Dishonored DLC – Brigmore Witches EP2: Slumber Party

By Shamus Posted Thursday Mar 16, 2017

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 22 comments


Link (YouTube)

After playing the most recent Hitman, I find myself feeling kind of disappointed with stealth games like this. When I clear a room, I know I can basically walk away and forget about it. If you come back to the room later you can feel safe, like you’ve “claimed” this territory. I don’t need to hide bodies, because almost nobody moves. Everyone sticks to a short little patrol. In Hitman there are people with long patrol loops that thread throughout the facility. This means you always have to be paranoid about leaving bodies behind, and you can’t ever relax. Sure, I took out the guards in this room a few minutes ago, but maybe someone else will show up at any moment.

You don’t need a lot of those traveling types. It only takes one or two to give you the feeling of paranoia and caution.

Side note: We were going to stream Mass Effect Andromeda this afternoon, but the game is just a black screen for Josh. This is apparently a common problem, and while there are many suggestions we haven’t found anything that works. So you might get a stream later today, or you might not.

 


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22 thoughts on “Dishonored DLC – Brigmore Witches EP2: Slumber Party

  1. Daemian Lucifer says:

    I used to think that d&d has the most nonsensical morality system ever.But then I played games like dishonored and saw just how much worse it can get.Say what you will about d&d,but at least it has a sensible reason for its black and white morality:the gods decided that some things are objectively good and evil,and there you go.

    1. Andy_Panthro says:

      Killing = bad is simplistic, but I wouldn’t call in nonsensical. Killing people is permanently disruptive too, so the “high chaos” label isn’t entirely unjustified. Also “Low Chaos” means non-lethal, not pacifist so it’s really a case of where you draw the line.

      Knocking a bunch of people out and letting random people out of prison is chaotic, but it’s much less chaotic than going on a murder spree.

      Also less chaos/less killing is a good thing for this world, so tying it into the “good” ending is surely okay? (and vice-versa)

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Really?Killing one person stealthily and making them disappear via rats during the time of plague is more chaotic than raising dozens of alarms while doing freaky magic shit in front of dozens of people?Theyll increase the guards for the first,but not for the later?

        And thats not even going into the silliness where killing weepers and hired assassins increases chaos.

        1. 4ier says:

          I seem to recall in the original Dishonored season, it was explained that High/Low Chaos was based on how it affected the plague. More dead bodies = more rat food = more rats to spread the plague.
          More plague = more dead people = more societal breakdown = “High Chaos”.
          Leaving knocked-out guards around and setting off every alarm in the city is certainly hectic and chaotic, but it doesn’t specifically prolong the plague or break down societal structures.

          1. Joe Informatico says:

            Well, and most of the people you’d be killing are guards or Overseers, who are the upholders of the social order. It’s a shitty, oppressive order, but it still means an organized authority is making sure quarantined houses stay shut, preventing riots in the streets, enforcing curfews, making sure trade and commerce flow smoothly, etc. If there are fewer guards to do those jobs, there’s going to be more chaos in the streets. If they have an unscheduled nap for a few hours, it’s embarrassing and disruptive, but those guards are still alive to do their jobs tomorrow. (I know that High Chaos increases the number of guards present. I interpret that as guards are being reassigned to your mission locations because of how you’ve been killing their buddies, and thus fewer of them can do those important social order tasks above.)

            Dead weepers adding to chaos is pretty dumb. But I think they fixed that in Dishonored 2–I don’t think killing those Hive Master guys counts towards chaos, and destroying Clockwork Soldiers definitely doesn’t.

          2. Daemian Lucifer says:

            That explanation doesnt hold however because high chaos increases the number of guards as well,a body that disappears completely still increases chaos,and dead weepers also increase chaos.Its the classic case of ludonarrative dissonance.

            1. Jabrwock says:

              Leaving unconscious bodies just laying around should cause high chaos as well because the rat clusters and dogs will still devour knocked out guards. It should really be also scoring you on how many guards survived to wake up.

  2. Daemian Lucifer says:

    I like how this dlc randomizes stuff to improve replay and changes level entries based on chaos you had so far.Its a nice refinement of the base games “more guards”.

  3. Ilseroth says:

    Honestly what does it for me, more then the small patrol routes, is the amnesia. I recognize that for a lot of people it would be unbelievably frustrating (given usual detection mechanics in games) but if someone sees an armed assailant in their territory; they aren’t going to forget about it for days at a minimum and they are going to talk about it to every person they can find, who will talk about it to every person *they* find. I’m not saying a permanent super aware state, but anyone in the proximity of the alerted guard (assuming he manages to spread the word) should be ramped up to alert for the rest of the “mission” and the rest of the guards up to a semi alert state where they are concerned for their safety.

    The problem with this is, most games have very binary detection systems, a little bar quickly fills up, you are seen and that is detected mode, everyone knows where you are and they all start attacking you. Punishing getting detected in that kind of system with something serious is unfair, it’s really easy to trip up, or mistime a patrol, ect and it would just lead to people savescumming hard.

    That being said, a game like Dishonored would be the best for implementing that kind of system, since combat in the game is reasonably viable, if you genuinely want to ghost, getting your antics discovered and then immediately forgotten just feels cheap; you saw in this very mission that Josh makes a pile of corpses and is considered a “ghost” despite tons of people seeing that pile and since most of them are alive there are definite witnesses that *someone* was there.

    1. Andy_Panthro says:

      I guess they want to make things reasonably easy, and the more detailed the detection model the more trial and error it would require to ghost a level.

