Do you find gaming not fun when its too easy??

I do. I need a challenge. Or a very heavy storyline.

While challenge does make a game more fun and satisfying, I don't think a game has to be hard to be enjoyable. Stuff like Animal Crossing or The Sims are a good time, but it's not like you will lose if you are doing it wrong.

But even putting casual stuff aside, real games for masculine chads can be fun on easy mode if the mechanics are interesting enough. For example, I sometimes play Bayonetta on easy because it gives me more breathing room to explore longer combos, whereas on hard I tend to stick to ones I'm familiar with because I know they work. The game is still awesome because there are so many moves at your disposal that all flow together in interesting ways.

As long as it's fun. Something can be easy but still feel satisfying or entertaining if there are good mechanics and physics to play around with. Challenge is fun but not the only reason I'm entertained by games.

To be fair It would be kind of boring if the game doesn't allow much room for customizable play. Have it too easy and it's not engaging

I prefer to play a game on the hardest difficulty available from the start to get a true feel of how the devs probably envisioned the game to begin with.

Yes, for example Diablo is just mindless button mashing and cheap dopamine hits from “loot” and “leveling up”. I find it painfully boring. I find some “soulslike” games can be at the other end of the spectrum where it’s frustratingly hard. Games like God of War really nailed it, being fun and challenging without making me want to toss my controller into my 75” tv lmao. That’s just my opinion though.

No. In fact I find it at its most fun when it is "easy".

I play games to relax, or get into a flow state and create. You building, sandbox-y games like SimCity or Factorio, or open-ended sims or something like that.

I also like your "button mashers" like Diablo and Grim Dawn and such. They're not really hard if you tune the difficulty appropriately and get your gear. It's fun to just carve a path thousands of enemies in the span of an hour or so, just mindlessly and entertainingly swinging weapons, firing arrows, or casting spells.

With that said, I do enjoy a good story-based action game with some challenge from time to time.

I play games both challenging and laid-back. From a Sifu to an Animal Crossing.

For me it's how good the gameplay is.

Generally don't care for bloated stories or the highest-end graphics in my games, if they exist in the game I don't really care so long as the gameplay is great. Tight controls, amazing level design, experimental game mechanics to give the player a ton of flexibility. . I could go on all day what gameplay aspects tune-me-in.

Only reason I'd get bored is if the game is bad, and I mean bad in almost every aspect, outside 'story' and 'presentation'. Like a Bioware game(post-2010)

Yes, lack of challenge can make me bored. Take the Kirby series for example. They have fun gameplay, but I quit most of them because I can finish them in my sleep, and it's just not fun to me. There was a Kirby game on Wii where you couldn't die at all, and it just felt pointless to play. Why do any of the shit you can do, if just holding right gets you to the goal?

That said, I can enjoy non challenging stuff as well. I've played quite a bit of Animal Crossing. But even in that you can make your own challenges, like upgrading your house to the fullest, completing your fish list, etc.

@Litchie: exactly how I feel about Kirby. I love the character, but hate the substantially non challenging gameplay.

I can enjoy both a challenging game and an easy game. Game difficulty doesn’t really rank that high on my list of what makes a game desirable for me to want to play it.

My favorite genre of games is the building game. I just love letting my creative side come out and just make something from nothing.

I'm making a sky farm community right now in Enshrouded. I imagine people who due to the shroud have been forced to grow all of the crops in the sky, so I made some floating islands and am slowly over time building homes for my people in the sky. I also have a large structure on the ground that is the city that now as the shroud encroaches will need to be evacuated so that life can sustain in the sky!

I would not call building games hard, but I guess they are also not easy as they can challenge your own imagination to create fun things? I know for one thing such experiences for me are simply exquisite.

I honestly will never ever understand why a game has to be hard to be good and fun.

Do you think running around a bullet sponge enemy picking its life slowly away with a no feeling stick to death is fun? Not without stakes. I dont think so.

Listen here homie. I have ZERO time to play video games anymore. Sometimes i just wanna simple game to enjoy at home to satisfy my needs.

Not everyone can solve moon logic puzzles.

I don't think so. Difficulty is not mandatory for a game to be interesting, either.

This.

It definitely works the other way for me too... if a game is too difficult and I become frustrated, that's one of the worst things for me.

I agree with the TC. So No it isn't fun.

If a game has a difficulty setting then yes I will choose easy. I played Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and game was easy till I got to the Elite 4. Then it became difficult though challenging.

If games have difficulty settings, I make sure to put it at the highest difficulty for a good challenge.

@mojito1988: how is Enshrouded these days?

Really enjoyed what I played of it maybe 6 months ago, but put it on the backlog for some time as they were still working on it. Heard it got a large update.

Really thought it was a good game, just curious if they've added much.

It depends. Recently, I replayed Super Mario Galaxy and let me tell you that it is a very easy game. Did I enjoy it though? Yes.

The game is more than Bowser just being comic relief of a bad guy which is every game. The entire game is basically the ballad of Mario, cadence of the Mushroom Kingdom etc. With themes like this, you can't help but suspect the developers knew it was an extremely easy game, and they are basically just gassing up every single player as parody.

@Alexander2cents: you’re reading waaaay too much into my post. I just wanted to see what kinds of games people prefer. No, they don’t have to be what you said, as in a vertical steampunk type game.

I also did mention a storyline. 👍

I don't think difficulty necessarily is a requirement, but it helps. Ultimately there has to be a point to it, whatever that point happens to be.

@outworld222: well in that case. Punctuation would have helped.

The have added a TON since then. There are whole new areas, a weather system, the level cap is up to 35, there is dungeons and much more. It really has come a VERY long way.

I like both easy and hard games. Sometimes in between. Depends on my mood

I like a good challenge from time to time, currently on Lies of P that I consider to be harder than most souls games, but other times I like to relax and feel powerful asf as long as the game mechanics are fun, for ex: Destiny 2

Get very bored easily so yea.

For me there are games that are easy and very fun to play.

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Cutscenes tend to bore me but on gameplay I don't usually zone out.

What I will say though is that if your puzzles are too easy, or if you're gonna explain puzzles to me while I'm solving them, that starts to annoy me real fast.

I think it really depends. I like normal difficulty or hardcore difficulty. I only play hard if i have enough time because games take a long time playing on the hardest difficulty and sometimes it's just beefier enemies with more health not more challenge really.

One example I can think of is Mass Effect 2. The insanity run was fun but I question if it was worth it. Yes it was satisfying but the mobs have so much health you just sit there shooting really.

Secondly I think a game that did difficulty right was Dragon Age: Origins. The game is brutally hard in the beginning but by the midway and end you steamroll through everything it was great.

Yes, but sometime when I am not able to win the medium or hard levels, the easy level keeps the fun going on.

@freddy88: that’s certainly understandable.