96 réponses à ce sujet

[Heimdall]

There really is no definite threshold, that's why difficult levels are important.

For myself, I playthrough most games on the normal or medium difficult first. Sometimes I will go back. I got through all three ME games on Insanity (Imported high level character), but I've never done a nightmare run of DAO. I suppose I enjoy the challenge to my reflexes and split second situational awareness more than DA's stat heavy system.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

If you are an experienced gamer then Hard will probably be more fun and rewarding.

I'm pretty confident that normal difficulty will be so easy that it will ruin the fun completely by making crafting and tactics pointless and combat trivial. 
 

If you defeat an epic boss battle, with no to few potions left, optimized gear, great party set-up, wounded companions and the feeling "wow - that was insanely difficult" - having exhausted all cards on your hand, then you get that proper reward-feeling - because it is EARNED.

 

Just slaughtering everything without opposition is for me at least - a grievious injury to my ego, pride and dignity. An easy game is victory not earned and thus empty.

[Chiramu]

Difficulty does not mean just increasing HP and damage. The past Dragon Age games increased difficulty have been just increase HP and buff damage. There was no change in enemy mechanics except for the fact that they received a million more tactic slots than you and your party had.

 

Good level design makes difficult engagements that are rewarding at the end. There have not been any fights in Dragon Age that make me feel rewarded for killing someone so far. The Arishok is just an annoying fight because you are running around the arena like a little girl the whole time. The Archdemon just had waves and waves of monsters and when it flew up you just spammed and repaired the ballista(not to mention the difficulty spiked so hard in Origins >.<).

 

I hope there will be tough but rewarding engagements in Inquisition. 

[Chiramu]

 

If you defeat an epic boss battle, with no to few potions left, optimized gear, great party set-up, wounded companions and the feeling "wow - that was insanely difficult" - having exhausted all cards on your hand, then you get that proper reward-feeling - because it is EARNED.

 

 

This just makes me feel, "FFS". Having no potions means you cannot progress past that point and you have to skip every engagement in your way to heal up and replenish your potion stock. Plus I also feel I have failed if I let my party members die .

[Blackstork]

This just makes me feel, "FFS". Having no potions means you cannot progress past that point and you have to skip every engagement in your way to heal up and replenish your potion stock. Plus I also feel I have failed if I let my party members die .

You are wrong. All you need is to plan your supply and craft. The only challenging DA:O was play with self-limitation to use only one companion instead of 3. On nightmare. Resources to brew potions so plentiful, and just need to fight every encounter to get max xp before end game. That was not detracting. So there must be option for players who skip the game and go for story and for ones who want combat it and have own victory earned.

[Semyaza82]

I'm one of those people who, despite having been a gamer for 20+ years, is actually pretty bad at most games. I pretty much never play games on hard/nightmare because, well... bad at gaming  There are soooo many games that have great stories that I haven't ever finished but would like to - if they has an easy/narrative mod. So for me difficulty only detracts when there is no options to change it.

 

On a tangential but connected note: It's NSFW in terms of language but Irish comedian Dara O'Briain has some great material on the frustration of being a bad gamer - if you google his name along with video games vids are easy to find (pretty sure I'm not allowed to put links with bad language in)

[Jester]

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.

And here I was, spamming Biotic Charge and murdering one enemy after another in open field without problem. On Insanity.

Stupid me, had I known Reave was the only useful ability, I'd have used your tactic . 

[Cuthlan]

The minute I have to reload the same fight more than once. That's when challenge starts to ruin the game for me and I reduce difficulty.

 

The Die -> Reload loop is extremely stupid and tedious to me, and not a playstyle I can enjoy.

[Rowen]

I like to play on normal the first time to get a feel of gameplay and story, unless it is so easy you have to up the difficulty to have some challenge in combat, after that I like to play either hard or nightmare. I agree that nightmare in DAO was fun, my party was three mages + archer and it was great for crowd control and combos. It detracts from gameplay the moment you have to battle the dragon for 30 minutes and then you die, but it was an optional quest in DA2 so it didn't bother me so much.

