HellforLeather
Member
I didnt find them difficult. I just found their "unique" aspects to be more annoying than anything else. They are cool ideas on paper but actually playing through them wasnt fun IMO.
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Dishonored 2 |OT| The Edge of the World
- Thread starter Salsa
- Start date
I didnt find them difficult. I just found their "unique" aspects to be more annoying than anything else. They are cool ideas on paper but actually playing through them wasnt fun IMO.
Finished my 5th playthrough, this time on Iron Mode with all the difficulty sliders turned up. It's cool that several sliders go beyond Very Hard's defaults. Playing on NG+ sort of made it a joke, though.
I love how replayable the game is. My last couple runs clocked at under 3 hours each (my first playthrough lasted 34 hours), which is a great length for simply blasting through the entire game on NG+ high chaos in a sitting or two. I can see myself coming back to it for many years to come. It's so damn fun.
I love how replayable the game is. My last couple runs clocked at under 3 hours each (my first playthrough lasted 34 hours), which is a great length for simply blasting through the entire game on NG+ high chaos in a sitting or two. I can see myself coming back to it for many years to come. It's so damn fun.
that'd be an oxymoron there...
Many powers and bonecharms work fine with stealth. And you can pull an choke someone in stealth.
demosthenes
Member
Same here.
Rexatality
Member
Personally, I would have saved the ghost playthrough for later.
Not sure doing non-lethal/ghost for your first playthrough is really worth the frustration. Its not like the end of the world if you get spotted in this game.
Laurentius
Member
The way mission restart/select is handled would make it impossible for it to work on a pre patch mission. The game just creates a hard save from your last playthrough of that mission. There's no way it could create a hard save for something that happened in the past.
Back-In-Black
Banned
You're talking nonsense. I pretty much agree with the write up you quoted.
I just beat the game and honestly I don't feel like it deserves a long write up. Basically, this game has almost the opposite problem of Mankind Divided. In that game stealth is clearly the main focus, while they've tried to make straight up shooting more enjoyable, it's clear that the game is meant to be played stealth. Dis2 is an action game that attempts to give you the option of "stealth" but teases you at every corner to be as violent as possible. The majority of powers are all lethal powers, some might allow you to kill silently, but you are still killing nonetheless.
I played as Emily because it was the only character that made narrative sense to play as and her Far Reach is just the worst thing ever when compared to Corvo's Blink. Just lay down and kill yourself if you actually want to get her to grapple where you want to instead of launching 10ft into the air, grabbing something else, or just grabbing thin air. The levels themselves have interesting concepts but are executed poorly, especially coming from a stealth playthrough angle. I also despise the fact that there is no "safe" hub, no matter what, no matter where in a city there are, no matter how many civilians are present, the guards always come after you for some reason.
Of course, the biggest crime of the game is its story, thought saying that implies it actually has one. There is no story, they just took the plot from the same game and did it again to lazily provide some sort of context for your murders. I typically never skip cutscenes in a game, even games with terrible stories, but I had to in this game because everything about it was so bad even down to the voice acting. I see no reason to get into details as we all know the story is trash. But, I just want to counter your first point, that these people "deserved" to be murdered. Tell me, what exactly did they do besides overthrow your rule?
The fact that they were able to initiate such a massive coup such that EVERY guard and soldier within your kingdom is completely fine with this change of power reveals that perhaps Emily was a shit ruler. At least in the first game the conspirators were also terrible human beings, you know rapists and what not. The antagonists in Dis2 are not shown to be horrible people, they just didn't like Emily and worshiped Delilah. How does that make them deserve receiving a lobotomy?
Game was just pure trash to me and the idea that individuals believe it to be on par with Mankind Divided baffles me. MD's only real sin was that it ended just as things got interesting and could have used more hubs. Dis2 is just endless trash.
Rexatality
Member
Just because you feel Emily is awful at ruling, doesn't mean the people allied with Delilah (Aside from Hypatia) aren't awful people. Most of them are greedy, amoral, or lack moral restraint. The coup may have been successful, but the aftermath was a fucking mess in Dunwall.
