Arkane Dishonored 2 - Emily and Corvo's Serkonan Vacation

[HoboForEternity]

I always thought the "Dishonored punishes you for x" criticism was weird. Do you feel punished when you read a book and the protagonist dies in a fire? Nothing happens to you. It's just the edgy ending, made for you to observe if you choose to. Projecting to such a degree that you feel your video game man's fate in a story is a direct assault against you as a person is creepy.

some people think the bad ending as "punishment"

 

[Nano]

It is a punishment. There is a clear political message to Dishonored's endings, and that is "violence is bad and leads to chaos, pacifism is good and leads to civility". Which is a completely bullshit black-and-white view of the issue.

 

[RaptorRex888]

Once again, you can be quite violent - killing all your targets as well as an arbitrary number of guards before getting the high chaos ending. So no, that criticism still doesn't stand.

 

[DalekFlay]

I always thought the "Dishonored punishes you for x" criticism was weird. Do you feel punished when you read a book and the protagonist dies in a fire? Nothing happens to you. It's just the edgy ending, made for you to observe if you choose to. Projecting to such a degree that you feel your video game man's fate in a story is a direct assault against you as a person is creepy.

It's the silliness of the black and white logic of with the mechanic and the lack of options it imposes that bothers me, not the "punishment" others have mentioned. I'm all for worlds reacting to how you play, but not in such a simplistic and poorly designed way. Especially in a game that touts itself as an assassin simulator with a crazy amount of options.

 

[TheChickenKing]

I believe I've used the word "punishment" so I'll attempt to clarify my position. I don't mean it in the way of "oh this has ruined the entire game and actively hurt me as a player" but more that it specifically discourages you from taking a certain gameplay path. You could choose to ignore the story and writing and simply run around doing whatever you please, but then you become disconnected from one of the primary positive elements of the Dishonored games. Namely, that they present you with an interesting world to live into.

As noted, you can actually kill a decent number of people before the game actually claims that you went the "high chaos" route but it's so blatantly arbitrary and numeric that it ends up feeling incredibly gamey even as the game refuses to tell you exactly what the threshold is. It manages to feel both difficult to control and like you're struggling against some sort of bar of evilness that's filling up behind the screens.

At least some of this could be easy to ignore if there were more interesting pacifist options and killing was a last resort. A lot of the pacifist story "kills" end up being very stale and scripted, as well, requiring you to perform a specific set of unchanging tasks. This stands in painful contrast to the dozens of ways you can off any given target lethally, or even how shockingly dark and unforgivable a lot of the "pacifist" options are. In Dishonored 1, you can basically give away one of your enemies to become a sex slave. In Dishonored 2, you can lobotomize a dude. These are not positive actions that should contribute towards a better game ending, but the game constantly goes out of its way to remind you that if you aren't participating in those options, you're playing it wrong.

Most of these issues could be fixed by designing any number of systems better. Better pacifist options, more consistent writing, or making the Chaos system more gradual and "readable" by the player so they can tell what effect every action they make has. It's a great idea on paper. I just don't think it's handled super well.

 

[DalekFlay]

Yeah good clarification. The problem to me is that when you do a "high chaos" (or who cares) run you have a ton of options. When you do a low chaos run you have very few options. It's too limiting and simplistic as a game mechanic, especially when 90% of the powers are geared toward assassination. Also on a story level it's just black and white morality thinking, which annoys me on a writing front. "You killed a lot of gang members and evil witches but ignored the cops, however now Emily is a brutal dictator LOL."

 

[Metro]

If you want the challenge of a pacifist/ghost run then... yeah... you're not going to have many options. It's meant to be challenging. People did pacifist runs in Deus Ex and couldn't use 90% of the 'kewl' weapons and shit.

 

[sputtering fart balloon]

I believe I've used the word "punishment" so I'll attempt to clarify my position. I don't mean it in the way of "oh this has ruined the entire game and actively hurt me as a player" but more that it specifically discourages you from taking a certain gameplay path. You could choose to ignore the story and writing and simply run around doing whatever you please, but then you become disconnected from one of the primary positive elements of the Dishonored games. Namely, that they present you with an interesting world to live into.

It's the silliness of the black and white logic of with the mechanic and the lack of options it imposes that bothers me, not the "punishment" others have mentioned. I'm all for worlds reacting to how you play, but not in such a simplistic and poorly designed way. Especially in a game that touts itself as an assassin simulator with a crazy amount of options.

