History Main / NumericalHard

* Hero Mode in the ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' is this. In its introduction in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'', all enemies do double damage, stamina-using actions consume a bit more stamina, and heart drops are eliminated. This is carried over into the {{Updated Rerelease}}s of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker Wind Waker]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'', though the latter mirrors the entire world much like its Wii version. ''Twilight Princess HD'' also adds an bonus setting with the Ganondorf Toys/{{amiibo}}, which also doubles damage; this can stack with Hero Mode for quadruple damage. Hero Mode makes its 2D debut in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkBetweenWorlds A Link Between Worlds]]'', where it quadruples enemy damage, though heart drops are still present to compensate.

** The series introduced selectable difficulty levels in ''II'', which have been a series staple since, and generally their changes on gameplay are purely stat-based. Beginner makes you deal more damage and take less, and Proud is the opposite. Critcal downplays this — enemies are stronger, and you take more damage in addition to having lower overall health, but it also tends to give [[HardModePerks unique abilities or rewards]] that can significantly change how a player handles combat.

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'''s adventure mode has a lot of this on the harder difficulty levels, with the vast majority of changes being purely statistical (enemies' health goes up, more knockback, enemies flinch less, enemies attack faster, and some rather odd ones such as trackballs losing energy faster, scrolling areas scrolling faster, and keys breaking easier).

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun: The Lost Age'' has a Hard Mode where you just have all enemies with increased stats. 50% more attack, defense and HP, to be exact. [[note]]Two of the bosses don't quite reach a 50% HP boost, because they would go over the HP cap if they did.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' averts this: The changes made depend on the pattern, and are often more insidious than simple density/speed increases. Seeing patterns completely change or get added isn't uncommon either. Recurring spellcards and non-spellcard attacks do have this property, but the incremented 'numbers' include aim angles, stream counts, spread arcs, firing rates, and sometimes even ''size multipliers''. One of the most common surprises is when you see a spellcard used by the ''stage 1 midboss''.

* ''Videogame/{{Gradius}} V'' seems like it's going to avert this trope with subsequent loops, where the Stage 1 boss has two cores instead of one like on the first loop. As it turns out, the rest of this game simply plays this trope straight with [[BulletHell more bullets]] and enemy "revenge bullets" that fire upon their deaths.

* ''VideoGame/AssaultShell''[='=]s Light mode is a 1-loop mode similar to Single, and is meant to be an easier version of Single. However the only things changed are that your [[LimitBreak Stands]] have ''shorter'' duration and that the [[EveryTenThousandPoints point thresholds for extra lives]] are smaller.

* Easy Mode and Challenge Mode in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2'' fall into this for regular trainers, merely change the opposing Pokémon's levels in most cases. Gym Leaders and the Elite Four avert this: each gets one Pokémon added to their team, re-done movesets, and, in the case of the Elite Four, better held items.

* Hero Mode in ''VideoGame/JakIIRenegade'' and later just increases health done to enemies.

* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' ''X: Legacy'': Warrior mode makes monsters harder and shops/services more expensive. That's pretty much it.

* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' ''X: Legacy'': Warrior mode makes monsters harder and shops/services more expensive. That's pretty much it.

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'': This is how most of the enemies work, especially early on in the game. Skags and Bandits more or less attack similarly within their own groups, maybe adding in an extra ability or two for the tougher enemies. Where the difficulty really comes in is in the fact the enemies have levels similar to your own, and obviously a level 1 Skag Pup is going to be weaker than a level 3 Skag Pup. Also, certain guns and grenade upgrades function exactly the same, with the rarer ones just having higher stats (more damage, more accurate etc).
* ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' and ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' extend the idea even further with [[NewGamePlus True Vault Hunter Mode and Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode]], which increase enemy health even further, spawn elite enemies more often, and even introduce stronger variants of prior enemies. In ''2'', UVHM even gives enemies health regeneration.

