Best "Hard Modes" in Games

[DalekFlay]

I'm replaying Bioshock and doing it on "hard." The game is still pretty easy, but enemies take for-fucking-ever to die. Near the end now some of the splicers randomly take like 6 shotgun blasts up close to die. Just tedious as fuck, and not an interesting challenge at all. On the flipside, I'm also playing Divinity: OS on "classic" because I was concerned about the slower turn-based combat being dragged out by HP bloat, but I hear I made a mistake and the harder mode actually adds more tactical enemy placements and whatnot, enhancing the experience. Oops.

So... what are the games with the best "hard modes" for you? Which games can you easily say should only be played on hard, because it does more than make enemies tedious to kill? I'll start with a few...

• Thief 1-3: This is obvious and I'm listing it so you don't have to. Added objectives that make you feel more like a "thief," exactly how it should be done.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution: The "give me Deus Ex" difficulty makes you die incredibly quickly from gunfire, but doesn't bloat the enemies HP. This makes stealth and tactics more important, and forces you to use all your abilities more.
• Dragon Age: Origins: Normal difficulty was pretty good at launch, but was nerfed when people complained the game was too hard. The harder mode then basically became "normal."

 

[Wunderbar]

I consider "hard" to be a second-playthrough mode, since games usually designed to be played on normal first. "Hard is new normal", "games should be played on hard from the get go" thing is lame, hard should be hard.

Usually I like when hard difficulty only increases the incoming damage and doesn't turn enemies into sponges, but health bloat isn't necessary a bad thing. In some cases it makes you be inventive and use all of your tools (i.e. doing perfect combos to maximize your damage output, optimize your character build for damage, etc).

 

[DalekFlay]

I consider "hard" to be a second-playthrough mode, since games usually designed to be played on normal first. "Hard is new normal", "games should be played on hard from the get go" thing is lame, hard should be hard.

Some games really are so easy on normal that you don't have to pay attention though, like Outer Worlds. Sadly Outer Worlds can't make the list because its hard mode is also super easy too. A problem Dishonored also has.

Dishonored 2 might be a good choice for a "good hard mode" though, as I recall the enemies being much more observant which is good for a stealth game.

 

[d1r]

Fallout New Vegas for the realism.

 

[Friday.13]

Doom's Ultra-Violence and Nightmare!(to some extent)
UV is always the best way to play Doom, because it's always better to have more enemy to kill than have they all just become bloody bullet sponges.
Nightmare is UV with faster and now respawn enemy, which make every encounter more deadly without prolong it, and also required player to be more careful about route planning and health/ammo economy.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Stalker's master difficulty. It's doesn't bloat HP, it raises the damage, both for you and your enemies. Fights become quicker, but more dangerous.

 

[markec]

All old school FPS from Doom, Heretic, Quake to Blood and Duke3D, should be played on high difficulty.

When played on easy you often find empty areas that on hard has enemies placed there, making it obvious that to fully experience the game as devs intended, you need to play on high difficulty.

 

[octavius]

Thief 1 and 2 are the obvious choices, since you get more objectives and can't kill people on highest difficulty.

TBS games needs to be played on highest difficulty to compensate for poor AI, to provide a challenge.

I can't mention any CRPGs, since it's always bloat in my experience. I always play CRPGs on normal difficulty, but use house rules like no rest spamming or save scumming to make things more challenging. I really detest HP bloat.

 

[Falksi]

Dragon Age: Origins is definitely a good one to play on Hard & Nightmare. It prompts you to rethink strategies & if you've relied on certain skills on the Normal run, you won't be able to get away with the same on the harder ones.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution does similar on the harder levels, especially at the start where you can barely take a hit.

Witcher 2's Dark Mode REALLY adds to the gameplay. Two hits from behind and your dead unless you pick the appropriate upgrade. Proper made me think about my character build.

 

[Arryosha]

Came here to say Thief 1 & 2, but I would add the fan-created hard modes, which are various rules for how to play which were usually much more difficult. Taffers used to post the results of their playthroughs on such hard hard modes on the forums. There were many examples on the Eidos Thief forums that I think are sadly now lost to time or somewhere in the Wayback Machine, though the standard ghost mode rules are still around (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148523). I replay the games every year or so on a variation of "supreme ghost" (I allow first-level alerts) and can't play any other way now.

 

[laclongquan]

Icewind Dale 2. HoF mode not only provide more enemies, each of them also has more levels, abilities, and HP. Thus the challenges become higher with more dimensions.

Say, if you get pincer, in easier difficulties you canjust spread out your party to fight on two fronts. But in HoF mode, due to more enemies on the other side, doing that invite defeat in details. So you change location, draw them out so that they can only attack on one direction, and block each other thus reduce their own number advantage.

 

[Kliwer]

There is only one true answer for this question: Sword Coast Stratagems mod for BG(2). To make everything even better you could also reduce experience gains (Ding0 Experience Fixer).

