Hello!
I picked up my first copy of an OOTP game a few months ago ('24) and recently picked up the 2025 version. Today is also the first day I'm posting here in the forums, so I wanted to say hello and that it is nice to meet you all. I'm a big fan of the game already and look forward to playing it for a long time. Ok. Enough of my life story here lol.
The topic: I was curious about how you all personally feel towards challenge in these games. Do you enjoy turning trade difficulty up or playing in challenge mode? Is it more fun for you to play with lower difficulty because it's fun to stomp all over the competition? Do you like a mix of higher/lower difficulty?
It seems to me that playing with lower difficulty and wrecking the league would be cathartic? I know it was in my first playthrough in '24 when I won the WS in my first full playthrough as the Angels. I played with challenge mode off and the trade difficulty exactly in the middle. Being able to say "See Perry Minasian! It's not that hard, is it?" (completely joking), was extremely fun.
Cranking up the difficulty I think changes how I think about the game. It seems to lower the margin of error and forces me to engage with some of the game systems that I glossed over as I learned the game in that Angels playthrough. But I could see myself potentially viewing higher difficulties as exceeding my threshold for nuance in a gaming session, turning my viewpoint of the process into tedium.
I'm curious what you all like to do in this respect. Cheers
