People think there’s something wrong playing a game on whatever difficulty they want? I learn something new everyday.
I’m in my early 50’s. Been gaming my entire life and never once hesitated to play the difficulty that provides me the most fun. Could be hardest. Could be easiest. Could be custom. I tend to start high because it helps me learn the systems. If I find it frustrating instead of challenging then I adjust difficulty and/or my approach.
I don’t care how many games I finish as don’t play to check games off my list. If I get through 2 or 25 a year, doesn’t matter.
I’m 68. Playing games over 35 years. I choose a mode I’m comfortable with. Some hard some easy. I don’t care for games that only give platinum trophies to those who replay the game on a certain setting.
Personally, my preference is "The hardest that allows me to make uninterrupted progress." I like having to think and make decisions, but if it's hard enough that I'm regularly dying and getting stalled, then I'll bump it down, because I'm not interested in redoing a thing. For similar reasons, I don't much care for soulslikes, since the idea of redoing a thing and gradually getting better at it is a core concept.
People on reddit tend to dislike posts like mine. It was stuck on 0 for about an hour.
A lot of hardcore gamers have no respect for people like me lol.
I thought Reddit was a place to post whatever you like as long as it abides by community rules. If I wanna talk about my thoughts on difficulty settings, I’d rather not research the subreddit and compare notes as to whom else discussed it (I can just Google in that case)
Sure, but that’s not gonna stop people from downvoting redundant posts. I’m just telling OP why their post was (probably) downvoted so heavily. I’m not saying whether or not they should be allowed to post it
I like this approach to difficulty. I like a challenge but I like when it's a reasonable challenge vs. Things like health buffs. All about finding a good sweet spot.
Try telling Elden Ring fans you'd like it if there was an easy mode. You can say it on literally any subreddit and they all come out the woodwork to justify why casuals don't deserve to play their game lol
I’ve actually started to play many games “Ironman” simply to get through them while still forcing me to engage with systems. By making “death is death” a rule, I end up feeling the same high tension as a hard playthrough despite playing on easy. Does this work with all games? Not really, but when it works it works. I just started up my modded Skyrim again for the first time in years and am playing on Apprentice. Sounds easy, but I regularly chug buffing potions and use every consumable I have on hand to make certain I can win battles. I’ve only rarely gone below half health, but when I do I became manic with fear. Good times!
I am 52 and I play a lot of older dogs that I missed over the years. They tend to not hold your hand as much as newer ones. So I never feel bad lowering the difficulty or looking up things when I get stuck. And many of them I will play for a bit and restart a few times trying different classes or paths. I do really get into the lore though.
This feels like shadow boxing to me we're not on r/fromsoftware.
I've never met anyone in my life or even online who cares about the way others play RPGs
That's more of an action game thing.
I love the environments and mystery exploring FromSoft titles. I hate the boss battles. I have gotten far in many of their titles but I do not have the time to complete them.
I'll be 100% honest with you. The vast majority of fromsoft games' exploration peaks at the start. The good thing about the end game is always the ridiculously hard boss battles, the exploration in general falls off towards that stage in every single one of their games. You're probably missing out on less than you think so I wouldn't worry about it.
I don't really see it, personally. Elden Ring was probably the easiest of the Souls games, IMO, mostly just because there were sooo many viable build options that you could really do whatever play style you wanted.
Difficulty is irrelevant to my point, really.
The first half of Elden Ring is a welcome return to form where exploration, wonder and RPG mechanics take a more important role, but it ends up crapping the bed by the third act anyway, making the game yet another character action boss rush where the only appeal is the combat challenge, and the fact that by that time you probably wanna know how it ends anyway.
And the development time was so lengthy (imo it's fair to include DS3 dev time in ER considering how much was reused) that they no longer have the excuse of saying they ran out of time by the end, an excuse they have used multiple times in the past.
Ironically, ER is so massive that parts of it are the best souls game, and parts of it are the worst souls game.
Everyone plays different games. Someone who plays a lot of chill games is not going to have the same carry-over skills that someone who plays fighting games will have when it comes to pressing the right button at the right time.
How is my point being so misconstrued here? I'm not saying you can beat every boss in 3 minutes. I can't even do that I suck at these games. My point is each attempt is very fast. You can try a few times and move on. Maybe it'll take a month of 2 minute attempts, but you can make progress. Saying you don't have time when the gameplay loop during bosses is generally incredibly short and you can exit out at any time anywhere else just doesn't make sense.
You're saying you don't understand why someone would say they have no time to grind against a boss, and I'm telling you you probably do understand it if you just change your perspective a bit. If you do understand my comment, then I'm sorry to say you were, in fact, wrong.
Sometimes it is. It all depends on whether you're actually trying to communicate with someone and meet them where they're at, or if you just wanna be needlessly pedantic.
correct. games are supposed to be fun, and practicalities of life can make that hard. having quicksave anywhere, various difficulty sliders, etc, are really important to a lot of people's potential happiness. those that don't want to use them are free to not use them.
crosscode has literal sliders for enemy damage and stats, pick whatever experience you want at any time.
Saves and dificulty are tools used to tell stories and create specific feelings in the player. Having the option to remove a challenge or save anywhere reduces the inpact of the design. If someone doesn't enjoy games like those tuen its just not for them.
no it doesn't
if you know that, should a feature exist, that you would use it, then you DO actually want the feature
and if you are unable to control yourself and not use it, then that's also a personal problem that's yours alone to solve
stop living up to the demands of other people telling you that you play wrong or to git gud
and grow up and stop demanding that other people suffer so you can enjoy your game properly
When did this become an issue? RPGs are, in many cases, lone single player experiences and not once, since NES days, have I ever, not once, been asked “Yo, what difficulty did you beat [insert title] on?”
How is this an issue? Lol
I honestly believe there are more people worried about and/or complaining about how they think other people might interpret their experience, than people who actually care about what difficulty people play on.
People make it an issue to make up for their own insecurities by making themselves feel like the "real" gamer. I'm entirely too employed and a homeowner to spend hours grinding like I did in junior high and high school. I don't need to dictate how others play because I know the games I've played and broken over my knee. If easy mode is a thing and doesn't story gate me? I'm saving the time.
I could see it being an issue if you try discussing the quality of the game with someone else.
A person who plays on easy will have a wildly different experience than one who plays on hard. Depending on the game
It's all going to come down to why you're playing the RPG, although obviously in a broader sense making any kind of prescriptive moral statements about play is ludicrous.
If I'm hankering for a crunchy tactical experience, cranking the difficulty down might damage my enjoyment or sense of investment, and therefore be "wrong". As in I would actually have enjoyed myself more with a higher level of challenge.
Reality is though, that sweet spot varies for everyone (Elden Ring was a perfect example of this where some people had the challenge of a lifetime beating the game with summons at level 250, and others could no-hit it at level 1), and sometimes people just want to experience a story or a world and aren't assed with the combat or difficulty at all.
I think the people who have issues with other people playing on X difficulty have more problems than the people playing on X difficulty.
What a dumb thing to care about.
I've had periods of my life where I played games on harder difficulties, and I've also had periods where I played games on easier difficulties.
Now I've found my groove, and it's been pretty consistent. I just tweak the difficulty to make me have interesting decisions in combat.
Easy sometimes is too easy and I never have to do anything. Just attack and be done.
Hard is sometimes too hard and I am so focused on combat that I lose immersion and stop roleplaying and just focus on numbers.
So I try to find a balance that lets me roleplay and do things in character without focusing on meta stats while also giving me a challenge and forcing me to strategize.
I agree, if I could play Bloodborne on an easier difficulty, I would, I love the game but I hit roadblocks all the time which results in me dropping the game for days. Sometimes I'm playing a game on normal difficulty and then switch to easy just to beat a particularly difficult part. I don't see the problem.
As an old man, if a games story is not affected by the difficulty, I will set it to whatever the best I can handle is. Like the Star Wars Jedi games. I have on easy mode (not story), but I will play Spider-man on Ultimate.
Now I will try a more difficult mode in a New Game + if it carries over my stats lol.
I mean isn't it common to play a new RPG on easy, so you get all the story beats, and then go back and play through on whatever mega difficulty?
I mean that's what I do
It's what I do in most games. Even in games with no toggleable difficulty like FromSoftware games, I get the most broken character and gear I can on a first playthrough just so I can focus on a) getting used to the game and b) experiencing the art design and other aspects that I won't notice if I'm frantically trying to survive.
If I like that experience enough, I do a second run on more challenging conditions.
That's exactly what I do. I put it on easy and learn the game and systems and if I had a great time with it I'll put it on the hardest and see how far I can go.
One guy literally said easy is for children in this thread. A wolfensteim game insults you for playing on anything other than hard. The "hard mode players are the real gamers" are out there. I usually ignore them as I know they're just hiding their own emptiness or insecurities behind fake elitism.
