Games where the diffculty settings actually change the game's diffculty?

Hitman: Blood Money reduced your mid-mission saves until you had none. It also had a reputation system that made you more recognizable the more careless you were in previous missions.

I think this is what STALKER and Deus Ex do on their highest settings.

As says, bullet hells. Simply by increasing the pattern bullet density, the space between bullets decreases, requiring more precise movement. In addition, by increasing the speed of the pattern, faster reactions become required. As a result, bullet hell difficulty is very "analog" and easier to work up in.

Vindictus, which is a hack and slash grindan MMO you shouldn't play, also made some changes on higher difficulties. These were:

Payday 2 stealth increases the amount of guards wandering amount as well as introducing unbreakable camera's. Some missions also have the objectives slightly modified. (Different locations, things take longer to do, etc.)

I also remember some Castlevania NG+ games changing boss attacks slightly by making them faster or increasing the amount of projectiles spawned.

Really, there's plenty of stuff out there. Just increasing the speed of enemies and thus requiring faster reaction times works really well for action games.
It's just that the lazy method of stat padding works for retards so devs keep doing it.

Rune Factory 4 increases enemy damage and defense, but they also increase enemy aggression and unlock new moves for regular monsters and bosses when you play on Hard.

OP, you are such a faggot. Why should devs invest resources into game modes instead of just making the over game better. You guys have meme'd this topic to fucking death but the fact is, double health makes shit harder and devs can now piss off to fix other shit. Stop being such a faggot.

On the subject of MMOs GW1's hard mode was pretty good. It did buff health and damage a bit on NPCs but it also gave them better reaction speeds, extra skills and better use of targeting/kiting.

Why add any fun side things when the main game can apparently be improved infinitely? May as well cut out everything that's not totally necessary, I'm sure players would love that.

I have been wanting to get into the RE games. I started with 0 and put that shit on hard. Big mistake, the zombies take 6 fucking bullets and there are barely any bullets left which leaves you stuck to retry the game again or try to ninja the zombies to get past them. Fags say this is what survival horror is but I call it bad game design. On Easy is when it feels more realistic.

OP you need to play games that dont have difficulty sliders because they are made and optimized to be either hard or easy. If there is a slider then play on easy and dont waste time. Good example of difficulty is Ninja Gaiden Black, Souls-Borne, DMC3 Pre-Patch NA.

Secrets of Grindea.

Just fixing my post. Enemies get lots of new attacks. bosses change almost completely. Attacks are either way stronger, harder to dodge and with a smaller reaction time or completely new. It's almost another game.

this is what all Hitman games do and it doesnt make it any harder, just tedious because you have to the whole level all over again. it's just as bad game design as bullet sponge enemies.

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Gunstar Heroes. Not only do enemies get more numerous, stronger, and have more HP, they get entirely new attacks and strategies as you move up in difficulty. It's top-notch shit.

Kingdom Hearts 2 critical mode. Boy howdy that is how you handle an advanced difficulty selection. Enemy health values and damage values remain the same as the regular hard difficulty but you get half the health you'd nromally have making certain fights into a test of your ability to dodge one shots. As consolation though you have double damage making fights go super fast and giving the player a suitable reward for wanting to bump up the difficulty. Combine this with KH2 final mixes balls to the fucking stratosphere end game bosses like the data org and the Lingering Will and its shocking how nuts the game can get.

>This is the same series that includes Birth By Sleep Death By Stunlocking Damage Sponge.
Really makes you wonder. Not really, it's obvious that it's because BBS was handled by SE Osaka.

Killing floor 2,enemies become faster,use more advanced moves,special types of enemies come out,and some enemies spawn in a pre enraged state.

Metroid Samus Returns' hard mode was just an increase in the damage enemies do to you. If you spent your first playthrough gitting gud enough to be untouchable, then there's zero reason to play it again on hard. Your shots still kill them in the same amount of time, they still spawn in the same locations, they still use the same tactics. Since bosses trained you on patterns that allow you to never take damage, all hard mode achieves is disproportionate punishment when you fuck up a little exploring between bosses. I didn't bother finishing it on hard when I realized this.
This is a pre-emptive shut the fuck up to AM2R autists, I don't care unless you have something to say about hard mode specifically

IN Mount and Blade, you increase the battle size for more difficulty. The more soldiers, the less impact you can individually have.