It didn't discourage me. I played lethally a second time on most of the games and looked for the chaos changes. So idk why you think that it's a discouragement. It's just an alternate option. As for the black and white or simplistic/gamey thing, consider two points about this franchise: 1) Victorian morality, which took a very black and white approach to one's crimes/guilt, and 2) the nature of chaos/the Outsider/whatever dark metaphysical forces are at play. The game reinforces the idea that you are either good or bad via the Abbey's teachings, Daud's/Billie's expressions of their guilt, innocents or villains being caricatures, etc. and then messes with that idea by presenting the Outsider as more of a neutral force of nature and reality's fluctuations with the Void as being insanity/some unknowable thing beyond morals. If you want to argue that it's still lame then fine, but I thought they did it with a story purpose and that purpose was interesting. Too bad the second game's Delilah plot is god awful though.

 

[DalekFlay]

If you want the challenge of a pacifist/ghost run then... yeah... you're not going to have many options. It's meant to be challenging. People did pacifist runs in Deus Ex and couldn't use 90% of the 'kewl' weapons and shit.

I like a ghost run, that's not the point. The point is low chaos, or "good guy" runs, shouldn't be practically exclusive to that playstyle. Deus Ex is great because you can play how YOU morally feel is right and not get told you're evil by the game itself, just characters within it. That kind of black and white bullshit is the whole problem.

 

[RaptorRex888]

Except you kind of do get painted as a bloodthirsty psycho in the first few missions of Deus Ex if you go lethal by Paul and Carter.

 

[Multidirectional]

I like a ghost run, that's not the point. The point is low chaos, or "good guy" runs, shouldn't be practically exclusive to that playstyle. Deus Ex is great because you can play how YOU morally feel is right and not get told you're evil by the game itself, just characters within it. That kind of black and white bullshit is the whole problem.

I might be misremembering it but can't you actually get "Ghost" while killing in Dishonored? Pretty sure all you needed for that was to not get spotted. Pretty sure I've gotten "Ghost" on several levels after silently killing pretty much every guard. That was my preferred way to play it, as non lethal was just a borefest.

 

[DalekFlay]

Except you kind of do get painted as a bloodthirsty psycho in the first few missions of Deus Ex if you go lethal by Paul and Carter.

Yes, and I said that in the post you're replying to. It's individual characters though, not the game system. Different.

I might be misremembering it but can't you actually get "Ghost" while killing in Dishonored? Pretty sure all you needed for that was to not get spotted. Pretty sure I've gotten "Ghost" on several levels after silently killing pretty much every guard. That was my preferred way to play it, as non lethal was just a borefest.

I have no idea what the cheevos call it, I'm using the typical use of the term from stealth game enthusiasts. I have all the cheevos from Dishonored except for the trials DLC ones but I don't remember their individual parameters. And yes I agree the game is more fun when doing lethal.

 

[Metro]

I like a ghost run, that's not the point. The point is low chaos, or "good guy" runs, shouldn't be practically exclusive to that playstyle. Deus Ex is great because you can play how YOU morally feel is right and not get told you're evil by the game itself, just characters within it. That kind of black and white bullshit is the whole problem.

What you're asking for is to have Deux Ex level choice and consequence in a modern game. In Deus Ex you can make a variety of good and bad choices on the spot and have those result in the game unfolding with slightly different iterations down the line. We all know that's probably not going to happen in a modern game because it takes too much effort.

That said, even though it is lazy design, it makes perfect narrative sense for a good guy to spare people -- the game isn't modeled after movies like Die Hard or Rambo. It also makes sense that Emily would become a dictator if you straight up killed gang members and bad guys. We don't even do that in actual real life modern society outside of the worst-of-the-worst criminals. That's why prisons exist.

 

[DalekFlay]

What you're asking for is to have Deux Ex level choice and consequence in a modern game. In Deus Ex you can make a variety of good and bad choices on the spot and have those result in the game unfolding with slightly different iterations down the line. We all know that's probably not going to happen in a modern game because it takes too much effort.

I mean, that's all I'm really saying. The chaos system is shallow and simplistic, and I am happy they dropped it for Death of the Outsider but retained some world reaction to your playstyle. I love Dishonored, probably more than most people here, so it's not like I'm saying the game is trash.

 

[DraQ]

The main problem with Dishonored is that mechanics and implied "best" (or at the very least just as viable) way of playing the game don't support each other.
Full stealth gameplay sucks partly due to oblivious detection AI, partly due to repetitiveness of choking out subsequent guards and partly due to not getting to play with cool toys or engage in relatively visceral combat.