The whole low chaos arc of Emily is basically understanding how neglecting she was in her ruling and how she aims to make thing better once she settles the score with Delilah. Playing non-lethal doesn't give you the right to act on a moral high horse. Non-lethal means you are not willing to kill people (Including guards, gangsters, witches, and civilians), but you're still willing to make your enemies suffer for what they've done to you
And endless hatred to this game (And possibly Arkane as well) shows me that your argument has no merit
I'm sorry but this is just factually incorrect. Many of the antagonists of the game are pretty explicitly awful human beings. The experimentation area of the clockwork mansion shows many mutilated bodies thrown away in service of Kirin Jindosh's inventions. Breanna Ashworth's coven is shown to murder men in service of their witchcraft, although their motives aren't given to us as far as I could tell. Still, it's fair to assume that Dalilah's witchcraft involved the death of many people, since she has such close ties to Breanna. Not to mention all of the noble people in the palace who are murdered during the coup, as well as some guards that aren't in on it, which you can see if you explore the city at the beginning of the game.
Also, just because the guards serve their new kingdom faithfully doesn't mean that they agree with the coup or their new leadership's ideology. And if you read some of the letters and notes left by guards, they often reveal that they desire to live outside of the conflict but are kept from doing so, probably due to a real threat to their lives if they were to acct out of line.
[*]The AI is a real hardass in higher difficulties (They can even spot you while leaning or if you are above them).
That feels empty of a proposal. I played it on normal, which I assume is how the developers intended you to play it since that would be the "balanced" option.
I will be going off assumption. But unless harder difficulties adds new mechanics to the AI rather than changing their view range from 200 -> 300. I don't see it becoming any better.
- And I find it ridiculous that you say that it's only possible to get low chaos ending as non-lethal since you can eliminate a number of people in each mission and still get low chaos.
That's news to me. I didn't do the numbers on how to get the low chaos rating but I from the connotation of it being called "low chaos" it dictates that I keep my destructive levels at a low ie not killing frequently.
I wasn't saying you need to be a pacifist to unlock the ending but they want you to not be a psychopath to enable it.
- Well, it's not like the people you are eliminating are nice people and responsible for the coup, so why feel sorry for them?
I'm not sure if you're referring to the bosses or the normal enemies because the normal enemies, besides the witches and clockwork soldiers and just guards. Imperial guards that probably worked under Emily before the coup. So, killing them is more or less killing like Obama killing a police officer because he's mad Trump is now president. Not the guards fault, he's just doing his job.
As for the main bosses, like I said: Emily's incompetence is baffling and she deserves not to rule. If Delilah grand plan wasn't to enslave everyone in the classic Disney villain "rule the world" plot, I would much rather have her rule. She's clearly better if she turned a whole empire against an empress in a week's time when said empress had 15 years of ruling.
As for the others, I had little cause to hate them. Jindosh is a genius and considering how effective Delilah is. It's only logical to follow her rule. Luca Abele is Duke of Serkonos and was an asshole. He is cruel but Emily was Empress. In those 15 years, she could've stripped him of powers. Reading over all of these major villains backstories, always leads me to the conclusion "If Emily wasn't such a shit empress this wouldn't happen."
- And you say every power is about fighting? Domino? Mesmerize? Shadow Walk? Give me a fucking break. And have you forgotten that you can use The Heart to locate runes and bonecharms?
As for those powers, like I said. The way I played the game was ghost. So, Domino was pointless for me. I know what you're going for: choke one, choke all. So, I guess if you were going for sleepy time stealth that works.
For Shadow Walk, I felt the skill was rubbish. It only limited movement by limiting you from using the Z axis and costed more mana than me simply far reaching over gaps to keep hidden since guards never looked up. I only obtained it for Rat Shadows, which I never found a tunnel to use it on. I will chalk that up to my incompetence but I also cant find a video of someone actually using it.
Mesmerize, I didn't actually get on this playthrough. It certainly looks cool at the steep cost of 6 runes for a stealth playthrough. So, I will give you that one. From what I see, it costs nearly 2/3 of your mana to distract 3 people which is inefficient to just blinking past them for only like 10% of your mana.
