When you start a new game you've never played, do you get your first impression by playing it in the most difficult way possible (hardest difficulty, disabled assistances from the game itself, forgoing the use of abilities/items that make it easier, etc.) or do you just play it on normal?
I usually play a game the first time on normal because that's usually what the game is balanced around. Exception being Doom WADs because 99% of them are balanced around being played on UV.
I start on normal, that's what should be the ideal difficulty. If I get good, I'll try to beat it on hard, next time. If I can't get good, then I'll switch to easy.
I am good at games, so I don't need it to be easy. But I also don't trust studios to balance/playtest their game correctly at higher difficulties without prior evidence. So if a game has:
3 difficulties -> middle
4 difficulties -> 2nd hardest
5 difficulties -> 2nd hardest
Very rare to see a game with more than 5 difficulties. If I play a game and am getting bored with the lack of challenge:
good mechanics and story -> move to higher difficulty
average game -> play faster to reach the end before I get too bored
weak mechanics, good story -> move to lower difficulty, to focus on hitting the story points quickly
weak mechanics, bad story -> drop it
Default difficulty.
i dont think ive ever done a first playthru on anything but normal in my life
Depends on the genre and the period it was made in.
For FPS games like ROTT, I always go for Hard, that is above normal but not hardest.
Hardest unless they're super moron like Doom which constantly kills you, or shmups where it just becomes an autistic pixel level bullet hell.
>super moron like Doom
Doesn't Nightmare difficulty just make mobs move faster and endlessly respawn?
It turns Doom into a badly made survival horror game
Tbf Nightmare is basically a meme difficulty like Extra Crispy in Blood (which has coop in mind), no one really expects you to beat the game on them.
I start with normal as a test then go from there.
>played Witcher 3 until leaving White Orchard, realized that some quests are failable if not done in a certain timeframe, then promptly restarted at the hardest difficulty to add more realism instead of being able to button mash through combat
>started Alan Wake remastered. Gameplay is boring and repetitive, enemies are damage sponges. Restart on game journalist mode because I liked the story though
Always one difficulty level less than the hardest
>Difficulty: Easy or Normal?
Weak.
Usually normal, adjusting accordingly if the game is notoriously easy or hard.
Games should have 5 difficulty levels:
>Games "journalist" or otherwise mentally disabled
>Casual
>Mainstream
>Hardcore
>Autist
>mentally disabled
>Autist
You spoil me, anon.
I first play the game on normal or whatever is recommended in the manual. If it's a simulator game I choose the most realistic difficulty setting.
>game has difficulty levels of "Easy" and "Normal"
>localization renames them "Normal" and "Hard"
Which way, western man?