When a videogame is imbalanced towards one option being the most effective gameplay-wise...

>youre not exactly having fun when youre holding back
Speak for yourself.

>youre not exactly having fun when youre holding back
50% agree, 50% disagree. Like the other user said you can still have fun playing with certain handicaps (as long as you're not restricting yourself from fun content and it forces you to use your brain) but it'd be much better if the game was hard / balanced enough that it forced you to use all of its tools.

it's the dev's fault. if they want to include an easy mode, it should be on the character select screen, not given to you out of a treasure chest.

Fun is LITERALLY subjective, if you and I feel better with a challenging game I can sure you that tens of thousands will find an easier game more alluring.

just stop trying to impose your definition of fun over the others, Normalfags did that and look what a dumpster fire the industry has become.

Kind of this. It's mainly the dev's fault because ideally I should be able to find my best strategy without it making the game too hard. Granted I can just not use that thing but it can be annoying if it's worked into the game itself.

>stop trying to impose your definition of fun over the others
I'm not trying to do that, of course others will prefer easier games. Subjectivity is implied.

Then again, having the easy option available to you at any point during a game and having to ignore it in order to add difficulty to your playthrough sucks. If you're not in it for the challenge then it's best to have a difficulty option available at character select like says or make it require patience to access easy mode in-game (such as grinding in JRPGs to beat fights easily and with no skill required).

This way, everyone can beat the game, but players who are not as good will take somewhat longer to complete it. It's all about the rewarding feeling that comes with effort, whether this effort is getting gud or grinding up your character so you can beat it without fancy tactics.

But if I like to use busted stuff without the necessity of changing the difficulty? How does that affect you, unless is an MP game which are cancer mostly why would you be bottered if people find some busted item/build and breeze all over it? How does that affect your enjoyment of the game?

That right there is why I'm saying that stop imposing your definition of fun.

The game's at fault, always. BotW would be an infinitely better game if there was a hunger meter; you'd suffer no negative penalties from being hungry, and you're never forced to eat, but you can only eat a certain amount of food in a short amount of time, and it's decreased by running around, fighting, etc. This means the player can't just wolf down a hundred berries and fill their life. If you combined this with a better cooking system that requires several ingredients to create the best food, you'd have players thinking about the system and not just cooking a hundred low quality items. Combine that with requiring Link to have an eating animation and you've got a way better system than they have currently, which is to just pause literally any time Link takes damage and fully heal.

>When a videogame is imbalanced towards one option being the most effective gameplay-wise
competitive game it's bad, single player game who cares. if you don't have the impulse control to just use what you want in an RPG I feel bad for you.

If a game has good enough replayability then players will eventually get bored if using that one thing. Take Super Mario, for example. People will eventually stop using warps and will actually play the harder levels.

This. It's not the player's job to balance the game. When you give yourself a handicap because the designers made an oversight, you're essentially doing their job.

With that said, you're robbing yourself of a better experience when cheesing a game. Even if I don't judge people for doing it, I feel it's a bit sad.