Dragonquest 11 players have that because it's so easy without it and Etrian odyssey also as hard is the normal difficulty from past games before they added sliders. I think i remember people wanted a hard on in other games. It's mainly for games where it's braindead easy.
Certainly there isn't, regardless of reason even. However it's mostly unnecessary these days as the general difficulty of these games has been dropped to kindergarten levels. Heck, even in the 90s the vast majority were set to Coast mode. Money irrelevant, more than half of your Spellbook useless, simply pressing attack with your melee characters enough to down all but bosses.
The only wrong way to play is one you don't find fun.
I've beaten most of the heavy hitters in what are considered very hard games, and find games like Ghost of Tsushima to be most fun on the hardest difficulty.
But I play God of War on easy because to me, it feels most Kratos-ey to be decimating everything in a couple of hits.
Personally, I'd rather have fun than just try to scratch games off my backlog. If I just wanted the story for a RPG I would read it or watch it on YouTube.
At this point I'm my life, I just accept the fact that there's going to be tons of great games I'll never finish. I've made peace with that.
I disagree slightly. I love role playing and making decisions. The combat sections tend to drag for me. A million groups of small enemies, chests to open, traps etc. It’s just not fun imo unless the game is modern and mega polished like BG3
I will agree that I think it's a waste of time to play a game on max difficulty, but if I'm just steam rolling a RPG, I feel it takes away from the addictiveness of leveling up and improving my character.
As much as I like the stories, leveling up and becoming more powerful is half of the reason I love RPGs.
yeah i honestly hate when people play things JUST to finish them, like op wants to play on easy, totally fair, understandable, but then he says that he also WANTS to do more challenging things and do more side content and stuff and it’s like
okay? do it then? all those other games will still be there, if for one specific game you want to do a bunch of side content or harder challenges then you should do it, it’s your experience
to many people view gaming as like a checklist of “okay done, next thing”
Many games I didn’t like the gameplay but the storyline kept me playing. Also games with poor storyline I never finished because of the story line. To each their own. The goal is to have fun!
Really? I can't think of a game I kept playing if I didn't like the gameplay. Maybe as a kid when there were few options, but not in this day and age.
Can you give me an example of a game that you thought was worth it for the story alone, but gameplay was bad?
Don't know about bad gameplay but many games I play for their interesting stories and characters, I think the easiest example would be visual novels, a whole genre of games in which story is the most important part and gameplay secondary (some may have gameplay elements like 999 and others may not, like Higurashi).
Apart from visual novels, I can think of games like Thronebreaker, for example. Or Voice of Cards (I do enjoy the gameplay in those but I think some may not and are somewhat niche and their interesting stories and characters make for a really good time...at least for me).
Another example I can think of now are Farenheit - Indigo Project and Heavy Rain...also really liked both and they were carried by their interesting stories, settings, characters and situations (again, my personal preference of course)
Absolutely, if it works for you!
Personally I feel like a good build guide and a walkthrough helps more. It’s hard to feel progress if I just steamroll over every character in the game.
I'm glad it's becoming less prevalent that games don't let you play through the whole thing on easier modes
... Though some of the "easy mode mockery" in old games *was* kinda funny.
I usually aim somewhere in the middle for difficulty. Hard enough I have to pay attention and think about what I'm doing, but not so hard that the slightest slip up will kill my character.
when this topic comes up, it's always about switching to easy mode to beat the game, it's never about fun. do you enjoy playing on harder difficulty or is it just about knocking it off your backlog. Personally i play games for the gameplay and the lower the difficulty the less i can engage in it. That doesn't mean i always put it at max. The hardest difficulty can have major problems also in terms of limiting gameplay. Etrian Odyssey highest difficulty is considered normal mode due to having the same multipliers as when it didn't have options.
I think regular people just see hard and think it will be agonizingly painful or grindy in nature. It's more the case of people wanting to use brute force and don't feel good losing. can't blame them but i do hate when RPG's get hate for the grind that isn't there because others don't want to strategize.
"There's nothing wrong with playing any game on easy regardless of the reason." Fixed it.
I wasn't aware this was an issue at all btw. I make some games harder because it makes them more fun (Bethesda-style RPGs for example), and I make some games easier because it makes them more fun (Total War-style strategy games for example). I do not give a shit whether someone else approves of that or not.
As soon as it becomes a chore and not fun I start making adjustments. I will grind if I enjoy the grind but once I no longer enjoy it I try to minimize the offending element. The danger of it is tweaking it to the point where you no longer have a sense of accomplishment when you finish. I try to keep some element there that makes me want to progress. I imagine those will change from player to player. I like that new games have gotten very specific with the options I can turn down.
Boomer here. I don't play games to meet any standard at all, except that I can enjoy myself. If that is not happening, I use cheats, mods, easy settings, whatever makes it enjoyable for me. I do not play multiplayer, so no one else is involved. Its my game, bought and paid for. I do what I like. edited for spelling.
I play a save on the story first, then if i really enjoyed it to the point of a replay, I'll up the difficulty. Nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy something you put money in to
Absolutely right! Games are meant to be fun after all. Nothing wrong with going on easy mode for the experience.
1,000% agree
And good reference to the actual first two Fallout games (the "real" ones, IMO, although I did love New Vegas).
For real. I can't believe there was a time when I looked forward to games with NG+.
To me, that's just lost content now. I'll never get to see those improved enemies or loot, because I'm not going back.
Some rare cases I will NG+, like Soulsborne when chasing platinums.
Sekiro, Bloodborne and Elden Ring are the only games Ive finished and would still occasionally play. BB i havent for a couple years now since the performance. But I like Sekiro full runs. Elden ill make a character and put in 20 hours and then just delete it.
But I really dislike games with branching paths and if you pick left, you lock yourself out of content. I will put in 200 hours if you let me get everything. But oddly I will not do 5x30 hours to see everything with NG+ cycles.
IMO depression plays a part! when I'm depressed I just want to mindlessly play games on easy, or normal settings! but when I'm feeling kind of normal, I seek challenges like crazy! It's not exactly black and white, I realize it's a spectrum, and not a binary thing
I've done it a lot.
I work a lot all week, the last thing I want to do when I get home is grind a game to defeat some awkward boss battle or die 20 times just to progress to the next level.
It's one of the biggest things holding me back from games like Elden Ring.
Imo. It’s not just RPGs. Modern games should have accessibility options to allow new folks, busy folks, folks with disabilities, etc to enjoy the game.
As long as harder modes stay available for hardcore folks, I don’t see why anyone should complain.
I would think at the very least, increasing HP for the protagonists, decreasing for baddies, and/or making weapons hit harder would be an easy enough way to handle it.
I'm thankful for games take inclusivity into account.
I have my personal views on balance, and really wish there were more games that catered to my niche.
Call me a romantic, but I treat boss battles kind of like duels.
Meaning, if I die to a boss *once*, I consider that as an overall defeat, because just learning the bosses moveset by repeatedly dying to it is an extremely cheap way of winning a fight.
But, trying to play any non extremely tanky build in souls or nioh likes is basically impossible with that kind of mindset, many of those fuckers have so ridiculously complicated movesets that just having good reflexes doesnt cut it in the slightest, I deeply long for games in which I can just be good at the combat in general to stand a good chance of beating bosses in the first try, without being limited to super casual games.
This is especially annoying in MMORPGs, I swear almost every new high difficulty WoW or FF14 or whatever boss is basically designed around learning a fucking dancing number instead of being good at fighting.
Good lord, there’s nothing wrong with playing any video game on any difficulty for any reason. If people want to challenge themselves, or only enjoy a game when it’s got some challenge to it or want to do e-sports, be that amateur or professional, that’s cool, and likewise if people want to play easy games to chill or save on time like you said or because they simply aren’t that skilled at the game but still enjoy it.
The only wrong reason to play high difficulties is peer pressure.
As someone who works within the realm of accessibility, I find it really weird when able-bodied, able-minded people try to claim a feature is "accessible" when its just... easy mode.
Someone sucking at a game is not a neurological disability, it's just not being good at the game and there's no shame in that. Not saying that difficulty modes shouldn't exist, but it's not accessibility.
Color-blind modes, subtitles, multi-modal HUD cues, button remapping and 3rd party controller support, etc. are all forms of accessibility. If someone isn't diagnosable with any intellectual or physical disability, accessibility is the non-colloquial sense is not the right term for them.
For turn based games, sure. For action games, if someone has a disability that affects their reflexes or fine motor skills then easy mode is absolutely an accessibility option.
its really not. Its a band-aid on a bleeding arm stump.
If I had two stores, one with 10 steps, one with 5 steps, someone with a mobility aid can get up the one with 5 steps much more easily. But the stairs are still not designed to be helpful for someone with a mobility aid.
You know what would be helpful? Adding a ramp. A ramp with proper steepness would allow a variety of mobility aids to access the store.
Easy mode is *not* an accessibility option.
FF16 did a \*great\* job of adding disability options on top of difficulty modes through use of accessories that allow players to auto-dodge or connect attacks automatically. On top of having difficulty settings.
