Dishonored by Arkane

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Just finished Bridgamore Witches. Very fun, varied missions, good atmosphere.

 

[Morgoth]

Fake or not, I'm gonna play whatever Arkane will throw at me.

 

[Morgoth]

It’s all about players, not what the designer wants them to do.

This is so spot on. I always felt that Dishonored, for all its shortcomings, adhered perfectly to this philosophy. Don't just design an Approach A and Approach B. Let the player carve his own path through the level, and make the levels in such a way that they facilitate experimenting with them. I'm not saying Dishonored is anywhere close to Deus Ex, but it is honestly the first game I've played since then that comes close in terms of level design. Human Revolution suffered from small and ultimately limited levels, and while Dishonored's levels are not gigantic, you can feel the influence of DX in every one of them. They're simply a joy to explore and navigate because they always allow you to do things in exactly your own way, rather than simply making a choice in the beginning between the Combat Route and the Stealth Route and then sticking to that choice for the rest of the level/game (which is what I feel HR did).

I think Arkane may be the first developer in a long time to understand what good open level gameplay is truly about. I'm glad they're around.

Ironically, creative player-driven gameplay is something Warren Spector has preached for decades, but never followed through. He gave us Epic Mickey instead.

Unlike Warren Spector, Smith and Colantonio are actually making what they're believing in.

 

[Vibalist]

It’s all about players, not what the designer wants them to do.

This is so spot on. I always felt that Dishonored, for all its shortcomings, adhered perfectly to this philosophy. Don't just design an Approach A and Approach B. Let the player carve his own path through the level, and make the levels in such a way that they facilitate experimenting with them. I'm not saying Dishonored is anywhere close to Deus Ex, but it is honestly the first game I've played since then that comes close in terms of level design. Human Revolution suffered from small and ultimately limited levels, and while Dishonored's levels are not gigantic, you can feel the influence of DX in every one of them. They're simply a joy to explore and navigate because they always allow you to do things in exactly your own way, rather than simply making a choice in the beginning between the Combat Route and the Stealth Route and then sticking to that choice for the rest of the level/game (which is what I feel HR did).

I think Arkane may be the first developer in a long time to understand what good open level gameplay is truly about. I'm glad they're around.

Ironically, creative player-driven gameplay is something Warren Spector has preached for decades, but never followed through. He gave us Epic Mickey instead.

Unlike Warren Spector, Smith and Colantonio are actually making what they're believing in.

Maybe Warren Spector just isn't what he's made out to be. I'm sure you can find a million examples of certain high ranking game developers receiving credit for things that were actually down to their team and not them.

 

[sea]

I'm 4 hours or so into the new DLC and now on the third (last?) mission. The first two were excellent. Even though the first reuses the prison from the original campaign, you get to see far more of it and it's been expanded substantially. Plus, it's a surprisingly fun level to explore and see from totally new perspectives thanks to being able to blink around everywhere. Though, I found it odd that blink didn't work in a couple of spots (like the courtyard where executions are being held) and there's no explanation given for why that is.

The second level was far, far better and might be my favorite Dishonored level now. I think I must have spent close to 3 hours on it just exploring everything, and I still apparently missed one corrupted bone charm. There are about 4 zones and all of them are pretty sizeable, though as usual I kinda wish it was all 1 continuous level. Visually and artistically I think they've stepped things up even more - yeah okay, a lot of it is reused art assets, but the way they're used is even more effective than in the main game.

The only thing I felt was slightly disappointing was, as others have said, the low of enemy density. So far the DLC is just way too easy, and it doesn't help that at this point, even without importing a save, Daud is damn near unstoppable with all the powers he has. Maybe the third level will be tougher, but I kinda doubt it. Personally I found the end of Dishonored's campaign to be much tougher than this DLC, as well as the previous DLC too.

Personally I think, as far as level design goes, Arkane Studios is now the best in the business. What remains to be seen is whether they can create a game that has more meaningful choices in character building and play-style, that isn't negatively influenced by their silly and poorly-implemented chaos system, or trivialized by intentionally near-sighted AI. Dishonored could be damn near to Deus Ex in terms of overall gameplay quality with just a handful of tweaks to the stealth, and if the new DLC weapons and powers were ported back into the original campaign. Not sure if mods can do this, though.

