I was one and went the complete opposite direction. I don't like most rogue-likes or games that are difficult just to be difficult. I don't get that "wow, I bashed my head against it 70 times and this feels rewarding!" feeling. I just get annoyance and a feeling of wasted time.
Same. If I spend that much time on a game, I want to be holding Thunderfuck McStabn'slash, the legendary sword that explodes enemies I look at, rather than "oh cool I can now bash my head against a wall with a slightly different character."
Like one of my first risk of rain runs went 2 hours and I'm like oh man I'm gonna unlock so much shit. I did not.
I don't really like rogues (because you pretty much have to redo everything again), but I do usually play games with the difficulty settings all the way up (not on "ironman" though). Being able to retry from a recent save isn't too frustrating, and you can finish many games without even learning or using various mechanics if you don't use the highest difficulty.
The problem is that this doesn't take a away the memorization requirement and I just don't have the time for that. Also having to walk to the boss and grind through all the minions in-between was also very annoying.
that's fair, i think i enjoyed Elden Ring the most of all soulslikes because if you can't be asked to memorise a specific boss you can just go somewhere and come back strong enough to two hit the one that gave you trouble
I've had a successful Ironman run on Commander difficulty in XCOM 2 (WOTC), but Legendary Ironman continues to elude me. I usually get back into it once or twice each year and try again. Maybe one of these days!
You might like Last Train Home. Every soldier loss is permanent and there's only so many you can find/rescue.
Based on true events, which is the most insane part. It's kinda like frostpunk and an RTS game mixed together, which is very satisfying. Souls-like difficulty.