Arkane Dishonored 2 - Emily and Corvo's Serkonan Vacation

[Morgoth]

I recommend you to git gud first though.

 

[Metro]

Gud git. Dishonored wasn't a bad game but it's Baby's First Thief. I'd say Deus Ex HR was closer to Deus Ex than Dishonored was to Thief.

 

[Excidium II]

DXHR is also better and has more depth than dishonored. Granted it probably has much higher budget.

 

[Ash]

Morgoth:

Woah, you just shat on a genre you don't like, nothing more. Stealth games are still viable just as straight up FPS games are. I don't think many people see that combat and stealth are in direct conflict with each other when you offer the option either. I hate that conflict in Deus Ex. For example, all enemies must be in a patrolling/unaware state and not spot the player immediately, and upon losing sight of the player they must not hunt you down too relentlessly. Not rules set in stone but that's the conventions. There must be frequent periods of unawareness for sneaking about which is at odds with combat gameplay and scripted events (such as monster closets, trigger happy AI and battle arenas). Likewise stealth can never be too punishing or else combat will suffer, such as not getting spotted too many times or a plot critical NPC will be killed (shit example) as combat players get spotted all the time intentionally. So stealth can never have strict rules, and even if you fail you can just resort to slaughter as Excidium pointed out in Dishonored's case.

And people, please. DX:HR and Dishonored were just as bad as eachother. DX:HR had more depth, but it had more popamole/shitty modern design conventions than Dishonored. Both weren't very challenging, so just as bad as eachother imo.

Also lol, this isn't the first time we've discussed these topics (challenge in the two games and overall worthiness of the games, plus comparisons). Same people as well.

 

[Dev_Anj]

Thief was dumbed down by developer's own admission. It was "narrower in focus in an attempt to fund Ultima Underworld 3".
That doesn't mean it is not good, nor that Dishonored isn't, but they are quite literally half the games they used to put out and were designed to reach a wider audience. And lets not forget Thief was a first person medieval bow shooter until the last 6 months of development. Check out the Ultima Underworld 1 & 2 discussion thread here on the Codex to see how obsessively attentive to detail they can be in gameplay systems, then ask where's it all gone in Thief?

Eh, I don't think a narrower focus means that it's more simplified. I don't think Thief ever needed to have statistics, skills and stuff. The advantage of having a narrow focus is that everything can be more polished and there's a stronger focus. I understand why some people enjoy playing with numbers, I enjoy it at times too. But the advantage of not having skill systems and such in Thief is that it became easier to design levels properly to provide a strong experience to the player while testing their skills. It also allowed for a huge fan mission building community to come around it, while SS2 inspite of having a similar editor has very few levels made for it. Besides, you do like Deus Ex even though compared to a lot of games people praise as RPGs here its systems are actually quite simplified(for good reason) so I think you would be inclined to agree.

The funny part is that Thief was actually intended to be an Arthurian real time RPG at the start and it would probably have gameplay similar to the Underworld games. It went through lot of changes because they couldn't find a way to make the swordfighting. You can read through its development history to check that.

Anyway this is a discussion best suited for another thread, it has little to do with Dishonored.

 

[skacky]

The main thing I want with Dishonored 2 is a harder sequel. Dishonored was piss easy even on the hardest difficulty mode (both stealth and guns blazing, even without bone charms or runes) and, while the DLCs had better patrol setups with more stuff to be mindful of, it was still very easy overall.
WRT stealth, what I'd really love to see is player silhouette taken into account, so you can't hide in a patch of darkness even if the wall behind you is brightly lit and the AI can't see you. I don't think this has been done yet (or I'm not aware of it).

 

[Ash]

Eh, I don't think a narrower focus means that it's more simplified. I don't think Thief ever needed to have statistics, skills and stuff. The advantage of having a narrow focus is that everything can be more polished and there's a stronger focus.

I'm fine with a narrower focus (well, sometimes, from LG I perhaps unfairly expect everything but the kitchen sink by default), but one thing I think Thief really needed was deeper interactivity. The environments are so static for a LG game and that is a shame. It's more than RPG systems.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Dishonored is just weird.

It's piss poor easy even on hardest mode, but at the same time, a lot of abilities were so fun to use, lack of challenge didn't matter that much.

 

[dunno lah]

The main thing I want with Dishonored 2 is a harder sequel. Dishonored was piss easy even on the hardest difficulty mode (both stealth and guns blazing, even without bone charms or runes) and, while the DLCs had better patrol setups with more stuff to be mindful of, it was still very easy overall.
WRT stealth, what I'd really love to see is player silhouette taken into account, so you can't hide in a patch of darkness even if the wall behind you is brightly lit and the AI can't see you. I don't think this has been done yet (or I'm not aware of it).

MGS2 had this. Don't think it was systemic though, as owing to fixed lights and level design, there were only a few spots for the guards (and yourself) to see the silhouette.

 

[Somberlain]

What Dishonored and most stealth games need is guards noticing when their buddies go missing. So few games do this. Funnily enough, MGS2 is one of them, even though in most ways it's very simplistic and arcadey when it comes to stealth mechanics.