I know it's very meh for my two last arguments to be: Far Reach is more efficient. But, far reach was always more efficient. Just like Dis 1, blinking breaks the difficulty of the game. I think the only mission I thought was a slight bit challenging was Time Travel Manor because it disabled powers but I found warp abusing to be a little too easy at times.
And I did use the heart.
Back-In-Black
Banned
Yes, I hate Arkane so much I purchased the game (and Dishonored 1 at launch) and played through it so that I could come on GAF to hate on it for no reason beyond my burning hatred for Arkane.
endlessflood
Member
In addition to that, anyone who explored the grounds of
the Duke's palace will know that he's a muderous and sadistic SOB, his letters make it clear that he intends to bleed his country dry while he's alive (because he literally says he doesn't care what happens to it after he's dead), and he's wilfully killing miners and destroying the dust district in pursuit of quick silver (no pun intended). The conspirators are not nice people (and I don't consider Hypatia a conspirator FWIW).
Rexatality
Member
Jindosh is a genius, but he treats his servants cruelly and sees people as nothing but toys and experiments to play with. He lacks zero empathy. Duke Luca Abele is greedy and sociopathic, not willing to take his responsibility seriously and more willing to drive the miners to overcapacity (Even if it means a lot of miners dying and an entire district going to shit). I can't believe you're obtuse enough to believe they're good people.
Low Chaos Emily learns from her mistakes and tries to rectify after settling the score (Sure, they could have expanded it more)
And I have to ask this if you think ghosting is just choke this, choke that: Did you even use the non-lethal drop takedowns or the slide non-lethal takedowns? They are a thing in the game, especially when adding more non-lethal options was a big focus for the game after many complaints how non-lethal players felt underwhelmed for playing non-lethal
Hell, even if you get spotted. You can parry enemies during combat and choke them out
Low Chaos Emily learns from her mistakes and tries to rectify after settling the score (Sure, they could have expanded it more)
And I have to ask this if you think ghosting is just choke this, choke that: Did you even use the non-lethal drop takedowns or the slide non-lethal takedowns? They are a thing in the game, especially when adding more non-lethal options was a big focus for the game after many complaints how non-lethal players felt underwhelmed for playing non-lethal
Hell, even if you get spotted. You can parry enemies during combat and choke them out
Back-In-Black
Banned
The point of ghosting is to not take anyone down, its to play through the game without anyone seeing you, not simply taking down everyone without them seeing you. A ghost is not seen and its presence is so minimal that people question whether it exists at all, hence the term "ghosting."
Rexatality
Member
Sometimes a ghost can use non-lethal takedowns to clean up some guards from their patrols and hide them in a place where no one would find them.
Its not mutually exclusive. And I find it hard to believe that several people ghosting through stealth games without even knocking someone out (And yes, that includes Deus Ex games)
- Jindosh is a genius, but he treats his servants cruelly and sees people as nothing but toys and experiments to play with. He lacks zero empathy.
From what I observed, Jindosh having zero empathy isn't enough of a reason to castrate his intellect and identity. His deal is very reasonable. "I built a bad ass maze mansion. If you break in and survive. Try." The servants and guards he have appeared to be employed and not enslaved. His guests appeared to be excited to meet him. The servants were afraid of automation but who isn't these days. I didn't see any intention of him killing them all like a mad scientist. The guards know what they are signing up for: to protect his mansion. Which they seemed confident about with his clockwork soldiers.
- Duke Luca Abele is greedy and sociopathic, not willing to take his responsibility seriously and more willing to drive the miners to overcapacity
- And I have to ask this if you think ghosting is just choke this, choke that: Did you even use the non-lethal drop takedowns or the slide non-lethal takedowns?
Yes, I know about that. But, if you read my original post. My playstyle wasn't sleepy-time assassin. It was a thief type play, a real ghost. Touching no one but my target. When I see a group of guards, I see a way to navigate through or around them without being detected. I don't shoot sleep-darts, I don't use stun mines, I don't put them in a lovely caress their neck and whisper sweet nothings into their airs. I play like the wind. The satisfaction of knowing a guard would be scratching his head how this ghost faded pass them to the target while they were patrolling. Not the sleepy-time assassin who knocks them all out, gets to the target and does a dance. Then all the guards wake up in unison after 12 hours and the conclusion is obvious "I got knocked out. That's how she got pass us all."
