for loop is skipping to the end? [closed]

Answer 1

The problem is the semicolon at the end of the second line. It's valid to have a for loop with no body. It's also valid to have standalone a block of code inside brackets (this defines a scope for variables--if you defined a variable inside the brackets, it wouldn't be available outside). So Java is interpreting the beginning of your code like this:

for(i = 0; i <= (difficulty - 2); i++); // for loop is done, so i = difficulty - 2

{
    System.out.println(i);
    ...