 

[Increasing]

Regarding AI talk...
In stealth games, or in this case games with prominent stealth element, AI must be limited by design. People ask for better AI, yet they ignore how much of standard stealth gameplay would be downright impossible if AI acted in a realistic manner.
For example, one of Eidos Montreal designer talking about AI and one of familiar stealth game tropes:

"Roy's tone gets more serious. "If it's a life simulation, we discovered that it's not fun because you feel the game is not fair." He describes tests in which they would throw objects to get a guard's attention. The AI programmers would celebrate when the guard cared more about where the bottle was thrown from than where it landed, correctly interpreting the location of the player. Getting worked up again, Roy throws a water bottle across the room and pretends he is the guard, describing the AI's potential thought process in this scenario. "OK, this is the room, and there's the bottle. And it's f***ing stupid because the room is empty, and probably the bottle is coming from this direction!" Still pretending to be the guard, Roy moves to where he would know the player was and makes a stabbing motion. "Boom, you're dead!"

But that's not the behavior the player expects, and it destroys the purpose of why the bottle is initially thrown--to distract the guard and avoid detection. "

Stealth game must create illusion of lifelike AI, and that is where artistry is. Realistic AI and typical stealth gameplay don't go together.

 

[Makabb]

From superior combat and mechanics Dark Messiah to shitty console popamole that codex is all over.How Arkane have fallen. DECLINE

 

[KlauZ]

I would like to watch how these "very easy game" people play. Because last time i`ve played i died a lot. The thing is, Dish has a very good flow, like hotline miamy or something. You die, reload almost instantly, and them immediately go back to action, where victory and death are resolved in seconds.

 

[orcinator]

Because last time i`ve played i died a lot

Are you unable to mash the sword button hard enough or something?

 

[vortex]

Video interview with art director about the new setting.
https://t.co/qvs5nJ75bp
https://twitter.com/gameinformer/status/734824234279669760

 

[Infinitron]

 

[orcinator]

Because if they dumbed it down any further it would be a movie?

 

[Durandal]

Regarding AI talk...
In stealth games, or in this case games with prominent stealth element, AI must be limited by design. People ask for better AI, yet they ignore how much of standard stealth gameplay would be downright impossible if AI acted in a realistic manner.
For example, one of Eidos Montreal designer talking about AI and one of familiar stealth game tropes:

"Roy's tone gets more serious. "If it's a life simulation, we discovered that it's not fun because you feel the game is not fair." He describes tests in which they would throw objects to get a guard's attention. The AI programmers would celebrate when the guard cared more about where the bottle was thrown from than where it landed, correctly interpreting the location of the player. Getting worked up again, Roy throws a water bottle across the room and pretends he is the guard, describing the AI's potential thought process in this scenario. "OK, this is the room, and there's the bottle. And it's f***ing stupid because the room is empty, and probably the bottle is coming from this direction!" Still pretending to be the guard, Roy moves to where he would know the player was and makes a stabbing motion. "Boom, you're dead!"

But that's not the behavior the player expects, and it destroys the purpose of why the bottle is initially thrown--to distract the guard and avoid detection. "

Stealth game must create illusion of lifelike AI, and that is where artistry is. Realistic AI and typical stealth gameplay don't go together.

Expecting a guard to think that the bottle which flew from behind his back to a wall in front of him and not having the guard inspect the direction it came from like a real person would is just plain retarded in itself. It could work on dumb/drunk/tired guards, but the key to good AI in stealth games is that you should be able to accurately predict how guards are going to act and respond, and predict when the guard becomes too unpredictable. The only reason players would expect the guard to behave in an unrealistic manner is because they never had high hopes for realistic behavior in video game AI in the first place. Usually we use 'normal human being' as a standard for AI, so guards should act like human beings in a similar situation.

When you make a sound near a guard, you expect the guard to investigate the sound and deviate from his normal patrol route. When you throw a rock in Far Cry 3, you normally expect to distract a guard for a while, until you realize that the soft bounce of a rock is enough for the entire enemy base to investigate the noise and keep getting baited by a fucking rock as you come to the conclusion that the AI in Far Cry 3 is braindead for the sake of player convenience. Unique, and by extent realistic AI behavior can present multiple challenges in a stealth game where the player has to take more into consideration when sneaking about other than 'stay in shadows, don't make much noise, don't get seen' which can present multiple challenges on the fly as the player and AI continue to adapt to the situation they find themselves in. Unfortunately, having the Artificial Intelligence display a shred of Actual Intelligence is more than often too much for the intelligent human species.

 

[Morgoth]

People want to study patterns and then use their favorite methods to overcome these patterns. As they figure out a whole set of patterns throughout the game, the player can derive their pleasure from mastering their skills more efficiently by memorizing the AI routines. And that's fine, as I expect the guard to behave exactly the same way as before whenever an event is triggered. The challenge I prefer here is in the chaining of systems that creates unpredictable outcomes, like use of tools/weapons and exploits in leveldesign (throwing stuff around). What I don't want is a guard unexpectedly stopping in the middle of his patrol to contemplate a painting for five minutes while I'm sitting ducks beneath a table one meter nearby with no way to get out. That might be realistic AI, but it's also frustrating.

 

[vortex]

Novel and a comic
https://bethesda.net/?utm_source=So...d-2–novels-and-comics-revealed/2016/05/25/131

 

[Morgoth]

 

[Excidium II]

Why are they hiding the gameplay?

 

[Morgoth]

Why are they hiding the gameplay?

They'll save the gameplay reveal for the E3 press event.

 

[Makabb]

Why are they hiding the gameplay?

Because it's shit ?

 

[KlauZ]

Because it's shit ?

Yeah, just like DooM.