Which FPS has the most well designed max difficulty setting?

I want to play an FPS at max difficulty but I don't want to play some annoying cheap shit like COD: World at War where the game just endlessly spams grenades.

Which FPS game has the most well designed maximum difficulty setting?

@GreySeal9: Metro last light has a decent Hardcore setting

Western developers', basically 99% of FPS developers, idea of increasing difficulty often boils down to increasing enemy damage and hit points while decreasing the player's instead of any meaningful difficulty change. One of the more egregious examples I've seen of this lately is Wolfenstein The New Order, which can be straight up bullshit at times.

probably Stalker games. The A.I at hardest difficulty is damn amazing as long as it doesnt bug out ( Stalker complete mods help alot in that aspect )

FEAR has a very interesting hard mode, especially if you drop slow motion, Wolfenstein: The New Order too (both games I'm actually talking about in another topic). I'd also mention No One Lives Forever 2, which is the best of these three.

Also, if you want to go old-school you might want to check the original Unreal, which has a different take on FPS combat than most modern games.

Halo on Legendary usually felt fair yet difficult. Halo 2 not so much.

Halo legendary is very good. Always fair.

Halo Legendary + all skulls on

@GreySeal9: I don't play that many but purely for SP, in terms of "linear shooter", Killzone 2 had some cool AI. Not amazingly hard, but they made me work for different cover spots everytime which I liked ( I couldn't just stick to one spot and slowly kill them all).

In terms of a more co-op experience (also in the "linear shooter" sense) Resistance 3 on the highest diffilcuty was pretty fun. You and your buddy would have to manage your resources and focus on different spots of the battlefied most of the time. Really fun co-op game IMO.

As for other kind of shooters, I don't play that many. I play more TPS games than FPS ones.

Unreal Tournament.

Godlike bots will dodge your shots and hit you like nobody else.

And that's nromal mode. Don't even think about playing Instagib

I thought Halo was always decent.

That's insane

@Ross_the_Boss6: Looks about right.

I think Timesplitters 2 has the best difficulty settings. Each difficulty setting changes the levels and objectives.

Difficulty level is not something I believe in. I hate the idea that there's an "ideal" experience and other difficulty levels are "lesser." I would do away with difficulty level if I were a dev. If people found it too hard, get over it. Probably why I'm not a dev, LOL!

Like others have said, the Halo games... well, mostly when you're playing with friends. Of them all I actually found ODST to be the most enjoyable to play on Legendary solo. It encourages more weapon swapping for the various situations, careful playing, avoiding confrontations in open streets or when air patrols can drop reinforcements.

@Blabadon: well put, except that's a problem that extends well beyond both FPSs and Western games

Just like the games it was rooted from.

GoldenEye did it really well because they increased the difficulty by adding more mission objectives. Very unique take on that. It's in the remake, too.

Halo was usually pretty good about it, Halo 2's bullshit aside.

DOOM did it well because DOOM. Ditto for DOOM II. The early Unreal games were good.

TimeSplitters, too, as others have said.

Get the **** out of here.

Halo and Perfect Dark.

Destiny

Play Vault of Glass Hard Mode as a level 28, you'll be playing that raid for an entire day and still wouldnt be able to beat it

EL OH FUCKING EL

Destiny has shit Difficulty settings. Oh look, now the bullet sponge enemies become spongier

A lot of pre-Half-Life games did FPS difficulty the best, because the game design was different. Like on a harder difficulty in Doom, the keys are in a different area, and the ammo/health spawn points are changed. Never really played Doom on the hardest difficulty because of that lol.

Halo: CE on Legendary is the fairest of the post-Half Life school of design. It was semi-sandboxy enough to try different tactics against more aggressive enemies with bigger health bars.

That's MMO "difficulty" kicking in, not FPS difficulty.

i never play at max difficulty, does that count? and the last FPS i truly enjoyed is battlefield 3.

This is a fairer statement, dumb warthog support AI aside, the "halo sandbox" wasn't as bloated with completely worthless shit like the sequels are. The assault rifle stays practical and useful, even if the Pistol is godly, making it somewhat viable and reasonable, without compromising what you want Halo to feel like on Legendary.

Halo 2, 3, 4, Reach, and ODST? everything about Legendary highlights the many ways those games are so thoroughly lousy.

fixed

I beat them just fine, and last time we played Halo, you and stevo were having your faces taken off pretty consistently. Remind me again who was taking your faces off?

Yea, playing the broken chief collection. Congrats, you did not completely shitty in a broken game.

The broken aspects of said game were all network related issues and matchmaking drawbacks, the actual playing it part however worked flawlessly, especially in custom games.

It's okay they, I'm sure your next excuse might have some merit.

I think everything after Halo 2 was balanced around Heroic, because Normal was mud and Legendary was cheap. I also think Halo: Reach was one of my favourites in the series because it all clicked on Heroic. Never much liked Legendary for the insinuated reasons. It's like trying to beat Master Ninja, except beating Master Ninja actually has street cred.

That and the game makes an actual effort to make the difficulties interesting. Japanese action game design is built around your Doom descriptions. Enemy patterns change, the enemy types change, they get new additional quirks up their sleeve, etc. Rarely do you have them taking something away from the player, and I would argue in the case of Bayonetta when they take witch time away from you it's saying "Bitch you're plenty OP with this character, and this game is about not getting hit, you'll be fine without slow mo, you had plenty of time to learn the game"

Master Ninja on Ninja Gaiden 2 would be glorious too...if Itagaki finished the game.

Every time we talk shooters and action games I feel guilty not playing RE4. Now Bayo 2 which is sitting next to the TV. lol.

I didn't get past the third level in Master Ninja. I shall return once it's supported on Xbone.

I platinum'd that bitch.. it was easy compared to COD 4: Modern Warfare on Veteran.

Memory serves you dug the original Bayonetta, in spite of never being a DMC cat, so Bayonetta 2 is more of that. Some smart tweaks here and there. Resident Evil 4 and Metroid Prime/Super Metroid are the ones you really need to get done, due to their greatness.

Chapter 2 and Chapter 11 are the hardest on MN, everything else is relatively more doable. I say relative....the worst part about Master Ninja is that dinky ass health bar they give you in the early going when you want to be mad jew with the thousand gods shits to extend your health bar. The struggle is fierce.

Could've been level 2 then, not level 3 on NG2. Gassing myself up here lol.

RE4 was on Steam sale and I was like.... my backlog doe lol. But finishing RE5 and RE6 counts, right? :P

Killzone 2. The enemies got smarter but not turned into bullet sponges. Halo CE was excellent on legendary

You finished RE6? that game is a train wreck. I still need to actually get back to it, but Aljosa is my broop mate for that and he's all **** that lol.

I bro-oped RE5 with the sis and did it again for RE6. It was definitely a major drop in quality. It felt like no fucks were given in the making of that turd.

Quake.

Metro games

Halo CE.

I never had as much fun as playing Halo CE in legendary (both solo and coop).

Operation Flashpoint.

Even the latest games which were somewhat panned by critics and fans alike, I felt got the difficulty and balance right.

KZ2 had plenty of bullet sponges.

I remember loving the higher difficulties of Goldeneye64 but I can't remember what they did...

Didn't they add objectives?