Normal Too Easy Hard Too Hard Gow
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Games that lack a good difficulty setting
- Thread starter Clay
- Start date
- #51
Tales of Arise. Normal is too easy and the moderate/hard difficulties turn the enemies into damage sponges that can one shot the AI party members. Doesn't help the AI runs into AOEs on purpose.
I felt bosses were sponges even in normal. And regular mobs, you're just fishing for power moves.
- #52
- #53
Normal is too easy, I want to play hard for the the increased number of enemies, with more abilities, etc.. but then I'm also stuck with the inability to grind skirmish as much as I want if I feel the need to. At the end of the day both option are frustrating, and I didn't finish the game.
Thought for me it's more of an example of why I want the ability to fine-tune the difficulty, rather than thinking that a perfect difficuly everyone can exist in the first place.
- #54
This is a good one. There's no satisfying middle.IIRC Nier Automata is pretty frustrating on hard, at least at the beginning, but normal is a joke.
- #55
- #56
- #57
The lower difficulty locks you out of content and shortens bosses.
- #58
If you play on Normal or anything harder, you're routinely getting one-shot by instant-death spells.
If you choose Easy, you steamroll the entire game with no challenge at all.
- #59
And they have the nerve to add a permadeath difficulty with no saving after you beat the game while being based on I Am Death Incarnate difficulty...insanity!Wolfenstein TNC absolutely bungled its difficulty balancing on anything Bring 'Em On and higher. One mistake gets your health shredded in an instant, especially in the first half when you have the 50HP cap.
- #60
- #61
Honestly I felt the games were way too easy even on the hardest difficulties, there's some bumps for sure but for the most part you'll pretty much never run out of supplies or money. On the other hand, Persona 3 is the same as most of the games people are saying, boring on easy mode and extremely cheap on normal mode.Persona 4 and 5 suffered from this.
If you play on Normal or anything harder, you're routinely getting one-shot by instant-death spells.
If you choose Easy, you steamroll the entire game with no challenge at all.
- #62
- #63
Jedi Fallen Order. The difference between normal and easy is as vast as it is hilarious.
Was going to post this. I played through most of the game on normal, died more often that I wished and I found some enemies way stronger than the others, but still pushed on.
But then, encountered a boss I just could not defeat at all. Had to switch to easy, and then it was way too easy.
- #64
Sorry misread title.
- #65
Persona 4 and 5 suffered from this.
If you play on Normal or anything harder, you're routinely getting one-shot by instant-death spells.
If you choose Easy, you steamroll the entire game with no challenge at all.
There's ways to nullify instant-death spells. I played 5 on hard and thought it was a cakewalk outside of the first dungeon or two, and even then it was really only bosses that were hard.
It's been years since I played 4 but I don't remember it being overly difficulty either once you've built out a decent team.
- #66
- #67
Honestly I felt the games were way too easy even on the hardest difficulties, there's some bumps for sure but for the most part you'll pretty much never run out of supplies or money. On the other hand, Persona 3 is the same as most of the games people are saying, boring on easy mode and extremely cheap on normal mode.
I think you're right, now that I think about it a little more. I remember dying a ton in Persona 3 and then just playing on Easy through 4 and 5 to avoid the headaches.
Worst part about P3 was that the game wasn't even consistently hard. I'd be cruising through a few floors of Tartarus and then a group of enemies would randomly decide to just press the "fuck you" button, cast an instant-death spell on my main character, and the game would end XD
- #68
- #69
Haven't played P4 but are you referring to the vanilla versions of P4 & P5?Persona 4 and 5 suffered from this.
If you play on Normal or anything harder, you're routinely getting one-shot by instant-death spells.
If you choose Easy, you steamroll the entire game with no challenge at all.
I played P5R and outside of Okumura, the game was really easy. I honestly don't even recall ever getting hit by an instant death spell.
- #70
on the other hand ND nailed it with the last of us Survivor difficulty
- #71
Brutal is far worse actually, not only do you die in 1-2 shots but you have far less ammo and can be killed as soon as you spawn from a checkpoint, it made Crushing look easy in comparison.Uncharted "Crushing" the thread, it's just enemies hit like a truck and that's it…it turns the game into a "hide behind cover shooter" as you'll die if you out of cover beyond 2 seconds
- #72
Yeah. It's like they miss a step. I like Hard in Three Houses. Difficult enough that you have to pay attention, but not stupidly so.This is how I feel with a lot of Fire Emblem games. The hard mode doesn't really provide much of a challenge, but the lunatic/maniac/maddening mode ends up being more frustrating then fun.