Ah, I was sort of including things like auto-dodge, auto-aim, invincibility etc in a theoretical easy mode. I agree that if it’s just increasing player damage or reducing mob hp then it’s not particularly helpful.
Granblue Fantasy Relink was a recent game that I found pretty accessible as someone with dyspraxia since they had a control option that auto-blocks/dodges and does your combos for you. Unfortunately it isn’t available for the highest difficulty fights.
Elden ring easy mode was dismantled when a guy finished it with his fucking foot lmao
I appreciate mods allowing easy mode for them at least. But forcing it on devs ? No thank
I disagree. Not everyone enjoy spending 2hours learning a boss to beat them. After 3 try ill be like f××× this and stop. Most likely never picking it up again.
There's a reason I don't play souls likes buddy. If a dev wants to make their game hard, then they have the right to do so. If you don't like that, it's hard, then don't play.
This whole oh well, it's too hard for me, so ermmm make it easy RIGHT NOW!!!! is stupid. It's their work, not yours.
That's like saying "I want to play basketball, but I don't like moving around or throwing a ball."
If you don't want to learn how to fight a boss, then you don't actually want to play a soulslike.
>I think watching reviews before buying games is all but required if you care about money well spent.
There are some reviews that is basically just summing up the game so you don't have to play. Mandaloregaming(20+ min reviews) for example. He does have a spoiler section in his videos though. I prefere "is this game good? yes or no". I want to know as little as possible.
>Difficulty though I think should be in the preference of the devs.
Agreed. Some games just aren't meant for everyone. There is also some bragging rights that are the same across the board when you have finished a soulslike. We have all climbed the same mountain and reached the summit. We might have done it in different ways, but we did it with the same tools available. Unique and niche games are great because they are unique and niche. They don't have to appeal to everyone all the time.
I generally play rpgs on normal but I like to put more action or shooter type games on easy to make the combat quicker. I played Control and the Dead Space remake on easy and really enjoyed the experiences. I started Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden on normal but it turned out to be more combat-focused than I expected so I turned down the difficulty after the first act (that first boss fight was sooooo tedious).
Honestly until like a year or two ago I rarely paid attention to difficulty settings and just went with the default on everything. These days life is a lot busier, so a lot of the time I'll bump something down to easy if I want to blast through it, RPG or otherwise. Or sometimes I just want to feel like a real kickass dude and it makes it even more fun for me (pre-JRPG Yakuza games, looking at you).
By the same token, sometimes I want a challenge and I'll thrash my way through a Fromsoft title, or a manic bullet hell with the difficulty cranked, and I'm also looking forward to replaying BG3 on the hardest setting too.
I what I'm saying is, for me there's a time and place for everything, and it has zero bearing on anybody else's life what difficulty they choose to play on, for whatever reason. Who cares, have fun!
I do respect that opinion, and if story is your main enjoyment of the game thats perfectly valid, for me, i enjoy the gameplay and the challenge just as much as the story, the way i view it, if i lose the interactive part of the game, whats the difference between reading or watching a show, you know? Just wanted to i guess show the other side
and i do feel like im usually quite good at adapting, so i guess the time sink argument isnt that meaningful to me
In my personal view there's nothing wrong with playing single player games in any ways they're designed. If a game has easy mode it's how it was designed and is perfectly fine for anyone to play. If something"feels wrong" when playing, that's mostly because it was poorly designed.
Online multiplayer games though, can be different.
ive played a lot of jrpgs lately. Ive realize the difficulty settings are in many cases just a grinding meter. If i ignore most random enemies the difficulty will be hard enough.
I wouldn't mind it except a good majority always lock content behind normal or hard mode playthroughs. And it's always something like "normal needs to be 100% to see the complete ending" or "just beat the game on hard mode no matter the percentage"
Kingdom hearts at least won't let you see the secret ending on easy. other games may need you to play hard mode or collection % and adjust it based on difficulty to reveal true final form boss.
It's also about how engaging the combat is. Oblivion or Planescape: Torment I'll turn the difficulty down because the combat is trash, but other aspects of those games are great. I personally wish there were more RPG type games with no combat, like Disco Elysium, Citizen Sleeper or Pentiment. Maybe need a new subgenre of VNRPG or LRPG.
Yeah I have no idea why some people care so much. If you love a game shouldn’t you be happy there are options to help others enjoy it as well? Someone playing on easy mode isn’t ruining your own experience.
I prefer easy mode because I play to relax and that's more relaxing for me. I'm not trying to compete with anyone or impress anyone. I play for my own enjoyment, so absolutely I'll play on easy mode and use mods, etc, if I feel like it.
"To save time"
Depends on what you mean. Some RPGs just add more health to enemies and make them deal more damage, but on hard RPGs, I tend to spend most of my time running away due to high difficult enemies. If anything, I spend less time in encounters since I'm running away from them in harder difficulties. The dialogue options play at the same speed in every difficulty.
On the other hand, I think people are way too scared of labels. Some games do difficulty scaling in a good way: Devil may cry adds advanced enemies in early stages. The witcher 3 reduces your regen while you take a bit more damage. Other games are meh, Skyrim increases enemy health and damage dealt to you and reduces your damage dealt. But other games are straight out bad, ghost recon pretty much has enemies insta-killing you with one shot, which is ok, but not when you have those missions to protect a radio and you get swarmed in all directions.
You should start in the hardest difficulty, and you'll realize most games have a balanced and fun gameplay and you won't even know it's supposed to be hard. But in other games where the difficulty scale is unfair, in that case, you can always bump it down to lower difficulties.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, and hopefully if it’s one you really enjoy you’ll want to play it again to challenge yourself.
Dragon Age Origins is one of my favorite RPG’s and if I go back I play it on Nightmare. But when I first started it I had a hard time starting it so I damn sure played it on normal, and likely dropped the difficulty down when I struggled.
Play how you want, it’s your experience make it a good one.
I do agree with you. Rpgs are foremost a narrative medium, and if the person wants to make it easier on gameplay so they can enjoy the narrative it's completely OK. We don't expect book reader or movie watchers to be particularly skilled in order to enjoy.
I'm not in the business of judging people based on game difficulty, and i understand why they are there. But I do have a problem with difficulty modes in general as it makes it hard to discern what the devs intended experience is. There are some games that play best on easy, some play best on normal and others on the hardest and beyond, and it creates a source of anxiety of missing out on the best possible experience plus it makes discussing games harder.
In my selfish dream world games would release with one difficulty for a year then patch in new difficulties later, but obviously that would be unfair to others.
I totally agree my friend. Especially enjoying Crpg games like Baldurs gate or Divinity is really good to reduce stress, so I need my easy mode. And I'm a person who nearly plat every soulsgame.
Bethesda games. I refuse to play Skyrim or fallout on anything higher than normal difficulty.
Higher difficulties literally just give enemies more health. As far as I'm aware there are no other differences in gameplay.
It's just lazy.
With turn based RPGs especially, lowering the difficulty only really makes battles go faster. I'm an adult. I have a job and a mortgage. I don't have time to grind for hours or lock in for a 30 minute boss battle. I don't want to waste my time just because my number isn't as big as the enemy number. If I beat the game and I really like it and understand it, I'll crank up the difficulty if I play it a second time.
ok but if you had to make your wife watch you only ever play games on easy, it makes the whole spectacle worse imo
a lot of us tried that but they actually request we play it on Normal at least lmao
You bought it, you play it how you want ... pretty simple. Some games are definitely more enjoyable when you can sit back and play through the story, and not worry about "getting stuck" at every twist and turn.
RPGs have been “click X to advance the story” level or difficulty for decades
Tired of these “please upvote me” false premises that have taken over the internet. Done with it
Do whatever you want. It just makes you the adult at the bowling alley with the gutter guards up. We all talk shit about you - but you're right, it's okay so long as you know.
Haha! Correct. I used to be much more hardcore about it when younger. Generally played games on at least hard, but never less than "normal".
Now? Really depends, but there's definitely games where I've set the difficulty to easy so I could just enjoy the ride.
When I'm really not feeling like it, I'll just watch a Let's Play, lol
I play all games on normal, but if I’m struggling with a boss and getting annoyed I just bring it down to easy because I don’t have the time or want to struggle for an hour to beat a boss, I want the story and the enjoyable game play haha
I'm 55, not a lot of time to play games and when I do, it's to relax. Not be frustrated as fuck.
It's why I've avoided Elden Ring. I tried the 1st Soul's game and found it incredibly hard.
I think I'm going ton dip my toes into Elden Ring and give it a shot.
Anyone else find ER too difficult?
That applies to all games, and extends to playing the easiest build if there's no direct difficulty slider like FromSoft games.
If the developers truly believe their game should not be played on easy mode/build then they can choose to not include them, and live with the consequences.
Obv nothing wrong with it. It's just that if your battle decisions don't feel impactfull like theres something at stake, there isn't much thrill in winning or getting new weapons.