This is really the best piece of software I have ever experienced. Most of the difficulty comes from AI and enemies skills. There are some stats adjustments, but only when it makes sense (like more HP for dragons and demons or a bit higher level of some human enemies). In fact BG(2) with SCS plays much more fair and according to rules then the vanilla game. There are also some things that make enemies more similar to their P&P descriptions (but not in a stupid, dogmatic way; changes takes into account engine limitations). No commercial game have ever deliver such a good AI. SCS is a masterpiece. Period.

 

[Falksi]

Great thread this. I'd say a sign of TRUE brilliant game design is implementing different difficulty levels which prompt different/modified approaches. Can't be easy to do, and HP bloat is the obvious easy option so many take.

 

[d1r]

There is only one true answer for this question: Sword Coast Stratagems mod for BG(2). To make everything even better you could also reduce experience gains (Ding0 Experience Fixer).

This is really the best piece of software I have ever experienced. Most of the difficulty comes from AI and enemies skills. There are some stats adjustments, but only when it makes sense (like more HP for dragons and demons or a bit higher level of some human enemies). In fact BG(2) with SCS plays much more fair and according to rules then the vanilla game. There are also some things that make enemies more similar to their P&P descriptions (but not in a stupid, dogmatic way; changes takes into account engine limitations). No commercial game have ever deliver such a good AI. SCS is a masterpiece. Period.

This is about modes ingame, and not mods. But otherwise I'd agree, even though SCS2 is fucking garbage at some points.

 

[Wunderbar]

Stalker's master difficulty. It's doesn't bloat HP, it raises the damage, both for you and your enemies. Fights become quicker, but more dangerous.

You either make a lucky guess to play on Master as it was intended, or fall into a trap of janky bulletsponge borefest of "easier" options. That's a really shitty way to balance difficulties, imo.

 

[taxalot]

If you play Minecraft on the hardest difficulty mode, on hardcore mode (which deletes your save if you die), you have a pretty interesting game that is half action roguelike, half survival.

 

[jackofshadows]

Witcher 2's Dark Mode REALLY adds to the gameplay. Two hits from behind and your dead unless you pick the appropriate upgrade. Proper made me think about my character build.

Dark mode just turns game's difficulty into a sine wave. It's proper hard at the beginning, but once you get your hands on your first unique set armor (available only on DM) it becomes a total breeze for a while. Then it gets harder and harder (since you can't replace any of set pieces by its rules)... until you craft brand new set in the next act. It was an interesting experience but even basic design of progression simply gone to hell.

Apart from people already listed I'd say Dungeon Rats. It so cool that unlike in BG when "playing by the proper rules" is just average difficulty, in DR it's actually the highest one when you and enemies are playing by the same rules.

Also I like very much iron mode when it's far more than a simple afterthought option for random spergs but game actually designed around it: Neo Scavenger, Wizardry 8, Battle Brothers, Darkest Dungeon, The Long Dark, Subnautica, nuXCOM even. ATOM RPG falls rather into former category but it still gave enhanced experience. Some people did say that about PoE but haven't tried myself.

 

[Taurist]

Quite a few Japanese beat em ups have different enemy placements and attacks on higher difficulties. Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden and most Platinum titles.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

God Hand

 

[Zlaja]

I consider "hard" to be a second-playthrough mode, since games usually designed to be played on normal first

Normal modes in today's games are designed so everyone can complete them. What you say only applies to older games. Playing any sort of mainstream release on normal these days is like beating a pinata. Can be fun but don't expect any challenge.

 

[Alphard]

Furi.
for each increased difficult level bosses have more phases and more complex attack pattern, while mantaining the theme of the battle

 

[Ivan]

Dead Space 2: I think they called it "Zealot" difficulty

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance (heck, any of your japanese hack n slash games)

 

[Child of Malkav]

Dark Souls 2 NG+ mode - new enemies, placements, boss attacks and one case of surprise visit, items that appear only on higher cycles, a weapon that increases damage as the cycles go on etc.
Metro Last Light Ranger mode - higher damage for you and the enemies, turning even the lowest damage gun into a lethal one.
Thief 1 and 2 - whole objectives, areas stuff.
Customizable parameters in Dishonored 2 and Thief 2014.

 

[JarlFrank]

Anything that doesn't fundamentally fuck with the gameplay balance is the best.

No number bloat.
No cheating AI.

Just add more enemies to fight, make the AI better, etc. Whenever a game just inflates enemy numbers it turns more into tedious grind than a fun challenge, and in strategy games a cheating AI has the same effect (like additional resource income independent of production). Higher difficulty should NOT invalidate reasonable tactics and strategies that work when both sides play with the same rules. The most fun difficulties are when everyone plays by the same rules but the enemy just gets more stuff.

So instead of hard giving orcs +5 AC and +20 HP and +4 damage for no reason, just add 10 more orcs to the encounter or add a spellcaster. In a strategy game, instead of giving the enemy a flat +1000 gold income per turn, give them an additional gold mine in a good defensible position.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

In Wizardry 7 every boss fight on hard means you fight TWO of them... it makes a lot of sense.