How does one enjoy easy games?

Guys, i am at an impasse in life, and i want to hear y'all opinion about my current situation, which might very well be a mental illness that is ravaging me to the core. Incredibly frustrating as you might imagine.

I am simply incapable of enjoying an easy game, be it when played on Normal, or Easy, it doesn't matter. If i am playing a game, and its not on the highest difficulty that is available to you on your first playthrough, i get bored, and lose interest. I feel like my gaming experience is incomplete. Prior to 2005 when the X360 launched, i used to play most titles on Normal, and only pushed harder difficulties in some titles that i owned, and back then, i mostly rented games. But with the introduction of Achievements, Microsoft has conditioned me to play on the highest difficulty to unlock all the 1000 points, and now, even if there's no achievements related to the difficulty (gow2018 and Ragnarok are a good example), i still must do the highest difficulty on my first playthrough just to feel like i completed the whole package.

One of my main gripes about lower difficulties is that; the mechanics and the little things you can do in games, they become completely and utterly irrelevant. You don't need to "buff" yourself before doing a boss fight. You don't need to create a mental strat for a difficult spot you're stuck on (Doome Eternal had a bunch of it). You simply press the W key and button mash in every game. That is just a shitty way of experiencing a video game, and nothing memorable will ever come out of it. The latest example is Dragon's Dogma 2. The game is baby mode when played with three other pawns, but when you play just with your main pawn, it can be pretty challenging, and you feel the progress of your character the way its meant to be.

And no, frustration from dying on the same boss for 50+ times is not what i feel, nor do i consider it a waste of time. Prefer being stuck on the same boss, hitting my head against the wall for hours, over beating a game over the weekend, and moving to the next title in line.

I guess easy games are more for relaxing and all, hard games are more for a challenge and i wouldn't recommend it if you feel down, annoyed or not in the mood. When i come home from work, i just want to chill and prefer games a lot easier, specially coming home from a horrible day which is like 99% of the time. TBH, i kinda feel that hard games are more difficult to do now, i get easily bored with it or find it so much difficult to consertrait and all. I also find it easier to switch the whole the game off completely while on easy, i can easily unwind and switch off from the real world instead and keep playing. I guess i just feel like i've lost interest in challenges these days.

Do very hard things I life and face frustration in life daily, then a relaxing easy experience will feel like heaven.

If that's the case, why not go full relax mode and watch a movie or a show instead? If relaxing is what you're looking for, games, no matter the difficulty, shouldn't be touched.

I play "easy" games--or rather, I avoid overly difficult ones--for a variety of factors.

1. Games should be fun. Failing is not fun.
2. My time is limited. I don't want to spend an hour making what I consider to be five minutes of progress. It feels like a slog at that point. Like I'm in WWI fighting for a month just to make the frontline advance 100 feet. Ugh.
3. Easy games require less attention, which let me listen to podcasts in the background and get updated on news, politics, history, and other fun stuff I am curious about. It's a good combination; I play my city-builder or sandbox game to relax, and I keep my brain stimulated with current affairs or history while planning out how my city or factory layout goes.
4. And finally, relaxation. Hard games are stressful. I work a tough, physical, stressful job 10+ hours a day and when I come home I want to relax. I don't want an adrenaline rush, I don't want to try the same fight ten times in a row just to find out the one strategy that works and kills the boss in 10 seconds on the 11th try. I just want to unwind with a relaxing, not-too-difficult game.
5. Oh and lastly I guess, when playing online games, hard games are often populated with elitists and I can't stand that shit. Like I understand this raid you're trying to get a group put together for is challenging in World of Warcraft, but I'm not signing a pledge to your guild giving you a promise of 20 hours a week and then spending 30 hours to farm ingredients for a fancy potion.

Same.

If I had a boring desk job I'd probably play harder games (then again, maybe not...desk jobs can be stressful in their own way).

Shooters with regenerating health are typically more fun on lower difficulties imo. On high difficulty you gotta play like a pussy, but on lower difficulties you can go Rambo.

Sometimes you just wanna turn your brain off and massacre hundreds of dudes.

Ninja Gaiden 3 Razors Edge is more fun on easy.

