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Non-Indicative Difficulty: Difference between revisions
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Perhaps the [[Rubber Band AI]] or [[Anti Frustration Feature|similar mechanics]] of the game have made it so that 'easy' courses are harder than the 'hard' courses on the same mode. Perhaps the 'hard' mode is supposed to make the AIs behave more deviously but instead gives them [[Artificial Stupidity]]. Perhaps the [[Hard Mode Perks|bonuses you receive]] for playing on a harder level actually make the game easier than intended. (This is especially the case for games with [[Tech Points]] or [[Evolving Attack|Evolving Attacks]], wherein enemies that take longer to kill can grant greater rewards). Perhaps what was supposed to make the game 'hard' actually makes it easier because it fits better with your reflexes, is more intuitive, etc.
This is not about a bonus you receive for completing something difficult making the game easier (or vice versa), save for unlockable difficulty, it's about something intending to make the game harder that has the side effect of actually making it easier, either with mitigation overdose or the [[Combinatorial Explosion]] of game rules that result in changes in the difficulty.
Note that this does not include items and properties and settings means to balance the game but end up actually making it harder or easier.
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* In ''[[Jagged Alliance]] 2'', setting the difficulty too low will mean the enemies have terrible guns. Which, since the player is capable of using a given weapon more intelligently than the AI is, means you can't scavenge good stuff and start engaging on more favorable terms for a while, which can make the game significantly harder. Or at least require you to spend a lot more money on weapons and ammo.
* ''Point Blank 2'' has a stage where you have to shoot a fixed number of mice within a time limit. On the middle difficulty level, this is extremely difficult as the number that appear is only slightly more than the required target. On "Insane" difficulty, you have to get more mice, but they also move around a lot faster, meaning more of them appear.
* In ''[[Postal]] 2'', the hardest difficulty in the original, pre-patch game was "Hestonworld", in which everything does double damage and every character in the game is armed with a weapon. However, the majority of those characters were civilians neutral to the player, who would even attack the hostile enemy characters as soon as they drew their weapon. As a result, Hestonworld could be easier than Average if you played stealthy and let the NPCs fight each other.
* In ''[[Backyard Sports|Backyard Baseball]]'''s Hard Mode, the opponents bat much faster. This makes it much easier for pitching as one can just use slowballs to outsmart the opponents.
* A few minigames, usually involving Pentominoes were often made even ''easier'' on Higher difficulties, that removed more pieces. This meant that you had more pieces to put into the puzzle, but you also had even more potential solutions. The lower levels of difficulty would often just give a couple pieces and limit the amount of solutions. Sometimes, you may only get just one solution, whereas building a pentomino puzzle blank would take a little longer than putting a few pieces but would have multiple solutions as a result. This was seen most egregiously in a few [[Clue Finders]] games by The Learning Company, which had some of these puzzle types. (Albeit they were one-shot puzzles)
* The first ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' game even has this to a lower extent. While you have to complete the first four worlds (Including Traverse Town) before you can access the later ones, you don't necessarily ''have'' to complete them in the order the game recommends you to. Some worlds can actually be completed ''after'' a set of [[Climax Boss|important boss battles later in the game at Hollow Bastion]], but most players won't do that because entering Hollow Bastion means going past a [[Point of No Return]] and if one misses valuable experience and equipment, well it'll either be [[Unwinnable]] or hard. Now to the point...The biggest example of how the battle level can mislead you is within the first four worlds. While it would seem that one should visit the Olympus Coliseum before Deep Jungle, people who had played the game would actually tell you it's better to go to Deep Jungle ''before'' Olympus Coliseum. There isn't that much of a difficulty spike (Unless you're playing expert, that is), and being given the Cure Magic would ''really'' help against a boss with a sudden difficulty spike in Olympus Coliseum.
** The sequel however is noticeably easier. Many players will consider Proud Mode to be just as easy as Standard, but there is still some notable moments where it seems harder on Proud than it does on Standard or Easy. For one, the nobodies early in the game hit Roxas harder, and when you have limited heals...well... And if one chooses to go to Beast's Castle before the Land of Dragons because you get the Cure magic from beating the boss there (Which makes sense...Potions cost Munny after all, and that saves on Munny), don't expect the boss to go down without a fight. But after that, it becomes quite easy, with a few difficulty spikes here and there when you reach [[That One Boss]]. (The Berserker swarm in Twilight Town, Demyx, Xaldin...) One other reason players choose Proud Mode is that you don't have to do as many optional stuff to get the cool bonus video ending everyone so loves as you do in Standard. (In Easy, you can't get it. At all.)
*** But there is also Critical Mode in the [[No Export for You|Final Mix]] version that reduces Sora's maximum HP by half, but gives him a lot of ability points to balance that out. If you as a gamer are consistently good enough to do [[No Damage Run|No Damage Runs]] of the [[Bonus Boss|Organization Data and Terra]], the abilities granted in Critical do outweigh the drawbacks, as the damage calculation is the only difference between Proud and Critical modes. Considering that the [[No Damage Run]] is one of the basic building blocks of the Kingdom Hearts community of [[Challenge Gamer|Challenge Gamers]]...yeah.
