Dishonored II

Quote from Sentura

42 minutes ago, Sentura said: There were potential "solutions", but they required me to kill or get spotted, as I wrote above. So yes, maybe it is possible to complete the game with no powers, but in my case I got stuck in an area that I couldn't exit unless I broke my playstyle. A case like that doesn't exactly scream good design.

I finished the game with 100% ghost and 100% pacifist on no power mode. It is designed to be solved that way. You don\t have to like the game, I'm just giving credit where credit is due

Quote from grapen

9 minutes ago, grapen said: I finished the game with 100% ghost and 100% pacifist on no power mode. It is designed to be solved that way.

What i'm referring to is that I got stuck because I choose an initial path that lead me nowhere despite leading to a separate area, then basically closing the door on me once I went in. I get that you did something different, but that's not the point here. The point is getting stuck and having to get out by breaking playstyle in a game that rides on the mantra that every playstyle is possible isn't a situation that should happen. Even in the case that there was one specific solution for this type of playstyle, is almost not enough, because a game like this needs multiple ways to get through areas with multiple playstyles. If you have just one way of getting through with one specific playstyle then it's basically linear gameplay. I get that you experience with the game was positive, but that doesn't mean mine magically gets better with you telling me about it.

But I do have one question: By pacifist, does this mean you didn't perform any nonlethal takedowns whatsoever? I did complete the first few missions with ghost, but I had to do nonlethal takedowns in some situations to avoid getting spotted or use certain paths - again something I would have liked to avoid, but didn't seem possible.

Quote from Sentura

Just now, Sentura said: But I do have one question: By pacifist, does this mean you didn't perform any nonlethal takedowns whatsoever? I did complete the first few missions with ghost, but I had to do nonlethal takedowns in some situations to avoid getting spotted or use certain paths - again something I would have liked to avoid, but didn't seem possible.

No kills at all. Except mosquitoes. Those fuckers doesn't count

Sleep darts and generally just hiding in high up places. There are a lot of ledges and stuff that I imagine most players never even see.

Quote from grapen

17 minutes ago, grapen said: No kills at all. Except mosquitoes. Those fuckers doesn't count

Sleep darts and generally just hiding in high up places. There are a lot of ledges and stuff that I imagine most players never even see.

Right ok, but you had to use sleep darts or knocking people unconscious (as in, nonlethal takedowns) to get through

Quote from Sentura

19 minutes ago, Sentura said: Right ok, but you had to use sleep darts or knocking people unconscious (as in, nonlethal takedowns) to get through

You trying to beat the game without even using darts? I think you'd need some serious OCD and patience to do that lol, but it sounds feasible.

I think you're trying to use a way to play this game that it's not very fun and you're blaming the game for it. The game allows you to do that, but let's be honest even tho I'm sure the game was designed to let you do that, if you're not having fun doing it just play the game differently. I always do this in these kind of games (deusex, dishonored, etc) I start out sneaking then eventually I amassed such a bad-ass arsenal on me it'd be a shame not to use it! xD

Quote from (HP)

1 hour ago, (HP) said: You trying to beat the game without even using darts? I think you'd need some serious OCD and patience to do that lol, but it sounds feasible.

I think you're trying to use a way to play this game that it's not very fun and you're blaming the game for it. The game allows you to do that, but let's be honest even tho I'm sure the game was designed to let you do that, if you're not having fun doing it just play the game differently. I always do this in these kind of games (deusex, dishonored, etc) I start out sneaking then eventually I amassed such a bad-ass arsenal on me it'd be a shame not to use it! xD

I tend to do the same but around mid way through, it changes from 'reload' to 'Kill'em all!'.

Quote from (HP)

1 hour ago, (HP) said: You trying to beat the game without even using darts? I think you'd need some serious OCD and patience to do that lol, but it sounds feasible.

I think you're trying to use a way to play this game that it's not very fun and you're blaming the game for it. The game allows you to do that, but let's be honest even tho I'm sure the game was designed to let you do that, if you're not having fun doing it just play the game differently. I always do this in these kind of games (deusex, dishonored, etc) I start out sneaking then eventually I amassed such a bad-ass arsenal on me it'd be a shame not to use it! xD

EDIT: Accidentally posted too fast.

