Well, if I manage to play through 90% of the game and then get stuck I am not going to play the whole thing again on a lower difficulty level ^^

To answer the OP, if I can't get past something in a game after 4-5 tries, then it stops being fun and I go straight for the cheat. I don't want it hard, I want it easy, I'm there to have fun not to get cross. LOL Actually, that 4-5 might be a little higher or lower depending on the game.

There's also cheating for rare drops. For example:
* In Wizardry, I've found that items don't drop often enough, particularly taking into account of the game's length and balance. So, one idea is to cheat so that the store has every item in stock. (Would still need to get the money to buy the items, and that Muramasa costs a million.)
* In Dragon Quest 5 (and, to a lesser extent 6), there are some interesting monsters to use that are unfortunately hard to recruit, like the great dragon with its breath attacks. By cheating, I can use the monsters that I want to use, making the game more fun. (Balance can still be a consideration: I note that that one lamp demon monster in DQ6 is powerful enough to break the game once recruited. With that said, I think this would have been better served as a possible reward for the post-game superboss rather than as a rare random recruitment.)

Agreed. Typically, I'd only cheat if I thought the game was being unfair or if I felt that to not cheat (e.g. to replay 90% of the game) wouldn't be a good use of my time.

As I have a job and a social life, I don't have infinite time to spend playing games, so unless they respect my time, I won't respect them. Plus, I want to experience the full story of the game.

Cheating for drops is why I want every JRPG to have a DRM-free PC release. I hate "farming", especially for things with super low drop rates.

I'd also prefer it if the games wouldn't use rare drops in the first place.

For example, Dragon Quest 3, in its original version, has some items only available via rare drops, but that's not a problem in Dragon Quest 4. (Also largely a non-issue in the DQ3 remake, with there being other ways to get those items plus one class that drastically increases drop rates.) Unfortunately, then there's the monster catching mechanic in DQ5, which is functionally equivalent to an item with a low drop rate, except it becomes a party member once "dropped".

I recall the Marathon Trilogy had a feature that actually made the hardest difficulty easier than the second-hardest. It greatly encouraged you to play on it. What it did was simple: Remove the limits on stored ammo.
Marathon was a FPS, made by the same guys as Halo, and Halo is the spiritual successor.
One interesting feature was that the hardest difficulty disabled all ammo limits for extra clips. Well, technically there was still a limit (32,767), but you couldn't normally reach it without cheating.
This allowed you to stockpile ammo by using your fists on the early weak enemies, and load up on the more powerful weapons with severe ammo restrictions like the rocket launcher. Then in the areas where ammo starvation kicked in, you didn't have to use your fists on the mid-tier enemies.
Also it allowed you to accumulate enough rockets to use the rocket launcher on the more difficult levels, instead of being limited to 8 shots. Ditto for the other good weapons that seemingly unnecessarily restricted your ammo like the flame thrower and Marathon Infinity's fletchette gun (the only weapon you could use underwater besides your fists).

Most games whose idea of "hard mode" is to simply make the enemies do maximum damage while always making their saves while you do minimum damage and never make your saves are ones where I never play on Hard Mode.


Another thing is that some games have excessive grinding even in normal mode, and I have no qualms about just cheating in some XP and currency to save time. Also games with rare drops where you depend on the RNG I just cheat in what I want instead of wasting hours doing things like hoping for that pink tail from FFIIUS/FFIVJ.
I hate RNG mechanics like that where you waste hours because of luck. Half the time those videos CLAIM they are doing it on the hardest difficulty, but if you look carefully you can tell that it's actually on the normal difficulty

There's other instances of this sort of thing, some of which are cases of difficulty inversion:
* In Wizardry 6 or 7, the hardest difficulty makes it so that you fight two of unique enemies (like bosses), giving you more XP, so you level up faster.
* Paper Sorcerer gives you more XP on the harder difficulties.
* In Hodj 'n Podj, one of the minigames is a pac-man clone. At higher difficulties, the game runs faster and you get more points. Thing is, earning points gives you extra lives, so you get more extra lives on harder difficulties.
* There's instances in the Touhou series where certain spell cards might be easier on harder difficulties. For example, Icicle Fall is harder on normal difficulty than the spell card that replaces it on hard. (Worth noting that this spell card is notorious for being trivial on easy, as there's a safe spot right in front of the boss where you can attack and not be at risk of being hit by the boss's attacks, no dodging required; this safe spot is gone on normal.)
* While it doesn't make up for the other effects of increased difficulty, in Civilization 2 there's a chance that you'll start with 2 settlers instead of only 1. This is more likely on harder difficulties, or if the game decides your starting position is less than favorable; on the hardest difficulty, this is *guaranteed* to happen.
* From what I've read, Shining Force 2's hardest difficulty actually gives enemies the same stats as its lowest difficulty, putting them below what they'd be on the middle two difficulties. The difference, here, is the AI, which is apparently much more challenging to deal with on the hardest difficulty.

FF4's pink tail isn't that important; all it gets you is an overpowered suit of armor. You can ignore it and not really miss out on anything.

On the other hand, FF4 3D's rainbow pudding is considerably more annoying; it's a rare drop that's needed to progress a sidequest past a certain point around midway through it, and I believe it's the sidequest that leads to the No Encounter ability (or whatever it's called).

I'm thinking that, for classic Wizardry games (and other games in that style with similar item drop handling), I may just start hacking the shop to carry every item, so I don't need to rely on RNG giving me what I want (and also making money relevant past the early games).

