I'm putting Mass Effect 2 on Easy  because I'm sick of dying. I'm honestly not a fan of that game's combat and it's not helping me play it that I keep dying. The lack of a solid radar on the game screen is just dumb, amongst about 20 other problems I have with it. The only way I'm going to care enough to get through that game is Easy. Maybe down the road it'll click for me (as I am apparently the only person on Earth who feels this way), but right now... It's not happening.

You guys have it easy. I have my Xbox setup so my games are always played on the hardest mode. This can be a total pain. Sometimes I get so annoyed I never play that game again, lol.

As soon as you get a character to learn Cone of Cold, all the combat becomes way easier.

" @Oni said:

" Dragon Age is an interesting example because apparently (i only played on normal) it's a completely different game on Easy, more akin to a hack-n-slash than a tactical RPG, which is what it is on Normal. If that's true, Medium should have been hard and normal should have been  a better balance. There were definitely a few spots on Normal that took me a fair few attempts and some trial and error, but at the end of the day I found the tactical depth to be very rewarding on Normal, most of the time I really felt I deserved that win because I used tactics accordingly, and that's a good feeling. "

By putting it on easy I found I could play a lot more like World Of Warcraft, less pausing and more just clicking on the abilities as I needed them. I also let the computer players do their own thing 90% of the time, unless a specific attack was required or I needed to heal them. This is what I meant about me stubbornly working my way through with my typical approach to computer games instead of finding a new way of playing the game on Medium. Instead of pushing at getting appropriate loot and using runes and all sorts of that stuff I just wanted to run in with whatever I currently had and win. Maybe I just lack patience.... "

" Dragon Age is an interesting example because apparently (i only played on normal) it's a completely different game on Easy, more akin to a hack-n-slash than a tactical RPG, which is what it is on Normal. If that's true, Medium should have been hard and normal should have been  a better balance. There were definitely a few spots on Normal that took me a fair few attempts and some trial and error, but at the end of the day I found the tactical depth to be very rewarding on Normal, most of the time I really felt I deserved that win because I used tactics accordingly, and that's a good feeling. "

Dragon Age is an interesting example because apparently (i only played on normal) it's a completely different game on Easy, more akin to a hack-n-slash than a tactical RPG, which is what it is on Normal. If that's true, Medium should have been hard and normal should have been  a better balance. There were definitely a few spots on Normal that took me a fair few attempts and some trial and error, but at the end of the day I found the tactical depth to be very rewarding on Normal, most of the time I really felt I deserved that win because I used tactics accordingly, and that's a good feeling.

I've had to drop Dragon Age Origins down to "Easy Mode" on occasion, too to progress.  I am slightly ashamed but only slightly.  I know that if I was able to buy or manufacture enough health, mana potions and injury kits I could do okay after a few tries, but I've usually used up my supply just reaching the boss encounter.  By then, my team is beaten up and bleeding out all over the place.  So, I drop it down and move onward with the hope that at higher levels I'll be able to keep a better stock.  With the encounter is over, I bump the game back to "Normal" and go back to adventuring.  Nothing about this has dimmed my love for the game.  In fact, I am thankful I can do this.  Most games lock you into a specific difficulty at the start and any change requires a restart.

I always find it strange that so many people found DA:O so difficult on normal setting.
My guess is it because people have not played traditional RPG's in a while or something.
The medium difficulty to me felt PERFECT in terms of balance. Most fights were medium difficulty with occasional harder fights. It felt right, if all fights were the same difficulty and offered no challenge it would be fucking boring. After the first play through I read up on starts and tips and builds and went for a second round on Hard and it felt just like Medium the first time.
To answer your question at the end: in this particular case imho the problem was with you.
 
/shrug

I'll play a game on easy if it's required to get an achievement, or to get to the next level and such.

" So, curious, PC or Console version?  "

" When I was a kid I'd play on easy but now I like to play on Normal as a minimum but I'll go to hard or hardest setting if I feel like a challenge. "

I play on easy because there are too many games nowadays, and I don't have time to be arsing about with something thats artificially imbalanced.
 
I'm looking at you ANY CASTER from dragon age

So, curious, PC or Console version? I'm on hard (I liked the idea of FF damage, but couldn't commit to 100% FF) on the 360 and (once I figured out how to play [let the melee dude(tte)s do their thing and play as the mage/support {as the thing that the tactics seem to do the worst is keeping a ranged fighter AT RANGE}]) I've had little trouble. I pause a bunch for spell casting, but don't tend to work the other people unless I want to keep them away from trouble and continue to use their bow - you've using a bow dammit, unless you get swarmed back up and KEEP FIRING, urgh.
 
