Lucid Faia
Banned
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Difficulty Spikes in Video Games
- Thread starter Myriadis
- Start date
The early days of WoW Cataclysm were pretty hardcore. Although the only spike was at the end. The spike still exist, although its nowhere near as bad.
*Spend days/weeks to do 85 lvls, questing and killing all enemies by spamming Fireball, standing on fire and not having to worry about getting hit a couple of times. One enemy can die in less than 5 secs.*
*Reach lvl 85 heroic pre-nerf Grim Batol with a pug and proceed to wipe, wipe, wipe and rage for 2-3 hours.*
*Spend days/weeks to do 85 lvls, questing and killing all enemies by spamming Fireball, standing on fire and not having to worry about getting hit a couple of times. One enemy can die in less than 5 secs.*
*Reach lvl 85 heroic pre-nerf Grim Batol with a pug and proceed to wipe, wipe, wipe and rage for 2-3 hours.*
Valkyria Chronicles Chapter 7 rockets to mind.
This monstrosity turns up leading to a mission where you must slowly take it down while also avoiding its firepower and ability to flat out crush you, how well you succeed partly depends on if your Lancer units are feeling accurate or not and at this early point in the game expect a lot of buggering up from their inaccurate abilities.
Still you'll slowly get there, yep, maybe it's not so bad after all....
And then Selvaria makes her in battle debut, oh gee whiz! just what this mission needed, an invincible superwoman!
Ye that was suddenly a hard part, especially if you dont know what is coming, you can have totally wrong character placement. Its easy to replay map or reload if you made mistakes.
itwasTuesday
He wasn't alone.
Recent one, I am LTTP for Dead Island.
I would say the sewer sections lvl30, It is not that the enemy's are harder. Since you are in a tight space, I found it easy to get caught on some geometry of the world and get killed in 2 seconds.
Maybe it doesn't fit what you were looking for op, as this seems like design choices.
And after taking an instant medkit it doesn't always return you to the weapon you had in your hand. Which is just annoying.
I remember the hookshot level in Mickeys Magical Quest harder than the rest.
I would say the sewer sections lvl30, It is not that the enemy's are harder. Since you are in a tight space, I found it easy to get caught on some geometry of the world and get killed in 2 seconds.
Maybe it doesn't fit what you were looking for op, as this seems like design choices.
And after taking an instant medkit it doesn't always return you to the weapon you had in your hand. Which is just annoying.
I remember the hookshot level in Mickeys Magical Quest harder than the rest.
Early BC heroic 5-man dungeons were much, much worse. I haven't played since the first month of Cataclysm though, quit after being disappointed in the heroics after all the hype they were getting.
Anyways, DMC1 and God Hand both have first boss fights that hit you like a ton of bricks (Phantom and Mr.Gold/Mr.Silver, respectively).
Machine
Member
In the first Rachet & Clank, there is a section on Planet Rilgar where you have to run through a tunnel and make it out the other end while the water continually rises. I tried it 20-30 times and then gave up and never finished the game. Random difficulty spikes like that always irritate me. At least in an rpg you can usually level up some more or mess around with setup and strategy if you hit a rough spot. Action games are pure trial and error and sometimes those of us with subpar hand-eye coordination are screwed.
Just bought the HD compilation and plan on giving it another shot. Hopefully I can manage this time.
Just bought the HD compilation and plan on giving it another shot. Hopefully I can manage this time.
Evolved1
make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
Valkyria Chronicles Chapter 7 rockets to mind.
This monstrosity turns up leading to a mission where you must slowly take it down while also avoiding its firepower and ability to flat out crush you, how well you succeed partly depends on if your Lancer units are feeling accurate or not and at this early point in the game expect a lot of buggering up from their inaccurate abilities.
Still you'll slowly get there, yep, maybe it's not so bad after all....
And then Selvaria makes her in battle debut, oh gee whiz! just what this mission needed, an invincible superwoman!
I never got past this tank... game has been shelved ever since.
