When I start yelling profanities at the tv.
I don't like my games to be easy, but, I don't like them to be so difficult that I have to learn every nuance of strategy for every character. I don't have the patience for it. Thus I never attempt nightmare.
My point was more that a player shouldn't go to pieces when enemies spawn in. You know it's gonna happen, so deal with it when it does.Depends on the fight, not all of them are taking place in the same area and the direction they are coming from can change with this, many of them weren't really that well designed either which I attribute to game getting rushed. The Legacy DLC did this much better. Waves are still there in a form but not nearly as bad as in the main game.
I like to feel like I have to sweat a little bit to get through the larger encounters, not the run of the mill ones. Now obviously, if I do something stupid, I ought to wipe the average encounter. And for boss fights, I like to have to replay those a few times at least the first time I face them. But when I run into one that I wind up playing over and over and ... over, I start to get frustrated.
And it seems like there is always one or maybe two encounters in every BioWare game that gives me fits. ME had the Krogan encounter on Therum. DA:O has the staircase gauntlet. ME:3 had the circle room at Grissom Academy. DA:2 had one encounter with all those Templars in the cave ... sometimes, they aren't even encounters others have trouble with.
Being forced to use extremely specific and repetitive tactics and party makeup are what make playing on the harder settings boring for me in DA. In ME(2-3) on the other hand, the higher difficulty meant you had to have better reflexes, use your surroundings, etc...that was fun for me, bumping the difficulty up higher and higher as I improved.
Hell, I even want my armour to look vaguely aesthetically matched. When I played DA:O I would wait until I had built up Silverite versions of all my armour pieces and then make the switch, instead of having to deal with a patchwork of Red Steel and Silverite.
The only time I have not had fun at playing games is when other people are taking advantage or exploiting multiplayer. My last DAO nightmare play through I ended up doing the last portion of the game in a different order which ended up having massive ogre spawn rates. I swear the ground was a pool of blood and dead ogres. (at least the minimum that the game allowed before they despawned)
The hardest portion of a game I have ever played was in No More Heroes Shinobu fight. I just couldn't get the fight down no matter what I did. I eventually beat her and finished the game but it was the hardest fight in the game for me.
I ask this mostly because when people talk about how they complete DA:O or DA2 on Nightmare, they talk about extremely specialised optimised builds (e.g. Aveline with no points in anything except for Constitution), and making extensive use of kiting an any exploits.
That just means they sucked. I had no problems completing Nightmare without any of that, in either game. Golemns on Nightmare wasn't even much of an issue. I'm a completionist, I look for every bit of exp/gold I can find, and I micro-managed the hell out of my team's skills with a balanced team of 1 str/con tank, one pure dex archer, one half con half magic debuffer and my character as 3:1 int/con healer/AoE'er. Plus all the potions I never left home without.
Don't let yourself be fooled into thinking the only way to be 'good' at a game is to cheat or fit into someone else's definition of a good team.
EDIT: was so taken aback at the opener I lost track of the point of the thread. For me, difficulty detracts from gameplay when we delve into tediousness and monotony. Over-reliance on RNG and insane boosts to HP/Resistance are NOT challenges, that's boring gameplay and lazy dev'ing. I think D&D (the PnP version, though of course this had some reliance on your DM) and NwN handled this well. Challenge should force players to think beyond convention, not just kite for an hour.
I find the immersion and story parts way more important, in fact I don't even like "challenge". I want my PC to be more powerful, to have all (or at least many) powers or abilities I find cool (I picked shapeshifter because I wanted to be able to transform even though it's not a very good specialization) and I want to use followers I actually like instead of making a tactical balanced party.
So I play on the easiest difficulty (except in ME3 where I didn't check out what "narrative mode" was like) and I'm free to choose stuff I want and it's much more fun for me than min-maxing and using people I hate for tactical reasons. Not because I don't like strategy, I'm actually an extremely good tactician, it's just that in that this type of game I prefer to be a godlike badass who can take anything head on and pwn it.
Interestingly enough some of my builds (which are mish mashes of abilities I thought were cool) are good enough to solo Nightmare, pretty easily even
When the game becomes frustrating and a chore as opposed to challenging. When the game becomes a DPS race as opposed to strategy and tactics.