The Halo games, particularly CE and Reach, actually make the enemy AI smarter (though they also adjust the damage/health values)

Elites on Legendary in Reach is probably the best enemy AI i've ever seen in a FPS, notwithstanding the sort of neat but gimmicky stuff, say, FEAR AI does.

Fire Emblem 7

Heres hoping Kingdom Hearts 3 wont huff paint and make keyblade combos floaty, have bosses be unstunable, or have your combat options just be too powerful. (and release in 2018)

You are stuck in a mansion where Zombies canonically takes 1 bullet to the brain to be put out. Zombies that, mind you, can walk at a snails pace.

Untweaked mount and blade battle sizes are bullshit.
If the enemy has a much larger(about double), the enemy spawns with 493 troops and you with 7, completely shattering any hope you mighr have had of winning the battle, even though it would had been feasivle to fight them off.

Good thing we can set the battle limit to 5000 and avoid these problems.

this is what Way fo the samurai do in "on hit kill" mode.

Perfect Dark

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In Contra 3, the enemies are more aggressive and the final boss also has one additional form when you play on hard.

Not really change it so much as OP looks for…..

Not at all, it's not making your playthrough any longer or more tedious, it's just punishing you more for being bad which is fair game.

Not really, in the highest difficulty only you die faster since it makes it easier for your enemies to hit you. I've yet to see someone disproving this.

You still need faster reaction time and better strategy even though your enemies die as fast as you do, dumbass.

go back to school kid.
if an enemy can hit you 4x harder that means you die 4x faster, that's some glass cannon shit going on there.

It does change it though,the zeds act radically different,you cant just shoot at them the say way.

you dont have to do the whole level again if you fix your mistakes quickly and accept that you wont get the epic top score unless you do it again because you cant savescum like a bitch

Master difficultly in STALKER makes it where head-shots are instakill for you and your enemies but I dont think this is what OP was looking for since master is the only way to actually play STALKEr due to the bad coding in the difficulties. Master levels the playing field as where lower difficulties not only does it make the enemies less accurate but you as well and never mind that the game sometimes makes your bullets disappear into oblivion as well as your enemies bullets, almost as you never shot them in the first place.

Hey, dumbass.

And you.

One game that comes to mind is Ninja Gaiden Black, it does increase the damage but it also changes some item/weapon locations and adds new enemies

Hard mode makes late game enemies spawn in the earlier parts of the game causing the previous difficulties late game encounters to become this games early ones.
Then on DMD along with making your super end game health not all it's cracked up to be now all enemies get a new attack.
Basic mooks get a double swing like the mini boss variant of them
Red mooks who before had a super long wind up dash swing how have a quicker dash who shoryuken swing
Even bosses get their new trick which usually involves being mixed in with a previous move to make it less easy to respond too
Enemies will more actively throw you the higher the difficulty is so say on normal you can 100% of the time do something easy for score and damage like poke poke then grab them, on the last difficulty you're the one getting thrown every time for this.
Same as DMC, basic mooks are now special mooks saved for late stage enemies in every level and all the bosses have additional moves in their moveset.
Health and damage on higher difficulties is what it warns you about but stronger enemies also become much more common and bosses also are no longer limited to cinematic triggers as of 7 and above, say in dialogue a boss would say "Now try this on for size" and do some strong and hard to dodge move? On 7 or above you'd get no such 10 second long warning about the attack but the dialogue would just pass off as background notice since the pattern has changed.
Only source of a health refill outside of drops is a E tank you have to spend a large amount on so using it is risky along will all bosses having even harder to dodge attacks now and you die in 3 hits on average now with no upgrades.

>Every enemy even super bosses still lose half their life to being looped in the pattern of (They attack > get stunned by reflect > Fully punished or even lamer Limit break loops) Then you pop an ether or elixer and get to the other half
MFW KH fags try to paddle their shit as hype when it's a mash fest with exploits so obvious your mom could figure them out first playthrough.

But yeah other than "the boss does new moves" there isn't a lot to most game difficulties

The sad thing is that people are starting to believe the narrative about "muh nintenyearold mods deleting every single labo thread" the mods are shit but not that shit

Thief: The Dark Project.

Higher difficulty settings give you bonus objectives and limitations that increase the difficulty considerably and force you to play smarter.

Some of them increase the number of enemies as well.