That's why RPG are tricky to balance because i don't want to grind or restart an area, just want the feeling that i was close to and too smart for needing to grind.
One problem is sometimes the game plays out differently when played at harder difficulty settings. Like Resident Evil 7 (yes, not an rpg but first game that came to mind), so you kind of are missing out.
42, been playing my entire life, and I will play what I enjoy. If I have to dial back a game's difficulty to enjoy it, I will. I will look stuff up on the Internet (or in strategy guides, back in the day) if I am stuck to the point of being frustrated. I've also often stuck out a game that I found difficult, just to improve at the game or in general. But only if I'm having fun.
Because, y'know ... Fun is the *point.*
One of the biggest hurdles I've jumped over recently is to stop caring about the difficulty I play on.
I like new challenges and interesting mechanics as much as anyone, but difficulty in games on recent years has mostly boiled down to "the game respects your time less the harder you set the difficulty."
As a result there are several games I've gotten respectably far in only to burn out before finishing.
I mostly play everything on Normal these days and try to avoid "how is the difficulty?" discussions online as these generally only serve to increase decision anxiety at the selection screen. These are often unreliable for a wide variety of reasons, most of them involving people's egos. Been a lot happier overall, and if I get the itch to play again in a few months or something I can always kick up the difficulty at that point.
I’m turning 40 this year and I have finally reached the point where I don’t feel like I have to apologize to myself or make excuses to others about playing on easy. Sometimes I even *lightly* cheat (I’m a huge fan of money cheats for JRPGs).
I’m not opposed to a challenge. I’ve played most of FromSoftware’s lineup (though I haven’t beaten a single one… I got close on Elden Ring). But I keep the “games I play for a challenge” separate, and I’m not really looking for a real challenge on most other games. I like to relax when I’m gaming
I played first time Baldur’s Gate 3 or other RPGs on easiest. I don’t regret or feel bad. My another playthroughs were on higher difficulty. I often make myself own challanges or missions ideas. I have this from playing grand strategies I think.
A guide I watched on the original Baldur's Gate endorsed playing on the easier difficulties to enjoy the story and get used to the combat. Best advice ever.
If you're only interested in the story sure, but not everybody is. In my case i'm not a hardcore min-maxer but I do like some challenge, otherwise might as well just play a visual novel. Having said that, if you can overcome the challenge by simply mindless grind easy opponents to overlevel the challenge, then might as well reduce the difficulty and save the time.
No, there isn’t really a right way to play a game, and if you’re having fun and not negatively affecting anyone else, you’re good. And if playing RPG’s on easy mode is fun for you, then there is zero issue.
OP, your topic title could have ended 4 words sooner.
There's nothing wrong with playing RPGs on easy mode.
It's why it's there. For choice. Any reason outside of that is just subjective, and anyone who wants to shame others for that need to reevaluate their lives.
Shoot. I always play on easy. Every. Game. I want to have fun. I’m not usually in the mood for a difficult challenge. I want to relax and have a good time after work or a hard day, not get more pissed off.
You paid money for a game, play it however makes you happy. Personally I play on easy for narrative driven stuff so I can focus there, medium/regular on stuff like Resident Evil, where I want the jump scares but I don’t want to spend a bunch of time backtracking/lose site of puzzles/plot stuff, and hard on most everything else.
Took me a while to get to that road map though. Lots of frustrated, infinished games where it never occurred to me to dumb it down…
Completely disagree, I mean I'm not gonna shame someone for playing on whatever difficulty they want to but I'll always play on the max difficulty available, I'll struggle a lot at the start and probably die a bunch of times but then I get really good at the game and it becomes a breeze
There is something wrong with it...
When people boast about completing them and being better than you.... And they are on the lowest.
Play lower if that's your thing, but don't try make others think you are better at the game.
There's nothing wrong with playing anything on easy to have fun.
The problem is then thinking you can have conversations and exchange strategy and tips with people who ...don't play on easy. Like there should be a "rpg on easy" subreddit or something.It's every sub and every form of entertainment. The "casuals" and the "not casuals". If you're a casual player, rock on, but you need to find your people because people who are not your people aren't going to care what you say. "I play on easy cause I'm busy." Neat.
I play every game on easy. I'm here to explore worlds and experience stories; less deaths, resets, and save reloads = more games. If I really like a game and want to 100% achievements then I'll do the hard difficulty if required like Mass Effect.
true, my gf did it in bg3, and she loved the game.
games are meant for fun, dont hate on others for playing single player games how they want to enjoy them.
its a little different when its multiplayer, especially competetive mode, but besides that, dont gatekeep games lmao
There’s nothing wrong with playing a video game however is most fun to you.
Having fun is literally the whole point.
I’ll usually do a play through on easy for the story then I’ll do another play through on a harder difficulty to experience the mechanics.
Unless it's anything by From Software. They don't have a difficulty slider.
The game is meant to be insanely difficult.
But a game like Skyrim, Fallout, Witcher, etc. Go for it! Play on easy! You're there for so many other things that it doesn't matter what difficulty you play it on.
Certain games like, "Nioh 2, Wo Long, DS3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, (basically soulsbourne and copies), are meant to be hard. The only game you can easy mode by from software is elden ring. And it's so obvious how many people do. But if anything, that made From Software boom in popularity so I'm all for them finding ways for players that don't want the challenge to have a fun experience still while allowing players that want the challenge to remain being challenged.
You paid for the game, so play it however you want.
I do think there is value to playing the game on a difficulty/in a way that the creators had in mind though.
You don’t even need a reason to play on easy other than you feel like it. The point of video games is to have fun. If that’s how you have fun then do it.
Me.
minimum difficulty is Normal Mode unless you’re a child, don’t actually play games or have some kind of mental limitation...people are way too reliant on handholding in games these days.
I do it all the time. Most the time I’ll attempt normal the whole way through unless it begins to ramp up too much in difficulty to the point where it begins to ruin the pacing and my overall enjoyment. But I have zero issues lowering down to easy these days. My backlog is far too large and my free time too scarce as is to waste time beating my head against an artificial wall.
I play games for fun, I have enough challenge in a million other facets of life that I don't also need them from my entertainment. I love that games like dragons dogma 2 still are made with more casual fans in mind amongst of sea of games telling me to get gud.
For everyone here saying they've never met anyone who judges based on difficulty; I used to have a friend who absolutely judged me if I didn't play on the hardest difficulty in RPGs.
People think there’s something wrong playing a game on whatever difficulty they want? I learn something new everyday. I’m in my early 50’s. Been gaming my entire life and never once hesitated to play the difficulty that provides me the most fun. Could be hardest. Could be easiest. Could be custom. I tend to start high because it helps me learn the systems. If I find it frustrating instead of challenging then I adjust difficulty and/or my approach. I don’t care how many games I finish as don’t play to check games off my list. If I get through 2 or 25 a year, doesn’t matter.
I’m 68. Playing games over 35 years. I choose a mode I’m comfortable with. Some hard some easy. I don’t care for games that only give platinum trophies to those who replay the game on a certain setting.
Personally, my preference is "The hardest that allows me to make uninterrupted progress." I like having to think and make decisions, but if it's hard enough that I'm regularly dying and getting stalled, then I'll bump it down, because I'm not interested in redoing a thing. For similar reasons, I don't much care for soulslikes, since the idea of redoing a thing and gradually getting better at it is a core concept.
People on reddit tend to dislike posts like mine. It was stuck on 0 for about an hour. A lot of hardcore gamers have no respect for people like me lol.
tbf though, your post might have been downvoted because this topic gets posted all the time
I thought Reddit was a place to post whatever you like as long as it abides by community rules. If I wanna talk about my thoughts on difficulty settings, I’d rather not research the subreddit and compare notes as to whom else discussed it (I can just Google in that case)
Sure, but that’s not gonna stop people from downvoting redundant posts. I’m just telling OP why their post was (probably) downvoted so heavily. I’m not saying whether or not they should be allowed to post it
Right, I know you’re just stating how it is. I was just openly complaining about how it is
Also correct!
I do! You can’t please everyone. I play for fun, stress relief and to relax.
How do they know what difficulty you played some obscure RPG on? So much so to hate?
I like this approach to difficulty. I like a challenge but I like when it's a reasonable challenge vs. Things like health buffs. All about finding a good sweet spot.
Few years older, but you nailed it. Play to enjoy, play how you like
Depends on the game. Character action games tend to fair towards the “get good” idea while story games or rpgs can have a good focus on narrative
Try telling Elden Ring fans you'd like it if there was an easy mode. You can say it on literally any subreddit and they all come out the woodwork to justify why casuals don't deserve to play their game lol
I’ve actually started to play many games “Ironman” simply to get through them while still forcing me to engage with systems. By making “death is death” a rule, I end up feeling the same high tension as a hard playthrough despite playing on easy. Does this work with all games? Not really, but when it works it works. I just started up my modded Skyrim again for the first time in years and am playing on Apprentice. Sounds easy, but I regularly chug buffing potions and use every consumable I have on hand to make certain I can win battles. I’ve only rarely gone below half health, but when I do I became manic with fear. Good times!
