History Main / NumericalHard

* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' has this to balance it out for multiplayer mode. ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2 358/2 Days]]'' gives us Mission Mode, while ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep Birth By Sleep]]'' has the local grind station, the Mirage Arena. Both tend to be a pain in the ass because there is no way to ''un''balance them for single-player gameplay ''and'' [[ScrappyMechanic you don't get to pause the game]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'''s Master Mode, added in the Journey's End update, surpasses the previous highest difficulty of Expert by giving all enemies and bosses increased HP, damage, and knockback resistance, while also making players drop more money on death and suffer increased debuff times; however, players will also get increased defense effectiveness and an extra accessory slot. What makes it solidly land in this is that unlike the Normal-to-Expert transition, which featured many mechanical game changes, there are virtually no changes that aren't adjusted numbers.

* In ''Slave Zero'', enemies and bosses receive additional health on hard difficulty. This is UnwinnableByMistake, since you will run out of ammo on the final boss fight if you just pick the "best" weapons - the change in health causes the boss to have more hitpoints than available ammo, unless you manually picked up the cluster rocket a few stages back.

* 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.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has the same slider from ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'', but introduces a wrinkle not present in the Elder Scrolls games. The higher the difficulty set in that game, the more XP granted for killing enemies. This makes the early game somewhat easier with a high difficulty slider (as most enemies are pathetic even with damage bonuses), but that advantage quickly vanishes thanks to the tiny level cap.

* Difficulty modes in the ''VideoGame/KisekiSeries'' usually apply a flat multiplier to all enemy stats. Since these are games where a tiny change in Strength and Defence can be the difference between a massive hit and ScratchDamage, the higher difficulties can be ''very'' NintendoHard, and Nightmare Mode is specifically stated to be designed for NewGamePlus runs. Doesn't stop people playing fresh new games on Nightmare as a SelfImposedChallenge, though the ''Cold Steel'' series makes Nightmare more balanced for first playthroughs.

** Much of ''VideoGame/RedAert3'''s Challenge mode difficulty can be summed up as "insufficient funds". The enemy often starts out with a base as well while you have to build yours from the ground up and shows no compunction about sending attack waves when you've barely got your worker units up and running.

* While the difference is hardly noticeable amidst the other things that happen to the AI in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'' and ''Zero Hour'', The AI gets bonuses and the player gets debuffs in the range of between 80 and 120% in terms of health.
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': The main difference in the enemy AI's difficulty setting in multiplayer is the gold collection rate: Easy only gets 5 per WorkerUnit, Normal gets 10 (like you), and Insane gets 20, allowing them to get armies together faster. However, they don't play any different, so a well-played rush can still take them out.

* ''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''.

* ''Swords of Xeen'', a MissionPackSequel set between ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' games 5 and 6. Same engine as [=MM5=], much bigger maps tightly packed with strongest enemies and an ExcusePlot.

* All three ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' games' hard modes simply multiply enemies' health and damage.

* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow'''s Hard Mode tries to change this up by adding some extra attributes to certain enemies on top of the stat boosts (for example, zombies - one of the very first enemies you encounter, can now poison you on contact, and all Medusa Heads are of the DemonicSpider petrification variety.)
* In the Wiiware version of ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', enemy attacks in Easy Mode do only half the damage they do in Normal. And Hard Mode is Normal Mode, with all (but one) of the {{Heart Container}}s removed--making you a OneHitpointWonder in many of the levels.

* The "Crazy" difficulty setting of ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCurseOfDarkness'' drastically decreases the amount of damage you 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.

Common in DynamicDifficulty systems, because it scales easily and can handle incremental increases.

* 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.
** Chaos mode is the worst. Going from easy to normal to hard might have you deal with tougher enemies or have to do more to get or keep an advantage. Chaos mode, on the other hand, is exactly the same as hard, except you have No defense. Even at max stats, you're gonna have a hard time on levels you could curbstomp on any other difficulty.
*** 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 ones) and often require deft senses and/or unconventional exploits to often take down.

* Tanks in ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' have 4000, 5000, 6000 or 8000 HP, depending on the difficulty level. It and all the other Infected types also gradually deal more damage (usually starting around 10 damage per hit on Easy, either doubling once each for the higher two difficulties or increasing by 5 per difficulty) and take less from the players' weapons (only 75% damage on Hard and 50% on Expert) as the difficulty increases. Friendly fire damage is also increased, going from none, to 10%, to 50%, to full damage.

* Difficulty modes in the ''VideoGame/KisekiSeries'' usually apply a flat multiplier to all enemy stats. Since these are games where a tiny change in Strength and Defence can be the difference between a massive hit and ScratchDamage, the higher difficulties can be ''very'' NintendoHard, and Nightmare Mode is specifically stated to be designed for NewGamePlus runs. Doesn't stop people playing fresh new games on Nightmare as a SelfImposedChallenge.

* In ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'', ''NewGamePlus'' enemies have more HP and hit harder. This is averted in ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'', which adds new enemies and encounters in NG+, but not in ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII''.

*** So far, ''Dynasty Warriors 4: Xtreme Legends'' both averts and plays into this; Expert Mode AI officers hit quite hard, but have notably improved AI (especially the playable ones) and often require deft senses and/or unconventional exploits to often take down.

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. 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]].

* ''VideoGame/PopNMusic'' has lifebar difficulties, all of which simply change the penalties for missing notes: the Easy meter reduces it, the Hard meter (HELL in games that have ''ojama'') doubles it, the もっとHELL meter (More HELL) (no longer available from the 22nd game version onwards) ''quadruples'' it, and the Danger meter (DEATH in games that have ''ojama'') sends you straight to 0 on a miss[[note]]This is ''not'' OneHitPointWonder; as long as the player doesn't miss too many notes in a row to be considered idling, they can drop to 0 meter and still clear as long as they climb back up to 80%[[/note]].

* Both played straight and averted in ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations'': while the harder AIs do get numerical handouts in the form of free research, money and production (and vice versa, get penalties on lower ones), lower difficulties also deliberately hamstring the AIs decision-making routines to make them easier to outmanoeuvre. The AI opponents will [[YouSuck make it a point]] to mention in diplomatic chats if you're beating them by using strategies they recognize and are programmed to respond to, but whose responses are disabled in lower difficulties (such as massing troop transports near their planets just outside of the borders in preparation for war but without declaring it until you're ready. Full AIs will immediately start ramping up their defenses and/or declare war pre-emptively. Easy AIs will just sit there. And taunt your ass).