Favourite video game difficulties

My favourite would be Normal as that's what I usually choose when starting a game. If I really want to prove myself then I might try out the harder ones.

Asian.

(No, seriously, though......I personally find hardest difficulties more fun compared to casual difficulties, but that's probably me.)

I always seem to stick with easy/normal difficulty. Not all of the time, but most of the time higher difficulty settings just give the enemies more health and make the player weaker, and that really just sucks the fun out of the game for me.

Easy mode. I lack the skills to ever go beyond easy mode.

I tend to go for the easy difficulties and play normal if I'm very experienced with the series. I play games for fun, not so much challenges.

Like a few others, I mostly go for the easiest difficulty first if I'm not familiar with the game's mechanics and want to enjoy the game on first playthrough. Even on easiest difficulty I'll still mess up on something.

Alfieri said:

I tend to go for the easy difficulties and play normal if I'm very experienced with the series. I play games for fun, not so much challenges.

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I wouldn't necessarily say the two are mutually exclusive.

Case and point, I tend to play on harder difficulties because it's fun. Generally, I enjoy Hard difficulty- that is, whatever's after the Normal or Medium Difficulty (or whatever stands as the equivalent). Only in games where it's fun, though, of course. Persona's a good example of a series where harder difficulty really just means more grinding, since the game isn't exactly designed around playing separate difficulties and, because of this, the fun that comes with a harder difficulty is completely diminished. Similarly, Legendary on Halo is a good example of the other side, where the difficulty focuses a lot more on achievement than gameplay and undermines some of why the game is fun on its Heroic and Normal Difficulties.

But in a game where the game scales well with the difficulty and will require differing play and tactics to succeed, sure, because that means that there was actually thought put into the difficulty and how it would affect the game. This isn't to say that games that just increase damage taken and decrease damage taken (and various other mechanic changes) are bad, but developers really have to consider how it affects the type of game they're making.

But for me, the challenge is often the fun. When I'm faced with a challenge, it gives me a goal- it's not simply an obstacle, it's a trial, something I have to work through. The victory is more satisfying because it feels like I've worked for it- but more, the journey was fun as well. It's why I had so much fun with my Permadeath run of Wind Waker; every battle felt dynamic and personal, and I was constantly thinking of new ways to work through the constant slew of problems being thrown my way. The Souls series is popular (and fun) for similar reasons.

And this isn't a statement that easier difficulties are the wrong way to go about playing a game- there's no wrong way to play a game and everyone enjoys games their own way, but I do want to stress that people who play hard or insane difficulties or restrict themselves in some way rarely do it for achievement alone. Oftentimes they do these things because they legitimately enjoy it. And you may not have been saying that they're mutually exclusive, either, however I felt this was an effective way to answer the thread and reply to any future "I play for fun" comments that imply such.

i just stick with normal. easy is just too easy and hard makes me frustrated lol. if i beat a game on normal, sometimes ill go back and play it on hard.

When I play video games that have difficulty levels, I tend to like playing at the easy and normal difficulties. I don't like playing at difficulties higher than those two.

I start off with normal difficulty but if I really like to be challenged at least a little bit so I'd say I like hard difficulty more. I wouldn't go as far as to say I like the Insane/Very Hard/Lunatic kind of difficulties for every game, they're often a bit too punishing and quickly become frustrating. I don't want to feel like I'm being cheated out of a victory but I like to feel as if I earned it using my own skill.

e.g in Sonic Racing Transformed I refused to continue until I could beat missions on Hard difficulty because I had the confidence that I could do it and Normal was too much of a cakewalk. It never felt impossible but it would often take me a few re-do's to complete certain stages.

Well, normal difficulty is one I always use for my first run-through or attempt at a game. I always bump it up to hard if the game is worth playing again or for a longer period of time. Naturally, with games such as Minecraft or Skyrim, where you can play the game for hours, I would play with increased difficulty because then the game isn't as tedious and requires a bit more sharpness on my side. That's pretty much the reason why I prefer harder difficulties, the game tends to throw more at me and I feel better when I surpass these obstacles. More of a challenge, more to occupy myself with etc.

I always go with normal since that's the default and I never remember to change it, but sometimes I switch down to easy if I'm stuck on a level because I'm a filthy casual.

I usually play on the easy mode because I'm not looking to challenge myself while playing games. I tend to just want to play through the game and see what it's like, to say that I beat it. It's only when I'm really familiar with a game that I go back and give myself a challenge or play at a higher difficulty setting.

I'm always up for challenges, so I do the hardest difficulty even though it may be my first time playing the game. Then when i'm done with the hardest difficulty, I play the game again with restrictions making it harder. For Example: Kingdom Hearts 2 Critical Mode level 1.

It largely depends on the game. With Bethesda titles I literally cannot play on anything harder than Normal. But with games like Bioshock, I can kick ass on Hard, and even with Vita Chambers off. I like higher difficulty where it is fun and fair.

Normal if the gameplay is good
Easy if the gameplay's not good or I've played the game before (in either case, I'm only there for the story)
Hard if normal is too easy (or I'm too good) but the core gameplay is fun

Hardest difficulty. Because I'm a crazy masochist apparently. First time playing through Ys 7 was on Nightmare, didn't regret it at all.

Yeah, but I feel like I need the extra push in difficulty to enjoy a game more. Whether this leads to myself breaking the game, or just being stumped for a day/week. I rarely ever try to drop in a difficulty level, because I guess I feel I need to prove something to myself as childish as that sounds. I like the feeling surmounting something that is supposedly "hard" and then proceed to stroke my ego.

Being on a harder difficulty can also give you a new-found appreciation for any mechanics you wouldn't use otherwise, it also tests whether or not you know the ins-and-out of said mechanics. Like if I ever played Ys 7 on a lower difficulty than Nightmare, my adoration for Flash Guarding would most definitely be a lot lower than it is now. Fire Emblem: Awakening's first few chapters in Lunatic, is a true testament whether or not if you actually know how to use Pair-Up (before you start feeding Avatar or Frederick kills), since you can't just mindlessly have Chrom/Avatar + Frederick go ham right off the bat.

Normal mode for me. Or, more to the point, whatever the "default" mode is in a game.

I usually refuse to go easy mode for whatever reason. It's kinda like, I know I can do the normal mode in 99% of games, so why would I ever purposely go for the easy mode. The thought of switching is almost insulting to me, in a way. :P Although if I somehow can't handle the normal mode at all, then fiiiiine I guess I'll go easy mode...

And then hard mode and beyond, that's not normally something I go for unless I've already beaten the game once and want a bigger challenge if I play again.

Normal then Hard, I like to check out how the game works before trying out higher difficulty especially if you're playing a great game you'll come around and replay it eventually.