Normal: STR/RES/SKI 100%

* Hard mode in ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork 2'' just gives enemies extra HP and more damage per attack. This is one example where the game isn't particularly harder, as Battle Network combat (at least at the high end you need to be familiar with to unlock hardmode) is based heavily on dodging foes and using powerful combos (that for the most part, are overkill) that take opponents out quick.
* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' is a standard less damage/more damage, though also with the addition of gaining more or less experience depending on the difficulty.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' series, the difficulty level affects population growth and production output. On easier difficulties, the computer gets a penalty, while on harder difficulties, it gets a bonus.
** This is explicit to the player in Civ IV by noting the AI Civs are set to Noble level when giving the player the difficulty options during game setup.

* This is how most of the enemies work in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'', especially early on in the game. Skags and Bandits more or less attack similarly within their own groups, maybe adding in an extra ability or two for the tougher enemies. Where the difficulty really comes in is in the fact the enemies have levels similar to your own, and obviously a level 1 Skag Pup is going to be weaker than a level 3 Skag Pup. Also, certain guns and grenade upgrades function exactly the same, with the rarer ones just having higher stats (more damage, more accurate etc).
** ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' and ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' extend the idea even further with [[NewGamePlus True Vault Hunter Mode and Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode]], which increase enemy health even further, spawn elite enemies more often, and even introduce stronger variants of prior enemies. In ''2'', UVHM even gives enemies health regeneration.

* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' introduced selectable difficulty levels in ''II,'' which have been a series staple since, and generally their changes on gameplay are purely stat-based. Beginner makes you deal more damage and take less, and Proud is the opposite. Critcal downplays this — enemies are stronger, and you take more damage in addition to having lower overall health, but it also tends to give [[HardModePerks unique abilities or rewards]] that can significantly change how a player handles combat.

* Borderline in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1''. They give just about every enemy additional defensive boosts in the form of abilities, but mostly just directly modify the damage input/output. However, since the game is packed with damage-reducing armors and skills, even on the hardest difficulty level (Insane) you're practically invincible. Unfortunately, this means that higher difficulty levels mostly just means [[PaddedSumoGameplay it takes much longer to kill enemies.]]
** They changed this up in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', however, where [[HarderThanHard insanity]] mode gives pretty much any enemy in the game the power to tear you to shreds from full health in a matter of seconds. Their behavior changed along with it in this one, though.

** On the other hand, some enemies (Most notably bosses) also get new attacks, so it's only a partial example.

* Many {{First Person Shooter}}s will make the enemies harder to kill, increase the damage they do and limit the amount of ammo the player gets for each item on Hard mode, not to mention making health packs a bit scarcer.

* The ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' games are particularly bad at this, especially [=DW3=]. Enemies both deal more damage and receive far less from your attacks. OK, they fight better too, but given they normally fight like drugged sloths on lower difficulty levels this is really only upgrading to average. In [=DW3=], you could lose 80% of your health to a single barrage of crossbow bolts on hard mode. Or just as worse, the lopside in morale will ensure the enemy will tear through your AI allies.

** So far, ''Dynasty Warriors 4: Xtreme Legends'' both averts and plays into this; Expert Mode AI officers hit quite hard compared to Hard Mode (since the AI versions all wield Level 10 weapons by default), but have notably improved AI (especially the playable officers) almost across all difficulties and often require deft senses and/or unconventional exploits to often take down.

* ''VideoGame/GodOfWarII'' does this for its [[HarderThanHard Titan Mode]]. Individual random mooks are suddenly MadeOfIron and do serious damage. Until you get used to constantly prioritizing blocking, dodging, and reflexes over [[AttackAttackAttack all-out offensives]], mere RandomEncounters are road blocks requiring multiple tries to get past. Not to mention every single boss fight becomes ThatOneBoss and require a lot of patience by themselves. Once you finally gain the [[CounterAttack Golden Fleece armor]], you will truly appreciate it.
* The Reaper of Souls expansion to ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'' takes this and runs with it. Each difficulty level exponentially increases the health and damage of enemies, leading to some [[https://us.battle.net/d3/en/game/guide/gameplay/game-difficulty large numbers]]. Additionally, more monsters are spawned per difficulty level. [[HardModePerks On the plus side]], the rate at which Legendary items drop from enemies will increase as you go up the difficulty levels.
** For reference, the hardest difficulty as of writing, Torment XVI, boosts enemies up to having over '''''16 million percent''''' as much health as normal. Hope you've got the best gear in the game!

