A lot of your complaints are not an issue with hard modes overall but an issue with how certain games handle hard mode. The best games with difficulty settings don't change how much damage the enemies take. Doom ads more enemies, Halo upgrades enemies to other enemy types that are more powerful, mega man gives enemies new moves and some games even change the level design with difficulty settings.
Most of the issue you have with hard mode in FPS games are the games fault, not the fault of the genre. When enemies are all hitscan, they generally suck to fight. This likely is not fully understood by you cause of the generation of FPS gamer you are, this is just considered default, but play something like DOOM on UV and it's totally different.
more hard fps games should balance damage so (armored) targets die to atleast 3-2 bullets and (unarmored or light armored) to 1 bullet to head, and player can be balanced between these stats. coming out as an fan of tatical shooters like arma 3
Ive seen ULTRAKILL handle difficulties really neatly too. Most of the difficulties change things like projectile speed and maybe damage but theres also Violent and Brutal that add much more to some of the enemies that make them require better attention or carefulness.
A lot of your complaints are not an issue with hard modes overall but an issue with how certain games handle hard mode.
The best games with difficulty settings don't change how much damage the enemies take.
Doom ads more enemies, Halo upgrades enemies to other enemy types that are more powerful, mega man gives enemies new moves and some games even change the level design with difficulty settings.
in xcom we call this save scum. there are two types of people in the world. Those who save scum, and those who lie about not save scumming.
Most of the issue you have with hard mode in FPS games are the games fault, not the fault of the genre. When enemies are all hitscan, they generally suck to fight. This likely is not fully understood by you cause of the generation of FPS gamer you are, this is just considered default, but play something like DOOM on UV and it's totally different.
more hard fps games should balance damage so (armored) targets die to atleast 3-2 bullets and (unarmored or light armored) to 1 bullet to head, and player can be balanced between these stats. coming out as an fan of tatical shooters like arma 3
Ive seen ULTRAKILL handle difficulties really neatly too. Most of the difficulties change things like projectile speed and maybe damage but theres also Violent and Brutal that add much more to some of the enemies that make them require better attention or carefulness.