I'm Such A Cheater

[Naya Merai]

After months of being stuck at the stupid Hollow Queen boss on Etrian Odyssey IV, grinding up the levels, and still not being able beat her with most of my party at 26-29, I finally temp changed the difficulty to Casual and dealt with the boss. I've done this a lot on Bravely Default though to get special jobs faster or just cause that game is taking ages. But omg, that Hollow Queen was just so obnoxious, I had no more extra quests left and had been slowly grinding for so many months when I was motivated enough to play. Am I a despicable gamer for temporarily changing the difficulty for ridiculous bosses like this? Who else does this in games that have the mid game difficulty change option, when you just can't stand those crazy hard bosses anymore?

[ventti 60 original papers]

I've done it before too, when I was versing Matriarch Benezia in Mass Effect. She's a tough boss when you're on a low level...

[Naya Merai]

My Friend Goop

I've done it before too, when I was versing Matriarch Benezia in Mass Effect. She's a tough boss when you're on a low level...

Good to hear another difficulty lowering story from someone. I guess I'm just curious to know who else does it, feel a little better for temp changing it the first time in either of my EO games.

[smashbrolink]

Hmmm.....
I can't recall the last time I've done that, but I think I might have at one point or another.
But it was likely during a point where I just wanted to rush to see the story because I couldn't stand the suspense, not so much out of annoyance over a boss being too hard.XD

[Yoshpet]

Why are gamers so histrionic about difficulty levels? Play the game on whatever settings makes it fun for you. If that means switching to casual for an annoying boss and then going back, more power to you.

There is no shame in simply having fun playing your games.

[Naya Merai]

Yoshpet

Why are gamers so histrionic about difficulty levels? Play the game on whatever settings makes it fun for you. If that means switching to casual for an annoying boss and then going back, more power to you.

There is no shame in simply having fun playing your games.

Yeah I'm glad I get to enjoy more of the game now. Just feels a bit like cheating when I do it only to get past a hard boss.

[Programmer Ji-li]

The option was programmed into the game for a reason. It gives players the flexibility so that regardless of what player's preferences are or such, it can be enjoyable to you. There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of the feature that the developers made in the game for you.

As a previous professional game developer (maybe one day again in future too) and programmer in general, I love it when people learn to take advantage of features I wrote and even find new ways to make it more suited to what they need. I think it's pretty cool that they find ways to adapt to it that I don't even think about. So I'm sure the developer of these games are also happy that players like you find ways to enjoy the game through using those features they have available.

Just have fun however you want, as long as you aren't doing cheats that aren't intentional. I do not support those who crack into online games or such, especially to mess with other players with ill intention or harm the developers... I was a victim of getting hurt by that and had even lost my first job as the company started to suffer, from being a developer for a game that was dependent on online players...

[Fated raison detre]

I've never lowered difficulty for a boss.
The way I see it, is the easy difficulty only exists for people
who don't normally game or play that genre and are thus inexperienced.

[Reno Takamiya]

I've only done that once for Tales of Vesperia's first boss Gattuso. That said, I shouldn't have to switch the difficulty from 'Normal' to 'Easy' just to beat the first boss in a JRPG. The only other Tales boss I hate is in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of The New World and it's Decus & Alice together. Difficulty settings are there for a reason. And that reason is to make the game easier or harder depending on the player. Switching them to a higher or lower setting doesn't make you any less of a gamer or ousted to be a cheater. My point being, you shouldn't feel like a cheater and/or ashamed for having to switch the in-game difficulty lower to progress.

[La Dame Lut]

The only downside is that you miss out on the badge for beating all bosses on Normal (unless you go back later). On the other hand, I don't have it either, so I'm not one to talk anyway.

[xLiemx]

the hollow queen does require certain strategies to effectively defeat but at the same time undoubtly, you need the to meet the minimum level requirement(which can be high or low depending on your setup and strategy).

As such its perfectly fine to do so since for EO games, its really just to ignore the grind.

[dumb lucario]

I've done this multiple times on Skyrim. Dragon appears and wrecks my s**t, lower the difficulty to Novice, then I wreck it's s**t, then turn the difficulty back up once it's dead. I did the same s**t with Fallout 3 as well, and even more frequently with New Vegas because of it's seemingly unforgiving enemy level scaling, like with the ******** Cazadors for example, which are as bad as the Deathclaws if they could do poison damage. I don't know if it was because the equipment I was using was too shitty to handle them or what, but I still managed to get obliterated by them on Easy, and turning it down to Very Easy didn't help a whole bunch, but I managed to get past a pack of them, albeit I had to use 9/10ths of all my healing items during that process.

But honestly, though, the only people that are gonna yell at you for doing this kind of thing are those masochistic shitheads that are into games like Dark Souls who laugh at anyone who aren't as hardcore as they are (in other words; a good chunk of the regulars here.)

[OctoCamo]

I almost always play on casual.

[DynaSuarez Wrecks]

but did any other players die?
then who cares?

[Naya Merai]

La Dame Lut

The only downside is that you miss out on the badge for beating all bosses on Normal (unless you go back later). On the other hand, I don't have it either, so I'm not one to talk anyway.

I'll go back then whenever I'm stronger.