A link to the poll: http://www.strawpoll.me/14718638/

I'm just curious. I may post another poll for solo play to see if people change difficulty to compensate for the action disadvantage.

I generally play my blind playthrough on easy and then subsequent plays on standard. I imagine once I've played a campaign a FEW times, I might try on higher levels, but I find standard is pretty challenging anyway. I'm not exactly a masochist, so I'm fine without trying it on harder levels.

We do blind playthroughs on standard. And, since we're all experienced players, we're considering switching to hard permanently for later playthroughs. I haven't played solo in ages, it's just not as fun as playing with friends.

We started playing on easy, but have since moved up to standard difficulty as our difficulty standard.

I pretty much play on as high a difficulty as the people I'm playing with are willing to attempt, but I don't push it too hard -- I want everyone to have fun! So it tends to land at hard/expert, and occasionally standard with new players.

Easy.

Mostly standard, even if I sometimes play on Hard

Not to sound like a jerk, but I know this game would be too complex for one of my group. Because of this I've only played the game solo. if I ever did play the game with that group, I'd play on easy and would probably modify a few things to make it even easier.

As for myself, I tend to play easy with new investigators or experimental decks to get a better idea of how they work. From there I will typically play on Standard.

Always play on Hard, and I would try expert if the table agrees. I teach the game to people on Standard and I encourage people to play on Hard. Standard seems a little too easy, and the one thing about Co-op games is if they are not a challenge, they become tedious to play. Its the reason why I stopped playing Elder Sign pre-Gates of Arkham. (still haven't played it yet, but people have told me the last 3 expansions for Elder sign increased the difficulty of that game)

When I play pure solo, standard for me. If I'm feeling confident (which is rare in arkham files games), I'll sneak up to hard!

Hard seems to be the right spot for me, and what I play on almost all the time. Sometimes standard with new players, but I like to push new players I play with towards hard mode too -since when I do this I pre-build decks for them, so I know their decks will be solid enough to handle higher difficulties.

But it definitely does color which cards/characters I feel are good and which ones don't make the cut. Some characters just struggle on hard mode, or are so outclassed by similar characters that on Hard mode they are barely worth playing. For this reason, sometimes I think about going back to standard, but I really do like challenging myself on hard mode to make the most effective decks I can, so I haven't gone back yet.

Hard is the only difficulty in my and my friends opinion. As someone on this forum already put it, on expert mode the game breaks down. Easy is too easy, and standard is passable when you play with a beginner.

Usually standard, but hard sometimes when the scenario is really fun.

I played a lot with experienced players, and we always play at hard difficulty.

The only scenario we ever lost were the last of the core scenarios, and the Dunwich "train" scenario, so standard and easy are not really adapted to our team. We sometimes play standard difficulty with beginners.

I do like the easy difficulty, since you can (almost) win by never playing any card and discarding them all for bonuses. If I've never made a full campain at that level, it allow to play with people that are not used at all to games.

The Expert difficulty is not really fun. It is difficult, but not in a interesting way. I would rather make my own chaos bag more in line with the kind of difficulty we are searching for.

We play on standard for the blind play through, and hard for all later runs.

Although if we did something exotic (like running a themed group of four mystics, or taking a traumatized group that finished one campaign and sending them into a second) we might think about easy.

We're ok with groups dying occasionally, since there are plenty of other investigators to try out now.

We play a mixed Standard/Hard, using the standard bag but hard token effects. Adds a bit more difficulty than standard without being quite so punishing, and gets the more interesting special token effects.

Alone i play standard but easy with the wife.

Tried hard and both my investigators ended up as monster food.

15 hours ago, Shirys said:

Tried hard and both my investigators ended up as monster food.

Both?

On 2/3/2018 at 6:37 AM, cheapmate said:

Both?

Yes. I usually play with two decks when playing solo.

On 9-2-2018 at 10:01 PM, Shirys said:

Yes. I usually play with two decks when playing solo.

Ah, understood.

I’ve never done it myself, I don’t like to make it easier on myself.

On 2/18/2018 at 4:49 AM, cheapmate said:

I don’t like to make it easier on myself

Well, it might just get as hard sometimes since each investigators have to draw an encounter card (two ancient evils in a row sucks big time!) and usually, the required amount of clues is multiplied by two for a given objective. I just find that two investigators gives me a bit more options and variability, that plus cool interaction with committed cards to help each other. Certain cards aren't as useful (or not optimal) when you play solo with only one toon =)

Standard for our blind playthroughs. Might go up to hard on a repeat play with some of the more experienced players.

Easy. And I'm seriously considering making a house-rule Very Easy chaos bag ? Not into the "challenge" thing at all...

30 minutes ago, LozMac said:

Easy. And I'm seriously considering making a house-rule Very Easy chaos bag ? Not into the "challenge" thing at all...

It's a great game; if the difficulty is hampering your fun, there's no shame in house-ruling it. It also probably lets you experiment more with your decks, using strategies that may be more fun, but not as reliable.

Four player group that’s new to the game and we’re getting hammered on standard. No one has died so far but the second scenario in Night of the Zealot creamed us. We discovered and killed *one* cultist.