Games should be fun. Playing a game that is so easy that you can ignore most mechanics in the game is the extreme opposite of fun

If you want to listen to a podcast, or watch something, do that instead of playing a game. I mean, how shallow is the game must be, for you to be doing other things while watching/listening to stuff not related to the actual game? I do that when i am grinding for something aka doing chores, not during standard gameplay.

Hard games are stressful when you've been conditioned to easy games. They're not stressful at all when you're used to them. Dying in a video game and restarting a section has no difference between you working for 10+ hours, or 3 hours a day. What matters is the gameplay itself, and if its good, the difficulty will only add to the experience.

@hardwenzen: it really makes me feel better when I jump on a koopa turtle shell, then take the shell and throw it against a question mark block.

I feel like “I sure showed the koopas” on the inside.

That's not how it feels when you're playing on Easy, tho. You wouldn't even need to throw the shell, everything you need to do would happen automatically by simply walking and button mashing.

@hardwenzen: button mashing? On a platformer? Wow….you are a strange one. Lol.

I mean, on a fighting game, I can certainly understand.

Allow me to say I’m officially stumped. 🤷

Since when can you even change the difficulty on a platformer? I haven't played one in a while, and don't recall having access to difficulties.

@hardwenzen: So, what you are saying is you are still a lemming and the whole cow thing is just a front. Go collect those achievements lemming!

Lemmings have unlocked my full potential, and i am grateful.

@hardwenzen: you’d make an excellent politician.

Like everything, it depends.

If I'm looking for a challenge, I want it to be difficult. If I'm looking to relax... honestly, I don't think I've ever played a game to relax. I've played games like Flower and Abzu that CAN be relaxing, but I did play them TOO relax. Even with one of my favorite genres, Hidden Object (the games your grandma/kooky aunt plays), I don't play to relax. I like the old looking graphics, and the simplicity. But I wouldn't call them relaxing, just less stressful.

In general, I would normally play most games on hard, because if I just walked through the story, I would feel like I had cheated myself. If I still played games.

Honestly, I think most people have been conditioned to have an aversion to struggle (me included). I think the world at large, and specifically games wants to lower your threshold for quality, so they can just shovel trash into your mouth. "Don't fret, well take care of you. Hard day at work? Click this button and you'll feel better. Too stressful, pay a couple bucks and get a booster. Is this part too hard? We'll play it for you." At some point, are these games anymore? Isn't the nature of a 'game' to be a challenge, or in a competitive setting, stressful?

People can do whatever they want, but for my money, a game isn't a game without challenge.

I guess when you don't have more meaningful accomplishments in life, entertainment being "hard" is the only sense of accomplishment one can get.🤷🏽‍♂️

Oh hell no. Despise anything politics related.

@hardwenzen: I mean, whenever I buy a brand new game, I always play it Normally just to get to know what kind of game I'm up against from start to finish. When I do go into my 2nd playthrough, I'll most definitely play on the hardest difficulty as I know what to expect after my first play. Always play Normal, half the time, Normal can be hard but it surely depends on the game and how it plays.

That's the thing, when you know what you'll be against, going on NG+ or higher difficulies will never be the same as playing on the highest your first playthrough, the one you don't know anything about. Its the proper way of getting immersed into a game.

Is it me or is this just a thread from wenzen trying to prove he's some sort of an alpha male?

I only ask because of who the OP is.

How do you enjoy an easy book or an easy movie? Do you enjoy easy music?

I often say that our medium being called "video games" and not something else like "interactive fiction" or wtv, is a curse. Difficulty is just one of the many aspects that can make a game enjoyable and it can be completely absent from the medium without lessing it.

I would say that what truly defines the medium is "choice". Something as simple as going into a room, or not. Talking to an NPC, or not. Or simply you character build.

Now, of course people will like different things. Nothing wrong with that. But take your mind out of the box you put yourself into.

Wrote a lot and ultimately the TL;DR: version is "agree to disagree" I suppose...

...but I wholeheartedly disagree with a lot of what you said and view you as incredibly narrow-minded.

Fun (and what is not fun) is incredibly subjective, however, so I think we need to agree to disagree on this.

With that said, I'm not sure how you define "easy", or if you understand that different games have different mechanics.

I enjoy flight sims, for example. One sim I enjoy is a "study sim" called DCS World, where planes are modeled in such realistic detail that you can all-but-fly the real plane.

