What's a game that doesn't know how to do difficulty the right way?

[Magnadeus]

I'm talking about games have no clue of difficulty works on the highest difficulty such as enemies that have insane amount health and lowers the damage you deal to em, but can one shot you.

Or games that have insanely difficult puzzles with the most cryptic of hints that you would never expect.

[The Tunnel Ratencio]

Too many are on the first case you mentioned, so many that it is harder to mention a game that does difficulty in a nice way.

For example the difference between the "normal" and "nightmare" difficulty in dying light(the first one at least) is about a 5 min longer to kill a regular zombie because of how much health they have, how little damage my weapon that feels like a wet noodle does and the time it takes for my stamina to recover. So i end up "cheesing" enemies with the one shot move of stomping their heads when they are on the ground or when im on top of a car, in short, just not fun.


A good example that i remember is in metro exodus because enemies and the player die pretty fast because everything does more damage, it is far from perfect and i never played that game on anything less than the max difficulty but sure it was way more enjoyable than most other games i tried on the highest difficulty...

But i sort of get it, i mean like with the payday 2 example i dont think the idea of that insane difficulty was for it to be balanced, but instead just a challenge for players that want more and i guess that is why most games when they meant hard difficulty it just means a number change for the player to overcome in unfair or "cheese" ways

[kbm demon.♡]

Remnant, every difficult boss is just their 1000 minions swarming you.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

l4d2

and i won't elaborate but it's overhyped nowadays

though miles better than whatever the ♥♥♥♥ B4B was

[kingjames488]

monster hunter.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Grey:

What's a game that doesn't know how to do difficulty the right way?

All the replies so far have concerned action-shooters/etc.

That isn't traditionally the genre that gets "difficulty level" wrong, it's just the one that's the most obvious.

The one that frequently borks up difficulty are 4x/strategy games...

With fifty-eleven different mechanics, developers usually just add/subtract numbers to variables and call it a day. Fiddling with the "AI" is sometimes possible, but more often than not it's just an increase in production, morale, currency, efficiency, etc... Which is why a faction on Hard difficulty can doom-stack tank-rush the player on turn five. In order to survive at top difficulty, most 4x players just want their faction to "hide" until they can't.

[Soft Wumbo]

online games

[Tiberius]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/210970/The_Witness/

I doubt anyone can finish it without reading a guide

[Senator Armstrong]

Borderlands games are notorious for this. The games will be piss easy, then all of a sudden throw a boss at you that just absorbs bullets and can kill you in a few hits.

Resident Evil-esque games are guilty of this, too. A game, where ammo is scarce, will throw a bullet sponge boss at you. I'm still angry about the Amalgam from Evil Within.

[nil]

1st borderlands was great for hours - 'til i hit the junkyard with no ammo/cash - too late to refund. @#$%&* -

[Alby]

lords of the fallen bramis castle

[Holding These Alligators Down]

Armoured Core 6.
It's a great game but the difficulty is pretty unbalanced. Regular enemies are basically like swatting flys but some of the boss fights are like if a regular person tried to fight Superman.
Luckily there are a couple of builds which are OP as hell.

[Jackie Daytona]

Originally posted by Grey:

What's a game that doesn't know how to do difficulty the right way?

I'm talking about games have no clue of difficulty works on the highest difficulty such as enemies that have insane amount health and lowers the damage you deal to em, but can one shot you.

Or games that have insanely difficult puzzles with the most cryptic of hints that you would never expect.

The original, unmodified, Final Fantasy Tactics.

Wiegraf is pretty much invincible... Unless you've built your main character in a specific way. And there's no way for you to know that before you get to the battle against him.

Worse, you are stuck at that part of the game. You can't back out. (Unless you created a save from 3-5 battles previous.)

Worst of all, this happens 20-30 hours into the game. Of a game that will take 50+ hours. (For the average player.) 100+ hours for completionists.

Without a backup save? Your only choice is to restart. Devastating.

[tom tomorrow]

Originally posted by Xero_Daxter:

I want a game so hard that if you die once then your save file will be deleted.

For example, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Die once and you have to start all over from the beginning.

So.... Roguelikes?

[El Mythical 23 k.s.c.]

FTL even very easy is hard.

[Apteryx]

HALO 2 METROPOLIS