How important is difficulty to you in games?

[LegitHyperbole]

Personally, I'm a gamer who likes difficulty, I like overcoming a challenge and even the pain that comes with being stuck or the severe punishment of loosing all progress in Rouglikes as I started my gaming career on NES with no memory cards

However I mostly despise difficulty options, I much prefer to play a set difficulty as I find these games to be designed better and I always start a game on normal for this reason and increase it as needed but it never really feels the same as a set difficulty. I find difficulty options cheap, usually thoughtless and soulsborne grinding in game as the best difficulty slider there is. Althoug there are rare exceptions like GoW '18 or Larian games where each difficulty setting is actually tuned correctly and with care. I really do wish devs would implement the difficulty sliders into a tuned experience where difficulty can be reduced through farming levels or some similar actions like collectibles adding to power. Starting with the developers vision of difficulty. I also like when devs implemented modifiers to a game instead of difficulty options which could ease the experience or inversely make for a more challenging experience for example, the Demon Bell and the Charm in Sekiro or the Hyper, inverse and hurry settings in Vampire survivors. 

Last edited by LegitHyperbole - on 08 October 2024