100hp both
Enemy hit takes 20
Hero hits take 20
If you are lucky 100hp otherwise is 400hp
Enemy hits take 80
Hero hits take 80

Wow it's like, showing bigger numbers and stuff! That totally changed the gameplay and how I play

Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt alters the attack patterns of the projectiles the enemies use.
Shadows of the Empire turns both you and your opponents into glass on the hardest difficulty.
Phantasy Star Online made a number of changes for it's hardest difficulty, not only largely increasing the movement and attack speed of what you fight, but also adding a few other things such as hyper armor or different spells to a few of the foes.
Sonic Adventure 2 has the Hard missions which alters both the level layout slightly and enemy placements.
The Wonderful 101 alters enemy placement so you fight the full range of foes from the outset of the game, alters their attack patterns to be more aggressive, and reduces the slowdown effect that you have when switching between weapon types meaning you need to be much faster to effectively pull off combo's.

noice
I've played hundreds of hours in it and between round 1 and round 10 there is only more quick reaction and more ammo usage and you notice it especially on boss round

Wow i never thought of halfpressing the A button a bit quicker would change the game. Then any RTS it's the best option because they give the AI more bonus and you have to blob quicker

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Enemy takes 5 hits to die
Hero takes 5 hits to die
Enemy takes 2 hits to die
Hero takes 2 hits to die

Do you know how math works my man

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Nigger he's talking about difficulty, not number of rounds.
Zeds (like husks) act more aggresively and have new attacks.

Yeah no. The hardest difficulty only makes Gunstar Heroes' Euroshmuppy design flaws pop out more. The bullets become so numerous in some places (flight deck being a good example) that you can be juggled around by them until you die.

Wario Land 4 changes things up pretty significantly once you unlock Very Hard mode.
Parts of each level are rearranged to make them tougher; the Keyzer and treasure pieces are in more challenging or more obscure locations, and parts of the levels themselves can be altered. This often includes moving the portal timer to the start of the level, meaning you have to do the whole thing under a time limit.
Oh, and you start every level with one heart left. You can still refill it, but you’re starting from far behind.

The best games don't have difficulty settings and instead change their challenge level as you play better.

But a novice will never get skilled at the game if you keep making it easier when they suck.

I'm not talking about button mashing console garbage, I'm talking about real games with real controls, keyboard and mouse that is.

how have none of you niggers mentioned strat games yet? Damage is all the same but with increased difficulty opponent get better AI and start with more units, resources, structures, or tech. Heroes of Might amd Magic 3 which has amazing AI, Civilization where you can even throw in rampaging barbarians, Endless Space 2, etc…

Witcher 3 on deathmarch is noteable becaise it forces you to actually use the games mechanics of oils, potions, and such. Get the brutal combat mod for something extra nice.

Alien Isolation and Metro 2033/Last Light are also challenging. In alien your equipment is less reliable and parts are hard to come by. Metro does the typical increase in damage but also makes ammo a more rarer find.

Obligatory 2hu on Lunatic recommendation

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Oh sorry Reddit. Then you left click a bit quicker

this right here

Unless this has been scientifically confirmed in the game, this chart is meaningless.

Thots?

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The Sin and Punishment games' harder difficulties alter bosses so that they have additional parts, and even add minibosses and other enemies altogether.

Scaling difficulty is fucking awful. If you get stuck at a difficulty level, you want to play that difficulty until you beat it. Afterwards, you move to the next. Scaling prevents you from even know where you are, skill level wise, and prevents you from being pushed as hard as you want to be.

Kid Icarus Uprising has selectable difficulty levels that adjusts stat and attack pattern. By itself this isn't special but the difficulty levels are tied to a reward system that give you better weapons on higher difficulties. This makes it more satisfying to grind weapons. Higher difficulties cost a certain number of hearts which can be recouped as you complete each state, but if you keep dying you'll eventually run out of hearts. This is to prevent you from playing difficulties you can't handle, and so you must master lower difficulties before moving onto higher ones.

Tell me more about this. Getting juggled is a threat, but I've almost never been in a situation that was actually impossible to escape. By Flight Deck, do you mean Orange's stage?

Holy shit someone else played that game. I've been dying to ask more people this: Does it give you a headache too?
I've heard from like 3 people and they all said it does.

I told you not to read that tablet twice, user.

Puzzle game add more puzzle to solve

In Cuphead the difference between easy and normal is that on easier the boss fight is shorter as in

God Hand has a visible meter for the difficulty, though. It turns it into a major element of the game you're always aware of, and can even manipulate, instead of background uncertainty.

racing and fighting games sage

But Zombies in general only a threat in numbers. Running zombie is shit