I still want a 6 Char party (my brain will NOT let go of SSI Gold Box style strategy) but I've made do. I know that the PC version is supposed to be quite a bit harder but my 5 year old rig will not run this and I didn't want to wait till this coming December when the rebuild for our game rigs will fit into the budget. But I would think that that should be offset by the ease of selecting who targets what and uses which spell/talent (as well as the lovely and classic Baldur's Gate top down view - one of the reasons that I don't micromanage as much as I want to is the annoyance of the targeting and talent selecting, sure it's as good as I suppose you can get with the limitations of a game pad but...).
 
I think I will try out the hardest setting next playthru (when I don't feel obligated to spam every conversation with every character and read every new entry in the Codex).

Lol yes. I started up RE5 and i felt really manly by starting off on hard mode. Sad/weird as it sounds.

" @Evilsbane said:

" @Sweep: Nah dude don't feel bad, I was playing on Medium as well, right up to where I had to fight that baby dragon and it took me 30 try's to kill him, and than in the very next room I got attacked by 20+ skeletons and got murdered, that room FORCED me to switch I just couldn't beat it with the team I had at the time. "

haha that's exactly the same point I went down to Easy. That dragon was a bitch :D "

" @Sweep: Nah dude don't feel bad, I was playing on Medium as well, right up to where I had to fight that baby dragon and it took me 30 try's to kill him, and than in the very next room I got attacked by 20+ skeletons and got murdered, that room FORCED me to switch I just couldn't beat it with the team I had at the time. "

" @Claude said:

" I wrote a blog about this same game when I went the easy route.
 
I've still had some pretty rough skirmishes even on easy. "

Yeah I read it and I share many of your feelings. How far through the game are you now? I'm about level 11... have cleared the Elves, Wizards, Zombie Castle, and got Shale as well. "

I wouldn't say the combat in Dragon Age was engaging enough or important enough to worry about turning the difficulty down.  Mastering the combat isn't the draw of that game.  Sure, the combat is competent enough as RPGs go I guess, but it won't be what you remember about that game when you're done with it.
 
The difficulty labels are also kinda arbitrary.  If you happen to set up your party well - which is at least partly down to luck, because nothing is really explained very well in the skill tree - then Normal can be a breeze right the way through, but if you happen to not set it up so well, I could see you having trouble with virtually any fight in the game.
 
If the difficulty is so high in any game that you can only advance by trial and error, rather than reasoning on the fly, then I really have no interest in playing that game at that difficulty.

When I was a kid I'd play on easy but now I like to play on Normal as a minimum but I'll go to hard or hardest setting if I feel like a challenge.

Well said and  I tend to feel the same, choosing "normal" difficulty by default in the vast majority of games. Though back in the SNES days I often went Hard by default as there were a ton of games that didn't give the "true" ending unless you did it on hard difficulty (those sadistic bastards). And if Hard offers a decent reward (eg more story, more loot, etc) without an insane bump in difficulty I'll often opt for that... or if normal is just too easy such as in Torchlight or Modern Warfare 2 (Hardened was challenging but still enjoyable and didn't feel super trial and error like Veteran).
 
DA:O was definitely one game I had no problem going down to easy on as the story is all I really cared about. Pausing to issue commands every 5 seconds is not appealing to me in any way whatsoever, so it was nice I was able to let the computer do their thing and not get my ass handed to me fighting trash mobs in the first dungeon. The only other game I've done this for that I can think of is The World Ends with You, where the combat just had wayyyy too many things you had to micromanage all at the same time on the higher difficulties towards the end of the game.

I play on Normal difficulty, too. For some reason, this pisses people off to no end.

" I wrote a blog about this same game when I went the easy route.
 
I've still had some pretty rough skirmishes even on easy. "

I used to play a lot of games on easy, but now I opt for normal mode most of the time. I'm not ashamed of playing on easy difficulty though. I rather complete a game on easy than become so frustrated on a harder difficulty that I stop playing it. 
 
I dig that song, too. Thanks for posting. :) 

I wrote a blog about this same game when I went the easy route.
 
This

Using easy on Mass Effect 1 at the moment as the combat is awful and I want it over with as soon as possible. 