This is why I have NEVER played in the "Nightmare" or the "Insanity" difficulty level in games.
In most games, especially Bioware games, the increase in difficulty rarely equates to the Enemy AI being more strategic or tactical. It just means the enemy AI has a bigger health pool, takes lesser damage and does more damage which then turns difficulties like Nightmare or Insanity into a DPS race.
As such, I prefer to stick with the Hard difficulty in pretty much all games.
That just means they sucked. I had no problems completing Nightmare without any of that, in either game. Golemns on Nightmare wasn't even much of an issue. I'm a completionist, I look for every bit of exp/gold I can find, and I micro-managed the hell out of my team's skills with a balanced team of 1 str/con tank, one pure dex archer, one half con half magic debuffer and my character as 3:1 int/con healer/AoE'er. Plus all the potions I never left home without.
Don't let yourself be fooled into thinking the only way to be 'good' at a game is to cheat or fit into someone else's definition of a good team.
EDIT: was so taken aback at the opener I lost track of the point of the thread. For me, difficulty detracts from gameplay when we delve into tediousness and monotony. Over-reliance on RNG and insane boosts to HP/Resistance are NOT challenges, that's boring gameplay and lazy dev'ing. I think D&D (the PnP version, though of course this had some reliance on your DM) and NwN handled this well. Challenge should force players to think beyond convention, not just kite for an hour.
Too easy I feel like I'm being cheated out of the game and everything is trivial.
Too hard and I get really REALLY detailed with my builds and strategies.
Hard to the point I can't pass? ANGER
For me the sweet spot is somewhere between a cakewalk and being so difficult that it requires lots of trial and error and tedious repetition to advance the game. If it is too easy the gameplay quickly becomes boring and if it is too difficult the gameplay is more frustrating than fun.
On that note I usually choose the normal or hard difficulties the first time though a game. Easy is well...easy, and the nightmare or insanity modes are just frustrating. Also, I couldn't care less about achievements.
I ask this mostly because when people talk about how they complete DA:O or DA2 on Nightmare, they talk about extremely specialised optimised builds (e.g. Aveline with no points in anything except for Constitution), and making extensive use of kiting an any exploits.
Now, I get that it's satisfying to overcome the challenge of Nightmare using these kinds of tactics, but honestly for my first playthrough I'd rather not have to constantly be worrying about having the most optimised build possible. I'd like to bring along the party members I like best, and use tactics which are fun as well as effective, as opposed to finding something I can spam and then doing that the whole game.
Hell, I even want my armour to look vaguely aesthetically matched. When I played DA:O I would wait until I had built up Silverite versions of all my armour pieces and then make the switch, instead of having to deal with a patchwork of Red Steel and Silverite.
Do you think that "Hard" difficulty will allow for this level of play? Or do you think I will have to play on Normal?
I think it's great they've included an option for friendly fire at lower difficulty settings. This provides a much a greater range of flexibility for each of us to find whatever level of difficulty we find to be the most fun, whether it is, say Casual with friendly fire on or Hard without friendly fire, etc.
Personally I think Nightmare w/ friendly fire will probably be the most fun, but we will all need to try the game to determine our own preferences for this setting
I almost play all games on the hardest difficulty. I bang my head repeatedly in the beginning of the game, but when the game finally clicks for me it feels really great. I feel like I appreciate the game mechanics more and understand the nuances better. I had to start my first DA:O play-through because I was getting massacred on nightmare as a archer rogue. I restarted as a mage and nailing that down felt so satisfying. Not to mention that once I got the arcane warrior specialization, being able to solo a lot the content was day and night to when I first started playing. I've also found that the Mass Effect games the same way. DA2 was no exception for me even with that frustrating friendly fire. Another game that I hated at first before it clicked as Last of Us on the hardest difficulty (actually 2nd because you can't unlock Survivor mode until you beat the game) and X-COM Enemy Unknown.
For me its when the battles become ridiculously hard and its winning is based on luck rather than being challenging requiring good skills/tactics. I usually play on easy to enjoy the story and get an idea who I'm facing in each level before moving onto the hardest difficulty.
