I don't know the context, but I get the meaning he's going for. I kind of feel the same way about hard mode. On many games, it's not really "harder" it's more "tediouser". Making the enemies absorb more damage and me less doesn't really change the gameplay, it just makes it easier to die. I mean, I get that that's a type of harder, but it's not really what I mean when I say I want the game to be more difficult, and maybe this guy means the same.
He said, "Yeah, that's true [that you can raise the difficulty] but feels fake to me. I usually play all games on the default, normal setting that they start with. I never modify difficulty settings because it feels kind of like purposely handicapping yourself....like I am fighting an enemy and decide, "Hey, I think I'll just cut off one of my arms because they are too easy...." I try to get into the RPG and lose myself in the world for a while...only game I ever raise difficulty on is probably Diablo III because you kind of have to if you want to keep playing and gaining levels, etc....after beating the game"
It was the "lose myself in the world for a while" that got me, because he's the same guy who said "I really could care less about what the NPCs actually have to say....lol
", was sick of reading dialogue, and was going around slaughtering NPCs just because he could (He hadn't even gotten to any of the more interesting combat encounters in the game). It's a wildly different thing to say that turning up the difficulty doesn't actually improve the combat, and saying that you're not going to even try that because it breaks immersion, when you've already thrown out the game's core mechanics and ignored the immersion the game is trying to offer.
Combat is poor in PS:T, I won't argue that, especially compared to Baldur's Gate. Mainly because it is very easy (and even turning up the difficulty doesn't solve the core problem that healing is instantaneous). But there is strategy to be had, and turning up the difficulty will either force you to find that strategy or force you to buy warehouses of healing items. Personally I don't turn up the difficulty slider, because getting through encounters with minimal use of items is incentive enough for me to seek the most effective combat strategies, and I'm playing the game for the dialogue and choices more than the combat, but some people just can't seem to create their own motivation in games ("Vita chambers make the game too easy, Bioshock is boring because you can just smash things with your wrench until you respawn with no penalty. It's a cheap and boring and the game is ruined because I'm an impulsive toddler who can't control himself long enough to actually think about combat unless the game forces me to!")
In the end, I don't know why this guy was playing PS:T, and I thought it was completely appropriate to point out that he had no interest in actually playing the game.
One had a "hang in there!" kitten poster. I hung it up in my seabase's bedroom.
