Oregano 👀
No game has made me feel the same as Nier: Automata. My search continues...
Did you finished bloody palace tho?
I.... I couldn't do it
Still need to do it with Trish and Vergil, but did do it with everyone else
This advice also works in turn-based 4X games. Play on easier difficulty to learn what's good, then switch to a higher difficulty once the game becomes too easy.
I decided to play rachet and clack on hard for the first time, the game is NOT build for it, the controls are way to finicky and dodging bullets is basically impossible, but i will do that when i play god of war... whenever that happens
im glad that you actively acknowledge that this is more of a "you" thing and that youre NOT saying that you think ALL gamers should be playing it this way or that you think this is how the average gamer thinks.
with that said, you definitely have a point in that playing on above-normal or hardest difficulty certainly brings in a LOT of satisfaction upon completion and that you can fully utilize what the game has to offer. unfortunately, the problem comes from how much time and energy out of our day required to accomplish that and were just talking about 1, single game here. we all have jobs and other life responsibilities to balance out and thats not even mentioning social obligations. combine that with the desire to play other games or even do something else like watch a movie for example.
im not actively trying to bring you or your opinion down here. i just want to give you the cost required to achieve that kind of satisfaction for a playing a video game, not exactly something you would want to put down on the average job resume.
All of these are totally valid concerns, but I would also be a little slower to imply that just because a skill isn't marketable means it's not worth having. I think there's merit in attempting to master something that may not inherently be useful to you in the moment. For instance, most people who master martial arts aren't going to engage in a whole lot of hand to hand combat outside of their training or formal exhibition. However, even if that martial artist never has to throw a single sincere punch in their life, the journey to master a skill to that extent can potentially teach you a good bit about yourself. Lord knows that games have been able to teach me patience and humility on more than a couple occasions, and I'd say mastering any skill can grant you that kind of insight. And all of this is before we even take into account the most important fact that doing things that bring us satisfaction is important, maybe even the most important thing for us as individuals. Paying your bills and keeping up with people is vital and all, but so doing things that make us happy. I think that has intrinsic value on it's own. But you are right, it is a balancing act. You should always live up to your obligations and responsibilities and if games start to feel more like obligation than relaxation then yeah, maybe an adjustment is warranted, but either way you still need to make time for things that bring you joy.
@@CodexEntry again you put up valid points as well. obviously yes, the journey can give you many skills and virtues useful in life but in my experience, the journey has to be equal to the payoff. your example of mastering martial arts is something not only that could be brought up on a job resume/interview but could be brought up in almost any type of conversation with just about anyone because that is seen as something "worthy" of your time. video games are still seen as a "childish" thing by the average adult, especially with the older people. telling them youve mastered one specific game (and not as a joke) just sends you deeper into that hole.
you should be proud of an accomplishment that you want to tell people about it but if it ends up with being seen as a disappointment or a complete waste of time by others, its just another reason why many people out there dont bother playing on the hardest difficulty.
This is kind of like Under the Mayo's challenge matters video except a good number of people just kept acting condescending towards him about it. I would probably try to play Nier Automata on harder modes, but the game's narrative is what gets talked about the most and I don't even think the narrative is good. I personally don't see what others do in that game's story. I just find it boring and poorly written.
Anyways, that aside, I get the idea of playing on hard mode, I really do, but there is just one problem with this that prevents me from playing on hard with every game: not all hard modes are made equal, some games are just inherently more fun on easy because they don't waste your time nearly as much, for example cover shooters or a lot of games with hitscan weapons or not very fun on hard since it lowers the amount of chances you are even allowed to make mistakes. Cover shooters will have your health take longer to regen on hard so easy might be more fun since you are allowed to actually act like an action movie hero. Hitscan shooters to some degree too since you aren't chastised for not knowing every enemy placement and where all the health packs are.
Then there are some games with awful mechanics that might not be fun on hard. I don't think I can handle playing Yakuza Dead Souls with it's weird aiming mechanics on anything above easy. Some games are also just straight up bad on easy like modern military shooters.
Also, a lot of hard modes are just the devs lowering and raising HP a lot of the time too, I get the idea but so many hard modes don't have much thought put into them. I don't mind a game letting you change the difficulty, it gives me room to experiment and I can try it out where on a first playthrough where you can't change, you might accidentally select a difficulty too easy or too hard or where it will randomly spike and might make me give up. I liked that Spider-Man 2(PS5) lets you change whenever you want. The middle difficulty Spectacular was a good challenge if you ask me. Some games don't even have a hard mode and are easy even on the default difficulty and you don't get hard mode until you beat the game like MGS3 and Super Metroid.
At this point, game difficulty is just something that will ever really be solved. I just play whatever I feel like
Im playing hollow knight right now, and for me, the difficulty factor takes away thav sense of protagonism, the game will mop the floor with your face until you deserve to defeat that boss and move on, nothing is taken for granted, and getting mad as fuck only makes it more satisfying when you finally beat them, sometimes it gets personal and damn it feels good to see how much you improved, thats why i think we like hard games in the first place