My own personal changes to the game would be:

• Put DLC items into the main campaign (chokedust, stun mines, arc mines, etc.)
• Put DLC powers into the main campaign (except for the "summon assassins" thing, which would make no sense story-wise)
  
• Sleep darts now take time to take effect, and alert nearby guards when used
• Guard vision distance increased slightly (maybe 10-20 feet)
• Guards have vision cones extended vertically about 15 degrees, and will more commonly look up when on patrol in addition to left/right
• Guards stay alert for longer when spooked, and will call for help in this state
• Blink now has 3 upgrade tiers instead of 2; tier 3 distance is the same as the old tier 2 distance, and tier 2 distance is now 50% between tier 1 and tier 3 distance
  
• Rune upgrade prices increased by 1.5 to 2x
• Shop upgrade costs increased by 1.5 to 2x
  
• Bone charms rebalanced; all of them now have either more mild upgrades, or provide downsides as well (like corrupt bone charms)
• Carrying corpses slows the player down by 30%
• Choking out guards now takes ~6 seconds and generates more noise within a 15 foot radius.

Obviously the difficulty and balance tweaks would have to be on the hardest setting, or a special "hardcore mode" to avoid upsetting players, but do this stuff and I think the game would have its gameplay match its level design.

 

[skacky]

The third level is a lot tougher in general. Just sneaking in the manor grounds is kind of hard.

 

[Vibalist]

Though, I found it odd that blink didn't work in a couple of spots (like the courtyard where executions are being held) and there's no explanation given for why that is.

It's explained. The guards are playing overseer music through the loudspeakers out in the yard, which prevents any magic from working.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

@sea, the last mission in the DLC is much harder, mostly due to the nature of the NPCs. And the skulldogs. I fucking hate skulldogs.

 

[dieu]

Maybe Warren Spector just isn't what he's made out to be. I'm sure you can find a million examples of certain high ranking game developers receiving credit for things that were actually down to their team and not them.

"There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex.

(source:http://uk.ign.com/articles/2001/11/12/deus-ex-2 though I probably saw this on here anyway)

 

[Morgoth]

Skulldogs were annoying but very easy to defeat.

Now those teleporting witches otoh gave me a cardiac standstill whenever they'd teleport right in front of me (bug?), outstretching her ass towards my face and just waiting to get choked*.


*While imagining a dirty comment in Michael Madsens voice.

 

[DalekFlay]

My own personal changes to the game would be:

Good changes for a sequel but I don't think you could throw them into the current game, since it's not balanced for them so broadly. The very first area you stealth through in the game would be impossible to do non-violently for example, with that 15 foot noise radius on takedowns added.

 

[Vibalist]

My own personal changes to the game would be:

Good changes for a sequel but I don't think you could throw them into the current game, since it's not balanced for them so broadly. The very first area you stealth through in the game would be impossible to do non-violently for example, with that 15 foot noise radius on takedowns added.

Not sure about that. I managed to ghost the whole ordeal including the DLC with the ultimate difficulty mod which basically adds some of those changes, including guards being able to spot and hear you from pretty far away. It's doable.

 

[DalekFlay]

Not sure about that. I managed to ghost the whole ordeal including the DLC with the ultimate difficulty mod which basically adds some of those changes, including guards being able to spot and hear you from pretty far away. It's doable.

Yes, I ghosted the whole game on the hardest mode. That's not the change he is talking about, otherwise he could just play on hard and be satisfied.

The very first encounter in the game is a guard standing about 6-7 feet from another guard that you have to either kill or choke to get through. It would be impossible to do so without a violent confrontation if the second guard always heard your actions, which he would if there was a 15 foot sound effect.

In short the game is not designed for a 15 foot gap between guards for all takedowns. The game is not designed to avoid all takedowns. Thus it would have to be redesigned to be playable with said 15 foot sound effect.

 

[Vibalist]

Not sure about that. I managed to ghost the whole ordeal including the DLC with the ultimate difficulty mod which basically adds some of those changes, including guards being able to spot and hear you from pretty far away. It's doable.

Yes, I ghosted the whole game on the hardest mode. That's not the change he is talking about, otherwise he could just play on hard and be satisfied.

I wasn't just talking about playing on the hardest difficulty, though, but the difficulty mod I was linking to earlier.

The very first encounter in the game is a guard standing about 6-7 feet from another guard that you have to either kill or choke to get through. It would be impossible to do so without a violent confrontation if the second guard always heard your actions, which he would if there was a 15 foot sound effect.

Maybe. It's incorrect however that you have to choke the guard out, you can sneak past him if you're careful. With the exception of blowing up the gate, it's entirely possible to sneak past everyone in Coldridge.

In short the game is not designed for a 15 foot gap between guards for all takedowns. The game is not designed to avoid all takedowns. Thus it would have to be redesigned to be playable with said 15 foot sound effect.

I hate to sound like I'm just here to brag, but I've played the whole game never choking one single guard (with the added challenge of the difficulty mod as well). It's tricky, but it can be done.

 

[JarlFrank]

So I patched the game and got the DLC. It always used to work fine in the unpatched version, but now when I try to start the game, this happens:

I looked for the error, on official forums, on tech help forums, on the comments to the torrents. The most common tip is "install Net Framework 4 manually". Well, yes, I did. Didn't help the slightest.
Then I saw a thread in some forum where someone complains about having that very same error message... when attempting to play FarCry3.