Also shoutouts to the hilarious difficulties from earlier games. Lunatic+, which is Lunatic, but now the enemies have broken enemy only skills and Lunatic Reverse which is Lunatic, except the enemies all go first in combat if they can.
At least the latter two are deliberately going for stupid ways of being hard.
- #73
I'm fine with those kinds of difficulties for NG+ as a way to give your end game army a challenge on a replay, but playing them on a fresh save is just aggravating.Yeah. It's like they miss a step. I like Hard in Three Houses. Difficult enough that you have to pay attention, but not stupidly so.Also shoutouts to the hilarious difficulties from earlier games. Lunatic+, which is Lunatic, but now the enemies have broken enemy only skills and Lunatic Reverse which is Lunatic, except the enemies all go first in combat if they can.
At least the latter two are deliberately going for stupid ways of being hard.
- #74
Yeah, silly difficulties can be fine.I'm fine with those kinds of difficulties for NG+ as a way to give your end game army a challenge on a replay, but playing them on a fresh save is just aggravating.
The only addition I really hate in Fire Emblem difficulties is when they change the enemy reinforcements so they can act immediately instead of showing up at the end of turn or at preset moments. You can only really plan around that using trial, error, and resets.
- #75
- #76
A FANTASTIC cRPG that plays and looks incredible. Only problem: It's way too easy. Publisher updated the Steam version after two months with several difficulty levels (and made the game even better) but the console patch is nowhere to be seen.
So annoying.
- #77
Chrono Trigger & Grandia are great RPGs that would have been even better if they had a Hard mode. They're both rather easy by default. Also, every Pokemon would benefit from difficulty options.
I remember the LotR game that played like FFX was pretty easy on Normal but rough on Hard mode. Would have been good to have an in-between difficulty.
- #78
- #79
Plus, it really needed the option to freely change difficulty during the campaign. Both up or down.
- #80
I actually agree with you on this one. I play a lot of From games, but Sekiro was really the one that I found to be a little too difficult to be fun in certain places.Sekiro needed difficulty options. It's not a Souls game, you can't grind to overcome skill deficiencies, and it doesn't have multiplayer, so it should have had difficulty options.
Mandatory: Fuck Activision.
- #81
On one difficulty setting I just breeze past everyone and pretty much always finish 1st. On the next I can't get past P12. There's definitely a difficulty setting missing in between, which isn't very motivating and one of the main reasons I stopped playing after a week or so.
- #82
Normal: You'd actively have to try to lose in order to do so
to
Hard: Pretty reasonable, not much of a challenge, you can generally just charge ahead as long as you don't put squishy people at the front
to
Maddening: You forgot to check random enemy #16's skills? Sorry, vantage, half your people are permanently dead. Hope you have all the New Game+ items because if you don't only about 1/4th of the characters are actually viable!
It could really use a difficulty between Hard and Maddening.
Also
CTR remake.
Normal difficulty is basically: can you figure out which button accelerates? You win!
and then
Hard mode in some maps is pretty much: You missed a perfect boost twice in 3 laps? Lol, 3rd place.
Weiss
It's pronounced 'Vice'
- #83
Normal's too easy, I never even get the chance to do combos, Fatal Strikes or Burst Artes because everything dies too quickly, but bumping to Hard immediately kills me dead. I used that free item DLC and I burned through all the healing items in one boss.
If anyone has any idea how to play Vesperia on Hard, please, tell me. Exploring the combat system is the main reason I came back, but I'm clueless on where to start.
- #84
I'll also say Fallen Order, but for normal and hard, especially in the beginning of the game. The animal enemies had such odd parry windows that hard made it almost impossible to get right, forcing me to play way more cheesily.Jedi Fallen Order. The difference between normal and easy is as vast as it is hilarious.
- #85
Was looking for this post! Exactly it's a reason I kinda dropped it after less than 10 hours. I'll get alerts like you're winning too easy then turn it up one difficulty and can't catch up for the life of me. Really disappointing.Forza Horizon 5On one difficulty setting I just breeze past everyone and pretty much always finish 1st. On the next I can't get past P12. There's definitely a difficulty setting missing in between, which isn't very motivating and one of the main reasons I stopped playing after a week or so.
- #86
Exactly what came to my mind.I feel like RE2 (2019) could have used a difficulty between standard and hardcore for a first time play-through. Standard is too easy and the resources are plentiful. Hardcore mode can be too punishing for new players because of the enemy damage and tanky-ness. A difficulty that had the scarcer resources and ink ribbon saving from hardcore but the enemy damage from standard would be perfect for a first time play-through. Could have called it "Classic" difficulty since I think it would most resemble the difficulty of the classic RE games.
