How do you decide what difficulty to play on?

Was wondering what difficulty do you guys normally play on? Does it matter upon genre or game type? Will you turn the difficulty down if things aren't going well?

I pretty much always just play on normal first. And then if I play it again will often up the difficulty (thought sometimes not). I was going to say I've never played anything on easy, but I just thought about it and I believe I did on Contra 4 and it doesn't even let you playthrough the whole thing on that level. I deserved that for turning it down. Also I imagine some games normal now are kind of last-gen's easy too.

It really varies on what type of game. Anything strategy and I usually crank it down to easy like X-Com or Starcraft. Outside there I usually give the first level a shot on hard and turn it down from there depending on how many cheap deaths I get. Something like Call of Duty which is full of them I play on the easiest, but in Halo I can't play on anything lower than Heroic.
Whether I'm playing for the story also matters. Bioshock for instance had pretty bad combat but a cool story and world so that was at easy.

Whatever the trophies tell me to do.

Otherwise usually on easy.

I hate it when games nerf easy mode. Also sucks when there's no reward for the highest difficulty.

Out of the box I usually go with default unless prompted otherwise. I grew up on NES so even maxing the difficulty is never really bothersome. Unless a game is tedious or downright lazy. FF Tactics comes to mind in that respect. I love that game but the scaling makes it super-unbalanced.

Guess what I'm saying is I go for Normal or Hard since it usually makes for a better bang for the buck.

I usually play on normal in a first playthrough even when everyone says "it's SO EASY MAN!"...I broke that rule with Bioshock Infinite and regret it because I realized I wasn't playing the game for the challenge of it. Which brings me to my main point:

depends what I'm playing the game for. I'm playing Odin Sphere on easy because I couldn't give two shits about the gameplay, I'm only playing for the story so I don't care if I make the shitty gameplay easier to get the story bits faster. That said...Odin Sphere had these stupid frustrating moments of just cheapness because it's poorly designed, otherwise I would have kept playing it on normal.

I tend to only play hard on second playthroughs (or more), and I really enjoy it in games like MGS or something where the enemy placement makes the game harder. But I don't like hard difficulties where the values just change if that makes sense. Like theenemies just have more health and you take more damage. I like it when the challenge goes up more organically.

I always play on Normal except for certain games. I'll turn RPGs down to easy if I want to finish them quickly, I adjust fighting or racing games until they're a fun challenge. Anything that thrives on it's difficulty will be left on hard. Fuck playing Dark Souls 2 on easy

The only game I've ever turned the difficulty down to easy is Catherine... but that's just because so many people went on-and-on about how much of a kick in the balls Normal was. I usually only go up to Hard difficulty if it is a franchise I am familiar with. Like I'll play God of War on Hard or Titan right away... I also played the Batman games on Hard... because I liked the challenge of not seeing the indicator flash before the baddies swung at you.

I usually start with easy, to get a better look at the game and learn the mechanics and if I fell I want some challenge or that i'm ready, I change to normal and I guess from there I can go to hard depending on how i'm doing at the game.

I usually go with default, I mainly use that to scout my surroundings of the game better plus I actually want to enjoy the game. If it's a familiar game I know like the back of my hand, I up the difficulty. Also upping the difficulty on some games makes you think twice about what you're gonna do and sometimes makes you use different tactics. I enjoy a good challenge but not to the point I get cheap deaths and such.

I play on Normal or Hard. Most "easy" modes are too easy for me. I like my games with some teeth.

TheMatt wrote:The only game I've ever turned the difficulty down to easy is Catherine... but that's just because so many people went on-and-on about how much of a kick in the balls Normal was. I usually only go up to Hard difficulty if it is a franchise I am familiar with. Like I'll play God of War on Hard or Titan right away... I also played the Batman games on Hard... because I liked the challenge of not seeing the indicator flash before the baddies swung at you.

I wish I played the Batman games on Hard. I hated those indicators you are talking about. Not to mention the game could have used some more difficulty in its combat.

I've never played Batman on anything below hard. I'd put that, Gears, Halo, and Mass Effect 2/3 on the games I can't play on anything below hard. Though ME3's because the game's stupidly easy on anything below Veteran.

When I first started playing games I always played on Easy. Since I've been any good at games, I've played on normal. The only game I can think of, which I started on hard, is Ratchet and Clank: ACIT. I'd say I enjoyed it more as a result, having played all of the previous console games. Any time I repeat a game, I'll up the difficulty

Usually the highest difficulty they give you on the first playthrough unless it's some kinda game where I feel I need to learn some new mechanics first. If it's story based I usually play on medium just to try and avoid those parts where you get stuck for ages that it just ruins everything.

Usually I play on Normal, even when its a game series or genre that I'm not familiar with. It's one of the ways I know if the game is going to work for me. The only games I can recall playing again on harder modes is God of War, several Halo games and Street Fighter II. I don't remember feeling the drive to go back for anything else.