Yeah, but you only had 70 lvls to do, and lvling wasn't as ridiculously easy as it is right now from what i remember. The lack of group quests and tough elites nowadays doesn't help. And Cataclysm heroics happened right after people got used to the (also) ridiculously easy WOTLK heroics.
All of this made the spike in difficulty a little more painful than back in BC days! No wonder we had DPS queues that lasted 40-45 mins back then, when it was 10-12 mins in WOTLK.
KittenMaster
Member
I thought of a good example. The entirety of Silent Hill 3 was a huge difficulty spike compared to the previous two games.
Megaman 1:
Wily Stage 1. It's hard to pick out a defining moment of what makes this game so hard (the end of Ice Man's stage and the drop-platforms on Guts Man's stage come to mind), but this stage is a big hairy monster. It requires careful management of weapon power. There is a huge room that must be traversed on the tops of those propeller-nosed guys who may or may not decide to lift you into or drop you helplessly down to the spikes that line said room. For good measure, the game tells you to go fuck yourself if you didn't get the magnet beam from Elec Man's stage. And the Yellow Devil is by far the hardest boss in the game, especially if you used up your Guts Man early in the stage, and therefore wasted precious Elec Beams to clear blocks.
Wily Stage 1. It's hard to pick out a defining moment of what makes this game so hard (the end of Ice Man's stage and the drop-platforms on Guts Man's stage come to mind), but this stage is a big hairy monster. It requires careful management of weapon power. There is a huge room that must be traversed on the tops of those propeller-nosed guys who may or may not decide to lift you into or drop you helplessly down to the spikes that line said room. For good measure, the game tells you to go fuck yourself if you didn't get the magnet beam from Elec Man's stage. And the Yellow Devil is by far the hardest boss in the game, especially if you used up your Guts Man early in the stage, and therefore wasted precious Elec Beams to clear blocks.
Yeah this is a pain in the mf ass to do first time. After playing the game about 10 times I do it no problem now.
Straight up the ass.
Also this difficulty spike in GoW 3 on Chaos (Very Hard) Mode. Took me like 9 hours over 2 days to beat...
Dance Inferno
Unconfirmed Member
Amen, friend. Amen. (Although I did just beat the game on Crushing a few weeks ago)
The Axe & Sword bosses in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones gave me a freaking heart attack, especially since the only checkpoint was the pain-in-the-butt trial-and-error chariot race that came right before the boss. What a couple of d-bags.
Force to fight alone...fml.
Came here to post this. Still makes me furious.
megaStryke
Banned
Megaman 1:
Wily Stage 1. It's hard to pick out a defining moment of what makes this game so hard (the end of Ice Man's stage and the drop-platforms on Guts Man's stage come to mind), but this stage is a big hairy monster. It requires careful management of weapon power. There is a huge room that must be traversed on the tops of those propeller-nosed guys who may or may not decide to lift you into or drop you helplessly down to the spikes that line said room. For good measure, the game tells you to go fuck yourself if you didn't get the magnet beam from Elec Man's stage. And the Yellow Devil is by far the hardest boss in the game, especially if you used up your Guts Man early in the stage, and therefore wasted precious Elec Beams to clear blocks.
Select button trick turns the Yellow Devil into a pile of goop.
Rei no Otaku
Member
To be fair, you're not supposed to fight him the first time you see him. Other than DW3, he's wicked easy to avoid.The Lu Bu guy in Dynasty Warriors games
For me it's most of the first chapter of The Witcher 2. If you're playing that game for the first time it really doesn't do a great job of explaining the mechanics or easing you into the gameplay. The funny thing is that after that chapter the game is pretty much a cakewalk.
SniperHunter
Banned
Valkyria Chronicles Chapter 7 rockets to mind.
This monstrosity turns up leading to a mission where you must slowly take it down while also avoiding its firepower and ability to flat out crush you, how well you succeed partly depends on if your Lancer units are feeling accurate or not and at this early point in the game expect a lot of buggering up from their inaccurate abilities.