I actually did that in Bard's Tale II.
I found out from a magazine article that there were two versions of the Apple IIGS version of Bard's Tale. The GS/OS version and the ProDOS 8 version.
You'd think the GS/OS version would be the better one, but arguably the P8 version was better.
The GS/OS version did not allow you to transfer your characters from Bard's Tale I to Bard's Tale II.
Guess which version I had in the pre-internet era?

Anyways, I found it frustrating to have to start over with my party from scratch, and I really missed the Mage Staff. However, I figured out how to hex edit the store, and just gave it a hundred of everything.
Then I went and purchased my end-game equipment because money was easy to come by in BTII (I later realized Rosco's Energy Emporium was supposed to be a gold sink with his high fees, but I'd recharge my mages in the sun while doing my homework and save tons of gold I eventually had little use for. Yes, occasionally I had to pay the temple for healing but I'd wind up with millions in the bank because I wasn't spending my gold at Rosco's).


Back on the topic, most games where you get random loot and some of it might not be useful, such as the Icewind Dale games where you might randomly get a magic longsword, dagger, or halberd, and none of your characters have halberd proficiency, or you already have a better halberd but need a magic sword so your thief can damage things, I have no qualms about just cheating in what I wanted.
The same for stores with random inventory. I cheat for saving time instead of grinding. As a kid I didn't mind as much, but I have limited gaming time these days and I can't waste hours on boring grinding.

I actually haven't been able to locate the GS/OS version of BT2, whereas I have played the ProDOS version (which you can obtain by buying the 2004 game and choosing the option to play the classic games within it).

Roscoe's isn't even that expensive, compared to the money you get by selling the items that constantly drop (and unlike in Wizardry, items often drop identified already, plus later on you're guaranteed a high level item every battle).

By the way, if you do this cheat with BT2, you may want to avoid buying the items lower on the list if you actually want to play the game; the segments, in particular, are meant to be obtained by clearing the death snares at the end of each dungeon. If you just buy them, you can skip all dungeons, make a character the Destiny Knight, and fight Lagoth Zanta, skipping the entire game (provided you have an Archmage).

That accurately describes what passes for the starting tutorial in No Man's Sky

The game, via an RNG, ALWAYS starts you on a hazardous class deathworld planet, a random distance and direction away from your crashed starter starship.
Depending on what the RNG does, the planet could be radioactive, toxic biohaz, extreme heat (fry you to a crisp), extreme cold (turn your PC into a corpsicle), or cycling between extreme heat in the day and extreme cold at night.
The tutorial is hardcoded to NEVER start a new game on a planet that is not hostile to you.

You have to go through the tutorial, to learn the controls, whilst racing the clock to gather the necessary supplies to not die, so you can survive long enough to get to your starship, to use it as a temporary grounded base while trying to hunt for the supplies to repair it.
Dying, while trying to learn the basic, essential controls, for what you are supposed to be doing and NEED to do, is exceedingly easy, even on 'normal' difficulty.
To hammer home the unforgiving difficulty, there is actually an in game, not recorded, Achievement for dying 10 times before reaching your crashed starter starship.

That happened to me, playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl for the first time. The Agroprom Underground, where you encounter a Controller for the first time.
The game gives you a cut scene run through on initial entry to the Agroprom aboveground map. Fine.
However, the Controller's attack with its zoom view racing towards the Controller, can fool a newbie into thinking that it's another cutscene.
The Controller's attack force holsters your weapon each time it starts. And different weapons have different times to unholster them. Some take longer than a Controller's attack to unholster, so you won't even be able to bring such a weapon to bear against a Controller.

Cyberpunk 2077's dumb forever-doubling upgrade requirements without a cap. Do you want to upgrade a low level item to max level? Tough luck, eventually you'll need more resources for that one item that you can possibly acquire in one play through.

I shamelessly duped all crafting materials to deal with this nonsense. They created a crafting system and they heavily discourage its use.

I can't believe that Ubisoft did this better in Origins and Odyssey...

While not a difficulty issue, if I feel the game is being sexist mechanically, I will consider cheating (though I haven't actually done so yet).

For example:
* In Elminage Gothic, many of the top-tier pieces of equipment can only be used by male characters for no discernable reason. For example, my female cleric was unable to use the Hekaton Hammer simply because I made her female a long time ago (and the game doesn't have a way to change a character's gender). I remember figuring out how to mod the game, and if I replay the game, I intend to mod the game so that those gender restrictions are gone; I'll probably replace then with the "innocent only" restriction, which prevents class changed characters from equipping them, and which feels more meaningful mechanically.
* In the Gold Box games, female characters have lower strength caps than male characters, and the game doesn't give female characters any advantage to balance that out. For that reason, if I ever get around to playing them, I will have no issue with hacking my stats to give female characters, particularly female fighter-types, the strength scores that are normally reserved for male characters.

Wait, that was supposed to be a tutorial? And it was supposed to be unforgiving? I don't remember dying, I mean, I might've died once or twice, but I didn't think it was hard at all. Either I spawned on a relatively easy planet or I'm too desensitized to the logic of video games that "yeah, gotta survive the harshness of the world, dude" became second nature. Kinda reminds me of Void Bastards where I basically got through a dozen or so levels before I kinda stopped playing because it was a bit too easy. Was Void Bastards supposed to be an easy roguelite or something?

EDIT: I know the first level is supposed to kill you off as a tutorial, it was after that that I never got around to dying once.