Anyone put personal challenges on themselves/handycap themselves to make a game harder?

Why level 15? Why not level 1 if you're going to do that?

No shops, unless required by the story
No HUD
No VATS
Without the compass at the top you actually have to look around and make sure everything's safe. Without the sneak indicator you have no idea if you've been spotted, outside listening to reactions. Project Nevada makes the screen go red a bit if you're at low health, which is your indication that something is wrong. It doesn't regenerate, so you have to heal yourself manually.
As for the shops, not using them means that you stick to common weapons. It also means that you get some use out of the reloading benches. Coin shot is fun to mess around with.

Nunchaku only, outside breaking walls with heavy weapons
Other weapons are better, but you don't get that wooden smacking sound. You also don't get the Red Hot Iron Brand attack that the flails have, so you can't just lock on and dash at enemies.

3 Pokemon only, which must be random ones you find on your journey or your starter. No catching other pokemon. Anything forced on you must be boxed.
No HM slaves, and HMs can only be replaced by other HMs.
All this does is make you think your team through. No HM slaves means you need to cover every HM with 3 pokemon. You get overlevelled, but you're stuck using Cut and Rock Smash to even things out.

These aren't that hard, but they make me think more about aspects of the game I'd overlook before.

Because i'm not insane. I just want moderate difficulty increase.

Playing Dragons Dogma wihtout the NPC companions is the only way to play it

Playing Dork Spuls wihtou leveling up is the only way to play it

Playing games wiht slow-mo wihotu using it is the only way to play it

Playing games with sticky cover\wall hacks wihtout using it is the only way to play it

Come on, are you fags all underage casuls?

I don't necessarily do it to be harder, but sometimes because it just doesn't make sense. If it inflames my autism, I won't use that mechanic.

Even if we assume that things such as a minigun or parts from power armor can be compressed down to the size of a postage stamp and put into my pockets because of hammerspace-physics, Dogmeat DOES NOT HAVE ANY POCKETS! I refuse to accept that rocket launcher he just picked up is now shoved up his ass, because there would be nowhere else he could put it. So I don't let him carry anything.

It's mostly just shit like that, for me. If it makes the game harder, so be it.

Levling up a few times gives you access to using some of the weapons that you can't wield from the word go. unlike lvl 1 runs, low level runs are the same as normal runs, except you don't have the health/endurance/armor to make mistakes. lvl 1 runs are simply more tedious because you are limited to very basic weapons.

Nearist all I'll get is suboptimal characters runs in games where all non-joke characters are supposed to be valid choices. Most self imposed challenges are just added tedium.

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When I play Spy on TF2 I almost always disguise as a scout. Its always obvious, it forces me to play smarter.

I played FEAR without using slowmo at all recently. It's fun.

Legend of Grimrock 2 has a highly customizable party so I've done two different challenge runs.

First, an all-alchemist party. I had them all using different weapons (and one use magic), but they all are alchemist class. This is actually only a challenge until you start getting enough herbs to give one of each to every character; after that point it's kind of a cakewalk, since you can basically endlessly drip-feed yourself any potion you like, and have ridiculously high stats due to perma-stat potions.

A more interesting party was a 2-man party; an Air Mage named Cloak and a dodgetank Knight named Dagger. Backstabs are actually pretty fun if you can get them to work.

The problem with challenge runs in Grimrock 2 though is that you basically have to know where everything is or you'll be gimped for most of the game. In my Cloak and Dagger challenge, for example, you have to know how to get into the pyramid, because the second best dagger in the game is in it and the best dagger in the game is in the desert at the end of it. All the other daggers you can find up to that point suck dick, and there's really no other good dex melee weapons.

I just can't get any enjoyment out of a self-imposed challenge like this.

I tend to play games like they are a competition between myself and the game's developers and their imposed rules. I'm basically trying to exploit the game for everything it's worth without cheating. By imposing rules on myself it becomes a competition between myself and myself, which is always boring.

There are exceptions. Like in Souls I might make a low level character for the express purpose of low-level PVP. The challenge then isn't about me against my rules, I'm still playing against the developers rules "you must be under a certain level to invade this person" and then trying to maximize my capability in that regard.