Rexatality
Member
Well, I don't know why you are trying to play like a Thief, especially when you are a freaking assassin. But whatever
Back to the targets:
Jindosh's servants muse about the fact they might get replaced by Clockwork Soldiers and become unemployed in the process due to the way he likes his Clockworks more than people. He left the people who tried to break into his house to die, including starving children. He was willing to torture Sokolov through Electroshock Therapy, which was basically making him braindead (He even used it on a baker once). Bloody hell, he made a doll made with whale oil and bones of several cats and gifted to a young noble girl. The result? She got traumatized so much that she's spending the rest of her days in an asylum
Duke Luca Abele was only able to do whatever he wants because Emily was too neglectful in her ruling and that's something she aims to rectify it (At least in low chaos). He let the bloodflies get out of hand and let the Grand Guard harass civillians with taxations and other corrupt shit And as said earlier, he's willing to bleed the country dry and is far as he is concerned, if he dies, Serkonos dies. At least the body double is willing to clean up the mess Luca left behind. But even if Emily was aware of Luca's corruption, it'd take few weeks to send a message and then the officials would dismiss any claims about corruption through Karnaca and Serkonos.
endlessflood
Member
I think we need to spoiler tag this discussion.
I agree with you on the
To answer your first question,
his bloodline does. He's not an appointed governor, he's a Duke and inherited his title from his family, which has ruled Serkonos for generations. If you execute him you're likely to start a war; if you strip him of power, you're likely to start a rebellion. If you appoint someone else to rule, you're undermining the concept of nobility, which is Emily's only claim to power. Having him committed and the double ruling in his place neatly sidesteps all of those problems.
I agree with you on the
Jindosh non-lethal solution though. Lobotomy is seriously twisted as a solution, even if he's probably the most dangerous man in the world, and completely amoral.
I take it you haven't played the Dishonored DLC?
That's where Mesmerize is so good, why on Earth didn't you take it? It's a completely traceless distraction (leaves no evidence) for up to four people simultaneously. With that, the stealthy upgrade for Far Reach, and Shadow Walk, you have a bucketload of tools at your disposal for that type of unique playthrough attempt.
Back-In-Black
Banned
1. I'm an Empress, not an assassin.
2. In other words, Emily was a terrible ruler whose answer to every problem with her rule is to murder anyone in her way.
Rexatality
Member
Ex-Empress (Until the epilogue, at least). So the fact you're not willing to kill the targets just because Emily was empress is laughable
And as I said before, even if she was aware of the corruption in Karnacam the Duke and his inner circle would dismiss any claims about it. And considering sending messages through ships is the only way of communication at the time of this game, its obvious the officials would dismiss any claims against the Duke and the Grand Guard's corruption.
endlessflood
Member
If one of your vassals turns out to be a tyrannical sadistic narcissist, what should you do? Write them a stern letter? Imprison them, leaving their land without a ruler? Execute them? From one of the game's endings it seems that there is literally no other remaining member of that bloodline, even distantly.
Rexatality
Member
Exactly. If you kill everyone in Karnaca (Including the faction leaders of the Dust District and the Duke),
the whole city burns to the ground
Back-In-Black
Banned
Is this supposed to be some kind of hard question? You imprison (or execute) them and turn their rule over to a more loyal subject. You're the Empress! What do you think Augustus Caeser did to Governors that disappointed him? What do you think every absolute monarch every did?
Why would it matter what his inner circle thought? Again, you're the Empress. Oh, the Grand Duke is corrupt? Assemble my royal guard, tell them to march on his palace and arrest him, if he resists execute him.