Still you'll slowly get there, yep, maybe it's not so bad after all....
And then Selvaria makes her in battle debut, oh gee whiz! just what this mission needed, an invincible superwoman!
I beat this thing in 10 tries lol, I need to get back to this game.
ScreenSplitter
Member
Difficulty on this game spiked like a freaking heart rate monitor.
RPG_Fanatic
Member
Force to fight alone...fml.
That fight was fine, it was the fight immediately after that gave me trouble. The fact that fight comes after another fight with the option to save and potentially locking you out of the world map if you didn't have a backup save from before didn't help either.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
F-Zero GX Story Mode level 3
Oh, this. I cannot even begin to remember how many times it took me to beat this.
That's a shame dude, the feeling of satisfaction you get when it is stopped is awesome.
Krappadizzle
Member
Hard Reset for PC. It seems to have strange difficulty spikes. One minute easy and the next difficult. It was touted as a return to old school PC gaming, but there was a part where I stopped playing and came back a few mos. later only to find my save was at a checkpoint that was a good 10 mins. before I remember leaving it and I couldn't beat it. I'd die and die and die, beat the part that I would have trouble with, die at the next part and have to go back to the same checkpoint only to start the whole process over again. Super frustrating. I don't mind difficulty, but make it consistent, don't spoon feed me the same enemies over and over again and then give me the same enemies later in the same level and have then be ridiculously harder for no apparent reason.
Also this difficulty spike in GoW 3 on Chaos (Very Hard) Mode. Took me like 9 hours over 2 days to beat...
This is the fight I was referring to earlier. Absolutely ridiculous.
Rhone, in Dragon Quest II.
DQ games usually have pretty steady difficulty curves, with a spike near the end. But the spike in DQII is massive, plus there's no convenient heal/save point from which you can venture into Rhone. You have to go through a long cave first, then you have to travel farther into Rhone to get to a heal/warp point. If you follow the trajectory of the difficulty curve, the enemies in Rhone will easily wipe out your party. Even after grinding in the cave for awhile, it takes a bit of luck to reach that heal/warp point in the middle of Rhone.
Fort Fermata, in Eternal Sonata
The game is pretty linear. Dungeons are generally straightforward, with some side paths leading to treasures and such. Except Fort Fermata. Here, there are switches that alter the layout of the dungeon, and you have to figure out which combinations lead to hidden treasures and the way forward. It's the most complicated dungeon, but it happens relatively early in the game (chapter 2 of 8).
DQ games usually have pretty steady difficulty curves, with a spike near the end. But the spike in DQII is massive, plus there's no convenient heal/save point from which you can venture into Rhone. You have to go through a long cave first, then you have to travel farther into Rhone to get to a heal/warp point. If you follow the trajectory of the difficulty curve, the enemies in Rhone will easily wipe out your party. Even after grinding in the cave for awhile, it takes a bit of luck to reach that heal/warp point in the middle of Rhone.
Fort Fermata, in Eternal Sonata
The game is pretty linear. Dungeons are generally straightforward, with some side paths leading to treasures and such. Except Fort Fermata. Here, there are switches that alter the layout of the dungeon, and you have to figure out which combinations lead to hidden treasures and the way forward. It's the most complicated dungeon, but it happens relatively early in the game (chapter 2 of 8).
Ventilaator
Banned
Goddamn Darksiders.
Average difficulty hacky-slashy adventure and then suddenly Tiamat and then suddenly I'm never playing that game again.
Average difficulty hacky-slashy adventure and then suddenly Tiamat and then suddenly I'm never playing that game again.
Force to fight alone...fml.
That was fight was easy as hell with Ninja Ramza.
Supermanisdead
Member
I didn't find it hard, just very annoying. It was easy to get overleveled in that place.
crimzonflame
Member
Force to fight alone...fml.
Game becomes a cakewalk after you get Cid.
KittenMaster
Member
Cave of Rhone is much less bad once you work out an optimal path and map out where all of the pitfalls are. I also didn't think the enemies were as big of a jump as you describe until you actually do reach the healing point.