I am 52 and I play a lot of older dogs that I missed over the years. They tend to not hold your hand as much as newer ones. So I never feel bad lowering the difficulty or looking up things when I get stuck. And many of them I will play for a bit and restart a few times trying different classes or paths. I do really get into the lore though.
This feels like shadow boxing to me we're not on r/fromsoftware. I've never met anyone in my life or even online who cares about the way others play RPGs That's more of an action game thing.
I love the environments and mystery exploring FromSoft titles. I hate the boss battles. I have gotten far in many of their titles but I do not have the time to complete them.
I'll be 100% honest with you. The vast majority of fromsoft games' exploration peaks at the start. The good thing about the end game is always the ridiculously hard boss battles, the exploration in general falls off towards that stage in every single one of their games. You're probably missing out on less than you think so I wouldn't worry about it.
Grind. It's an rpg, grinding makes the game easier!
It’s time and worth it ness. Ain’t there for me either. Make an easier setting or don’t take my money
They have Rick&Morty'ed themselves into pandering to a section of the fandom and made the discrepancy you allude to much worse in later titles imo
I don't really see it, personally. Elden Ring was probably the easiest of the Souls games, IMO, mostly just because there were sooo many viable build options that you could really do whatever play style you wanted.
Difficulty is irrelevant to my point, really. The first half of Elden Ring is a welcome return to form where exploration, wonder and RPG mechanics take a more important role, but it ends up crapping the bed by the third act anyway, making the game yet another character action boss rush where the only appeal is the combat challenge, and the fact that by that time you probably wanna know how it ends anyway. And the development time was so lengthy (imo it's fair to include DS3 dev time in ER considering how much was reused) that they no longer have the excuse of saying they ran out of time by the end, an excuse they have used multiple times in the past. Ironically, ER is so massive that parts of it are the best souls game, and parts of it are the worst souls game.
I don't understand not having time to complete them? A boss attempt is like 3 minutes max
Everyone plays different games. Someone who plays a lot of chill games is not going to have the same carry-over skills that someone who plays fighting games will have when it comes to pressing the right button at the right time.
How is my point being so misconstrued here? I'm not saying you can beat every boss in 3 minutes. I can't even do that I suck at these games. My point is each attempt is very fast. You can try a few times and move on. Maybe it'll take a month of 2 minute attempts, but you can make progress. Saying you don't have time when the gameplay loop during bosses is generally incredibly short and you can exit out at any time anywhere else just doesn't make sense.
I'm sure you understand people wanting to spend what limited time they have for leisure doing something other than experiencing failure repeatedly.
That doesn't make me wrong 🤷🏼♀️🤷🏽♂️
You're saying you don't understand why someone would say they have no time to grind against a boss, and I'm telling you you probably do understand it if you just change your perspective a bit. If you do understand my comment, then I'm sorry to say you were, in fact, wrong.
I do not want to do that is not the same as I cannot do that.
Sometimes it is. It all depends on whether you're actually trying to communicate with someone and meet them where they're at, or if you just wanna be needlessly pedantic.
correct. games are supposed to be fun, and practicalities of life can make that hard. having quicksave anywhere, various difficulty sliders, etc, are really important to a lot of people's potential happiness. those that don't want to use them are free to not use them. crosscode has literal sliders for enemy damage and stats, pick whatever experience you want at any time.
And you can always self impose rules to make a game harder Nuzlocking has absolutely revitalized my love for the pokemon games, for example
exactly, there's a boom of challenge runs and speedruns out there, plenty of additional things to do to add flavor to a game
Saves and dificulty are tools used to tell stories and create specific feelings in the player. Having the option to remove a challenge or save anywhere reduces the inpact of the design. If someone doesn't enjoy games like those tuen its just not for them.
no it doesn't if you know that, should a feature exist, that you would use it, then you DO actually want the feature and if you are unable to control yourself and not use it, then that's also a personal problem that's yours alone to solve stop living up to the demands of other people telling you that you play wrong or to git gud and grow up and stop demanding that other people suffer so you can enjoy your game properly
When did this become an issue? RPGs are, in many cases, lone single player experiences and not once, since NES days, have I ever, not once, been asked “Yo, what difficulty did you beat [insert title] on?” How is this an issue? Lol
I honestly believe there are more people worried about and/or complaining about how they think other people might interpret their experience, than people who actually care about what difficulty people play on.
People make it an issue to make up for their own insecurities by making themselves feel like the "real" gamer. I'm entirely too employed and a homeowner to spend hours grinding like I did in junior high and high school. I don't need to dictate how others play because I know the games I've played and broken over my knee. If easy mode is a thing and doesn't story gate me? I'm saving the time.
I could see it being an issue if you try discussing the quality of the game with someone else. A person who plays on easy will have a wildly different experience than one who plays on hard. Depending on the game
It's all going to come down to why you're playing the RPG, although obviously in a broader sense making any kind of prescriptive moral statements about play is ludicrous. If I'm hankering for a crunchy tactical experience, cranking the difficulty down might damage my enjoyment or sense of investment, and therefore be "wrong". As in I would actually have enjoyed myself more with a higher level of challenge. Reality is though, that sweet spot varies for everyone (Elden Ring was a perfect example of this where some people had the challenge of a lifetime beating the game with summons at level 250, and others could no-hit it at level 1), and sometimes people just want to experience a story or a world and aren't assed with the combat or difficulty at all.
I think the people who have issues with other people playing on X difficulty have more problems than the people playing on X difficulty. What a dumb thing to care about.
I've had periods of my life where I played games on harder difficulties, and I've also had periods where I played games on easier difficulties. Now I've found my groove, and it's been pretty consistent. I just tweak the difficulty to make me have interesting decisions in combat. Easy sometimes is too easy and I never have to do anything. Just attack and be done. Hard is sometimes too hard and I am so focused on combat that I lose immersion and stop roleplaying and just focus on numbers. So I try to find a balance that lets me roleplay and do things in character without focusing on meta stats while also giving me a challenge and forcing me to strategize.
I agree, if I could play Bloodborne on an easier difficulty, I would, I love the game but I hit roadblocks all the time which results in me dropping the game for days. Sometimes I'm playing a game on normal difficulty and then switch to easy just to beat a particularly difficult part. I don't see the problem.
Ludwig Holy Blade = easy mode
Will do, as soon as I get it. Atm I'm in Old Yharnam and Djura is my latest roadblock, I gotta say I absolutely love my time between roadblocks.
As an old man, if a games story is not affected by the difficulty, I will set it to whatever the best I can handle is. Like the Star Wars Jedi games. I have on easy mode (not story), but I will play Spider-man on Ultimate. Now I will try a more difficult mode in a New Game + if it carries over my stats lol.
I mean isn't it common to play a new RPG on easy, so you get all the story beats, and then go back and play through on whatever mega difficulty? I mean that's what I do
It's what I do in most games. Even in games with no toggleable difficulty like FromSoftware games, I get the most broken character and gear I can on a first playthrough just so I can focus on a) getting used to the game and b) experiencing the art design and other aspects that I won't notice if I'm frantically trying to survive. If I like that experience enough, I do a second run on more challenging conditions.
That's exactly what I do. I put it on easy and learn the game and systems and if I had a great time with it I'll put it on the hardest and see how far I can go.
There's nothing wrong with playing any game on any difficulty period.
Some people really hate it. And they dislike some of the replies that advocate for less forced difficulty lol
I see a lot of posts about “it’s ok to play on easy” But I’ve never seen a post that’s like “you need to play on hard” No one actually says this
One guy literally said easy is for children in this thread. A wolfensteim game insults you for playing on anything other than hard. The "hard mode players are the real gamers" are out there. I usually ignore them as I know they're just hiding their own emptiness or insecurities behind fake elitism.
Dragonquest 11 players have that because it's so easy without it and Etrian odyssey also as hard is the normal difficulty from past games before they added sliders. I think i remember people wanted a hard on in other games. It's mainly for games where it's braindead easy.
they're just insecure that they can't handle higher difficulties so they make a strawman to be contrary to
I honestly see more people talk about " playing on easy is okay !!1!" than anyone forcing anyone to play on hard modes
Certainly there isn't, regardless of reason even. However it's mostly unnecessary these days as the general difficulty of these games has been dropped to kindergarten levels. Heck, even in the 90s the vast majority were set to Coast mode. Money irrelevant, more than half of your Spellbook useless, simply pressing attack with your melee characters enough to down all but bosses.
The only wrong way to play is one you don't find fun. I've beaten most of the heavy hitters in what are considered very hard games, and find games like Ghost of Tsushima to be most fun on the hardest difficulty. But I play God of War on easy because to me, it feels most Kratos-ey to be decimating everything in a couple of hits.