* The ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'' games which have difficulty options feature this, where enemies will simply deal more damage and have more health, and your weapons earn less XP per kill. Starting with ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankIntoTheNexus Into the Nexus]]'', enemies will also run faster, attack faster, and their gun shots will travel more quickly.
** Also occurs from the second game onward in [[NewGamePlus Challenge Mode]], where enemies have even more damage and lots more health, to the point where you can empty entire weapons to no effect and then [[CurbStompBattle get killed in one hit]]. To keep up you have to buy Mega versions of your old weapons and buy the best armour in the game (both of which are super-expensive, however the Bolt Multiplier makes up for it).

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* ''VideoGame/GunstarHeroes'' had a mix. You take more damage and bosses take less, but the enemies are also more aggressive. The end result is that the homing laser that plows through enemies on Normal isn't the most effective choice on Expert.
** The [[GameBreaker Homing Laser]] deals ScratchDamage on Hard and higher. [[WrestlerInAllOfUs Learn how to throw]] and learn how to aim if you want to get past the first stage.

* All ''VideoGame/SimCity'' games have starting money ranked in three difficulty levels. ''Sim City 4 Rush Hour'', for example, has Easy with $500,000, Medium with $100,000, and Hard with $50,000 that must be paid back within 5 years.
** Averted in 2000 and later. You do start with less money, but there are other changes as well. In Sim City 2000 on Easy, for example, Sim Nation's economy is constantly booming.
* ''VideoGame/WingCommander Prophecy'' basically fell into this trap: enemies have either reduced or enhanced statistics. Having said that, it's a Flight Sim, so enemies that shoot, turn and zoom at 120% of normal is more of a big deal.
** Enemies also make heavier use of missiles at higher levels. Every ship has a limited number of decoys available to distract guided missiles. At low level's there are always enough decoys, but with so many missles coming in at the highest levels decoys start to be something you need to conserve.

* ''[[{{VideoGame/XCOM}} X-COM]]'' enemies get higher stats on higher difficulty levels. Higher firing accuracy, time units, and Reaction add up to more ambushes. The lowest difficulty also halves armour, but all other difficulties use the same armour stat.
** ...At least in theory. ''[[VideoGame/XCOMUFODefense UFO Defense]]'' has a bug where even if you pick Superhuman (the highest difficulty level), as soon as you save your game or load a save, you're suddenly playing on Beginner (the lowest). Both devs and fans went completely unaware of the bug for a long time, so when the devs received complaints that Superhuman difficulty was too easy, they essentially reversed the issue by scaling ''[[VideoGame/XCOMTerrorFromTheDeep Terror From The Deep]]''[='=]s Beginning difficulty to the original's Superhuman. Incidentally, this allows one who is aware of the difficulty-reset bug to essentially play a [[HarderThanHard double-Superhuman]] mode in ''TFTD'', which is exactly as terrifying as it sounds. They finally got it right in ''[[VideoGame/XCOMApocalypse Apocalypse]]'' and ''Interceptor'', but ''Interceptor'''s difficulty only affects three things: how long it takes to kill the alien craft (their armor and shields are boosted, essentially), how susceptible your pilots are to mind-control (they get penalized at higher difficulty levels), and how quickly the aliens expand (at higher difficulty levels, you'll encounter alien bases all over the place, whereas at lower levels, you'll be able to keep the map clean of bases with little difficulty).

* ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'', and almost all Creator/NipponIchi games, have the option to increase enemy levels, which does so using NumericalHard math. [[OhCrap Logarithmically.]] In some ''Disgaea'' games, there are even special bonus maps that increase the difficulty even further — the Land of Carnage Item World, for example, gives everything found inside a ''1000% boost''.
** Made crueler in ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 3|AbsenceOfJustice}}'' by giving enemies an increase to their stats based on how many levels they'd be gaining in excess of 9999.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', while certain special missions will apply various restrictions to ramp up the challenge, normal missions can really only modulate the difficulty by adjusting enemy composition and levels.
** The new ''Steel Path'' option increases the base level of the Star Chart nodes by 100, and give enemies a 250% Armor, Shield and Health modifier. In exchange, you get 100% higher chance for resource and mod drops.