In general I am of opinion that both having reliable general-purpose way of non-lethally incapacitating people and having an ability to remain ghosting while incapacitating people (lethally or not) fucks up stealth games and stealth aspect in games supporting multiple approaches.

If non-lethal takedown in Dishonored was limited to a few select targets using context specific means, low-chaos gameplay might-have worked out even with exisiting chaos system, especially in conjunction with some save-reload limitation.

 

[Metro]

Stun mines in Derpsonered 2 are pretty fun... and overpowered. I upgraded them to max (increased range/charged). Place one down and hide. Shoot a normal crossbow bolt at the ground next to it, and got five guards to investigate the location of the shot -- all got stunned and knocked out in one blow.

 

[DalekFlay]

The main problem with Dishonored is that mechanics and implied "best" (or at the very least just as viable) way of playing the game don't support each other.
Full stealth gameplay sucks partly due to oblivious detection AI, partly due to repetitiveness of choking out subsequent guards and partly due to not getting to play with cool toys or engage in relatively visceral combat.

I agree, but I can't really think of any stealth game that doesn't drastically limit your options in "no kills" mode. In Thief you just blackjack everyone, in Deus Ex you stun prod, tranq dart or (in the modern ones) stungun/melee prompt everyone, in Hitman you choke everyone out and hide the body, unless you can just dress up and walk past. In pretty much every game with a strong stealth element there's one clear path to a ghost/no kill type run and it gets repetitive while a more "loose" playthrough allows more fun experimentation. It's not just a Dishonored issue IMO.

especially in conjunction with some save-reload limitation.

Fuck off with that console shit.

 

[Talby]

Stun mines in Derpsonered 2 are pretty fun... and overpowered. I upgraded them to max (increased range/charged). Place one down and hide. Shoot a normal crossbow bolt at the ground next to it, and got five guards to investigate the location of the shot -- all got stunned and knocked out in one blow.

 

[Neanderthal]

I tried to never use the cosh in Thief, seems unprofessional to advertise your presence in such a manner, ideally nobody should ever know you were there in my opinion.

I do kill Burricks with the sword thought, got quite bloody good at it last time I played.

 

[RNGsus]

Chaos Theory, especially the South American bank, was the most fun I'd had with stealth since Shoalsgate. To make a good stealth game, you have to put story and combat away, your levels have to be built from the ground up with ghosting in mind. Dishonored is about an unstoppable assassin, it would be like playing Dark Messiah without kicking and magic.

 

[Beowulf]

especially in conjunction with some save-reload limitation.

Fuck off with that console shit.

I'd be saying the same thing, but after playing Alien:Isolation I think some limitation on saving can work, if implemented properly.
Other than that the tension and challenge are mostly self imposed by limiting yourself in your QS/QL cycle.

 

[DalekFlay]

I tried to never use the cosh in Thief, seems unprofessional to advertise your presence in such a manner, ideally nobody should ever know you were there in my opinion.

I think I did a ghost run of the Thief games way back in the day, but story wise I was never focused on it. They'll know you were there because all their shit is gone. It's not like Hitman where you could theoretically sneak in, use an accident kill method, sneak out, and no one knows a murder even took place.

 

[Nano]

I agree, but I can't really think of any stealth game that doesn't drastically limit your options in "no kills" mode. In Thief you just blackjack everyone, in Deus Ex you stun prod, tranq dart or (in the modern ones) stungun/melee prompt everyone, in Hitman you choke everyone out and hide the body, unless you can just dress up and walk past. In pretty much every game with a strong stealth element there's one clear path to a ghost/no kill type run and it gets repetitive while a more "loose" playthrough allows more fun experimentation. It's not just a Dishonored issue IMO.

The problem is that unlike the other games you mentioned, the combat is the best part of Dishonored.

 

[Beowulf]

So, I bought it on latest sale.

Is the no-powers run viable and fun?
And by fun I mean that I still play The Dark Mod from time to time to get that dose of Thief magic.

I'm not going to play as a magical murderer anyway, I just read somewhere that this time they designed the game without blink in mind.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

So, I bought it on latest sale.

Is the no-powers run viable and fun?

Yes. I did a no powers, no kill, no alarms, hardest difficulty run. It was awesome. Some levels are incredibly hard, but hard in a really fun way. And if you are doing no powers, you might as well do them all at once, as playing no powers will pretty much force stealth anyway, so adding on no kill and no alarms doesn't increase the difficulty by much.