I might have been considered over leveled though, since I tried to play with minimal spoilers therefore needed to explore much more often.
God of War fighting your own shadows: On titan difficulty that fight is pretty ridiculous, I remember dying many times in that fight. It is the most difficult unexpected spot in the whole game.
Dead Space 2 road to the final boss: They throw the most powerful enemies in freaking batches at you plus a regenerative monster. The only way to beat that on Hardcore is run! The rest of the game is way easier than that.
Vanquish challenge 6: The rest of the game is fairly easy (even on hard), but then Challenge 6...
Dead Space 2 road to the final boss: They throw the most powerful enemies in freaking batches at you plus a regenerative monster. The only way to beat that on Hardcore is run! The rest of the game is way easier than that.
Vanquish challenge 6: The rest of the game is fairly easy (even on hard), but then Challenge 6...
I actually know about this one. I just wanted to post a picture from this level. You can't see anything in the pictures which show the barrel section.
Funnily enough, I didn't have much problems with that one.
I haven't played this game, but your description reminds me of Turok
This game is a balls-out awesome 3D Contra until this one level where it tries to be Mario 64. Good fucking luck getting past that level without save states.
inosaur Hunter. You know, the pillars at the end of the third level? Platforming hell.Also, in Super Monkey Ball 1, there is Expert Level 7. I think everyone agrees that it is a lot harder.
Yes, I remember this, too. In fact, I replayed this game last year and I actually did it in one try now. The part right before that, where you have to take a barrel to a certain spot, is still incredibly hard.
Definitely. Some missions are so incredibly hard while others are so easy.
Difficulty on this game spiked like a freaking heart rate monitor.
~Devil Trigger~
In favor of setting Muslim women on fire
ignore your tanks
IndieJones
Member
Could you please post the name of the game along with the screenshot?
It's Arx Fatalis.
I just remember that fight being unnecessarily long.
Sohter.Nura
Member
Act 2 Inferno Difficulty in Diablo 3 
Bervenia is the hardest battle in the game for me. If you choose to wait defensively, the archers rain down shots until you're dead. If you move in to attack, the summoners and Meliadoul Tengille have enough power to one shot or two shot you while you can't reach them. It becomes a: Load->Run Ramza in to hopefully get his hit off->did he die on the way?->does she block?->yay, I won by dice roll basically, that only took 15 tries.
I didn't have a single problem with the rest of the game, even the supposedly hard dice roll sisters fight.
Straight up the ass.
My friend complains about this to this day, the same with Gaf but I never had a problem with this. The hardest part is the multi-kratos fight. That was just masochistic.
Evolved1
make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
Thanks, but I think that ship has sailed.
What's your party? Once I recruited a Slime Knight, King Cureslime and Golem and got them decent equips and levels I managed to cruise through that dungeon. The final boss fight was still pretty damn hard though.
Speaking of Dragon Quest V though, Bjorn was a surprisingly tough battle for me and in IV, Baalzack curbstomped me at first.
BurnOutBrighter
Banned
Diablo motherfucking Three.
Usually I press on through the frustration if I hit a spike, but this actually made me quit the game and never touch it again.
Usually I press on through the frustration if I hit a spike, but this actually made me quit the game and never touch it again.
Valkyria Chronicles Chapter 7 rockets to mind.
This monstrosity turns up leading to a mission where you must slowly take it down while also avoiding its firepower and ability to flat out crush you, how well you succeed partly depends on if your Lancer units are feeling accurate or not and at this early point in the game expect a lot of buggering up from their inaccurate abilities.
Still you'll slowly get there, yep, maybe it's not so bad after all....
And then Selvaria makes her in battle debut, oh gee whiz! just what this mission needed, an invincible superwoman!
God, fucking this.
"What's that? You just happen to have all of your units on the wrong side of the map taking potshots at this tank? Well we're just going to put this invincible chick that has a ridiculous range and if you had units near here, you're fucked! Shouldn't have been there in that space where the tank wasn't!"