I'm basically done with casual Resident Evil 2. I love the game, but I've played through it so much, there's no challenge to it. So now, if I touch it, I just go through a whole scenario (Usually Leon A) in a single sitting with no saves.

In Fate/Extra, on my second playthrough, I re-created Archer's stats from the original story, after the first playthrough where I essentially went with the guide's recommendation.

Basically, an optimal build would be "MAX STR, some DEF and however much you want into AGI for more balanced damage and damage reduction, fuck Magic it's shit and Luck? Hahahahah. No."

So his canon build of shit STR, it's-fucking-nothing DEF & AGI, and his decent but not great Magic is basically about as shitty a build as you could possibly make.

You go from two rounding opponents with UBW into having to make sure you don't blow your load to early and end up without any energy for attack skills, fighting battles that last upwards to 20 rounds.

Your max damage with the "canon" build is 5-6k. Pics related for an A+ STR build.

Have you S ranked everything you filthy casual?

That sounds really fun. I should try that.

Yes and no. Resi 2 has this weird thing where the western versions have all the grades shifted down a position, so the highest grade you can get A (Which I earned on every scenario, of course), but that's just the same as getting S in the Japanese version.

noice.

Have you done the same with 3 and CV?

Playing DoD and using only the secondary weapons and melee, anti-tank units need not apply.

Would RO2 even be fun that way?

And yet he still manages to take multiple lives off of Berserker before going down, even with his shit parameters. EMIYA is no casual.

Ever try doing a Nuzlocke challenge run, or one of the variants?
nuzlocke.wikia.com/wiki/Nuzlocke_Variants

I do SL1 runs sometimes in most of the souls games after I play them a bunch, only wear fashionable armor/weapons on any build, and ban myself from overpowered weapons

I like to only use it after I've fired and before I need to fire again just to watch the neat physics and shit

Finding new ways to challenge oneself is pretty much the hallmark of the hardcore vidya enthusiast. I would hope we have plenty of people here who do it.

Yea in pic related. It is so fucking easy I purposely ran from every battle to avoid leveling up too much. Didn't increase the challenge much unfortunately.

Mega Man Battle Network 2

Navichips, program advances, and styles make the game way too easy. Gospel duping makes the postgame extremely easy. I ended up S ranking all navis and beating Bass v3. The fun part of the game was reinventing your entire folder to deal the most damage possible so that bosses didn't outlast you with their massively inflated hp pools. At Magnetman's scenario I had to switch from b-code punchcubes to fire chips and grass stage/lane; it was such an alphabet soup folder, but fullcustom and fastgauge made it effective. Then I made an R-coded grasslane + fireblade + Shadow1 folder and beat Gospel with that. My postgame folder was either a variation on that or tailored to specifically S-rank bosses.

I'm doing MMBN3 Blue with the same challenge and I just beat Desertman with a c-code punchcube/tornado folder (soidified him with bubbler). I suspect that the rest of the game will be much easier, since the norm/mega/giga split made norm chips more powerful. I'm repeating the no navichips clause but allowing other megachips to be used; no gigachips though.

Also this but with Final Fantasy 6

yeah, when I play MMOs I tell people I'm a guy IRL. way less loot it's weird

I used to play KH without changing the default equipment.

Nigga step it up.

Not to blow my own goat but I'm good at RO2 and it can get boring when the other team isn't. It makes an interesting challenge as you need to sneak up on them as you have a ~50m range limit.

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trying to anally masturbate myself while i play a game with light action

i play competitive smash bros

Good thread OP. I like doing this a lot, particularly with games where you can allocate points/upgrades on level up or similar.

Dark souls I like playing just spending souls I win from killing monsters (i.e not using any consumable souls) for as long as possible.

Diablo 2 I love doing Normal - Hell runs trying to use as few skill points/attribute points as possible for as long as possible (eventually I need to cave and use them).

Probably the biggest handicap, that most people don't even regard as one, is not save scumming.

I beat Doom episode 1 - 3 on Nightmare! without saving. I'm trying to play the Warcraft 3 campaign on Hard without saving. I love playing FPS games on hardest without saving.