Is it normal to find a generally hard difficulty easy?

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I'm really starting to get ahold of Doom's "Ultra-Violence" Difficulty, and in the first few weeks of the playing the game in that difficulty, I immediately found the difficulty easy, like I could just breeze through the level, slaughtering every demon I see with whatever weapon I have selected, and still manage to take on a larger amount of enemies on the next level. Heck, there have been times where I felt the difficulty isn't giving me enough challenge, like I feel it's so easy to beat, it's not even funny. So I want to ask, is it normal to find a difficulty that most people find extremely challenging really easy?

Edit 1: I want to mention I have been using a Doom level WAD generator called Oblige, and I was playing on levels that had 500 or so monsters in that one particular level, so yeah.

Last edited by epiccolton26 on 19 Sep 2014, 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

seriously? it's the opposite for me, easy difficulties are still really hard for me most of the time.....I'd sell my soul to have the hardest difficulties in games feel easy.

Yes.
It is the meaning of Savant. <link

Interesting. Might take a look into it sometime.

I hear you. I had to play the entire Rune Factory 4 (except the first cave) in easy mode. And still I struggled despite having a bit more than the difficulty required.

Everyone's got a viewpoint. But yes, I am being serious. Ultra-Violence feels more like the "Hey, Not Too Rough" Difficulty in my opinion.

On Quake the only difficulty setting I find remotely challenging is Nightmare, and on DooM I generally play on Ultra Violence, since Nightmare is unfair and the rest are too easy. Those particular games have odd difficulty settings, compared to most other games. For extra challenge on DooM, lately I've been playing using only keyboard controls on the Chocolate Doom sourceport, which means no looking up and down, and no jumping or crouching.

It really depends on the game, the genre, and your skill in each, really.

For Doom, I play on Ultra Violence, as Nightmare is basically the same thing except that enemies respawn constantly if I recall, which is tedious. That being said, it indeed wasnt challenging enough. I ended up barely doing much actual shooting; as there's berserk packs somewhere on nearly every level, I mostly just punched everything, which was hilarious. Except things like Barons or similar stuff that just takes too long.

Alot of games though, yes, I just pump the difficulty up immediately, and I do very well. Or even with competetive things like fighting games, I'm typically very strong even just starting out against others.

Though, put me in a MODERN FPS, and well, it's not one of the genres I do well in, that's for sure. Can handle all sorts of games these days at their toughest.... but those? Cant hit a damn thing half the time.

Some games are easy on hard and others are quite challenging to me. I even find some games on normal or even easy to be challenging (like the Uncharted games)

Games have gotten progressively easier as companies look to take larger market segments. Look at WOW for example, that game reached the public conciousness by becoming accesible to non-gamers.

Bioshock Infinite has this problem, '1999 mode' (the hardest difficulty) is a joke, currently replaying it for the third time and I wish I could somehow make the game harder... Despite this it is still is my favorite game.

I find that Halo and Halo 2 are two games that really iced the difficulty modes, nightmare mode will always give experienced FPS gamers some trouble, legendary mode is a blissful never-ending challenge. Poked your head from out that corner without looking for snipers? your dead. Oh god and then the blissful joy you feel when you finally reach a checkpoint... tears of joy.



Rome 2 also suffers from face-roll syndrome, once you get a little more than half the research tiers upgraded, everything else turns into an easy face roll.

That sort of thing was probably more normal in the past when games weren't designed so easy that a monkey could beat them, and it probably isn't unheard of around retro gaming circles. Alas, most of us have lost some of our skill due to being spoiled by modern gaming. I'm not incapable, and I've been told my ability at single player games is well above average(somehow), but I'm not nearly as good as I was. I mean, I have the bad habit of playing games on normal, though I do refuse to play anything on any difficulty lower than that.

I think it varies.

I know a few games where "impossible" means just about that. If you don't have mad FPS skills, you won't go far in the game. It can be frustrating as well as challenging.

However, most games have an "impossible" mode that has little value once you learn the strategy for beating the situation.

Mass Effect is a good example. In the first game, Biotics were so overpowered that even on Insanity difficulty, you could wipe the floor with the bad guys. In the 2nd and 3rd installment, the weakened Biotics so it wasn't anywhere near as effective (I found one level down on difficulty provided a good gaming compromise of challenge and fun). In any case, the only way to beat the game on Insanity with a biotic character was to learn the strategy needed to beat the hard parts of the game and pick squadmates that balanced out your abilities. On easier difficulties, that didn't matter as much.

As for the former situation, System Shock 2 (old game) has an Impossible mode I've never gotten past the 3rd deck of the ship before I die and can't be resurrected due to a lack of funds to pay for being brought back. The game also plays with your head because you have limited ammo to start with, so it's more about hiding, taking out cameras and running though the bad guys than killing everything you come across. More so, bigger and badder looking guns don't really justify the cost of being able to equip them, so the smaller and weaker weapons prove to be more of an asset throughout the game.

I hate games that make it "hard" by making enemies bullet sponges. That is tedious and annoying. It breaks immersion to have to shoot someone in the head several times with a sniper rifle.

I grew up playing doom and quake, games today are much better. If you like those, give the borderlands series a try, a lot of fun.

Really depends on the game, time it was made, etc.

Most games I just play on the easiest difficulties because I'm a casual gamer but in some games I will progressively/gradually increase the difficulty levels.

Halo I've gotten used to Heroic difficulty. It's gotten very easy now...

Still hopeless in Legendary though.

Go play Super Ghosts and Goblins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSv6DCSZNQM

If you really want a challenge, have fun

Ooh, I've got a good example:


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuOQBL1T2o8[/youtube]


It definitely took some practice, but at my current skill level that stage isnt very hard anymore, even the boss.

I've played waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy too much of that.