Anyway, point is: to me, it is hard to learn to fly a plane. It is hard to sit there and spend four hours learning how to just get the engine turning, let alone learning how to taxi, take off, and fly. That mind sound mind-numbingly boring to you, but to me it is challenging, interesting, educational, and fun.

Elden Ring is less difficult because it's simply a matter of trial-and-error. It's an exercise in patience and routine, and is therefore (in my opinion) a matter of time invested into a grind, and not a legitimate challenge.

Play and die, play and die, play and die, recognize pattern, exploit, get reward and endorphin release. Repeat.

It's no different than the "insert time, receive loot/endorphins" slot-machine mechanic you get in games like Destiny or Borderlands or Diablo, only you tell yourself you're more 'hardcore' because it's a soulsborn *shrug*

It's why I don't like Destiny and their ilk. And it's why I don't like Elden Ring and other soulsborn type games. They're all grinds for reward with no authenticity. They also tend to create rabid fanbases that suck the joy out of the games they claim to love and replace it with metagaming, another facet I dislike.

As for "shallow", I don't think that is it at all. The kinds of games that I spend the bulk of my time with are more of a creative outlet, as opposed to a narrative, encapsulated experience I imagine you are used to. They have incredible amounts of depth, to the point where in a game like Factorio you can essentially build a factory that acts like a computer in the game world you play in (basically a computer inside of a game running inside a computer...).

If I am playing a city builder, for example, I start with a blank canvas. I spend some time envisioning what I want my city to be--organic neighborhoods or track housing, clean or dirty industrial, renewable energy or traditional, curvy roads or grids, and so on--and then I start building.

Eventually I get to a flow state where I know what I am doing and it occurs organically in the game, and I can have something going on in the background (a podcast or music, for example) in order to keep myself not just stimulated and entertained, but also informed.

Sometimes cities get so large there are some moments where you need to sit for 5 minutes and let things just sort of happen, and that's another reason to have a podcast going. Sometimes I come here and post or do other things.

I admit it lacks the intensity of a more narrative-driven game (I play those too, of course), but it's nice for relaxing.

Again, define "easy". If I don't fail, is that an easy game? What if the game has no failure point? Does that somehow remove the mechanic of challenge from the game, and therefore make it not fun?

As for the gameplay, I agree, that is what matters most. I disagree with the notion that adding difficulty to good gameplay somehow improves it simply because of the flawed logic of "difficulty is always good and always welcome, therefore it should be added in no matter what".

Especially when done with artificial means (i.e. inflating enemy health pools) or super-technical mechanics (iframes being tied to block or dodges). At that point it's less of a game and more of an exercise is metagaming and math micro-optimizations to your "build".

That's because you're a filthy casual 🙄 Probably a PC gamer, too 😑

😉😁

I think you've touched on some nuance right here that is important.

People are conditioned to avoid struggle, and for good reason. But I think there is an important distinction between "struggle" and "challenge".

Struggle is pointless and suffering, and is a negative. Someone who is out of shape will struggle to do a pull-up, and will ultimately fail to do so (or, conversely, will find it so unrewarding once accomplished they consider it not worth the effort)

Challenge is purposeful and taxing, but ultimately a positive. Someone who actually cares about working out but has poor upper-body strength might find a challenge in doing a pull-up, and would feel well-rewarded in working towards that goal. The would-be struggle is simply a matter of effort.

I think how people view difficult games, whether as a struggle or as a challenge, is what defines "easy" or "hard".

In the end, I think you need to find your own challenges, and then struggle to overcome them. I think struggle for struggle's sake, or for cheap reward, is not worthwhile. It's why I don't like games like Elden Ring or grindy games like Destiny or whatever.

I don't enjoy games being too easy either. I say that, and I'm currently playing Kirby on Switch, lol. Believe it or not, it's pretty hard to get all the shit in it.

Bit on the fence with DD2 since so many says it's a cakewalk. Looks cool and fun and all, but if I play something I don't need any brain usage for, I lose interest. I don't like gimping myself by not using shit or equipping crap gear just to get a harder game. I'd much prefer to have a higher difficulty setting. But cool tip for DD2 to only use your main pawn. I'd probably copy that if I get the game. Kinda like not using the summons in Elden Ring.

Probably. I have a boring desk job, and I love hard and stressful games. Not sure if I play easier games if I've had a stressful day though. Gonna think about that in the future.