* Hard mode lvl 1 cap for two of the [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia more]] [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin recent]] ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games definitely counts: [[DemonicSpider die in two hits]] from [[GoddamnedBats bats]]? Check. Game gets easier as you get farther in? Check.
* In ''VideoGame/MetroidZeroMission'' hard mode not only increases the damage enemies do, but also halves the amount of energy and missiles you get from expansions.
* ''VideoGame/MetroidSamusReturns'' merely doubles the damage enemies inflict in Hard mode, and more than that on Fusion mode, but their AI remains the same. [[NintendoHard Not like the game is particularly easy on Normal...]]
* ''VideoGame/MetroidDread'' has a similar Hard Mode to ''Samus Returns''. The easier Rookie mode is slightly more sophisticated, increasing recovery effects and lowering the damage of bosses only.

* The ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'' has Normal, Veteran, and Hypermode for its difficulties where the harder difficulties just increase damage taken by enemies. The first two ''Prime'' games before the trilogy gotten an UpdatedRerelease had only Normal and Hard.

As usual, TropesAreTools. It may seem lazy to have harder modes only change numbers around, but by only having the numbers change, it ensures that the game is accessible to less skilled players in that the play experience is uniform regardless of difficulty, and won't result in [[EasyModeMockery hard mode content being locked out]] -- in this case, new enemies, attacks, boss phases, et cetera. Inversely, it may result in a problem in that it doesn't actually make the game any harder; for example, if enemies have more health, they might just take longer to kill. In fact, trying to completely avert this trope can lead to the game being too easy even on the highest difficulty. Enemies become smarter and gain new abilities, but don't deal enough damage and die too fast for it to make the game more difficult.

As usual, TropesAreTools. It may seem lazy to have harder modes only change numbers around, but by only having the numbers change, it ensures that the game is accessible to less skilled players in that the play experience is uniform regardless of difficulty, and won't result in [[EasyModeMockery hard mode content being locked out]] -- in this case, new enemies, attacks, boss phases, et cetera. Inversely, it may result in a problem in that it doesn't actually make the game any harder; for example, if enemies have more health, they might just take longer to kill.

* ''VideoGame/GhostRecon: Future Soldier''[='=]s higher difficulties essentially do little more than apply a few different multipliers. The amount of damage a player can take before being incapacitated or dying is reduced as the difficulty increases, as is the number of times a player will be incapped before straight-up dying (from about 5 times on Recruit to essentially none on Elite). Conversely, bonus points added to the team's Ghost score at the end of a level will also be increased with higher difficulties (50 for Recruit, 75 for Veteran and 100 for Elite).

* ''VideoGame/AssaultShell''[='=]s Light mode is a 1-loop mode compared to Single, and is meant to be an easier version of Single. However the only things changed are that your [[LimitBreak Stands]] have ''shorter'' duration and that the [[EveryTenThousandPoints point thresholds for extra lives]] are smaller.

* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline'' plays this straight on Hard and Very Hard modes, giving monsters absurd amounts of HP, damage and elemental resistances, but retaining everything else except the items dropped. Ultimate mode averts this, however, by replacing most monsters with similar versions that might move faster, cast different spells, cause status ailments, or a number of other things.

* The difficulty levels in ''VideoGame/Persona5'' mostly just raise/lower the money and experience received from battle, as well as the damage you take. [[EasierThanEasy Safety]] triples experience and ''quintuples'' money, while also preventing you from changing the difficulty for the rest of the playthrough. The free DLC [[HarderThanHard Merciless]] mode also triples CriticalHit and weakness damage for both you and the enemy, making elemental weaknesses a lot more punishable.

* While ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' includes the standard changes, the commentary for episode 1 notes that the time the player has to socket energy balls is altered based on difficulty (among other things).

DifficultyLevels that merely change some statistics of the player/enemy. This sometimes runs into the issue that it doesn't actually make the game any harder; for example if enemies have more health, they might just take longer to kill. [[HardModePerks Some games also increase the rewards you receive]], which in games with ExperiencePoints can sometimes result in [[NonIndicativeDifficulty Hard Difficulties]] becoming substantially ''easier'' once you get past the [[EarlyGameHell hellish first areas]].