[RedIntifada]

The minute I have to reload the same fight more than once. That's when challenge starts to ruin the game for me and I reduce difficulty.

 

The Die -> Reload loop is extremely stupid and tedious to me, and not a playstyle I can enjoy.

 

Actually I like it to be difficult enough that I die a few times in some parts. It enhances the story for me anyway as I feel the main characters struggle to overcome the situation rather than just feel like I am personally facing something difficult. But that is just me.

 

I think the other aspect is fairness. I hated how in DA2's combat enemies spawned all over the place and you didn't know how many you would get in a fight, meaning even though I had been very specific about putting my tank up the front, I would always be flanked.

The lack of a second sword and shield character in DA2 also meant in was really hard to play without Aveline in the party (and I disliked her). I am looking forward to specking all of my warrior companions as sword and shield so I can interchange them.

[elessarz]

It can be really satisfying to play on the hardest difficulty, but it's not for everyone. For instance, one thing I hate about nightmare is how tanky everything is. It takes so much more to slog through things, double that for DA2. I played the latter on nightmare until the end of Act II, at which point I was so burned out I just didn't want to try anymore. Switched it to normal and couldn't believe how easy the game was. Not to mention DA2's encounters are so stupid and cheap, what with people appearing out of thin air behind you, resetting aggro when your taunts etc are on cooldown. What a way to punish the player for being good at killing things.

[HTTP 404]

Then just don't post a reply. Wow that would have been easy. You're like one of the fools who complains about complaining. Look in the mirror once in a while.

 

but you are complaining about a complaint about a complaint.  Quite the complain-ception going on here. 

 

I think it is fine to have an opinion but I think it better to respect others.  (I am defending you in case you were wondering)

[Umbar]

When playing the game becomes more frustrating than fun. I don't play games to stroke my ego or show off my 'uber l33t' skills - 'cause I don't have any - I play to enjoy myself. If I die constantly to low-level mobs, it's too hard for me. Boss battles should be harder - and not rely on gimmicks - but not so much I get fed up with the game and stop playing.

 

One other thing important to me is story immersion. I started out RPG gaming with Mass Effect and I was timid enough to start at Easy, until Noveria. [Spoiler]

 

 

When Matriarch Benezia sics her Asari commando squad at me and boasts about how few humans have ever faced asari commandos and lived, I don't want the fight to be so easy that I bump them off in seconds. So I actually bumped difficulty up to Normal and this time won by the skin of my teeth. From then, I usually played on normal, unless I found myself dying over and over - Praetorian at Collector Ship and Shadow Broker in ME2. And DA:O. I was dying to bandits and wolves at Easy in that game. It was so frustrating...

[cronshaw]

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?

Whenever something becomes so difficult only one tactic, sometimes a cheesy one, is effective. 

Variety is really the key to engaging gameplay for me

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

The minute I have to reload the same fight more than once. That's when challenge starts to ruin the game for me and I reduce difficulty.

 

The Die -> Reload loop is extremely stupid and tedious to me, and not a playstyle I can enjoy.

 

Really? When I have to reload I consider it joyful. Because then the game managed to challenge me. Every defeat is a lesson to be learned, making you a better player. If you never die you never learn and improve, and stay bad.

I had a friend who played Deus Ex Human Revolution with the same defeatist attitude you seem to be having He would lower the difficulty at the first sign of failing.

There seem to be many who use the... 1 statistic fallacy / bias? (Not sure if that is the correct wording, english not by native) 
Which is basically an error in logical thinking where you go "If this encounter made me die, then it likely isnt possible to overcome". Not considering all the factors but basing your whole assessment on one single scenario.

In Dark souls when I died at a hard location, I would use an elimination process as to what I was doing wrong until I succeeded, and then become better from it. I think the people failing to retry and adapt may have difficulties with the "What if..." hypothetical thinking and the trial and error part. 

What my beef is all about regarding difficulty, is if it is difficult for the right reasons.

