Topic: Gaming's pet peeves

@KratosMD If the games are made in Japan I would hazard a guess and say they are "Japanese normal". I guess it's fair to say thar not every developer has the resources to rebalance gameplay or craft a new difficulty mode tailored to Western expectations, short of renaming existing ones (if it has difficulty levels at all). I will say I've played a lot of Western games that have been too challenging for me on normal, but others are fine. I'm not sure there is a universal level of challenge in western games.

What sort of challenge do you think a turn-based game to be at "normal"? Obviously most lack needing to worry about real time commands so the degree of challenge has to come from the damage enemies deal and the strategy required to counter that. For me personally I wouldn't necessarily expect a cakewalk where I just hit attack and nothing else in every battle (or fast forward like in Persona), but I wouldn't expect to have my arse handed to me every battle either.

@KratosMD Fair points, although I disagree with figuring out enemies elemental weaknesses being a negative, and perhaps even the presence of one-hit kill attacks. Guess that's just personal preference though. Do agree with the SP restoration (I think I mentioned this in the Persona thread), certainly compared to 4 where the Fox was in the lobby of the TV world. I think it was intended for palaces to be completed over multiple days, although the only palace where I did have trouble with SP management and had to do this was the Spaceport. Surprisingly I only got one game over and that was in the first Palace and only because I was careless with the auto attack. Persona games do make it clear when you start a new game that you won't be able to restart battles on certain difficulties. I think that's fair and its for the player to decide.

Xenoblade Chronicles is an interesting example of a game that attempts to modernise the genre in certain areas. However, I did not like how enemy difficulty was structured or find the battle system particularly elegant. You shouldn't have to be at a boss's level to have any real shot at defeating it. I loved the story and exploring the world though.

All this talk of RPGs made me think of something that annoys me but typically I forgot what it was. 😂 If I remember I'll post it.

@Paranoimia Spot on. This is such a 'film' thing to do, but totally doesn't fit the games medium.

@RogerRoger I'll response when I have the time, in a more fitting topic. If you don't feel comfortable discussing it with me, that's also fine of course and we can leave it like this.

@RogerRoger What about something like Bloodborne? The story is cryptic, but still excellent and it’s built around it’s difficulty.

@RogerRoger Oh, and don’t play FFXV on easy. It’s perfectly balanced on normal. I never had a game over screen once while I played. I came close, but it never happened.

@Jaz007 Maybe for you, but i found there was a huge difficulty spike towards the last third of the game playing it on normal. Plus that was another game that didn't let you save for long portions. I played it about 6 months after release so those issues may well have been fixed by now.

@JohnnyShoulder The only notable spike I really remember was at the end when you were in the city before the final fight, but if you didn’t have trouble the enemies there, the final boss would’ve been even easier, because he wasn’t difficulty to start with. I also don’t know anything about not being able to save because I didn’t die and used suspend mode. I don’t remember any difficulty from not being able to switch games though from long save inbetweens.
I played it a It over a year after release.

@Jaz007 It was at chapter 13 I think the difficulty spike, when it stopped being open world. You must have saved the game at some point though, that makes no sense that you didn't save the game in your entire play through? Most of the dungeons you couldn't save in, there was one right near then end where there was a camp which you could save at. I was thinking why didn't they have this in all the other dungeons.

@RogerRoger The Souls like games are bit different, by including an Easy option you take away the challenge and the pure sense of exhilaration when you get past a difficult section or boss. The main difference imo is it doesn't feel unfair, it can be overcome just by learning stuff from the game.
I don't recall there being anything on the boxes about the games being difficult, the publisher may have played up to it in marketing with the whole Prepare to Die slogan. I think the media makes more of the difficulty more than anything. I would say they are more challenging than difficult, and they take a certain approach to fully appreciate them. I mean I'm certainly nothing special and managed to beat two of them and getting right to the end of the other two. Of course they have their difficult moments, but don't all games?

@JohnnyShoulder No, I saved throughout, but I never had a forced reload. I never died or had a game over. So I never had to think about it that much unless I wanted to play another game.

