Difficulty of single-player computer games
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I think I usually tend toward easier settings (the exact pick depends per game) because in general I enjoy a cinematic experience and the harder difficulties often break that immersion as you have to fall back to more 'game-y' tactics to survive. I little challenge is fine and I love it when games can do a good job of making everything hectic and busy but you still don't have to be ultra-cautious to win, I guess. Maybe the Bioshock games were kind of an example of this?
Re: the identity stuff, the term is just really clunky, because there are so many types of games, past associations for the word, etc. I have an image of 'gamers' in the classic nerdy/board/D&D sense, and I have lots of friends like this and hang out with them without really feeling I fit the label (I know how to play Settlers, but turn my nose up at the more complicated worker games, for instance). Then there's the video game version, which maybe breaks down in similar ways. Then there's the fact it's also just a generic noun that can apply to a wider spectrum of people. I don't want to tell those people they're not gamers if they call themselves such, but they're obviously a different set of people from those with Konami code t-shirts.
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@WTFE said in Difficulty of single-player computer games:
@EUBanana said in Difficulty of single-player computer games:
@Rook Jeez. I don't think I know any man who isn't a gamer, at least in some degree!
Define "gamer" here? If you mean video games, I'm emphatically not a gamer. We could get together over a beer and then you'd know a man who isn't a gamer.
If you mean the broader sense of RPGs/wargames/board games/card games/etc. then I'm definitely a gamer.
Video games really, though to varying degrees, I know quite a few who play them quite rarely and probably wouldn't self describe as "gamers".
If you included wargames and the like, games of any sort, then that's basically everyone I know. But then. I know people, through gaming, mostly.
...Oh I lie. The other half is emphatically not a gamer.
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@EUBanana said in Difficulty of single-player computer games:
Video games really, though to varying degrees, I know quite a few who play them quite rarely and probably wouldn't self describe as "gamers".
Meet the male person who hates video games, then. How do you do?
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It depends. Hard or hell, depending on whether I think my mechanics are likely to be up for it. I don't want to just breeze through the game.
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@WTFE Oh I know they are out there.
Just saying. My experience could not be more different to the chap up above.
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I always play on hardest difficulty because I want to /beat/ the game, not just observe the story. I want to take everything it can throw at me, and win
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I always play on normal difficulty because I want to /beat/ the game, not just observe the art of the 'Game Over' screen.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain said in Difficulty of single-player computer games:
I always play on normal difficulty because I want to /beat/ the game, not just observe the art of the 'Game Over' screen.
That's fair
I find video games to be amazingly easy most of the time, and if it is to easy I lose interest. I can totally see who dying all the time could do the same thing and I don't hold difficulty levels as some sort of yardstick of what it takes to 'beat' a game. It's just how I measure it against myself. Can I beat the game, on the hardest difficulty it's creators came up with. -
Depends. There are games that are supposed to be genuinely challenging, as in, the challenge is the point of the game, and games where I care more about the story. For instance I'll usually turn the difficulty down on say, FF because I care more about advancing through the game than in super hard tactical battles, but I have had a blast playing Dawn of War with my buddy on Nightmare Mode. Sisters of Battle and Imperial Guard vs. the Green Tide.
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Because I'm an achievement whore, I'll play through on normal. Then, if I'm lucky, it'll have a New Game+, where I'll be roaming around for all the other achievements I missed on my initial playthrough, while racking up the difficulty since I now have all the abilities to make the various ones easier(for example, still working on the one from Witcher 3 where you have to inflict bleeding, poison, and burning at the same time on ten enemies).
There are some game where I avoid playing on harder difficulty. Axion Verge for example, because that game can be pretty punishing for the Metroidvania genre.
Other games, like Banner Saga, because it's a tactics and RTS game I'll intentionally play on easy simply because I'm not really all that good at that those games, but the storyline makes it worth playing.
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This exactly for me. I'll up the difficulty on a single-player story-driven game at first, but if I find that the experience of the story is being disrupted, I'll bring that down.
CK2 and the like ... yeah. Difficulty up. I play the shit out of those games (1922 hours on CK2 according to Steam).
@Tinuviel said in Difficulty of single-player computer games:
Depends on the game.
If it's more story-driven, I err towards the easier side of the spectrum (though normal difficulty is usually fine) as I don't want to be without story just because I can't beat the Firey Thresher Maws of Doom or whatever.
If it's a strategy game (big fan of Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Universalis IV, for instance) I turn the difficulty way, way up. Because I hate myself and want to see what happens.
