Quote:
Originally Posted by Vexx
Two possibilities for this phenomenom:
1) You're getting better in a meta-sense at gameplaying, able to spot patterns, yada yada.
2) They're dumbing down the games each cycle of generation because the whiners are winning. We see this is MMO development all the time. Anyone who has been playing an MMO more than 5-8 years remembers when it was actually *dangerous* to leave your hometown and take on those rats in the forest. When exp loss and item loss was to be expected  There used to be more puzzle solving -- I recall a few RPGs from the 90s that required some actual thinking to solve (was delighted to see a few in the recent DDO MMO and man was there whining from players about it - I loved it). |
This pretty much, to be fair gotta blame blizzard and its afflictions that made the whole nerf-bat re-balancing deal quite trendy in the MMO-Scene; they did that crap way back in WC3/SC iirc. Other older MMO games (and some online games) were pretty much set in stone, unless it was a really major fubar game mechanic (like the AWP Shotgun of some odd version of Counter-Strike before 1.2 iirc, as an example). There's a whole psychological factor to why the constant nerfs and balances are effective for a game, but enough of that.
Getting back On-Topic... As for personal preference, I usually always start on normal or the second to last hardest difficulty depending on the genre of the game (and if the hardest difficulty is already unlocked or not). If an RPG/Action-RPG gives me difficulty options, I most certainly just play normal just to enjoy the game and getting accustomed to it; and usually save the the hardest difficulty for 100% (or achievements recently). Usually if a game can't keep me interested (storywise, characterwise, gameplay wise) on normal and it's a hassle to complete it the first time around then I usually ignore achievements, 100% Completion, and the hard mode.