Dishonored by Arkane

[gamestatistics]

Hello,

I just want to confirm that the survey on Dishonored is now closed (invitation was posted in this thread a week ago).

Thanks to all the people who answered it, and for RPG Codex.

As a very quick feedback:
- Many of the respondents pointed out a few grammar / spelling mistakes sentences, even if the overall meaning of questions was clear enough. “Are you… a men?” was of course the most inappropriate of these mistakes (this one should have been corrected before publishing the survey, at least)
- Overall satisfaction of the survey was quite good (82% of respondents said the topic was interesting, 56% it was enjoyable, 77% that questions were clear and relevant) despite these English incorrect sentences.

I’ll come back in a few weeks (maybe end of next week) to make a summary of all these results.

As it was the first GameStatistics survey on English-speaking players, it should be more regarded as a first “experimentation” (selected sample is very different than the French ones, probably due to the different forums selection) and I will probably not release a full report as we used to make for previous surveys. However, be sure that I’ll come back with the main results.

Meanwhile, do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions / suggestion regarding this survey, or GameStatistics in general. Also, if there is any volunteer to help me correcting a possible further survey (if I am still welcomed here, of course !), do not hesitate to send me a private message.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

French can't into English... then again neither can I.

(if I am still welcomed here, of course !)

Nobody is welcome on the Codex, even the people who run it.

 

[roll-a-die]

Yeah, you can just toss right off the pot, really.

 

[Borelli]

I'm glad that Dishonored is getting a sequel. The setting is good enough that it feels a waste not to make one.

Dishonored in general i liked, it satisfies me stealth game even though it is not on the level of the games it is drawing from(Thief).
My main problems were:
1. Combat is too fun, this may seem like a weird thing to criticize but the only thing that made me continue the nonlethal route is the fact that i'm a goody two shoes. Combat combines swords,guns,parrying and magic to create something fun and varied. Choking someone is nice but freezing time to put a bomb in his pants is priceless.

2. No light/shadow mechanic, there is a hint that shadows hide you but only if you are far away but for all intents and purposed shadows don't exist in the dark city, even if they wanted to focus on rooftop hopping this in my eyes makes the game lesser than Thief.

3. Another thing that Thief does better is sound, there are only types of sound you need to watch for, walking (nobody can hear you... EVER) and running(people hear you). Compare that to this:

In thief, sound was based on distance, type of floor, speed of walking, be it standing up or crouching.

4. The game was easy(i played on hardest difficulty but it only affects combat i think), now this is not so much a fault of programmers being pussies but the fact that they gave you too many toys to play with. Teleport with recharging mana? Tranquilizer darts costing only 30 gold? Upgrade that makes running produce NO sound? Health and mana potions everywhere(which you do not use because MANA REGENERATES IN THIS GAME), which is obviously a product of Arkanes previous game Dark Messiah which was more actiony so it must had potions everywhere.

5. Your magic powers have absolutely no effect on the plot of the game. The first trailer for the game showed the Outsider giving Corvo magic powers while he was in the prison so i thought the story would be "guy gets magic powers uses them to go on a vengeance killing spree", but it turned out to be "guy escapes prison through mundane means and gets magic powers for absolutely no reason sometimes later". Now giving magic powers for the sake of gameplay is fine but i think there was some potential to expand on their role in the main plot, the only thing you get is the occasional comment about your strange tatoo.

I won't criticize all those flashing markers because thank god there is an option to turn them off.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I wouldn´t say no to another dishonored game if they actualy bothered to right in good characters and frame the gameplay with a decent story... also make it open world.

 

[gamestatistics]

Here is a summary of the main results of the Dishonored's survey, which has been done two or three weeks ago on various boards (including RPG Codex).
This is a raw summary, without graphics or very deep analysis… However, if anybody wants any additional details, please do not hesitate to ask.


Sample description

- Around 220 players’ opinions have been taken into account for this survey. All of them had played Dishonored, around one half on PC (56%), the other half on consoles (26% Xbox, 17% PS3).
- Average age of respondents was 21 years old, and half of them were Americans.
- About 80% of them come from reddit (Dishonored subreddit). Other respondents come from eurogamer, RPGcodex, Destructoid or IGN boards.


