Initial Gameplay Difficulty

I pretty much always go with normal. Depending on the game, I might change the difficulty part way through if the game allows it, or start over on a different difficulty if it doesn't and I'm not too far in. But most of the time I just leave it at normal for the whole game.

 

Same as Splunge. It's very rare that I amp up the difficulty on my first play-through.

 

Most games I start on normal, with the exception of fps games, where I usually pick a somewhat harder difficulty. Depends on the game, though.

Stalker feels like it should be played on the highest difficulty. The gameplay supports this by allowing you to sneak around. Serious Sam on the other hand is seriously hard on the harder difficulties. In Painkiller you die quickly on the highest difficulty and healing is rare, but with proper bunny-hopping it's not that hard to avoid taking damage.

RPGs I almost always play on normal or even a bit lower if the game has multiple easy settings. It's just not a type of game I play for the difficulty in combat.

Same with RTS games, I play it for the base building, not for the zerg rushing.

 

Yeah, I mostly play roleplaying games, so I usually go for easy, at least until I feel like the game needs more difficulty. But I mainly play for the story, so I don't like frustration with combat to get in the way of my enjoyment. What I've noticed is that I'll bump it up to normal, and then find a difficult place and it's back down to easy. There's a part of me that would like the bragging rights for harder difficulties, but it's not something I've actually gotten to yet.

 

I like to test the water before hand, easy..

There are many games I have abandoned because they never really let you get into them, either because they are hard enough that you never experience anything good, or because the story is crap.

 

Lately the games are just sitting on my computer. I don't have time to play them. I'm not sure if that means they're easy because it's no challenge at all for them to sit there or if they're hard because after months I haven't even finished the first encounter successfully. And I don't think it's normal to buy a game and have it sit for months.

Although I did get through the trial in NWN2 OC recently (a month or so ago on normal difficulty).

 

And coincidentally, Steam just started their Summer Sale. Guess I'll be addig to my unplayed games list.

 

GoG has already been underway with their summer sales for a week or so. Have seen Jade Empire pass by regularly, as well.

But yeah, lot's of games that haven't gotten played yet.

 

I have nearly 400 games on my steam account, I can tell you... many are unplayed.

 

Initially... normal/core or whatever lands in the middle, because too often easy/hard is just an inflated/deflated health bar.

 

I hate it when hard difficulty is just more health on the enemies. That doesn't make it anymore difficult, just more tedious.

 

Whatever the hardest setting there is. I'm a glutton for punishment

 

Usually I'll just go for default. There are definitely some games, though, that some into their own on higher difficulties. The original Quake or Mass Effect 2 are good examples, as they're just more interesting to play. The only opposite example I can think of is Just Cause 2, which as a free-roaming open world game focussed far too much on "challenge" rather than over the top destructive violence, shutting you down just as you were getting a good rampage going.

 

Depends: for RPG's and such I put it on 'normal'. For shooters and action-adventures like Mass Effect, I put it on 'easy'. For sports games, I put it on the hardest difficulty.

 

Normal for the most part, if the game is super difficult early on, I'll switch it to easy and have another go then. If I enjoy the game enough, I'll replay it on hard. If I really enjoyed it, I'll play a third time on the hardest difficulty.

 

Normal or easy, depending on the genre. If it's too easy on easy, I'll set it to normal. I don't even try anything about normal until after I've beaten the game once.

The only exception for that ever was with Marathon 2, where I'd played the demo as well as the first game, and the demo had told me that there were advantages to playing on "Total Carnage". I tried the same with Infinity, but switched to normal.

 

Always hard.
Make me suffer for my money!

Sounds a bit wrong...but hey, what doesn't.