Penny Arcade - Comic - Storification

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Penny Arcade - Comic - Storification

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

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Anon von Zilch

Difficultyshaming is a disease.

Rhesus Positive

And I've got the cure

It's called "gitting gud"

But for realsies, play how you like - I bumped God of War down to easy to finish the game and I'm glad I did

Johnny17

I remember Konamis easy mode mockery from the 90s. It made me unable to have kids.

OctoberRaven

Hot take: There is nothing wrong with playing at any difficulty level. It's something you do for fun. To paraphrase Shadow Warrior 2, sometimes after a hard day, you just wanna be a superhero.

dennis

Johnny17 wrote: »

I remember Konamis easy mode mockery from the 90s. It made me unable to have kids.

Maybe try on New Game+.

PeriSoft

Hahnsoo1

This one, by far, is the best one about easy mode. "Don't jump on me, Mario" is regularly repeated even now in my friend group.

Radiated Ronin

Hey, don't feel bad! Somehow I lost in Exploration mode in AssaGins. Did you know you can fall into the Nile and get eaten by crocodiles? I do now!

MooseMuffin

OctoberRaven wrote: »

Hot take: There is nothing wrong with playing at any difficulty level. It's something you do for fun. To paraphrase Shadow Warrior 2, sometimes after a hard day, you just wanna be a superhero.

But what if, like Gabe, you put it on superhero mode and still get your ass kicked?

Grendus

I don't mind easy mode existing. I like it even, helps bring traditionally hard games to new audiences, lets kids who might not have mastered the motor skills to take on a hard game start practicing now... it's a good thing.

But I gotta admit, games like Jedi: Fallen Order constantly encouraging me to turn the difficulty down when a boss is kicking my ass got on my nerves. I put this game on hard because I wanted a Souls-like experience. I beat Orphan of Kos, I can beat Trilla, just let me try again, just gotta remember her combos damnit!

SpinelesS

It's impressive you stopped playing because you got stuck on a boss, and not because you realized how bland and boring the game is (which is what happened to me)

DemonStacey

SpinelesS wrote: »

It's impressive you stopped playing because you got stuck on a boss, and not because you realized how bland and boring the game is (which is what happened to me)

Hot takes! Get your Hot takes!

MichaelLC

DemonStacey wrote: »

SpinelesS wrote: »

It's impressive you stopped playing because you got stuck on a boss, and not because you realized how bland and boring the game is (which is what happened to me)

Hot takes! Get your Hot takes!

Ow! I burned my hand.

Zilla360

The funny thing is that Tales Of Arise recently added a 'Very Easy' mode as free DLC. And some of the bosses do not fuck around in this game.
So that's what I'm playing on, at least for a few of the bosses, then I bump it back up.

zepherin

Actually one of the things I started doing a lot after outriders. Was changing the difficulty on the fly if I’m getting frustrated. Oftentimes it’s not combat but some fiddly mini game and I’m like fuck this, difficulty down. Whoop it, difficulty back up.

MarcinMN

I usually go for "normal" difficulty in my video games. I'm in it to relax. That being said, I usually don't take any offers to lower the difficulty if normal is proving a bit challenging.

Hevach

Once I had kids and had to deal with the likelihood of walking away from a game at any moment without the option to just finish my turn first difficulty went straight to the bottom setting every time and only comes up if it gets insulting, like in Horizon Zero Dawn when I accidentally killed Thunderjaw without realizing that I was fighting Thunderjaw.

Preacher

zepherin wrote: »

Actually one of the things I started doing a lot after outriders. Was changing the difficulty on the fly if I’m getting frustrated. Oftentimes it’s not combat but some fiddly mini game and I’m like fuck this, difficulty down. Whoop it, difficulty back up.

Yeah I did this on outriders too funny enough, but that game had escalating difficulties and stupidly long boss fights.

I remember my gamer shame moment was literally having to google how to beat ff13, and the successful answer was an ask jeeves one which cracked me up.

zepherin

Preacher wrote: »

zepherin wrote: »

Actually one of the things I started doing a lot after outriders. Was changing the difficulty on the fly if I’m getting frustrated. Oftentimes it’s not combat but some fiddly mini game and I’m like fuck this, difficulty down. Whoop it, difficulty back up.