Overall Satisfaction

- Dishonored already had great reviews, but the survey shows that the players are really enthusiast too toward the game : 64% of the them said the game was "excellent", 27% it was "very good" ; less than 2% said the game was bad or average.
- Average notation given to Dishonored by the respondents was 8.9 / 10. As it was the first GameStatistics survey on English-speaking people, then we can not compare these results with other surveys yet. However, for sure it is a very high score, probably one of the highest possible on such kind of sample.
- As a comparison, the same respondents gave an average rating of 7.8 to Deus Ex Human Revolution, of 7.1 to Hitman Absolution, of 7.4 to Assassin's Creed 3 and finally of 7.6 to Dark Messiah of Dark and Magic (but only a small proportion of players played this game, and rated it).


Assets and drawbacks

- Respondents were asked to give their opinion about various Dishonored features. Generally speaking, almost all of them were rated positively: scenario, universe, originally, well written dialogs… almost all of these have been rated positively by at least 70% of the respondents.
- Background (79% of respondents did totally agree with the sentence “Dishonored is a game with an interesting background universe”) seems to be the main asset of Dishonored, as well as many other elements such as “good infiltration part” (76%), “visually pleasant” (67%), or “immersive” (65%).
- Only two points have a quite important proportion of negative ratings: difficulty of the game (25% of respondents think the game is not difficult), and the lack of intelligence from the opponents (25%).


Other stuff

- 45% of the respondents finished the game two times or more.
- Dishonored ending was positively judged by more than 88% of the people who finished it (and 50% were absolutely satisfied)
- The mission of “lady Boyle’s last party”, seems to be the most appreciated mission: 37% of respondents rank it on first place, and 23% on second place. Second preferred mission is “House of Pleasure”, followed by “High overseer Campbell”. “Royal Physician”, “Flooded district” and “the light of the end” were the less appreciated.
- Half of the players chose a “relative discretion” approach (very few deaths) for their first run; on the other hand, 30% of them preferred a more aggressive approach; the other respondents tried the “ghost” approach (without any death).
- For further Arkane’s game, more than 80% of the respondents said they would prefer another game on Dishonored universe, far beyond any of the other proposals (Arx Fatalis 2, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic 2, a new license…)


I hope that some of you will find these statistics interesting. Do not hesitate to put a comment or ask additional questions.
Next survey on English-speaking people should be more complete (and you won’t be asked this time, if you’re “a men” or “a women”…)

 

[SoupNazi]

The whole survey (at least the rating part of it) was rendered pointless the moment it was revealed that the same respondents gave 7.1 points to Shitman: Abortion.

 

[Castanova]

I finished this game a month or two ago and I have to say I was surprised how bad it actually was. There were a number of problems with it but the biggest issue was the basic gameplay formula. They basically designed a bunch of levels with various routes, stocked them with enemies, and let you loose. Sounds all cool and sandboxy, right? Well, in reality, the only problem you need to solve is how to get past the guards and it turns out this is an extremely easy problem to solve, especially once you unlock a couple powers.

What this meant for me was that I never once got the feeling that I was some elite assassin. Nor were the mission layouts ever believable. I mean, that one guy KNOWS you're coming to kill him... and he just chills in his complex with like 15 guards meandering around the halls. What?

What they should have done is added problems for you to solve in each level. Like, the guy knows you're coming so he holes himself up in some impenetrable compound and you have to figure out how to reach him. Or you need to go to X place but there's Y blocking your way. And in order to get past Y you need to explore the available level and come up with something. Then, even if you're playing with a quest compass telling you exactly where to go, you'd at least get the feeling like you actually ACCOMPLISHED something. As the game exists now, it felt you're rushing past near-retarded guards toward the end of the level.

 

[Lagole Gon]

- Dishonored ending was positively judged by more than 88% of the people who finished it (and 50% were absolutely satisfied)

R00fles.

I don't think Dishonored subreddit is a good place to look for constructive criticism of... you know... Dishonored.

But hell, what do I know.

