Vojtechsonik on 7/4/2013 at 16:45
I will check your mod as soon as I am home, because I have always wanted Dishonored to be more challenging. Expect feedback in about 4 days. BTW. Do you still work on this?
Wizd3m on 7/4/2013 at 16:52
JDV, I love you! That is all.
Seriously though, this sounds fantastic! I'm currently playing (and going to record me playing) through the game as a thief-like ghost without using any magic at all and it's a blast! Very difficult, but a blast! As soon as my university work is eliminated, I'll make sure to check this out. Thank you so much man!
jdv on 7/4/2013 at 18:31
Hello, thank you for the enthusiasm! I hope this work is to your tastes. Yes, I'm still actively working on this. Consider this release (0.01) alpha. It will be a few releases before beta, and a few more until the final version. So if you want stuff changed, let me know! I'm committed to this project (never done one before, someone else has always taken charge). I put difficulty mods on System Shock 2, Thief, Bioshock ... I've generally come to expect them and I'm modelling this attempt after those mods (especially the Thief mods).
I can say, at the moment, that the game is far more intense as a stealthy character, but also much more exciting as an aggressive character. Ghosting is still possible without blink, but much harder.
The "to-do" list in my original post is proving hard to achieve. I found some blink settings, but I have no idea how to change them in a meaningful way (I only seem to be able to make it more powerful). I can't figure out how to change the price of magic / items, and while the guards are more perceptive, I'm having trouble verifying whether they truly look up more often. In other words, I could use help from the community. If you find a good .ini tweak, post it here and I'll include it in the next mod update!
What I'd really like is for the magic to be just useful enough that you don't feel like you are cheating when you use them. Right now I only feel proud if I beat a level with no magic.
Cheers, joseph
Vojtechsonik on 9/4/2013 at 12:50
So far I've played several levels and I can tell you this:leaning is too little for my taste; guards usually don't look up unless alerted (don't know if it is intended but it makes it bit easy for you);guards hear too much noise from far away. Does this game have also light and shadow based stealth? I am asking, because I am somewhat puzzled: they can see me from 300m in daylight but can't see me from 15m in night. I have also noticed strange things with with neutral A.I.'s as they somewhat keep saying "Huh?", "What?" when there is a dead body nearby. A video would give you better idea. Other than that, I had a blast playing it! It makes game much better in terms of challenge, guards are properly distracted and you do not feel like you fly above ground, blink is now much more useful and justified, fighting is harder and it makes you use all of the things in your inventory if you screw up or play aggressive. Mana should not restore after using blink in my opinion. I played it by either buying equipment before game and did not take anything else in mission or did not buy anything and collect only things from mission, because game gives you so many things to use, can it be reduced? Such a great game and you are making it better!
Jason Moyer on 9/4/2013 at 14:18
In regards to light-based stealth, I'm pretty sure that pre-release they said light levels would play a role in obfuscating your profile, but that you couldn't become totally invisible in shadow.
As far as leaning goes, I'm still kind of surprised people find it overpowered. From a distance you're basically invisible, but anytime I did it when a guard was facing me he saw me instantly and usually did the "startled" animation (on very hard, or whatever, at least).
jdv on 9/4/2013 at 20:06
Thanks for the feedback:
1) Leaning is tricky. In this game, you are invisible if you are behind an object, and leaning (unlike THIEF) does nothing to expose you at all. Before, you could lean out of a door 15 degrees without being seen. This is extra-overpowered when you consider you can shoot your sleep darts while leaning. What I wanted to do was to force the player to "hug the walls" so to speak, by only giving you a 5 degree advantage. If you need to poke your head out further, you need to also move your body, increasing your risk of exposure. If others thing the leaning is too little, though, I can change it back.
2) I agree that noise might travel a little too far. I picked those values arbitrarily. What I do like, is that gunshots/explosions now bring all of hell down upon your head, which I think is more realistic and interesting. Can you suggest a moment in the game where you think that sound travels too far, so I have a point of reference for tweaking? Alternatively you could try some settings out yourself and post them here.