Yeah I did this on outriders too funny enough, but that game had escalating difficulties and stupidly long boss fights.

I remember my gamer shame moment was literally having to google how to beat ff13, and the successful answer was an ask jeeves one which cracked me up.

I was playing a game recent and a bunch of folks had googled how to beat a mid game optional boss, and most of the answers involved power leveling, waiting to the end or very finicky skill combos because he’s tough I gave it two tries decreased difficulty to story and beat him.

I don’t have the time to feel stressed about game difficulty.

Preacher

zepherin wrote: »

Preacher wrote: »

zepherin wrote: »

Actually one of the things I started doing a lot after outriders. Was changing the difficulty on the fly if I’m getting frustrated. Oftentimes it’s not combat but some fiddly mini game and I’m like fuck this, difficulty down. Whoop it, difficulty back up.

Yeah I did this on outriders too funny enough, but that game had escalating difficulties and stupidly long boss fights.

I remember my gamer shame moment was literally having to google how to beat ff13, and the successful answer was an ask jeeves one which cracked me up.

I was playing a game recent and a bunch of folks had googled how to beat a mid game optional boss, and most of the answers involved power leveling, waiting to the end or very finicky skill combos because he’s tough I gave it two tries decreased difficulty to story and beat him.

I don’t have the time to feel stressed about game difficulty.

Yeah I play games to entertain myself, and I have a limited time to play between work and my 6 year old. So if the game is frustrating I'm not having fun.

Like I'm playing dying light 2 on normal, I could play on hard but why? That just makes the game unfun for zero reward.

furlion

I am the guy that plays on hard. I got all the Trophies on give me God of war difficulty even though there isn't even trophy for playing on that difficulty. Same thing with Cyberpunk 2077 and several other games. Some games that have a lot of grinding or whatever I will cut the difficulty down but generally I play on hard. I just enjoy the challenge and for me most games are not that hard.

DemonStacey

For me it all depends on the game. Some games I find very fun on hard. Some games I do not. I don't just have a set difficulty I go for since the balance is different on every game and my personal enjoyment for difficulty goes up and down depending on the kind of game.

I love the Souls games. I'll play most RPGs on hard because I tend to do everything and I love making my characters OP so the higher difficulty tends to help balance that. But for something like say Doom I'd definitely always just play the normal difficulty. And I have no shame on playing something on easy if I'm just not as into the combat. It doesn't happen often but it does sometimes. Kena was the most recent example. Before that it had probably been years since I actually used easy. But I just didn't find the combat very rewarding and just wanted to see how everything played out and explore around the world.

shadowysea07

My guess is that he is missing something. Like some of the bosses you can cancel out their special attack if you use Alph or Rins burst attacks. His blazing strike and her magic absorber can stop them if you do it before the loading circle finishes. Though the water bosses is pretty op since it has damaging floor and twisters that spin around the battle field so unless you stay airborn and dodge you'll take damage.

This is all assuming he didn't run into one of the optional super bosses that are in the 60-80 range. As when you find them in part 2 you're maybe in the mid 20's-30's and aren't really supposed to beat them at that point.

Honestly I agree with the other comment that tales of arise-ia was pretty bland. But in addition all the bosses and enemies were just hp sponges which was a problem in the final dungeon for zesty and part 3 of legendia as well. They need to go back to higher damage output if they want enemies to have millions of hp. Mystic artes especially have horribly low damage output compare to the other games.

On that note tales of wise usually the difficulty just increases enemy hp count and not much else so it's typically never harder just more time wasted to kill it. Occasionally you get a boss like tales of vesperias or Sync from abyss where they have more attacks, limiter is broken and such on higher difficulty but that's pretty uncommon in the series. Limiter wise all that changes is their Mystic arte special attack kills your party if you dodge/don't guard in time and have the right stats instead of leaving the party with 1/2 1/3 3/4 or 1hp on the other difficulty settings. And since ma's are full screen in some of the games you can't dodge them.