Right reasons: Improved AI, enemy cooperation, more skills available.
Wrong reasons: HP/Resist scaling. Just makes the difficulty more unfair, but I welcome any challenge though.

Anyway. If you want to improve, you need to stop caring about dying or reloading. Rather look at the positive from each encounter: "What did I learn? What could I have done differently?". 

[Thandal N'Lyman]

My first playthrough of any new game (even if it's just "new in the series") is always played on the default difficulty.

 

a )  I have no idea what the developers think is "Normal" until I play.  

 

b )  Every game has its own way of implementing the controls and interacting with and combining multiple elements and features, which I have to (re-)learn.

 

Then, presuming I like the game, I'll escalate the difficulty in subsequent playthroughs all the way to the max.

After that I'll go back to "Casual" for the rest of them since by that point I'm playing for story, banter, and relationships, not combat!

[ResistanceKnight]

Some people play a game for the story, not to improve their gaming skills.  Calling one version more wrong or right, or a defeatist attitude. is just silly.

 

When I'm playing Xcom?  Sure, hardcore insanity long war all the way.  Losing a soldier hurts, I've even teared up when one I had gotten attached too went down like a boss to save a bunch of rookies I was forced to bring on a mission - all of whom went on to become some of my best soldiers in that playthrough.  Death in a game like Xcom or Dark Souls is written into the story proper.  Dying doesn't take you out of the story and plop you back 15 minutes in time.

 

But in a story based rpg like ME or DA?  Having to reload due to a wipe takes me out of it, especially if it's multiple times in the same area. 

 

It's perfect if you're just scrapping by, inch by inch, basically dragging your broken body back to base after a tough fight, like a movie.  The narrative keeps moving and is never broken, but the game is still pushing you to your limits.  Not because I don't want to learn or ask what if, but because I want the story to play out in a sensible and coherent manner.

[Jester]

My first playthrough of any new game (even if it's just "new in the series") is always played on the default difficulty.

 

a )  I have no idea what the developers think is "Normal" until I play.  

 

b )  Every game has its own way of implementing the controls and interacting with and combining multiple elements and features, which I have to (re-)learn.

For me (on first playthrough) it's always the highest difficulty (unless highest means something like "dying removes your save" like Witcher 2) when I'm playing an RPG-type game, and second highest for other genres, such as strategies or first/third person shooters. I also choose the highest difficulty, if it's not an RPG, but I'm familiar with the franchise. 

[Fantazm1978]

I shall be probably playing on the easiest most simple difficulty level possible.

[veeia]

Count me in as another one of the longtime gamers, terrible at games crowd.

I did find DA2 easier to play on higher difficulties (never tried Nightmare but Hard), but that's probably because the tactics were so intuitive to me...reminded me of doing basic coding.

[FumikoM]

I often found the battles in DA:O to be too hard or easy. Almost never any middle road. DA2 improved it a little, still some battles were more frustrating than anything else. Mass Effect had better balance, especially ME3. In ME games fighting was fun and some battles were challenging, but never really frustrating, IMO. From what I have seen in videos Inquisition seem to still not get it right.

[Jouni S]

What my beef is all about regarding difficulty, is if it is difficult for the right reasons.

Right reasons: Improved AI, enemy cooperation, more skills available.
Wrong reasons: HP/Resist scaling. Just makes the difficulty more unfair, but I welcome any challenge though.

 

I assume that the normal difficulty level is the one, where enemy AI is as good as it gets, and the enemies play by the same rules as the player. Such difficulty level may not always exist, and it's often called something else, but it should be 'normal' by definition. Reserving improved AI for higher difficulty levels is a bad idea, because enemy AI is always stupid and predictable.

 

The best way to scale the difficulty is adjusting the number of encounters, the number of enemies, and the toughness of the enemies in appropriate ways. If you're assaulting an enemy stronghold, the defenders could make 1-3 raids to weaken you before the main battle. If you're ambushed by bandits while traveling, there could be 10-20 bandits in the group. If you're fighting a dragon, it could be 15-25 m long, with appropriate statistics.