It's not so much a question of using darts or not using darts, it's more a question of considering nonlethal takedowns to still be too much - because really, what is the difference between killing a NPC or knocking them out in-game? The game might register them differently, but on the whole they're essentially the same type of playstyle.

Ideally a "ghost" playstyle should be not touching any NPCs (unless they are your objective) at any point. As far as I remember, this was possible in DX:HR and in the first Deus Ex. I even remember playing it like this in the newest Splinter Cell. I also remember playing the first Dishonored similarly, albeit with powers - so maybe you do need powers to be able to play like that.

I did cede and started to do nonlethal takedowns though, because I realized they probably took ghost to mean nonlethal takedowns. In the scenario I mentioned, I would have used sleeping darts if I had them available or if I could have found any in the area I was stuck in. I stuck around for a while and explored as much as I could, but there weren't any available and I had none left. In either case though, being forced into a playstyle like this - doesn't it basically break the game's promise of being able to play it your own way?

In Hitman you are a Silent Assassin when you don't get spotted. Doesn't mean not knocking anyone unconscious.

I think it's a fair comparison, and I think it's fair definition.

Then I understand the semantics of your point, if NPC don't ever wake up during your play, it is technical like you killed them (I think there was a game where they would regain consciousness*?). Stealth games NPCs should take into account blood pools, afaik there are none doing that yet, so counter-balancing quick dispatches (and evilness) for a level of danger of raising alerts.

*But at the same time if we are talking "realism", a blow to the head is gonna keep you out for hours potentially. And surely you'd be dizzy when you wake up.

I honestly didn't intend to start a discussion on this, the point of what a ghost playstyle is at best tangential to my gripes about the game.

No, I'm glad we're talking about it man, this exact same topic has been on my mind countless times before, and i do have my probs with it. It's definitely an interesting discussion to have because it delves deep into what makes these kind of games fun.

In the end of the day, it's all down to choice. In the perfect world, if you do do opt to go all the way the pacifist route, it should probably be the harder way to beat the game, but it should also be possible.

One thing both Dishonored games did really well though, better than any game in this genre is that it doesn't necessarily penalize you too much for killing one NPC. In any other game, it's usually game over, you have to restart the level.

In Dishonored, at least the first one, if you start to rack up too many kills, the game will react to it, if my memory serves me right, you had thougher enemies and more rats. If you go pacifist then the game won't do that, but it also wont ruin your game if you do need to kill a guy or two per mission. I loved that about the game, I'm not sure Dishonored 2 does that since i only played it once, but I'm assuming it does.

This obviously doesn't apply if youre going for achievements, but who cares about those anyway.

Yes, but in the end, you still try to kill as few ennemies as you can.

I tried playing Dishonored 2 without killing anyone (or really few) but it isn't the way I enjoy it the most I think. But, because of how the first Dishonored was made, i'm afraid of killing them because of how the story would turn badly (Emily being cruel and willing to kill everyone was scary !)

I pre-ordered the game, played almost the entire campaign but i haven't finished it yet because of that and the new game mechanic in the end that i dislike

I should really go back to it and finish the game ...

Quote from (HP)

4 hours ago, (HP) said: No, I'm glad we're talking about it man, this exact same topic has been on my mind countless times before, and i do have my probs with it. It's definitely an interesting discussion to have because it delves deep into what makes these kind of games fun.

In the end of the day, it's all down to choice. In the perfect world, if you do do opt to go all the way the pacifist route, it should probably be the harder way to beat the game, but it should also be possible.

One thing both Dishonored games did really well though, better than any game in this genre is that it doesn't necessarily penalize you too much for killing one NPC. In any other game, it's usually game over, you have to restart the level.

In Dishonored, at least the first one, if you start to rack up too many kills, the game will react to it, if my memory serves me right, you had thougher enemies and more rats. If you go pacifist then the game won't do that, but it also wont ruin your game if you do need to kill a guy or two per mission. I loved that about the game, I'm not sure Dishonored 2 does that since i only played it once, but I'm assuming it does.

This obviously doesn't apply if youre going for achievements, but who cares about those anyway.