3) The guard looking up thing is absolutely a problem and one of my top priorities (aside from crippling BLINK a little). I can't seem to figure out the setting, unfortunately.
4) Do the AIs say "huh" when they see the body, or are they somehow telepathically aware of the body? Are you sure you weren't making noise? Things like bottles on tables now raise suspicion if you bump into them. I've never noticed this myself. I shall investigate.
5) I'd really like to double the prices of all the items in the shops, or more. For example, I think the upgraded pistol is way too devastating if you fully upgrade it. So, I'd like to make those upgrades very expensive, so if you choose to have an awesome gun, you forgo stealth boots (which would also be very expensive) or perhaps the optical zoom. In other words it would be nice to force customization. I cannot find these settings, if anyone can find them, please let me know!
6) Light based stealth was found to be "too unrealistic" in playtesting (which I find super strange considering everything else about this game), so they implemented "occlusion stealth" (which is why I changed the leaning values). Light/dark plays a minor role at a distance. You must crouch to take advantage of shadow. I don't know how to change these settings yet. What you likely experiences regarding day vs night was actually due to standing vs crouch. Right now, crouching gives you an ENORMOUS advantage. Standing characters are visible as far away as you can see, pretty much (which I think makes sense overall, if we are going to have occlusion based stealth and a super-powerful blink spell / time stop at your disposal).
Cheers everyone, glad some of you are having fun with it, and thanks for the feedback. If anyone can figure out the answers to the above questions *please* let us know! In the meantime I'm hard at work on v 0.02 :)
Joseph
Vojtechsonik on 10/4/2013 at 07:25
1) I also consider default leaning too over-powered, but this is little bit too much, can you please put it to for example 7 or 8 degrees?
2)I was on rooftops and guards heard me despite being 30 metres away from their location, not to mention the height.
3)Is it possible that it's causing bugs in A.I.? They sometimes look but do not see me. (Maybe cause I was crouching? LOL)
4)They saw the body. I was not making noise, but you are right that throwing things are now louder, I like it that way.
6)If it was because of crouching, then it's crazy:D
Looking forward for more tweaking Joseph :)
jdv on 11/4/2013 at 01:49
Quote Posted by Vojtechsonik
1) I also consider default leaning too over-powered, but this is little bit too much, can you please put it to for example 7 or 8 degrees?
>> OK, I'll play with this.
2)I was on rooftops and guards heard me despite being 30 metres away from their location, not to mention the height.
>> I'll try to scale this down a little, but not too much.
3) Is it possible that it's causing bugs in A.I.? They sometimes look but do not see me. (Maybe cause I was crouching? LOL)
>> I don't think so. They never looked up before, either. They certainly look up more now if they are suspicious, so that is good.
4)They saw the body. I was not making noise, but you are right that throwing things are now louder, I like it that way.
>> Don't know what to say about the "huh". Never seen it myself. I'm not particularly bothered by this little "bug". Before, the NPCs would just ignore the bodies, which rapidly evaporated, so this seems like some sort of improvement.
6)If it was because of crouching, then it's crazy:D
>> You must have been standing behind something, even if you can see through it (like a railing) it will make you invisible (unfortunately).
Looking forward for more tweaking Joseph :)
Cheers, Joseph
jdv on 19/4/2013 at 02:13
Hello Everyone,
I'm currently testing the Knife of Dunwall compatibility. There seem to be a few bugs that I hope to have sorted out quickly (don't worry, nothing game breaking, but some immersion breaking). I'll update the mod with v0.02 ASAP with the fixes and instructions.
EDIT: Uploaded with some reservations, although I seem to have fixed all of the obvious bugs. Master Assassin difficulty is pretty intense. I hope they add this to original dishonored.
Voxoid on 7/5/2013 at 04:16
Hey jdv, I've been waiting for a mod like this for sometime. Thanks heaps for the effort and I really hope that there's more to come.
I'd love to have the flashing turned off collectable & interactable items aswell, it'd make searching every corner of Dunwall far more enjoyable.
