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[itisnotlogical]

I really wish there were more games that did that (I would've used Perfect Dark in my example, natch, but Goldeneye is pretty much the same game with worse graphics). Your reward for being better at the game is being allowed to play more of it, not intangible "achievements" or in-game collectibles that don't mean anything outside of that game.

In PD in particular, there's one level (possibly more?) where playing on the highest difficulty completely changes your starting position and weapons, which makes the mission a lot more dangerous due to the snipers (which are practically aimbots on the highest difficulty).

[Niveras]

I liked how the harder difficulties in Goldeneye would add more objectives ON TOP of more/harder enemeis.

I think the old Tie Fighter space sim games did something similar too.

[Lightningfalcon]

I like how Silent Hunter, especially 3 does it. 
Difficulty is set in two different ways.  Realism and year.  Realism ranges from 0% to 100%, and is increased by turning on things like manuel targeting, realistic repairs, and limited oxygen.  This changes your abilities, and can transform you from riding around at full looking at the map as it changes real time, and firing on ships by just placing the periscope on it, to carefully monitoring fuel/oxygen/CO2 levels, manuelly plotting course corrections and map updates, and needing to manually target your torpedoes. 
Selecting the year is rather important as well.  Sure, in 1939 you're going to be using rather simple subs, and there's only a few upgrade options, but the allies haven't gotten their shit together and as such there are ships everywhere for easy pickings.  In 1945, however, you got a plethora of advanced upgrades AND some awesome subs.  However, you need every bit of that to just get anywhere near a firing position, and good luck escaping from the highly trained sub chasers and hunter-killer groups that'll be on you instantly. 

[kaenneth]

Hrm. This gets me thinking... how would a survival horror in a tank work?

I think it could work... if you did it really well. Somehow. Maybe bring it down to "survival horror in a car".

Organ Trail isn't terrible

[Squill]

I really wish there were more games that did that (I would've used Perfect Dark in my example, natch, but Goldeneye is pretty much the same game with worse graphics). Your reward for being better at the game is being allowed to play more of it, not intangible "achievements" or in-game collectibles that don't mean anything outside of that game.

In PD in particular, there's one level (possibly more?) where playing on the highest difficulty completely changes your starting position and weapons, which makes the mission a lot more dangerous due to the snipers (which are practically aimbots on the highest difficulty).

While I do like it when harder difficulties do more, I like certain achievements, mostly ones for doing a single thing than stupid repetitive things. The best example in my opinion is the "Sob Story" achievement for Left 4 Dead 2.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Thief games had great difficulty, they'd add objectives (more cool loot to steal) and increase the amount of generic loot you had to steal. I quite liked the mausoleum level in the first one where on expert difficulty you had to break in to a few extra vaults that you'd have no reason to get into if playing on normal. And those were pretty niftily hidden/locked/trapped vaults.

I liked how Soldier of Fortune handled difficulty. In addition to the usual easy/normal/hard/hella-hard, it had custom. You could customize all sorts of things from enemy alertness, spawn rates, damage and health. That's the kind of system I've wanted more games to have. Like in Halo where on harder difficulties more numerous and varied enemies will spawn, but they are also more resilient and inflict lots more damage. Sometimes I would just like to get the same ridiculous number of enemies while having the ease of killing that normal mode allows. But alas.

[Virex]

A big pet peeve of mine is games that lock off parts of the level or omit objectives at lower difficulty levels. It makes me feel like the makers are trying to make the game seem longer then it is by forcing me to (re)play it on a difficulty level that I can't handle all that well to get everything the game has to offer.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I started out complaining about players who have opposite but equally legitimate demands on the game designer. But then I started coming up with ideas to reconcile them:

Example: I want extra objectives on hard mode, vs. I was access to all the content on easy mode.
My answer would be to allow access to everything on easy mode, but don't give any markers or objective requirements for it unless you're on hard mode. Or, include optional hard content, and the player can tackle it if he wants or pass it by ... completionists must man up and strive if they want that glorious 100% (not through tedious pixel-hunting but by overcoming difficult challenges).

Example: I want customization that lets me improve the character, vs. I want easy character management without sacrificing power.
My answer would be to include customization, but have 2-3 auto-choose buttons that end up giving you a well-rounded but not less powerful character. Such as, you could have 3 points if you customize (max skill 3 in one place) but if you choose the pre-gen you get 6 points spread around but with only 2 points in that one skill you wanted. So if you wanna min-max (and the game should discourage that by including challenges of all types), you gotta go custom. But you'll still be able to succeed (and against a greater variety of challenges) if you do the pre-gen.

[scrdest]

I started out complaining about players who have opposite but equally legitimate demands on the game designer.

Fandom, any fandom at all, is, broadly speaking, scourge of the earth.

If you change anything, you will hear complaints about the change, no matter if it will turn out to be beneficial, and if you don't, you will be shouted at for tolerating something that needs to be changed. I know I will come across as pessimistic at best and whiny at worst, but even if you did reconcile the two sides, there still will be some assholes complaining about it because it's not, in this case, rewarding enough or sophisticated enough.

So, if you find an issue that boils down to a design decision between two equally valid alternatives, pick whatever is your heart's desire and ignore the voices that inevitably will criticize it for not being the opposite.

[Darkmere]

It honestly doesn't matter what designers do, at all. I've seen people who will just make stuff up to complain about. The two worst ones are hating a game (or movie, or whatever) because of something demonstrably proven false IN said game.... or decided that since a game doesn't have X feature it is bad, simply for not being psychic and tailored to the complaining user's imagination.

[scrdest]

It honestly doesn't matter what designers do, at all. I've seen people who will just make stuff up to complain about. The two worst ones are hating a game (or movie, or whatever) because of something demonstrably proven false IN said game.... or decided that since a game doesn't have X feature it is bad, simply for not being psychic and tailored to the complaining user's imagination.

There are also the Internet Precogs, who can and will predict how any chosen feature will make the product in question ruined FOREVER. Said feature, in accordance to the above post, might or might not in fact exist.

[itisnotlogical]

One thing that kinda peeves me is when a game doesn't go back to the title screen after "THE END" appears. It just feels weird turning the game off on the ending screen.

[hops]

One thing that kinda peeves me is when a game doesn't go back to the title screen after "THE END" appears. It just feels weird turning the game off on the ending screen.

Commercial games like this exist?

I thought it was an unspoken law.

[USEC_OFFICER]

One thing that kinda peeves me is when a game doesn't go back to the title screen after "THE END" appears. It just feels weird turning the game off on the ending screen.

Commercial games like this exist?

I thought it was an unspoken law.

I think that only games on the older consoles did things like that. I'm pretty sure that most of the sprite-based Final Fantasies did it, and a bunch of other games on the NES/SNES too.

[timferius]

Sandbox/open world games that allow you to keep playing after the final mission, but reverts you right before the final mission. I want to see the reprecussions of my actions on the world! Instead you get in a kind of groundhog day trap.