@mrbojangles25: I totally agree that people just need to do what they want, but I also think too frequently people just bounce off the first hint of struggle. And in doing so, rob themselves of something they might love.

And beyond games, it just seems like a bad idea to have people always run from anything difficult. What things have you accomplished in your life that were easy, and you're still proud of? Personally, I can't think of many for myself.

Between my nieces and nephews, and my friend's kids, I've seen a worrying trend of them either struggling with simple tasks, or breaking down when actual effort is required. I honestly believe our culture of convenience is killing their ability to cope, and to deal with not having their way 24 hours a day. Hopefully I'm wrong, but it's not looking good.

I agree that blindly struggling is probably a fruitless endeavor. But when you pair that struggle with guidance and knowledge, that's where the reward comes. Personally, I like less guidance overall, and to figure it out for myself. But it also depends on the situation.

You mentioned Elden Ring, which I haven't played, but I have platinumed Demons Souls and Dark Souls, so I get it. When Demons Souls came out, it was in a time that games kept feeling easier and more handholdy. So it felt amazing to play something that didn't dumb down the challenge, or go "hey, look over here" after five seconds of struggle. And as much as I liked all that, I really loved the mechanics, the subtle but deep story, the secrets, the player messages, etc. But if I would've let the initial difficulty deter me, I would've missed out on one of my favorite games of all time. And it sucks to think about the people that got the "git gud" response from some douche, but I know countless people that want to shepherd new players in, not exclude them. That being said, the idea of adding difficulty settings, or giving us different experiences sounds awful to me.

I assume it's like going to battle with someone, climbing Everest or raising a child. That shared experience is an amazing part of being human. We both walked the same path, but could still have different feelings about it. I know some people either don't have the desire, or ability to beat some of these games, but sometimes, that's ok. Some things aren't for everyone, and that's fine.

Haha, I'm getting tired and feel like half of what I'm saying is gibberish. A lot of why I like challenge in games is because I want the game to last longer. If I'm just walking through the game, it's #1 going to end sooner, and #2 feels like I didn't earn it. But if I'm not having fun, or engaged, I don't have a problem walking away. I hope that makes sense.

@hardwenzen: the 2024 (post-2020) me finally agrees with you. Since I started gaming in 1998, I always used to play my games on easy or very easy. Never ever would I pick normal or hard mode unless it was a game I beat multiple times (think MGS2, DMC1, DMC3, MGS3, MGS4, The Last of Us, Uncharted 2etc) I loved those games so much that I went through every single difficulty. But I absolutely HATED playing on the hard difficulties, but I persevered out of love for the game.

What changed?

Demon's Souls Nov 2020. My first ever FromSoft game. I ignored them (despite their high ratings and worldwide praise) due to their imposed difficulty. I really enjoyed overcoming adversity and the game wasn't hard at all. It lead me to buy DS3, DS1, DS2, Sekiro, Bloodborne (and of course Elden Ring about a year later)

Its funny looking at my original PS4 saves of certain games and then looking at the PS5 second saves (and more recent 3rd/4th PC saves) of the same games.

Horizon ZD, God of War, The Witcher 3... I played all those games on "story" mode.

Now I am currently playing HZD on 'Very Hard'. Also bought TW3 on Steam and am 60 hrs into 'Death March!' Difficulty and I am dying much less here than I did on 'Just a Story!'

in my first run of GOW I only did 'Give me a Story'. Now I have done multiple 'Give me GOW' runs in both GOW and GOWR.

@Mozelleple112: You started gaming in 1998, ah it all starts to make sense now.

@last_lap: You say that as if 1998 isn't 26 years ago.

also 1998 isn't the oldest game I have ever played, but thats when I got my PS1 for my 5th birthday.

I also had a family computer where I played some point and click Batman/detective games from the early-mid 90s.

You post on any other media platform and you will converse with people whose first COD game is Black Ops 2, and whose first Ubisoft game is Far Cry 3 or AC Black Flag.

@Mozelleple112: I was an adult and owned my own gaming systems before you were born let alone when you started playing video games. You started gaming in the era where gaming started to become mainstream and thus getting worse.

Depends of how much i'm willing to invest in a game, if the idea is to beat it and then forget about it i go with a harder difficulty since the beginning, if it is challenging but not rewarding i usually lower the difficulty just to finish it since is highly unlikely for me to completely abandon a game.