Rexatality
Member
Okay, let's entertain your scenario for a moment. Emily sends her royal guard to arrest Duke Luca Abele and kill him if he resists. Who will replace him, then? Who will fill up the vacuum if Luca dies knowing his bloodline fades with his death? We know very well the city would fall into total chaos in that case and without a clear solution in mind (Like a democratic-like council and that only happens if you co-operate with the body double), Serkonos would fall apart
Back-In-Black
Banned
Did you not just read my post? Who will replace him? Any loyal subject she wishes, that's how monarchies work. In GoT/ASOIAF those royal Houses that did not bow to the Targaryens during their initial invasion were crushed and/or wiped out and replaced with more loyal Houses amenable to Targaryen rule, such as House Gardner which was wiped out and replaced with House Tyrell.
Rexatality
Member
At this point, we are just arguing in circles, so let's drop this.
You don't like the game, that's fine. Its not meant for everyone in the end. But I do it funny you have a problem that some people preferred it to MD
At this point, we are just arguing in circles, so let's drop this.
You don't like the game, that's fine. Its not meant for everyone in the end. But I do it funny you have a problem that some people preferred it to MD
He does bring up good points. Arkane clearly didn't think the world of Dishonored out. If you try to apply logic to the politics of the world it completely falls apart. I mean, 15 years is a long time to rule. A long time to get allies on your side. I mean, it's embarrassing she doesn't have one noble ally in her pocket she could confine in for sanctuary.This lack of depth seems apparent when she is publicly calling Corvo her father in court. Saying "Hey, I'm a bastard." only hurts your claim for succession to a throne. As I said before, who did they think her father was before?
As for why I play thief like is because that's what assassin's should be like. They get their target causing as little confusion as possible. It's a skill that should be rewarded like Hitman does. If you knock everyone out in Hitman: prepare for a low rank rating. But if you only get the target, without anyone noticing: high rank rating.
Rexatality
Member
There were rumors about Corvo being Emily's father. The first game hinted about it and his relationship to Jessamine several times
At the point of Dishonored 2, people already acknowledged and accepted the fact that Corvo is Emily's father, regardless of the fact that he's Serkonan low-class who was sent to Dunwall to become bodyguard to Jessamine
endlessflood
Member
As I specifically pointed out though, this isn't a governor. He hasn't been appointed. He has a hereditary claim to the role which is recognised within his duchy.
So you put some guys on a boat and sail them down to Karnaca? Do they knock on the door? What if the Duke refuses them entry? Do they try and storm the palace? What if they need more soldiers for that? Do you send 10? 100? 1000? What if the Duke has thousands of soldiers who are loyal to the silver he provides, backed up by Jindosh tech? Are you at war with Serkonos now? How do you think the other regions will react when they hear that the Empress wants to remove the Duke of Serkonos from his hereditary seat by force? Do you think that will make them feel nervous? What if they all feel nervous, and begin talking with each other? What if the Duke has dealings with them on the sly, with a proposal that makes them less nervous?
Monarchies work well until there's uncertainty over secession. Then there's war. What you have here is no secession in the case of Serkonos, just a power vacuum. If you just appoint someone to rule, what does that say about the validity of noble bloodlines? Maybe the people think they don't need an Empress anymore, they can just appoint someone to that position. Maybe there are powerful people in Dunwall who would like that, and could make it happen. That's why in one ending
Corvo is appointed the new Duke. He is local to the region and has blood ties to the Empress, so it makes sense. But how will Serkonos view that, with their hereditary house thrown out and someone sent down from Dunwall to take over?
If you want to look at plot holes, I think they mostly revolve around the Empress being unprepared for void magic, and the Abbey not wanting Corvo's head on a pike for being involved with the Outsider. With the former, there are known defences against void magic that the Abbey have, they should be everywhere around the Empress. With the latter, it seems to be common knowledge that Corvo is marked and I don't see how the Abbey could ever possibly be ok with that.
Rexatality
Member
IIRC, there were rumors about Corvo being marked among the Abbey. Matter of fact, Corvo hides his mark from any prying eyes (which is why he wears a glove on his left hand)
endlessflood
Member
The world of Dishonored seems to be far more gender enlightened than ours was even 50 years ago. Maybe patriarchal bloodlines aren't as much of an issue for them. Emily is without doubt the daughter of the Empress (can't argue that side of her parentage lol) so maybe that's all the Enpire cares about. I'm not sure what the Abbey's views on marriage are, but as Henry VIII would tell you, when you're in charge you can pretty much do what you like when it comes to marriage
FWIW, knockouts have no affect on your score in HITMAN. You can get a Silent Assassin (5/5) rating knocking out every single person in the level if you're so inclined.
