How hard to you like it?

Depends a bit on the game. Most shooters, I like to play on normal or the harder difficulty, given what options you have. I don't mind dying a few times, but I get annoyed with dying "too much".

Skyrim is interesting because I've got mods which alter the balance in my favour, but then I play on 'expert' mostly, although some of my higher level characters are better at 'Master'. A good hit from a 2 handed sword will sometimes 1-hit kill me! :D

I'm getting fairly good with the Total War games, and I'm currently playing a campaign in Napoleon as France, on very hard/very hard, with Darthmod installed, and also doing some of my own 'mods' to restrict my income. It's been fun so far, and certainly challenging - AI has actually acted well in some cases, kept its' forces together, stolen regions off me unexpectedly and generally been a pain in the neck!

Quite fancying playing Metro Last light on a harder difficulty now, sneaking around and using silenced weapons and knives to take everyone down before they've any idea I'm there.
 
Whatever gives me the most balanced experience, so usually 'normal' or medium. If I play through a game more than once or twice, I tend to try it on maximum difficulty, or at least experiment with something higher than medium. It really depends on how a higher difficulty changes the game, and imo not many titles handle this all that well. I seldom enjoy, for example, selecting hard or very hard difficulty, only to have to pump an absurd amount of ammo into a sponge like enemy for it to drop. I get no enjoyment out of that.
 
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I like a challenge but depends on the game

I love games like super meat boy :)
Also games like Torchlight are much better on hard, Torchlight was really boring on normal difficulty :(

Some games are insanely difficult on hard tho :)
I also like fighting games and find on hard they are more challenging & fun but some of them have a end boss battle where the boss clearly cheats (with more health or cheap moves etc), good example of this is blazblue games :D
 
Depends on the game really. For FPS and most AAA then its hardest difficulty right away, they are always ridiculously easy anyway. For strategy games I start out on normal and then up the difficulty to increase the challenge as I get better at the game, most of the time you really need to learn the ins and outs of them before you can beat the tougher settings. RPGs are a mixed bag, some are easy and some aren't. I recently decided to play through dragon age origins again and initially set it to nightmare but it was a bloody nightmare I can tell you! Dropped it down to hard after about an hour of play.
 
Hardest all the time, apart from strategy games, mainly because I'm too poor at them/don't have the patience to learn how to beat harder AI!
 
I grew up with crazily difficult games (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, C64) so I'm a bit surprised at how frustrated/impatient I can get these days. I usually play on normal as I don't get a lot of time to game - when I do, I like it to be enjoyable instead of a computer defenestration session. :o
 
Depends on the game. I used to always play Medium for the first playthrough and then if the game was good enough I would replay it on Hard e.g. half-life etc.

However, I have stopped playing a lot of games on Hard, because all they seem to do is add hit points to enemies - no variances to the AI, they don't even use different routes or do anything better etc. it's just more enemies with more hit points. e.g. if I can shoot an enemy 24 times with a machine gun and they are still alive (and fine!) this ruins the immersion for me, it makes the guns feel weak and it feels like lazy development.

But for brilliant games, I will still replay them on Hard, e.g. last one was Deus Ex:HR, it was still challenging on the hardest setting, as in you could be shot dead in seconds with very few hits but it felt well balanced, unlike a lot of games where they just add more enemies and give them too many hit points.
 
i'd use easy difficulty at first, mainly for content tourism and learning the mechanics of the game, then depending on how it levels up difficulty or how much I want to replay the game ill ramp up the difficulty.

some games I dislike how the Ai does difficulty, sure in fps games making enemies hit harder and die harder works just fine, or more enemies. personally im a fan of more enemies or better intellegence.

I dislike games like civ 5 where the Ai doesnt get any more intellegent but just cheats in stuff to get a good start and gets belligerent far too easily, but then in that game its mostly a few humans and some Ai for cannon fodder and map coverage.
 
It depends on the game, if it's story based then usually normal (if it's just normal & hard then I'd pick hard as the easiest difficulty is simply too easy)

For a game that's mechanically or strategically challenging instead of a narrative (Mass effect VS Rome 2 for example) then I tend to go in at very hard, dropping down the difficulty if required - which isn't that often as 90% of games are mindlessly easy.
 
Whatever the default is, as I expect this to give me the most balanced enjoyment/difficulty. If I really enjoy a game I'll play it again at a higher difficulty level, but I can rarely face playing through modern games more than once.

As a side note, I've found some of the best balanced games in terms of difficulty are those that do not have a selectable difficulty level.
 
I like to play things on Hard... But usually I play Medium. And yes, I have considered easy recently just to experience the story. For most games I play, that's what I want now. The story, and the fun that comes with it.

Rezident said:
But for brilliant games, I will still replay them on Hard, e.g. last one was Deus Ex:HR, it was still challenging on the hardest setting, as in you could be shot dead in seconds with very few hits but it felt well balanced, unlike a lot of games where they just add more enemies and give them too many hit points.
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Deus Ex:HR is the only game on Steam I have all the achievements for. Hard on that was fun. Completed hardest difficulty, no kills and Foxiest of the Hounds in one game! So proud of that!
 
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I used to play hardest but then I became to aware of the artificial difficulty of some games. In FPS's I usually stick to normal now, I like a believable amount of bullets to take down enemies instead of a simple "ADD 200% HP TO THE ENEMY!" tick box.

Now, if the AI was more intelligent in some cases sure, usually it's really crappy stuff.
 
bledd. said:
Hardest/Expert.

Apart from the final round in Quake III. It's impossihard.
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Ah that brings back memories - instantly rail gunned the moment you stick your head out on nightmare mode - you had to go by sound and work the columns to keep cover between yourself and xaero and only break cover when he'd used a jump pad to put him out of sight (or if you were very very good beat him to the railgun your side and constantly deny). I beat him on nightmare mode back in the day but doubt my reaction times would be upto it almost 15 years on.
 
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