Pretty sure i got my first console in 98 as well😂Doesn't mean that i am a zoomer, tho. My parents simply didn't want to me to sit in front of a tv like a lill bitch, so they never bought me a system earlier.

These dayzz I love easy. ;o

Getting older, slower and much less patient will do that to a gamer. lol :P

Yup, only situation I care is when I'm playing with friends I just want to beat their scores :p

Never feel competitive in any other situation. I play games on normal-hard and will switch up and down whenever I feel like it.

As with everything, it depends on the game itself.

Kirby can be fun without the high difficulty because kirby's movepool has a surprising ammount of depth to it. Other games are more about relaxation, namely the comfy genre and dont need to be difficult.

I usually play on the highest or second highest difficulty. But I also tend to do a lot of silly challenges as well. Such as settling in evil areas in Dwarf Fortress or building a settlement in antartica or an extreme desert in Rimworld.

@last_lap: You're a dinosaur in his 50s. It all makes sense now.

@mrbojangles25: Games like Factorio are a fantastic example.

Getting some projects to work in that game took a LOT more effort than a SL1 run in Dark Souls. The ammount of stuff you can do when a game actually offers depth.

In a SL1 run, I needed to learn boss patterns. Anyone can memorize patterns. I didnt actually need to develop and understanding of the games mechanics. Which are incredibly simple. To build the more advanced stuff in Factorio however, I need to actually have an understanding of not only the game's mechanics, but also logic, mathematics and computer science.

Kirby is made for kids and your wife. Not sure why you bring that thing up as an example.

You're not exactly right. At least i've experienced most gens of gaming, you started in the 3D era on a Sony machine no less and think devs like Kojima are the GOAT when most know he is overrated, same does for his games.

Because when it comes to depth, Kirby has it in spades. They even made a fighting game using kirby's moveset.

The depth it has is only relevant to speerunners, not the kind of depth that is relevant for a challenging playthrough. Why? Because these games are braindead easy, and only someone looking to shave off 0.9 of a sec will care about its pointless depth.

Is this an actual question, or just a roundabout way of bragging about how you only play hard games? Because if it's the latter, I can assure you that nobody cares.

I am saying how i am incapable of enjoying anything but the hardest difficulty, and i'd like to know if its a mental illness😥

That is the difference between you and me.

I care about actually mastering games. You only care about beating up bots on the highest difficulty.

The ****. What do you think i did in souls pvp since 2010? You think there's nothing to master, things such as reverse rolling, roll catching, dead angles, etc? Same with Monster Hunter, a game i was re-killing the same mob a billion times just to perfect my CB skills. You don't know what you're talking about. I master titles that i see myself playing for hundreds of hours. Games that you play through once on the highest difficulty are not worth wasting time mastering because i am not a content creator that can get some money out of it by posting stuff on youtube and so on. Get a grip, Maroxad.

No, it is not a mental illness. You just have certain taste in games. People are built differently. Stick to what you like and don't worry about it.

If you cared about mastery, you wouldnt be saying half the things you usually say.

I have seen your comments towards fighting games. You are being dismissive towards speedrunning. You are being dismissive against competitive PvP. There is no denying it, you are a casual gamer.

Edit: Not that there is anything wrong with that. I am also a casual gamer. But having a skill ceiling to aspire to helps makes games fun, even if I will never get there. That skill ceiling is what made Kirby work, while Princess Peach didn't. This is why I brought Kirby up. Because the fun and challenge in Kirby does not come at what the game throws at you, it is being able to utilize all the tools to maximum efficiency.

I would love some kind of hard mode in Kirby that REALLY tests the players skills.But the game doesnt need it to be fun. Since there are other ways to challenge myself in them.

how does one enjoy easy games. easy I'm a gamer dad with slow reflexes now lol. but I bet I can play old school 2d games better than most in this forum lol.

A lot of games have achievements for completing the game at different difficulty levels. You are drunk.

I generally play my games on Normal difficulty on my initial playthrough but I’ll sometimes go right for the highest difficulty available. Sometimes I’ll just go with the easiest difficulty available. It all depends on the game and however I’ll feel that I’ll enjoy the game the most. I also enjoy over levelling in games and absolutely destroying opponents.