I'm pretty sure I've seen those rumours mentioned by the common folk as well in some of the lore items, and you'd think the glove makes it very obvious from the Abbey's perspective...
TheKingOfPain
Member
It looks like you can't change the save model during an ongoing run.
I counted 4 sliders that go beyond Very Hard: Quick Access Wheel Slowed Time7Real Time (VH set to Slowed Time), Mana Replenish Yes/No (VH set to Yes), Ammunition Quantity Low/Normal/High (VH set to Normal, Low gives 1 less bullet), Stealth Visibility Low/Normal/High (VH set to Normal).
Mana replenish and Stealth visibility. if turned to No and High, could be a pita, but I guess the real challenge comes with Iron Mode.
I counted 4 sliders that go beyond Very Hard: Quick Access Wheel Slowed Time7Real Time (VH set to Slowed Time), Mana Replenish Yes/No (VH set to Yes), Ammunition Quantity Low/Normal/High (VH set to Normal, Low gives 1 less bullet), Stealth Visibility Low/Normal/High (VH set to Normal).
Mana replenish and Stealth visibility. if turned to No and High, could be a pita, but I guess the real challenge comes with Iron Mode.
SlaughterX
Banned
On the last level, really enjoying it, maybe ever more than the first game that I just recently beat. Rather fight clockwork soldiers than those stupid stilt guys from the first game.
Playing it on PC, 980ti in 4K. The newest patch seems to have imprived performance. It wasn't as awful as people made it out to be but if definitely has its share of glitches. I look forward to replaying it with Corvo, but I'm not gonna do that until I upgrade my hardware... too much other stuff on my plate.
Playing it on PC, 980ti in 4K. The newest patch seems to have imprived performance. It wasn't as awful as people made it out to be but if definitely has its share of glitches. I look forward to replaying it with Corvo, but I'm not gonna do that until I upgrade my hardware... too much other stuff on my plate.
HellforLeather
Member
Finished the game last night...did I break the final boss?
I noticed Delilah right above the entrance to the painting and choked her out, took her back and threw her on the throne. Also I noticed there is another check box as a non-kill way to dispatch her, how do you do this?
Rexatality
Member
Not really. That's still counts as stealthy or non-lethal, but 'ghosting' is generally defined as avoiding everything.
The (self-imposed) challenge is the point of it, knocking guards out so you don't have to deal with patrol routes tends to make most stealth games pretty easy. Generally good stealth games are designed so that the enemies can be completely avoided if you're good enough.
HellforLeather
Member
Yes. I put it on the throne, went into the painting, brought her back and threw her on the throne.
illusionary
Member
Yep, that's the intended non-lethal approach.
Anyone else come across a game breaking bug in chapter 5 (ps4 version)
I think the problem is i auto-saved during a time when the game was trying to do something else and now the game is completely fucked, like i can't even load the game anymore it just stalls and stutters during the credits.
I think the problem is i auto-saved during a time when the game was trying to do something else and now the game is completely fucked, like i can't even load the game anymore it just stalls and stutters during the credits.
HellforLeather
Member
I could have sworn that when I did it, there was a 2nd non lethal option that appeared on the graphic showing that I checked off the
Corrupt charm approach.
There's another nonlethal that's crazy hard, which is to take out all her clones and then her when she spawns in the bottom middle, with stop time.
HellforLeather
Member
Ah, do you get anything special for doing this?
illusionary
Member
SJRB
Gold Member
D2 is a great game but you don't get anything special for anything, the game is remarkably cookie-cutter in that regard.
SolidSnakeUS
Member
Does killing Clockwork Soldiers do something to the kill rank at the end/add chaos?
if you do it fast enough you can do it without being detected, which will count towards your Shadow run....
Rexatality
Member
No, they don't since they aren't humans. The same applies to Bloodflies