- #87
- #88
This was going to be mine. The soulslike elements make it a chore on normal and when you bump it down to 'story' it is absolutely babyz first action game.Jedi Fallen Order. The difference between normal and easy is as vast as it is hilarious.
- #89
IIRC Nier Automata is pretty frustrating on hard, at least at the beginning, but normal is a joke. Kena's default difficulty is annoying but the easy mode is too easy.
Nier Automata. I played hard mode up until just after the fight with A2 in the Forest Castle , but had to drop it because the combat wasn't difficult; it was just taking me an age to kill anything, and I was dying in like 2-3 hits, which is a pain in the ass when a good majority of fights involve bullet hell projectiles from off screen. I apparently died 40 times on hard, and 0 times once I swapped, without ever even coming close. They really should have just done the increased damage received, but kept your damage output the same as normal.
My immediate answer. Normal is practically baby mode, but Hard mode might as well be Very Hard mode since you die in like 2 hits if you're lucky anyway. I wouldn't even mind enemies being a bit tankier/spongier since I could work on optimizing my play, but I have to do that AND not get hit ever or risk instawiping? No sir.
Funnily enough though, I had no problem with it in GOW 2018 though. Probably because the mode is set up properly in that game.
- #90
- #91
- #92
- #94
I don't even think Souls games need difficulties, honestly. But Sekiro is so specific in what it asks of the player that it needed to account for the fact that not everybody is a god-reflexed parry god.
As a massive Souls fan, I'll say this and leave it at that:
FROM made it very clear that the game would rely heavily on the parry mechanic during pre- release, you don't take chip damage from imperfect parries on the base difficultly, and you can revive twice upon death after a certain point in the game.
- #95
I miss Persona 3 Normal mode.Honestly I felt the games were way too easy even on the hardest difficulties, there's some bumps for sure but for the most part you'll pretty much never run out of supplies or money. On the other hand, Persona 3 is the same as most of the games people are saying, boring on easy mode and extremely cheap on normal mode.
Honestly I wish we'd completely bin the concept of "normal" difficulty. It's too often interpreted to mean "medium".
If devs started referring instead to it as "intended" difficulty or something, it might be easier to accept that some games have a brutal intended difficulty while others don't.
- #96
Funnily enough the original game's balance had things right I feel.
I feel this, I remember going for a third run at the end of 2019 as I was wrapping up my GotY list, thinking i'd put on my big boy pants and move up to hardcore...I feel like RE2 (2019) could have used a difficulty between standard and hardcore for a first time play-through. Standard is too easy and the resources are plentiful. Hardcore mode can be too punishing for new players because of the enemy damage and tanky-ness. A difficulty that had the scarcer resources and ink ribbon saving from hardcore but the enemy damage from standard would be perfect for a first time play-through. Could have called it "Classic" difficulty since I think it would most resemble the difficulty of the classic RE games.
I got absolutely buggered so early in the police station that my death meant restarting the whole game and I just nope'd out.
- #97
- #98
Lots of Cave SHMUPs (and other SHMUP arcade ports) have this problem where they add an insultingly easy "Novice" mode but either nothing or next to nothing in between that and the original Arcade difficulty.
And on Very Hard every single enemy kills you in 1 hit pretty much so it's the worst thing ever! The health bar and healing items aren't even needed at that point since everything is a instant kill.
This is just hilarious though.
Nah there's plenty of games where one difficulty is just right. Ultra Violence in Doom 2016 and Eternal, the hardest difficulties in Etrian Odyssey games, War mode in SMT4A, Hard mode in SMT5, Mega Man 2 on "Difficult", Dragon Age Inquisition on Hard, and I could probably go on.that's the issue with multiple difficulty settings. None of them feel perfect
Persona 4 and 5 suffered from this.
If you play on Normal or anything harder, you're routinely getting one-shot by instant-death spells.
If you choose Easy, you steamroll the entire game with no challenge at all.
4 and 5 were both pretty easy on Normal outside of a couple of early/mid-game bosses in 4.
- #99
As a massive Souls fan, I'll say this and leave it at that:FROM made it very clear that the game would rely heavily on the parry mechanic during pre- release, you don't take chip damage from imperfect parries on the base difficultly, and you can revive twice upon death after a certain point in the game.
You can revive twice but that doesn't do much for you when attacks in the second half of the game can two-shot you.
- #100
Honestly, I become more and more found of no difficulty option in some games, a balanced option that devs focused their resources and time to maintain it and testing to be fair.
johnsongoverrestat.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.resetera.com/threads/games-that-lack-a-good-difficulty-setting.539531/page-2
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