And in that thread someone mentions the same with Witcher 2, and that the game only worked after CDProjekt issued a hotfix.
Apparently, that error happens only on Win XP and without a hotfix or patch, there's no way to get the game to work.
Someone in the Dishonored DLC torrent comments said something similar: he had this very same error and couldn't get rid of it on XP, then installed it on Win7 and it worked flawlessly.

So I cannot play this before they patch it to be actually playable on a proper OS.

 

[Surf Solar]

You torrented a game and muster up the balls to complain that it doesnt work?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Using Windows XP, no less.

 

[DalekFlay]

You should tweet Harvey Smith about tech support for the struggling author torrent version.

 

[DalekFlay]

I finished Witches. Man, that last mission shows great promise for the future of the series. Felt a lot like the more fantasy levels of Thief. Not sure I like the enemies infinitely respawning, but other than that just excellent.

 

[Zewp]

I played both Knife of Dunwall and Brigmore Witches yesterday. They were both pretty good. Whereas I disliked the original campaign, the DLCs actually had much better level design overall as well as a lot more interesting story.

There's only one thing I would have them chance, and it's a bit asinine really, but at the end of Brigmore Witches they shouldn't show Corvo saving/killing Daud. That was a choice the player made in the original campaign, so they should have just faded to black there and not shown what choice Corvo makes. I didn't quite like that I spared Daud in the original campaign, but he got killed in the DLC.

Anyway, it's nothing major. The rest of the DLC is really good, if not entirely free from the gripes I had with the original campaign, such as enemies not look up etc. I'll probably start a low-chaos playthrough of the DLC in the next few days.

 

[Morgoth]

New interview: http://www.examiner.com/article/ark...nored-next-title-and-ps4-xbox-one-development

Interesting tidbit:

Examiner: What direction is the studio heading in now?

We’re going to have another project and we’re in the concept phase of that now, it’s nothing we can talk about yet, but we’ll be excited to announce it soon.

Soon huh?

 

[Tigranes]

AI is dumber than bag of bricks.

You guys really owe it to yourselves to try out the AI difficulty mod: http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141188

I've been using it almost since I bought the game, and while it doesn't change anything drastically, it does bring a few improvements to the table, such as enemies being able to hear and see you from twice the distance, lean being nerfed and enemies being better at dodging and using items and weapons in combat. Oh, and I think they actually also look up on occasion.

The mod is only in alpha state, but I never experienced a single problem with it. If anything, I thought the AI was sometimes slightly too good at spotting you.

And oh yeah, bodies pile up now instead of just vanishing.

The game crashes whenever I quickload in the third mission. Since I'm playing pacifist/ghost, this is extremely frustrating. Other than that it's really awesome. Also, the storyline has a huge, huge Thief vibe.

I had this occur to me too. For me it only happened inside the manor itself, however, and even then it didn't always happen. Have you tried going back to a save made outside of the manor, or simply making a fuckload of saves inside of it and seeing if some of them still work? It's what I did anyways, and I got through it (though not without a few crashes).

Anyways, it seems Bethesda and Arkane are aware of the problem and are trying to fix it. Hopefully not long before we get a patch.

Agree with you about the Thief vibe, by the way. The Brigmore witches are pretty similar to those nature freaks from the Thief games, and Daud narrating those little intros before each level in Knife of Dunwall reminded me very much of Garret's own mission briefings. I wish they'd kept this in Brigmore Witches as well.

A good AI mod might make Dishonoured worth a $5 purchase. I played for 20 minutes and just couldn't deal with "HEY DAVE THERES A DUDE RIGHT NEXT TO MY LEG AND HES ON FIRE DO YOU THINK SOMETHINGS WRONG" on Hardest.

 

[Morgoth]

Aren't the DLCs adding "Master Assassin" difficulty? Try play with that, because you're otherwise missing out on an excellent game.

 

[DeepOcean]

New interview: http://www.examiner.com/article/ark...nored-next-title-and-ps4-xbox-one-development

Interesting tidbit:

Examiner: What direction is the studio heading in now?

We’re going to have another project and we’re in the concept phase of that now, it’s nothing we can talk about yet, but we’ll be excited to announce it soon.

Soon huh?

Another project... could be that Arkane has two projects or he was talking about another project meaning the one after Dishonored. The mystery grows... those press fucks are going to get pissed.

 

[Tigranes]

Aren't the DLCs adding "Master Assassin" difficulty? Try play with that, because you're otherwise missing out on an excellent game.

Given the AI they presented in the vanilla I really can't bring myself to be convinced with that. It's like a cook who serves you cold, soggy KFC drenched in teriyaki sauce then promises better. But yes, I'll give it a go when it's $5 and when I check out the AI mod.