* ''[[House of the Dead]]: OVERKILL'' has "Director's Cut" mode, which makes the chapters a bit longer and adds more mutants. It also adds a [[Hand Cannon]] that costs about as much as the standard shotgun and starts out with maxed-out Firepower. Plus, all the extra mutants means a better chance of getting a high score, therefore more cash bonus at the end of the chapter.
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* ''Hard Rock'' difficulty in ''[[Elite Beat Agents]]'' takes the beatmaps of ''Sweatin' ''difficulty, mirrors them, shrinks the markers, and gives you less time to react. Usually this does make it more difficult, but on a few songs (notably "Material Girl") with a lot of beat markers scattered around at random, the shorter warning time and less beat markers visible makes it easier.
** Many players also found the easiest difficulty to be quite hard due to the note markers appearing too early and slowly, making it hard to follow the beat.
** ''[[Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan|Ouendan 2]]'' has an extra difficulty option which removes the timing circles for the hit markers and makes them disappear a moment before you need to tap them. This mode is a lot easier when played on the hardest difficulty level because the hit markers don't spend as much time onscreen, which makes a lot easier to keep the rhythm even without the visual aids.
* The harder difficulty modes in ''[[Europa Universalis]]'' give the AI countries more money, amongst other things. This is bad news when we're talking about, say, France, but less fortunate countries in America and Africa tend to have nothing to spend it on. And since you can demand money in exchange for peace, war with these countries becomes extremely lucrative.
* ''[[Mushihime-sama]] Futari Black Label'', an [[Updated Rerelease]] of ''Mushihime-sama Futari'' (or a downloadable [[Expansion Pack]] in the 360 port) offers God difficulty, which replaces previous versions' [[Harder Than Hard|Ultra]] difficulty. Despite the name of the difficulty, it's actually ''easier'' than Ultra mode; there is more slowdown, and enemies don't let off as many suicide bullets as they did in Ultra.
* In ''[[Tetris the Grand Master]] 2 - The Absolute PLUS'', it's easier to get the Grand Master rank in T.A. Death mode than on Master mode, due to the criteria: in Master mode, you need to fulfill a series of time and Tetris requirements to unlock the invisible roll, which you need to survive to get GM. In Death, all you need to do is pass a time checkpoint at level 500, then reach level 999 regardless of time.
* In ''[[Initial D Arcade Stage]] 4'', we have Irohazaka, a Hard-ranked course that has nearly nonstop hairpins. Then you get Tsukuba, an Expert-ranked course that, for 3/4 of the course, is laughably easy. Even the other 1/4 of the course is nothing compared to Irohazaka.
* In some older arcade games (such as the ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Vector Game]], ''[[Columns]]'', and ''[[Tempest]]''), you can select your starting level, with higher levels yielding a starting bonus. As a result, until you are sufficiently skilled enough at the game, playing on a harder difficulty level will leave you with a higher score than on a lower one.
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* In ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'', setting the Battle Speed to the fastest setting will give you an advantage once you start encountering bosses that completely disregard charge times -- the speed setting won't make those bosses any faster, but it means your own characters will spend less time standing around getting beat up.
* ''[[Beatmania]]'' had this problem when putting the song SNOW on the US version. The US version had much more easier charts that your standard [[Nintendo Hard]] bemani game, but SNOW's hyper chart ended up being ''harder'' in the US.
* The harder difficulty level in ''Two Worlds'' begins as an unbelievable challenge--any individual is much tougher than you, and foes typically come in groups and surround you. If you manage to pick off a humanoid foe, however, you can take their powered-up equipment and use it against your other foes, so once you've done enough looting there's little added difficulty.
* On ''[[Fire Emblem]]: The Sword of Seals'', Hard Mode starts gets easier after a few chapters, because the awesome stat bonuses your enemies get [[Heel Face Turn|also go to the characters that can be recruited]].
** Not all of them. Ray, Douglas, and Hugh don't get the stat bonuses. Percival, too, if you recruit him in Chapter 13 instead of 15.
** The difficulty ends up played straight, though, when you get to Chapter 21. No matter how much you've prepared, that chapter on Hard Mode is arguably '''the''' toughest single chapter in any of the three GBA games.
* The PAL Hidden Mansion mode of ''[[Luigi's Mansion]]''. The Poltergust's improved performance more than makes up for the more powerful ghosts.
* In the ''[[Mount
* Driving games that offer automatic and manual transmission are often more cumbersome to play in automatic, as the auto-shift tends to shift at the wrong speeds and techniques that involve shifter manipulation (such as ''[[Daytona USA]]'''s shifter sliding) become impossible.
** Similarly the faster cars that appear later in racing games are often easier to drive, despite needing quicker reflexes, because they have more downforce and bigger tyres and don't slide around as much as the slower cars. In ''Race Driver [[GRID]]'' and the ''[[Need for Speed]]'' games the classic American muscle cars are far more 'tail-happy' than the supercars. This is partly [[Truth in Television]]; [[Formula One]] cars are often described by the pros and being relatively easy to drive compared to touring cars, because they are so advanced. It's the ''level of competition'' that makes F1 difficult.
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