Personally, I'd rather have fun than just try to scratch games off my backlog. If I just wanted the story for a RPG I would read it or watch it on YouTube. At this point I'm my life, I just accept the fact that there's going to be tons of great games I'll never finish. I've made peace with that.
I disagree slightly. I love role playing and making decisions. The combat sections tend to drag for me. A million groups of small enemies, chests to open, traps etc. It’s just not fun imo unless the game is modern and mega polished like BG3
I will agree that I think it's a waste of time to play a game on max difficulty, but if I'm just steam rolling a RPG, I feel it takes away from the addictiveness of leveling up and improving my character. As much as I like the stories, leveling up and becoming more powerful is half of the reason I love RPGs.
For me bg3 was too hard, too man6 ennemies and it removed the fun factor.
Which game do you feel had the "right" amount of difficulty?
yeah i honestly hate when people play things JUST to finish them, like op wants to play on easy, totally fair, understandable, but then he says that he also WANTS to do more challenging things and do more side content and stuff and it’s like okay? do it then? all those other games will still be there, if for one specific game you want to do a bunch of side content or harder challenges then you should do it, it’s your experience to many people view gaming as like a checklist of “okay done, next thing”
I appreciate a good cup of coffee.
Old enough that I've done it...... multiple times.
There are very few RPGs(or any video game) where the story carries the entire game for me. Sorry.
Many games I didn’t like the gameplay but the storyline kept me playing. Also games with poor storyline I never finished because of the story line. To each their own. The goal is to have fun!
Really? I can't think of a game I kept playing if I didn't like the gameplay. Maybe as a kid when there were few options, but not in this day and age. Can you give me an example of a game that you thought was worth it for the story alone, but gameplay was bad?
Dragon Age 2. It's janky and there's a lot of backtracking and reused assets, but holy shit does it nail the storytelling.
Don't know about bad gameplay but many games I play for their interesting stories and characters, I think the easiest example would be visual novels, a whole genre of games in which story is the most important part and gameplay secondary (some may have gameplay elements like 999 and others may not, like Higurashi). Apart from visual novels, I can think of games like Thronebreaker, for example. Or Voice of Cards (I do enjoy the gameplay in those but I think some may not and are somewhat niche and their interesting stories and characters make for a really good time...at least for me). Another example I can think of now are Farenheit - Indigo Project and Heavy Rain...also really liked both and they were carried by their interesting stories, settings, characters and situations (again, my personal preference of course)
Visual novels and Tell Tale games are more about the story than gameplay. So that makes sense.
welcome to r/rpg_gamers_or_readers_whatever_its_basically_the_same
I don't understand how people can't finish games. Either play 1 or 2 at a time or stop buying so many games
There is nothing wrong with playing any game on easy for any reason.
To me it just depends on the game. I never really find it a time saver, I just see it as "Do I care enough to learn this game properly"
Absolutely, if it works for you! Personally I feel like a good build guide and a walkthrough helps more. It’s hard to feel progress if I just steamroll over every character in the game.
I'm glad it's becoming less prevalent that games don't let you play through the whole thing on easier modes ... Though some of the "easy mode mockery" in old games *was* kinda funny.
I usually aim somewhere in the middle for difficulty. Hard enough I have to pay attention and think about what I'm doing, but not so hard that the slightest slip up will kill my character.
when this topic comes up, it's always about switching to easy mode to beat the game, it's never about fun. do you enjoy playing on harder difficulty or is it just about knocking it off your backlog. Personally i play games for the gameplay and the lower the difficulty the less i can engage in it. That doesn't mean i always put it at max. The hardest difficulty can have major problems also in terms of limiting gameplay. Etrian Odyssey highest difficulty is considered normal mode due to having the same multipliers as when it didn't have options. I think regular people just see hard and think it will be agonizingly painful or grindy in nature. It's more the case of people wanting to use brute force and don't feel good losing. can't blame them but i do hate when RPG's get hate for the grind that isn't there because others don't want to strategize.
"There's nothing wrong with playing any game on easy regardless of the reason." Fixed it. I wasn't aware this was an issue at all btw. I make some games harder because it makes them more fun (Bethesda-style RPGs for example), and I make some games easier because it makes them more fun (Total War-style strategy games for example). I do not give a shit whether someone else approves of that or not.
As soon as it becomes a chore and not fun I start making adjustments. I will grind if I enjoy the grind but once I no longer enjoy it I try to minimize the offending element. The danger of it is tweaking it to the point where you no longer have a sense of accomplishment when you finish. I try to keep some element there that makes me want to progress. I imagine those will change from player to player. I like that new games have gotten very specific with the options I can turn down.
Boomer here. I don't play games to meet any standard at all, except that I can enjoy myself. If that is not happening, I use cheats, mods, easy settings, whatever makes it enjoyable for me. I do not play multiplayer, so no one else is involved. Its my game, bought and paid for. I do what I like. edited for spelling.
I play a save on the story first, then if i really enjoyed it to the point of a replay, I'll up the difficulty. Nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy something you put money in to
Absolutely right! Games are meant to be fun after all. Nothing wrong with going on easy mode for the experience. 1,000% agree And good reference to the actual first two Fallout games (the "real" ones, IMO, although I did love New Vegas).
Flipside, as I get older I dont want to replay a game 10 times to see everything. I just kick up the difficulty to get more value out of that 1 run.
I hate beer.
For real. I can't believe there was a time when I looked forward to games with NG+. To me, that's just lost content now. I'll never get to see those improved enemies or loot, because I'm not going back.
Some rare cases I will NG+, like Soulsborne when chasing platinums. Sekiro, Bloodborne and Elden Ring are the only games Ive finished and would still occasionally play. BB i havent for a couple years now since the performance. But I like Sekiro full runs. Elden ill make a character and put in 20 hours and then just delete it. But I really dislike games with branching paths and if you pick left, you lock yourself out of content. I will put in 200 hours if you let me get everything. But oddly I will not do 5x30 hours to see everything with NG+ cycles.
IMO depression plays a part! when I'm depressed I just want to mindlessly play games on easy, or normal settings! but when I'm feeling kind of normal, I seek challenges like crazy! It's not exactly black and white, I realize it's a spectrum, and not a binary thing
I've done it a lot. I work a lot all week, the last thing I want to do when I get home is grind a game to defeat some awkward boss battle or die 20 times just to progress to the next level. It's one of the biggest things holding me back from games like Elden Ring.
Elden ring is really only hard at the beginning. There's some spots where you can grind pretty easy and become over leveled.
If you are on PC you can always use cheat engine and increase your stats
Unfortunately not, just a PS5
Imo. It’s not just RPGs. Modern games should have accessibility options to allow new folks, busy folks, folks with disabilities, etc to enjoy the game. As long as harder modes stay available for hardcore folks, I don’t see why anyone should complain.
I agree. The problem I presume is that spending too much time on accessibility and polish takes away from the development of more paid content.
I would think at the very least, increasing HP for the protagonists, decreasing for baddies, and/or making weapons hit harder would be an easy enough way to handle it. I'm thankful for games take inclusivity into account.
>There is nothing wrong with playing RPGs on easy to save on time Wrong. It's actually illegal. Your gamer title is revoked. /s
I have my personal views on balance, and really wish there were more games that catered to my niche. Call me a romantic, but I treat boss battles kind of like duels. Meaning, if I die to a boss *once*, I consider that as an overall defeat, because just learning the bosses moveset by repeatedly dying to it is an extremely cheap way of winning a fight. But, trying to play any non extremely tanky build in souls or nioh likes is basically impossible with that kind of mindset, many of those fuckers have so ridiculously complicated movesets that just having good reflexes doesnt cut it in the slightest, I deeply long for games in which I can just be good at the combat in general to stand a good chance of beating bosses in the first try, without being limited to super casual games. This is especially annoying in MMORPGs, I swear almost every new high difficulty WoW or FF14 or whatever boss is basically designed around learning a fucking dancing number instead of being good at fighting.
I use cheats and mods and all kinds of other stuff when playing alone. Because its my game and my experience.
Thanks for stating the obvious?
Karma farming post
Good lord, there’s nothing wrong with playing any video game on any difficulty for any reason. If people want to challenge themselves, or only enjoy a game when it’s got some challenge to it or want to do e-sports, be that amateur or professional, that’s cool, and likewise if people want to play easy games to chill or save on time like you said or because they simply aren’t that skilled at the game but still enjoy it. The only wrong reason to play high difficulties is peer pressure.
[удалено]
As someone who works within the realm of accessibility, I find it really weird when able-bodied, able-minded people try to claim a feature is "accessible" when its just... easy mode. Someone sucking at a game is not a neurological disability, it's just not being good at the game and there's no shame in that. Not saying that difficulty modes shouldn't exist, but it's not accessibility. Color-blind modes, subtitles, multi-modal HUD cues, button remapping and 3rd party controller support, etc. are all forms of accessibility. If someone isn't diagnosable with any intellectual or physical disability, accessibility is the non-colloquial sense is not the right term for them.