I tend to play on normal/medium, but if I'll have a lot more fun (and there are no achievements for difficulty), then I'll typically switch to easy. For example, I played through Red Faction Guerrilla on easy, and that was a lot of fun because I could just run behind enemy lines, blow crap up, hammer down dudes, etc.

Normally i play on medium as it generally presented a healthy challenge. But now most games are made easy so that many people can play them. So,now i go for hard.

I still haven't played DA:O yet but if its really challenging on normal, it would be most welcome to me.

I'm in the same boat. I usually opt for the normal/medium difficulty range, and got my ass handed to me numerous times within probably 50 hours in to playing Dragon Age. By the end, though, I had everything figured out. On my second playthrough, I probably should have bumped things up to hard/hardest, because I was murdering enemies before they even had a chance to hit me.
 
A good tip for the lesser enemies: put down a glyph of repulsion at a choke point between you and the enemies, where able. Then have your mage, or multiple mages, cast their area-effect damage spells like inferno or blizzard. Getting multiples up while the enemy can't do anything to reach you means they'll be dead within a matter of seconds, and you won't have even engaged them in combat.
 
Also ended the game with multiple stacks of 99 health poultices/lyrium potions.

People who are proud that they're exceptionally good at something that has zero practical application, to the point that they make fun of people who have a life and do other things therefore aren't as good, make me sad. What a pitiful bunch, those "real gamers".

I feel you. 
 
Difficulty settings are something we take for granted, but there is a lot to it, in order to keep each difficulty setting equally balanced and functional.
 
I usually go for the hardest difficulty available, especially when you can unlock a harder difficulty, which is a feature in video games that fucking pisses me off. First thing. Seriously, there is no point to that, not allowing the player to play the game as he desires. You have to complete the game at least once in order to get a harder difficulty. That is not to say that there are not cases when this is often forgivable, such is the case of Mass Effect, when the game expects you to have more than one playthrough, that's just how the game rolls, and, as such, has not one, but two unlockable difficulty settings. Then there are cases such as the one of Uncharted 2, which is mildly forgivable, since the Hard experience is so frustrating that whoever is willing to complete the game on Crushing difficulty is probably willing to complete the game on Hard, or at least shouldn't mind too much. Then we have the unforgivable case of games such as House of the Dead: Overkill, when one can only play the game on either Easy or Medium, before unlocking Hard, so if you're looking for a challenge you are out of luck. 
 
That being said, there is yet another issue related to difficulty setting, which is mentioned in your blog post. The unbalanced difficulty settings. Lowering your health, increasing the damage done by enemies and increasing enemies' health does not make a Hard setting, it simply makes a game way more frustrating and least enjoyable, such is the case of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Although Force Unleashed is more forgivable than Arkham Asylum since it is, at its very core, more of  a classic platformer than Batman: AA, I find Force Unleashed to have quite a retro feel about it, with basic platforming controls and gameplay, you know, force stuff aside. 
 
I completely agree with that quote, cheers, my consideration for EDGE has considerably increased, I've been thinking about signing up for a subscription. I think I just might go ahead with that.
 
Oh, and that music. I won't even listen to it. They wrote Electricity with a K. That's all I need to know.

N00BS YOU ARENT HARDCORE ENOUGH TO PLAY NORMAL LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL 73SSS

I don't feel ashamed by picking Easy mode for games. 

I do not recall a medium difficulty choice for Dragon Age so I wonder what game you were actually playing. Anyway, to answer your question, you are the loser here because the game was not hard on NORMAL. (Mind blast, Force field, cone of cold, sleep,)

I usually find myself going for the easy mode... yeah yeah... i know I'm lame. I just find it better to play a game that's a bit easier than something I'm constantly having to retry things in... But then again... i am really bad at games...

Oh man, you've summed up my views right there. 
 
I try to play medium most of the time, but DA:O just kicked my ass. I wanted to slice through enemies like butter mindlessly, so I could get to some juicy dialogue. 
 
This is probably why I'm more partial of ME2 right now, it's easy as sin to play, so there's not a lot of frustration stopping you from getting to the next bit of dialogue.

Easy. Medium. Hard.

The eternal dilemma.

And then I started playing Dragon Age: Origins

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"We are living through an age in which the fabulous ingenuity of craft is being lavished upon the realisation of a pathologically adolescent imagination."

Oh and, by the way, this song is amazing.