      I already resort far too often to killing my way through a level, because I don’t like reloading every time I make a mistake (as we saw with Josh here, replaying the same bit a few times).

      A more Hitman approach would require something similar to the disguise system, or more ways to sneak and avoid people.

      1. Thomas says:

        Several stealth games make humour out of the guards amnesia, hence the MGS cardboard box. Without very small levels (Batman) I think it’d hut remove a level of the gameplay

        1. Sleeping Dragon says:

          That said the remaining guards getting increasingly more frantic and panicky in the Batman:Arkham games’ predator sections was both interesting and entertaining.

  4. Isaac says:

    it also helps that in Hitman, knocked out ppl can be waken up

  5. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Rutskarn,you should definitely do a video lets play of dishonored where you just run through the levels annoying people and setting off alarms but never killing anyone.It will be the best thing you did since dark messiah.

  6. Christopher says:

    Stun mines are nice, so I hope Josh uses them next time. It’s also good to see them expand on the pacifist options.

    It reminds me of the Metal Gear Solid series. I’m pretty sure you can’t actually avoid killing people in 1(Though you had non-lethal things like stun grenades), but from 2 onwards you started getting more and more non-lethal abilities. The sleep dart gun, the sleep dart sniper rifle, the smoke grenade, the sleep gas mine, the sleep gas grenade, the close quarters combat, the tazer knife, the Riot Submachine gun that shoots rubber bullets, the Rocket Arm, the ability to carpet bomb an area with sleep gas… You get a lot of stuff in those games after starting with no non-lethal weaponry. Some of them are a little silly, but I guess that’s the price you pay for having anywhere near as many options as weapons that kill people.

    Giant Bomb did something like fifty videos last year for Hitman after the crew got way into it, so I watched a lot of bad Hitman play. Took months for them to realize that guards would just show you out of a forbidden area if you were caught, and they had to be told it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IMvbbYZjCg

  7. Tizzy says:

    Is Chris right? Is the next level that big? I can’t say I remember. I feel like the original game had some pretty sizable levels as well.

    1. Chris says:

      It’s not especially large by mainline Dishonored level standards, but it’s a big three part level. First there’s the aqueduct that separates the Hatters from the Eels that has a shop and some sidequesty stuff and both sides attack on sight. Then you go to the level that’s a dock. There we find the boat we need to save for the lady we just broke out of prison in the episode above, and with that done the Hatters are on your side.

      Then you have to go back through the aqueduct and go into the level that is Eels territory, which consists of their… factory… lab… thing? With the old dude kept alive against his will who you can release poison gas in the factory up to destroy (there’s a lot of that in this DLC). And then there’s also the sewers which are kinda optional but give us our first real glance at Brigmore Witches proper and have some runes and other junk. Then you go out of that level, back across the aqueduct level, then back to the boat to set off towards the final level of the DLC.

      1. Tizzy says:

        Thanks! I played the DLC twice, both within the past 18 months, and somehow I’d forgotten about both the factory and the sewers. Possibly because they didn’t feel that connected to the rest of the level.

        As I recall, though, there are a variety of ways to get what you need from the factory. That was a nice effort on the devs part.

  8. Warclam says:

    Does it sound to anyone else as though Daud, each time he uses his Batman-o-vision, ecstatically croons “that’s nice”?

    And why is everyone calling the Undine a boat? It’s clearly a full-on ship. Why else would he need it?

  9. Thomas says:

    I love Shamus spotting the reused animation, such a cool detail

  10. Grudgeal says:

    To answer Rutskarn’s question about the jig being up at Lady Boyle’s party, I’m digging up my old comment from when you posted that.

    After sneaking my way into the mansion undetected and infiltrating it through the front door (doing the duel non-lethally on the way) as a party guest and getting the clue of the right Boyle from mr. Creepy Stalker, I made my way into the basement after choking the back stairs guard and plunked him down in a chair in a remote corner of the kitchen that made it look exactly like he was sleeping in it (completely intentionally, I swear!), and discovered to my delight that none of the maids down there reacted to him at all. I watched them titter about there, completely non-panicked, for about a minute and thought he must have been in a distant corner too dark or something, and I couldn't move him again without arraying suspicion anyway.

    I then went into the third floor and went on a massive choking spree in the best Thief tradition, isolating the guards, taking them down one by one, dumping them in remote corners and stealing everything not nailed down. At which point, prepared as I was to do this perfectly discreet, I discovered the entire party was in a panic. Apparently, the maids were programmed to respond to the knocked-out guard in the chair, none of them had simply come arbitrarily close enough to him during my minute-long observation of them walking around the kitchen and now the entire mansion was on high alert due to one man found sleeping on the job. My last non-auto save was somewhere during the last mission.

    In the end, I was forced to re-enter the party, now on high alert, and in full view of all the panicking nobles fought several armed guards (non-lethally), crossbowed lady Boyle (with a stun bolt) and carried her off into the basement to an unknown fate she never returned from. Oh, and I picked a few of the paralyzed-with-fear nobles' pockets on my way through the non-lethal slaughter and wrote my name in the guest list. I then escaped through the sewers.

    Final end result: Low chaos. One has to wonder what usually goes on at those parties…

    1. Tizzy says:

      Final end result: Low chaos. One has to wonder what usually goes on at those parties…

      Well, I’ve never been invited to a High Society bash in magical-whale-land, but I would imagine these get pretty wild routinely. As a matter of fact, I bet some hosts have hired contractors to do precisely everything you describe, just to provide their jaded guests with a a frisson of excitement and danger by proxy. (And if the guards get brain-damaged from all the chocking, who cares?)

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