I’ll add a little to the discussion of difficulty levels —
I hadn’t noticed JRPGs being worse about it than Western games, but as a general rule, I have been playing on Easy more and more lately in all my games. For me it has to do with my backlog and the sheer number of games I want to try to play. I want to just experience the story and move along through a game and not get stuck on difficult levels or having to spend the extra time grinding. When I was younger, I had fewer games and more free time, but now, I can’t afford to get bogged down too much in my progress. Therefore, I find the ability to adjust things down and accommodate for the less skilled or physically challenged a welcome addition to modern gaming.
...That said, earlier this year I found my first playthrough of Bloodborne simply sublime. There of course is no decreased difficulty setting, and as others have said — grinding and overleveling is the easy mode in Bloodborne. And that’s how I played it. And I do agree that I would hope everyone could experience the bliss of playing and completing that game, and the joy of defeating the bosses and opening up the different intricately planned out areas. It saddens me that a huge chunk of the gaming world will never get to experience the full game because of that perceived difficulty when you start the opening area. But alas, I suppose that could be part of what the developer is shooting for. It does sound a little elitist to shut out gamers who don’t have the innate skill or the patience to stick with it, but the completion may not have tasted so sweet if it were any different.
What am I trying to say? I’m not really sure. ...Just that I kind of agree with both sides here. I prefer to be able to play on easy, but I recognize some games would be cheapened by such an adjustment. And I do think the inherent difficulty is the artistic intent for many of those games.

Dark souls games are not unfair, but they are challenging. If you have problems with some bosses or some monsters, you could almost always brute force your way by farming souls and leveling your character.

The wolfenst 2 the new colossus is the epitome of unfair game with wild difficulty spikes. I sometimes struggled even on Daddy (very easy) difficulty. Try playing that game and then talk about difficulty spikes.

Finished Spiderman yesterday but it reminded me of one of my massive pet peeves. I hate, just HATE trippy alternate drug reality sections in games. It seems like every game has to try and insert one or two sequences where you fight shadowy hallucinations in the not real world. It takes me out of the game, breaks the gameplay mechanics and does me nut in. That also applies to EVERY FAR CRY GAME.

@Rudy_Manchego The only time I've experienced this that I can remember was in GTAV where Michael smokes drugs from some random dude at a booth in a side activity. It was literally just aliens spawning in and you having to kill them for like 5 minutes straight. It was awful.

@Th3solution ...or just summon someone to help you out. I'm not ashamed to say I did that for a few of the DS3 bosses and actually quite enjoy helping people out with tricky bosses too.

@Th3solution I'm slightly in the other direction, I always play games on normal and occasionally put it up a notch if I find I'm coasting along a bit too easily.

Some games can alter quite drastically. IIRC The Witcher 3 on anything above normal makes it so you need to use oils and potions more before combat.

@Rudy_Manchego It's such a cheap plot device to do put something supernatural/non-canonical in a game.

Also, so many games act like it's a dramatic special moment in the game, while it's in every other game.

It is lazy.

(However, I did like the alternate reality stuff in the Witcher 3, because it actually did something with it others hadn't done before. So, exceptions are possible.)

@Kidfried Sure, I mean if it has a real place in the plot then great but I mean, in Spiderman for example, it was worst kind of lazy in an otherwise great game. Shadowy swirly graphics? Check. Vocals slowed down, slurred and deepened? Check. Someone shouting 'this isn't you' over and over again? Check.

What do you guys think of Uncharted 3’s? I’m often neutral on them, but I think the set price it had justified it above and beyond the normal ones.

@Jaz007 The only bit that annoyed me was how Talbot kept getting away and didn't seem to be injured when shot. I guess if we assume it was all the hallucinogen it sort of makes sense, but it did seem a bit contrived even for Uncharted. I liked the ending portions though.

@RogerRoger Can we slide the difficulty down to 'Easy' on the subject of difficulty in video games?

It is also very subjective to the individual too. As your above post proves lol.