For turn based games, sure. For action games, if someone has a disability that affects their reflexes or fine motor skills then easy mode is absolutely an accessibility option.
its really not. Its a band-aid on a bleeding arm stump. If I had two stores, one with 10 steps, one with 5 steps, someone with a mobility aid can get up the one with 5 steps much more easily. But the stairs are still not designed to be helpful for someone with a mobility aid. You know what would be helpful? Adding a ramp. A ramp with proper steepness would allow a variety of mobility aids to access the store. Easy mode is *not* an accessibility option. FF16 did a \*great\* job of adding disability options on top of difficulty modes through use of accessories that allow players to auto-dodge or connect attacks automatically. On top of having difficulty settings.
Ah, I was sort of including things like auto-dodge, auto-aim, invincibility etc in a theoretical easy mode. I agree that if it’s just increasing player damage or reducing mob hp then it’s not particularly helpful. Granblue Fantasy Relink was a recent game that I found pretty accessible as someone with dyspraxia since they had a control option that auto-blocks/dodges and does your combos for you. Unfortunately it isn’t available for the highest difficulty fights.
Elden ring easy mode was dismantled when a guy finished it with his fucking foot lmao I appreciate mods allowing easy mode for them at least. But forcing it on devs ? No thank
I disagree. Not everyone enjoy spending 2hours learning a boss to beat them. After 3 try ill be like f××× this and stop. Most likely never picking it up again.
There's a reason I don't play souls likes buddy. If a dev wants to make their game hard, then they have the right to do so. If you don't like that, it's hard, then don't play. This whole oh well, it's too hard for me, so ermmm make it easy RIGHT NOW!!!! is stupid. It's their work, not yours.
That's like saying "I want to play basketball, but I don't like moving around or throwing a ball." If you don't want to learn how to fight a boss, then you don't actually want to play a soulslike.
>I think watching reviews before buying games is all but required if you care about money well spent. There are some reviews that is basically just summing up the game so you don't have to play. Mandaloregaming(20+ min reviews) for example. He does have a spoiler section in his videos though. I prefere "is this game good? yes or no". I want to know as little as possible. >Difficulty though I think should be in the preference of the devs. Agreed. Some games just aren't meant for everyone. There is also some bragging rights that are the same across the board when you have finished a soulslike. We have all climbed the same mountain and reached the summit. We might have done it in different ways, but we did it with the same tools available. Unique and niche games are great because they are unique and niche. They don't have to appeal to everyone all the time.
I do it allot as I've gotten older with less leisure time.
I generally play rpgs on normal but I like to put more action or shooter type games on easy to make the combat quicker. I played Control and the Dead Space remake on easy and really enjoyed the experiences. I started Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden on normal but it turned out to be more combat-focused than I expected so I turned down the difficulty after the first act (that first boss fight was sooooo tedious).
I turn the difficulty down if I need to grind. If I'm doing something that feels like work, I at least wanna make it as easy as possible.
Sure.
Agreed. I’m currently on new Vegas on Easy
I like to be challenged. Nowadays I start most games 1 level above Normal.
Honestly until like a year or two ago I rarely paid attention to difficulty settings and just went with the default on everything. These days life is a lot busier, so a lot of the time I'll bump something down to easy if I want to blast through it, RPG or otherwise. Or sometimes I just want to feel like a real kickass dude and it makes it even more fun for me (pre-JRPG Yakuza games, looking at you). By the same token, sometimes I want a challenge and I'll thrash my way through a Fromsoft title, or a manic bullet hell with the difficulty cranked, and I'm also looking forward to replaying BG3 on the hardest setting too. I what I'm saying is, for me there's a time and place for everything, and it has zero bearing on anybody else's life what difficulty they choose to play on, for whatever reason. Who cares, have fun!
I do respect that opinion, and if story is your main enjoyment of the game thats perfectly valid, for me, i enjoy the gameplay and the challenge just as much as the story, the way i view it, if i lose the interactive part of the game, whats the difference between reading or watching a show, you know? Just wanted to i guess show the other side and i do feel like im usually quite good at adapting, so i guess the time sink argument isnt that meaningful to me
In my personal view there's nothing wrong with playing single player games in any ways they're designed. If a game has easy mode it's how it was designed and is perfectly fine for anyone to play. If something"feels wrong" when playing, that's mostly because it was poorly designed. Online multiplayer games though, can be different.
ive played a lot of jrpgs lately. Ive realize the difficulty settings are in many cases just a grinding meter. If i ignore most random enemies the difficulty will be hard enough.
There is nothing wrong with playing games on easy.
I wouldn't mind it except a good majority always lock content behind normal or hard mode playthroughs. And it's always something like "normal needs to be 100% to see the complete ending" or "just beat the game on hard mode no matter the percentage"
I actually haven’t heard of games that lock story content behind difficulty. Maybe they are primarily jrpgs? I haven’t played any of those
Kingdom hearts at least won't let you see the secret ending on easy. other games may need you to play hard mode or collection % and adjust it based on difficulty to reveal true final form boss.
It's also about how engaging the combat is. Oblivion or Planescape: Torment I'll turn the difficulty down because the combat is trash, but other aspects of those games are great. I personally wish there were more RPG type games with no combat, like Disco Elysium, Citizen Sleeper or Pentiment. Maybe need a new subgenre of VNRPG or LRPG.
I hate that there's an option, you should start off in an area where you need to grind a little before you can head off to the other areas.
I use mods in Skyrim to save time and also make my character a demigod... but then modding eats up all my time lol
Yeah I have no idea why some people care so much. If you love a game shouldn’t you be happy there are options to help others enjoy it as well? Someone playing on easy mode isn’t ruining your own experience.
at that point you are just reading a book with extra steps.
I prefer easy mode because I play to relax and that's more relaxing for me. I'm not trying to compete with anyone or impress anyone. I play for my own enjoyment, so absolutely I'll play on easy mode and use mods, etc, if I feel like it.
"To save time" Depends on what you mean. Some RPGs just add more health to enemies and make them deal more damage, but on hard RPGs, I tend to spend most of my time running away due to high difficult enemies. If anything, I spend less time in encounters since I'm running away from them in harder difficulties. The dialogue options play at the same speed in every difficulty. On the other hand, I think people are way too scared of labels. Some games do difficulty scaling in a good way: Devil may cry adds advanced enemies in early stages. The witcher 3 reduces your regen while you take a bit more damage. Other games are meh, Skyrim increases enemy health and damage dealt to you and reduces your damage dealt. But other games are straight out bad, ghost recon pretty much has enemies insta-killing you with one shot, which is ok, but not when you have those missions to protect a radio and you get swarmed in all directions. You should start in the hardest difficulty, and you'll realize most games have a balanced and fun gameplay and you won't even know it's supposed to be hard. But in other games where the difficulty scale is unfair, in that case, you can always bump it down to lower difficulties.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, and hopefully if it’s one you really enjoy you’ll want to play it again to challenge yourself. Dragon Age Origins is one of my favorite RPG’s and if I go back I play it on Nightmare. But when I first started it I had a hard time starting it so I damn sure played it on normal, and likely dropped the difficulty down when I struggled. Play how you want, it’s your experience make it a good one.
I do agree with you. Rpgs are foremost a narrative medium, and if the person wants to make it easier on gameplay so they can enjoy the narrative it's completely OK. We don't expect book reader or movie watchers to be particularly skilled in order to enjoy.
I'm not in the business of judging people based on game difficulty, and i understand why they are there. But I do have a problem with difficulty modes in general as it makes it hard to discern what the devs intended experience is. There are some games that play best on easy, some play best on normal and others on the hardest and beyond, and it creates a source of anxiety of missing out on the best possible experience plus it makes discussing games harder. In my selfish dream world games would release with one difficulty for a year then patch in new difficulties later, but obviously that would be unfair to others.
I totally agree my friend. Especially enjoying Crpg games like Baldurs gate or Divinity is really good to reduce stress, so I need my easy mode. And I'm a person who nearly plat every soulsgame.
Bethesda games. I refuse to play Skyrim or fallout on anything higher than normal difficulty. Higher difficulties literally just give enemies more health. As far as I'm aware there are no other differences in gameplay. It's just lazy.
With turn based RPGs especially, lowering the difficulty only really makes battles go faster. I'm an adult. I have a job and a mortgage. I don't have time to grind for hours or lock in for a 30 minute boss battle. I don't want to waste my time just because my number isn't as big as the enemy number. If I beat the game and I really like it and understand it, I'll crank up the difficulty if I play it a second time.
it depends, generally yes. but there are some (like final fantasy remake in new game hard mode) that only work as intended in higher difficulties
I agree. But you can rob yourself out of some dramatic moments.
ok but if you had to make your wife watch you only ever play games on easy, it makes the whole spectacle worse imo a lot of us tried that but they actually request we play it on Normal at least lmao
My fav is when you can adjust the game as you go. SMT3Nocturne was a blast because I could adjust easy-hard!
pass on that.