Ok... I'll bite. I think if we have to talk about choice, we need to talk about stealth.

I assume we all know why stealth matters for player choice, but just be sure: Stealth creates a playable space that the player has more options in that one where players are forced to fight. But stealth comes with certain caveats that make it an inherently flawed mechanic. For instance, once you break stealth, getting back into a stealth state becomes near impossible, or at the very least time consuming, making things like save-scumming a more attractive choice for players. Most stealth games, perhaps with the possible exception of Hitman seem to encourage save-scumming, which I don't necessarily think is a good way forward. Why? Because save and load are meta actions that take players out of the game and push them out of being immersed in the game.

I think stealth is the reason designers have had to come up with the "powers" in the Dishonored series, as a means to get around breaking stealth at inopportune moments - but I think this approach is flawed because instead of allowing players to focus on understanding their own mistakes (e.g. what made them break stealth), it only allows players to deal with the situation that arises from breaking stealth. Usually that solution leads to killing/subduing the NPC that spotted you before any alarms are raised. It also causes other issues to arise, such as letting the player become vastly overpowered - which is the same as removing the fun of being challenged in the game. Because if you can solve almost every situation with a bullet (lethality optional), where does the challenge come from?

I kind of understand why the game was designed with this intention: It's attempting to hit the biggest demographic of players. Most players want to let loose with an arsenal, even if they make use of stealth a lot of the time. It's a kind of reward for being quiet all the time. Meanwhile, the players who would like to play the game on a "true" ghost setting (e.g., no friendly/enemy NPC interaction, no spots) are probably <1% of the playerbase, so it doesn't make sense from a financial and time perspective to account for them. Which is probably why the choices were eliminated.

Personally I think if the choices were there and stealth had better support for staying hidden without killing or subduing NPCs (for instance by cancelling out being detected), I think more people would attempt to stay stealthy, simply because it would offer a more reasonable challenge, with better pacing built into the mechanic. If you get spotted you aren't forced to reload the game or fight, but you can revert to your previous state and be a bit more catious for a while. Naturally that would also require the level design to follow suit and remake the spaces to fit this type of sandbox gameplay. Which is another topic in itself, and another production time reason we won't be seeing any changes to the gameplay in the next Dishonored... or for that matter, in most future stealth games.

Hello guys. I started a YouTube thing called Level Up. Basically playing various games and talking about the level design.

I would appreciate some feedback of how to improve etc. I hope you will enjoy it.

Quote from El Moroes

27 minutes ago, El Moroes said: And what about the incoming stand-alone guys ?

> http://store.steampowered.com/app/614570/Dis…f_the_Outsider/

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The shame with that is that people who already own the game don't have a discount on this while people buying the bundle do. Good way to please the people who supported a game that wasn't as successful as they hoped. That's just a 10 euros difference but it's not good for consumer loyalty building.

When will game play be revealed as well?

Quote from El Moroes

1 hour ago, El Moroes said: And what about the incoming stand-alone guys ?

> http://store.steampowered.com/app/614570/Dis…f_the_Outsider/

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I'm very confused about this. There's no 2 in the title, it's standalone, it features character from both games but takes place after the second. Depending on how you finished the last, the world could be really different. Daud is in the past so will there be time jumps? I don't know man. The Bethesda show was a bit of mess.

Quote from Sprony

24 minutes ago, Sprony said: I'm very confused about this. There's no 2 in the title, it's standalone, it features character from both games but takes place after the second. Depending on how you finished the last, the world could be really different. Daud is in the past so will there be time jumps? I don't know man. The Bethesda show was a bit of mess.

Was thinking the same, what is it and how will it work? If we go off the appearance of Billie, it seems to be in the past? If so, I guess they failed in killing the outsider since he's still hanging around in the sequel?

Edit: ok the wording "reuniting for one last job" suggest the present I guess.

Also didn't billy

Spoiler got her arm back at the end of the stilton's mansion mission?

I'm confused.

Quote from Klems

3 hours ago, Klems said: Also didn't billy

http://# Reveal hidden contents got her arm back at the end of the stilton's mansion mission?

I'm confused.

That must depend on what you do, didn't happen for me.