 

[gamestatistics]

If you have suggestions of other places where other kind of gamers could be interviewed, I am interested.

I admit that one of this survey limit is the huge proportion of opinions coming from subreddit.

 

[DraQ]

Started playing Dishonored.

Few observations:

1. Wrong engine. Seriously, the game looks much, much worse than HL2, which sported rather similar style and environments. Why the fuck not license Source?

2. Are there any advanced settings burried in inis somewhere to make the game look, um, more up to date? Not that it's bugging me much, but I expected a bit more of relatively modern game.

3. Enemies seem blind and mostly deaf so far (very early in game).

4. Game could've used longer, more in-depth introduction. Or more accompanying materials (like proper paper manual with a lot of background). Black Mesa commute or Sarif labs might be evil but here you're just thrown into the action with little reason to care for characters that have been established not a minute ago.

 

[toro]

Come on. The graphics is the least serious problem of the game. Why is this retarded argument surfacing again?

 

[Raghar]

1. Wrong engine. Seriously, the game looks much, much worse than HL2, which sported rather similar style and environments. Why the fuck not license Source?

Do you have a clue about what are you talking about?

3. Enemies seem blind and mostly deaf so far (very early in game).

Play on hard, that's the mostly correct setting.

4. Game could've used longer, more in-depth introduction.

Definitely not.

 

[Jasede]

It's DraQ....

 

[Raghar]

BTW show forcus highlights: off. show objective markers: off. Look into ini files and change number of dead bodies to 40 or more.

 

[Jasede]

To be frank, you shouldn't have to change options or fiddle with .ini files to have an acceptable experience. (This isn't specific to this game; this applies to any game.)

 

[dnf]

3. Enemies seem blind and mostly deaf so far (very early in game).

Play on hard, that's the mostly correct setting.

Does difficulty settings change AI behaviour? Serious question, since most modern games just adds more health and damaging weapons for enemies

BTW show forcus highlights: off. show objective markers: off. Look into ini files and change number of dead bodies to 40 or more.

can be a problem when a game is designed around quest markers

 

[Raghar]

Does difficulty settings change AI behaviour? Serious question, since most modern games just adds more health and damaging weapons for enemies

Try it. You can see the difference when you are playing the hide and seek game at the start.

BTW show forcus highlights: off. show objective markers: off. Look into ini files and change number of dead bodies to 40 or more.

can be a problem when a game is designed around quest markers

Nothing that a person who is posting on codex can't handle. In fact some old games were worse. MUCH worse.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

3. Enemies seem blind and mostly deaf so far (very early in game).

Play on hard, that's the mostly correct setting.

It's still the case on the hardest difficulty. Dishonored isn't a game, it's a sad trek through playgrounds full of test dummies to use your awesome powers on so you can feel badass.

4. Game could've used longer, more in-depth introduction.

Definitely not.

It's a Count of Monte Cristo story that forgets to introduce the villains even though it's obsessed with forcing you to sit through the narrative. That's bad.

 

[dnf]

Im interested in seeing the AI behavior but can't play the game ATM, and Jimbob said that there is no change in the harder difficulties. Imma confused...

 

[RK47]

unless you really, absolutely, must remain hidden and non-spotted, there's not much issue at all with the teleporting powers you unlock.

 

[Zewp]

Don't bother playing this shit. It's a watered-down Thief game. Rather just play Thief 2 again.

 

[Angthoron]

It's a Count of Monte Cristo story that forgets to introduce the villains even though it's obsessed with forcing you to sit through the narrative. That's bad.

It forgets to add any sort of characters, really. The ones with most depth are actually the characters that have fuck-all to do with anything - the maids, the boatman and the butler. The rest aren't even reaching the level of being two-dimensional.

 

[RK47]

'im gonna torture you, corvus while telling you everything about my plan, cuz i know THERES NO WAY YOU CAN ESCAPE AND SO YOU WILL HAVE MOTIVATION TO GO AFTER ME LATER... IF YOU SURVIVE! MWHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHA'

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

Thought it was actually pretty good. Liked the setting. Spells might have been overpowered but who cares, I had fun.