When harder means getting one shot killed and bosses are just bullet sponges it's poor lazy game mechanics.
To make it harder enemies should use more skills and abilities and movement ,Now the ia is kiting me.
Friendly fire should be on at harder settings.
The so called trash mobs should be made stronger instead of making the boss have massive health pool, If the trash mobs of the boss are stronger the boss is harder to kill because of this.
I lower the difficulty if I die more than five times in a row in a particular fight unless I'm seeking an achievement, or if I stop finding the challenge interesting (usually the two go hand-in-hand); I bump it back up afterwards. I don't play to be irritated, I play to have fun, and getting my butt kicked from Ferelden to the Tevinter in the exact same fight over and over again is only fun to a certain extent. I'm grateful to DA games for letting you adjust difficulty when you please - most games I've played make you commit.
When the gameplay is divorced from the game world and the player's expectations. So mobs with ridiculous hp and damage output.
Or having potions magically heal players instantly but disallowing actual magic from healing. That's stupid.
Being forced to use extremely specific and repetitive tactics and party makeup are what make playing on the harder settings boring for me in DA. In ME(2-3) on the other hand, the higher difficulty meant you had to have better reflexes, use your surroundings, etc...that was fun for me, bumping the difficulty up higher and higher as I improved.
The only useful skill in ME2 on the highest difficulty was Reave. That skill was so good you could go most of the game without shooting a single shot. Just find cover and duck your head out for one second to cast Reave and then immediately hide back in cover again. Rinse and repeat.
When enemies become cheaty/gimmicky.. such as bosses with unfair advantages such as wiping your entire party with little to no warning (like most final fantasy games) in final fantasy games theres always at least 1 boss with the unfair ability to destroy your entire party with a single move and unless you grinded lots more levels than the fight should require it would insta kill you. When it becomes a matter of the game resorting on a cheaty mechanic to stop you rather than actually hard encounters is when a game is no longer fun.
My example with final fantasy.. usually its a pretty easy game until you run up against enemies with abilities like death or mass death or some **** that does like 999999 damage or leaves your entire team with 1 hp no matter what... things like that are cheaty because the enemy does something that is just plain unfair because they dont have the ai to actually fight you without resorting to cheap tricks... I also hated the spiders in dragon age origins cus they would pin down characters with overwhelm.. while thats not that big of a deal it is very irritating to completely lose control of your character for 10+ seconds. although thats really my problem cus i like to play dragon age with just 1 main character with the rest of the team mostly driven by the ai (unless the fight is challenging or the Ai becomes a problem in which case i am forced to take direct control cus the ai is too stupid to do a good job [like allistair running thru the flame trap in the battle of redcliff if you chose to use the oil cus hes a fking retard]) Or when he runs thru every fking trap there is on the way to the enemy even after my rogue spotted it before i could disarm it... lol alistair
Easy game detracts from gameplay.
I've suceed the DA:O game where i without any exploits, won, having for myself limitation of using only one companion (that means that i must use only one companion instead of 3 all the time) on Nightmare.
I used and counted every potion, every flask, used explosion/poison flasks extensively.
I timed well acquisition of needed recipies, because those flasks/grenades were vital.
That was amazing but very challenging game, and i enjoyed it.
I was pleased how my female archer looked like all the time, and i make myself sure that i go through each quest to ensure having enough level and resourses to come into next part of the game, and i even had some suboptimal armors at certain moments (mainly building on defence)
I will be trying this on my 3-4 run as 2 companion limitation Nightmare FF game. I am sure it will be fun.
When the gameplay is divorced from the game world and the player's expectations. So mobs with ridiculous hp and damage output.
Or having potions magically heal players instantly but disallowing actual magic from healing. That's stupid.
but you could argue the reverse to be true, it is magic afterall. 
Modest frustration is nice cuz it helps give you that sense of accomplishment, but simply not being able to get past a certain boss is not fun. And needing to grind to get past it is ****** maddening. When I played Wasteland 2 with two pre-made characters with enhanced stats (still picked up Rose and Angela) that garden place was a nice example. Died a few times but mostly because I was stupid otherwise it struck the perfect difficulty balance, for me at least.
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