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' series, the difficulty level affects population growth and production output. On easier difficulties, the computer gets a penalty, while on harder difficulties it gets a bonus.

* The "Crazy" difficulty setting of ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCurseOfDarkness'' drastically decreases the amount of damage enemies can deal and sustain. Due to the game's movement and defense mechanics, this actually doesn't make the game any harder. It (along with other factors) just makes it take much, much longer.

* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' introduced selectable difficulty levels in ''II,'' which have been a series staple since, and generally their changes on gameplay are purely stat-based. Beginner makes you deal more damage and take less, and Proud is the opposite. Critcal downplays this - enemies are stronger, and you take more damage in addition to having lower overall health, but it also tends to give [[HardModePerks unique abilities or rewards]] that can significantly change how a player handles combat.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Boktai}} Lunar Knights]]'' has this as well with its difficulty settings. Enemy levels (which determine stats and damage tolerances) will increase on higher difficulty levels (Normal < Hard < [[HarderThanHard Nightmare]]) by a percentage rather than a number. It doesn't seem like much at first, but everything inside the gates of New Culiacan onward is ''[[{{Cap}} level 99]]''! Beforehand, [[MagikarpPower Aaron]] states that he's going to protect Lucian during your trip through the city streets. If you chose to neglect the gunslinger and don't have anything resembling guarding skill, grinding is your only solution, as the damage from a [=Lv99=] Hot Dog in EF weather is murder (And that's as weak as Flame attacks get, and you run into one in the first block to boot!).

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'''s adventure mode has a lot of this on the harder difficulty levels, with the vast majority of changes being purely statistical (enemies health goes up, more knockback, enemies flinch less, enemies attack faster and some rather odd ones such as trackballs losing energy faster, scrolling areas scrolling faster and keys breaking easier).

* Easy Mode and Challenge Mode in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2'' fall into this for regular trainers, merely change the opposing Pokemon's levels in most cases. Gym Leaders and the Elite Four avert this: each gets one Pokemon added to their team, re-done movesets and, in the case of the Elite Four, better held items.

* For most of ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'''s development history, the only thing that changed between the 3 non-[[EasierThanEasy Peaceful]] difficulty levels was the amount of damage hostile monsters do. Mojang is slowly adding actual differences between the levels in new patches, though -- for an obvious example, zombies will ''try'' to break through wooden doors on all difficulties, but only on Hard will they succeed.

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' averts this: The changes made depend on the pattern, and are often more insidious than simple density/speed increases. Seeing patterns completely change or get added isn't uncommon either. Recurring spellcards and non-spellcard attacks do have this property but the incremented 'numbers' include aim angles, stream counts, spread arcs, firing rates and sometimes even ''size multipliers''. One of the most common surprises is when you see a spellcard used by the ''stage 1 midboss''.

* The ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' series does this, but for an absolutely staggering number of variables--enemy agility, weapon/afterburner recharge rates for players and enemies, delays between AI actions, AI firing rates, even the number of targets a warship can engage at one time. The result is that the difference between different DifficultyLevels is ''very'' dramatic.

* ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'', and almost all Creator/NipponIchi games, have the option to increase enemy levels, which does so using NumericalHard math. [[OhCrap Logarithmically]]. In some Disgaea games, there are even special bonus maps that increase the difficulty even further -- the Land of Carnage Item World, for example, gives everything found inside a ''1000% boost''.

* While hard mode for the entire ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series generally averts this [[note]]7's Hector mode alone includes goodies like smarter enemy placements such as flying enemies on a map bisected by a river, reinforcements from behind you and a few bosses will now ''move''[[/note]], the Easy modes in ''Fire Emblem'' games (2, 5 and the non-Japan versions of 9) use it, giving the player extra experience points. It also applies to 11's hard mode, which buffs enemy stats.

* Whereas older ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' games that had difficulty options would just give the player a few extra weapons on easier settings, parts 4 and 5 multiply the damage you take without changing much else. The hardest difficulty in part 5 practically makes you a OneHitPointWonder, since "dying" status runs out far too quickly for your partner to be able help you or vice versa.