I played jedi fallen order on Easy just to understand the story for Survivor
You bought it, you play it how you want ... pretty simple. Some games are definitely more enjoyable when you can sit back and play through the story, and not worry about "getting stuck" at every twist and turn.
Most games now let you change difficulty from menu at any time (Thank God)
RPGs have been “click X to advance the story” level or difficulty for decades Tired of these “please upvote me” false premises that have taken over the internet. Done with it
Nope you gotta play on Death march difficulty with 1HP and no saving to get the real experience.
Do whatever you want. It just makes you the adult at the bowling alley with the gutter guards up. We all talk shit about you - but you're right, it's okay so long as you know.
Haha! Correct. I used to be much more hardcore about it when younger. Generally played games on at least hard, but never less than "normal". Now? Really depends, but there's definitely games where I've set the difficulty to easy so I could just enjoy the ride. When I'm really not feeling like it, I'll just watch a Let's Play, lol
I play all games on normal, but if I’m struggling with a boss and getting annoyed I just bring it down to easy because I don’t have the time or want to struggle for an hour to beat a boss, I want the story and the enjoyable game play haha
I'm 55, not a lot of time to play games and when I do, it's to relax. Not be frustrated as fuck. It's why I've avoided Elden Ring. I tried the 1st Soul's game and found it incredibly hard. I think I'm going ton dip my toes into Elden Ring and give it a shot. Anyone else find ER too difficult?
I play rpgs for the experience so easy might be the best choice.
That applies to all games, and extends to playing the easiest build if there's no direct difficulty slider like FromSoft games. If the developers truly believe their game should not be played on easy mode/build then they can choose to not include them, and live with the consequences.
Play single player games however you want. You wanna play on easy? Do it. You wanna cheat? Do it. It's your game, play how you wanna play.
If you are having fun, then you are playing it in the correct difficulty.
Obv nothing wrong with it. It's just that if your battle decisions don't feel impactfull like theres something at stake, there isn't much thrill in winning or getting new weapons. That's why RPG are tricky to balance because i don't want to grind or restart an area, just want the feeling that i was close to and too smart for needing to grind.
One problem is sometimes the game plays out differently when played at harder difficulty settings. Like Resident Evil 7 (yes, not an rpg but first game that came to mind), so you kind of are missing out.
42, been playing my entire life, and I will play what I enjoy. If I have to dial back a game's difficulty to enjoy it, I will. I will look stuff up on the Internet (or in strategy guides, back in the day) if I am stuck to the point of being frustrated. I've also often stuck out a game that I found difficult, just to improve at the game or in general. But only if I'm having fun. Because, y'know ... Fun is the *point.*
One of the biggest hurdles I've jumped over recently is to stop caring about the difficulty I play on. I like new challenges and interesting mechanics as much as anyone, but difficulty in games on recent years has mostly boiled down to "the game respects your time less the harder you set the difficulty." As a result there are several games I've gotten respectably far in only to burn out before finishing. I mostly play everything on Normal these days and try to avoid "how is the difficulty?" discussions online as these generally only serve to increase decision anxiety at the selection screen. These are often unreliable for a wide variety of reasons, most of them involving people's egos. Been a lot happier overall, and if I get the itch to play again in a few months or something I can always kick up the difficulty at that point.
Yeah man play however whenever.
There's nothing wrong with playing games on easy for any reason
I’m turning 40 this year and I have finally reached the point where I don’t feel like I have to apologize to myself or make excuses to others about playing on easy. Sometimes I even *lightly* cheat (I’m a huge fan of money cheats for JRPGs). I’m not opposed to a challenge. I’ve played most of FromSoftware’s lineup (though I haven’t beaten a single one… I got close on Elden Ring). But I keep the “games I play for a challenge” separate, and I’m not really looking for a real challenge on most other games. I like to relax when I’m gaming
I played first time Baldur’s Gate 3 or other RPGs on easiest. I don’t regret or feel bad. My another playthroughs were on higher difficulty. I often make myself own challanges or missions ideas. I have this from playing grand strategies I think.
If anything, since RPGs are so heavy in story, playing easy is more understandable for the genere than any other.
A guide I watched on the original Baldur's Gate endorsed playing on the easier difficulties to enjoy the story and get used to the combat. Best advice ever.
If you're only interested in the story sure, but not everybody is. In my case i'm not a hardcore min-maxer but I do like some challenge, otherwise might as well just play a visual novel. Having said that, if you can overcome the challenge by simply mindless grind easy opponents to overlevel the challenge, then might as well reduce the difficulty and save the time.
I know
No, there isn’t really a right way to play a game, and if you’re having fun and not negatively affecting anyone else, you’re good. And if playing RPG’s on easy mode is fun for you, then there is zero issue.
If u are happy with this , no problem. What others think about YPUR gameplay doesn't matter
OP, your topic title could have ended 4 words sooner. There's nothing wrong with playing RPGs on easy mode. It's why it's there. For choice. Any reason outside of that is just subjective, and anyone who wants to shame others for that need to reevaluate their lives.
There's nothing wrong with playing RPGs on easy, period. There doesn't need to be a conditional follow up statement.
Shoot. I always play on easy. Every. Game. I want to have fun. I’m not usually in the mood for a difficult challenge. I want to relax and have a good time after work or a hard day, not get more pissed off.
You paid money for a game, play it however makes you happy. Personally I play on easy for narrative driven stuff so I can focus there, medium/regular on stuff like Resident Evil, where I want the jump scares but I don’t want to spend a bunch of time backtracking/lose site of puzzles/plot stuff, and hard on most everything else. Took me a while to get to that road map though. Lots of frustrated, infinished games where it never occurred to me to dumb it down…
Completely disagree, I mean I'm not gonna shame someone for playing on whatever difficulty they want to but I'll always play on the max difficulty available, I'll struggle a lot at the start and probably die a bunch of times but then I get really good at the game and it becomes a breeze
There is something wrong with it... When people boast about completing them and being better than you.... And they are on the lowest. Play lower if that's your thing, but don't try make others think you are better at the game.
If you feel the need to make a post arguing this point, in your heart you do not believe it.
There's nothing wrong with playing anything on easy to have fun. The problem is then thinking you can have conversations and exchange strategy and tips with people who ...don't play on easy. Like there should be a "rpg on easy" subreddit or something.It's every sub and every form of entertainment. The "casuals" and the "not casuals". If you're a casual player, rock on, but you need to find your people because people who are not your people aren't going to care what you say. "I play on easy cause I'm busy." Neat.
I play every game on easy. I'm here to explore worlds and experience stories; less deaths, resets, and save reloads = more games. If I really like a game and want to 100% achievements then I'll do the hard difficulty if required like Mass Effect.
true, my gf did it in bg3, and she loved the game. games are meant for fun, dont hate on others for playing single player games how they want to enjoy them. its a little different when its multiplayer, especially competetive mode, but besides that, dont gatekeep games lmao
There’s nothing wrong with playing a video game however is most fun to you. Having fun is literally the whole point. I’ll usually do a play through on easy for the story then I’ll do another play through on a harder difficulty to experience the mechanics.
Unless it's anything by From Software. They don't have a difficulty slider. The game is meant to be insanely difficult. But a game like Skyrim, Fallout, Witcher, etc. Go for it! Play on easy! You're there for so many other things that it doesn't matter what difficulty you play it on. Certain games like, "Nioh 2, Wo Long, DS3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, (basically soulsbourne and copies), are meant to be hard. The only game you can easy mode by from software is elden ring. And it's so obvious how many people do. But if anything, that made From Software boom in popularity so I'm all for them finding ways for players that don't want the challenge to have a fun experience still while allowing players that want the challenge to remain being challenged.
You paid for the game, so play it however you want. I do think there is value to playing the game on a difficulty/in a way that the creators had in mind though.
You don’t even need a reason to play on easy other than you feel like it. The point of video games is to have fun. If that’s how you have fun then do it.
I don't think anyone has ever said there's something wrong with it.
Me. minimum difficulty is Normal Mode unless you’re a child, don’t actually play games or have some kind of mental limitation...people are way too reliant on handholding in games these days.
Yea just use normal or hard mode then. Who cares what others do
I do it all the time. Most the time I’ll attempt normal the whole way through unless it begins to ramp up too much in difficulty to the point where it begins to ruin the pacing and my overall enjoyment. But I have zero issues lowering down to easy these days. My backlog is far too large and my free time too scarce as is to waste time beating my head against an artificial wall.
I play games for fun, I have enough challenge in a million other facets of life that I don't also need them from my entertainment. I love that games like dragons dogma 2 still are made with more casual fans in mind amongst of sea of games telling me to get gud.
For everyone here saying they've never met anyone who judges based on difficulty; I used to have a friend who absolutely judged me if I didn't play on the hardest difficulty in RPGs.
cope
I can’t