Reply With QuoteSounds rad, I might wait until the new DLC before firing it up though (sorry, not the immediate feedback you were looking for I know). Quick question, in your research have you come across a way to stop mana recharging?
Dishonored Ultimate Difficulty Mod
Current version: 0.04, JDV
Tested to be compatible with all story DLC.
Special thanks to Matt Grandstaff, who helped in keeping this project alive!
Special thanks to Tautologist, who wrote a tool integral to preforming the advanced tweaks you can expect in v 0.05!
v 0.04 - TBW, KOD, + Vanilla
Download
v 0.03 - KOD and Vanilla
Dead -- for now.
v 0.02 - KOD (and Vanilla)?
Dead -- for now.
v0.01 - Vanilla Only
Dead -- for now.
VIDEOS:
Introduction
The Hunt
Turbo Thief
The Raid
The goals for this mod are simple: make combat so hard that stealth is required for survival, but also make you much easier to hear and see. This mod is still alpha with lots of tweaking and new features to be added, but I'd like the TTLG communities input to guide its evolution. I want this to stay true to the original game while forcing creativity, instead of simply providing the option by making enemies more dangerous while not modifying their health.
Stealth: Harder, but Required
1. Enemies are more alert and persistant.
2. You make more noise and are easier to see.
3. You can no longer lean like a boss.
4. Sleep darts take 10 seconds to work without upgrades.
Magic & Abilities: Encourage Specialization
1. Abilities (shadow kill, vitality, agility, and blood thirsty) are now considerably more expensive.
Combat: More Risky
1. The world no longer stops for you during combat.
a) Except during assassinations. This causes problems if a target gets involved in a brawl.
2. Enemies wait less time inbetween attacks & blocks.
3. Offscreen damage is now equal to onscreen damage.
4. You can be stunned for longer.
5. Enemies attack in greater numbers.
6. Guns no longer have any spread damage.
7. Windblast no longer causes any direct damage.
Graphics: Cleaner
1. Bodies pile up
2. No intro movie
3. Removed texture pop-in
INSTALLATION: overwrite the files found in
%userdirectory%/My Documents/My Games/Dishonored/DishonoredGame/Config
with the files found in the download link below AFTER BACKING UP /Config. Ensure the .ini files are read-only, or the game will overwrite these new settings with game defaults. I designed this on "very hard" difficulty, so you should perhaps make sure your game is set to "very hard" as well.
UNINSTALL: If you are unhappy with this mod, simply copy your backed up /Config over your modded directory after removing write protection from the appropriate .ini files. If you neglected to back up /Config, removing write protection should be enough to reset everything to default, although I am not 100% on that.
Exact changes are found in the mod_changelog.ini file. I'm not sure exactly what a lot of these settings do. We've had some great contributions from the community already, so if you are so inclined please tweak away and post your recommendations in this thread!
Hopefully we can breathe new life into this wonderful, but rather easy, game.
Proposed changes (i.e., I don't know how to do this yet):
1. Make spells cost more mana per use.
2. Make guards look up more.
3. Make each spell cost more runes.
a) Now implemented for 'abilities', but not for 'active' powers.
4. Cripple some spells.
5. Turn off mana regeneration.
6. Make upgrades in the store cost more money.
7. Turn off collectable item highlight.
I suggest "Return to the Tower" as a test run. I look forward to feedback!
Cheers, Joseph
Thanks for your contributions: ZippyDSMlee, Phoenixedd, Mr.Bueno
Dedicated to Northon, author of the Thief ultimate difficulty mod, which could be considered the spiritual predecessor to this attempt.
Last edited by jdv; 12th Aug 2014 at 10:07. Reason: github is now the only option
Sounds rad, I might wait until the new DLC before firing it up though (sorry, not the immediate feedback you were looking for I know). Quick question, in your research have you come across a way to stop mana recharging?
No, but that is certainly something I would be interested in implementing. I'll look into it.Originally Posted by Vivian
The download link doesn't work for me, it says "Download permission denied by uploader". Not that it bothers me at the moment because I haven't even got Dishonored yet, but this mod sounds like something that I'll probably want to try once I get the game.
I haven't used Rapidshare for anything for ages, maybe it's better now than it used to be, but I've found MediaFire to be a pretty good (and free) file hosting service.
Thanks, I added a mediafire link. Not sure why the rapidshare link is saying that... I certainly didn't do that on purpose.
ps - play the game vanilla first! my mod changes things pretty dramatically... it might have unintended effects during certain important scripted sequences..!
I can play Thief with the best of them, but I found Dishonored bloody difficult as a pure sneaker.
I've beaten this game many times in various roles... ghost, assassin, and murderous maniac. I found ghost to be about the easiest if you ab/use blink, but you are right, it is very difficult if you force yourself to never use magic and don't buy the stealthy boot upgrades. Murderous maniac was also rather hard if you forced yourself to use no magic. I found, in general, that the scales were tipped very highly in your favor with all of the magic available to you.
This mod is an attempt to bring the difficulty level high enough that even with blink / all of the other powers, ghosting is very hard. And if you are caught, fighting everyone off might not be the prudent option. Dishonored if pretty different from Thief, but I wanted to bring the spirit of being hunted from Thief into Dishonored, at least.
I'd love to hear your feedback if you give the mod a whirl.
I think now Rapidshare puts all your files like they were private, you have to make them public for other poeple. Here's what Google came up:
That's because as of this morning Rapidshare changed the default folder settings from public to private. If you haven't specifically made them public in the permissions they now are locked down. You will need to adjust the permissions for every folder.http://www.starrguide.com/2013/02/ra...-uploader.htmlDownload permission Denied by Uploader
This is because RS changed the default setting on all accounts to private. If you want to make your downloads public again, follow these steps:
Log into your RS account, on the R/S website Go into file manager, Create a new Folder Call it something like "My Shares," or whatever you want to. You'll then need to move all your files to that folder, (or one you've already created, because you can't set the permissions on the default) "My Folders," where all your files would have been stored if you had never created a new subfolder.
You can mass-move all the files at once, just check off the"Type" on lefthand side little box and move files. to your'e new folder you created.
Once files are moved Then right click the new folder you moved the files to and choose 'Privileges.' You'll get a pop-up box, and at the bottom of that box is a field that says "public access," and to the right of that will be three blank check boxes: click the middle one, which is downloads only, then click 'save.' You're done.
Yes, I had exactly the same problem with another link I put up.
Switch the privileges of the containing folder from private to public.
Thanks for the help. I think it is fixed.
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?
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!
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
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!
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).
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
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
Looking forward for more tweaking Joseph
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
>> 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
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.
Last edited by jdv; 20th Apr 2013 at 15:11.
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.
Last edited by Voxoid; 8th May 2013 at 02:07.
This is fantastic, I'm halfway through a no magic (no blink (except for the 2 occasions it has been necessary to continue), bone charms or runes) run and this mod has spiced life up and made the game so much more fun.
Looking forward to further updates (if they can be achieved.)
EDIT: I'd love to know what you've found through the files because I can't find info anywhere about what things affect, I've only really been able to attach springrazors to walls of light (pointless as the wall evaporates it when someone walks through).
Last edited by calmflow; 3rd Jun 2013 at 00:08.
I've been playing with unpacking the compiled files to see what is inside. My hope is that I can control some of these hidden settings using a standard .ini file, so don't lose hope about those proposed changes yet!
Everything I've found has been mostly trial and error / guessing from the sometimes strange setting names. There's no master list that explains what is going on. Then I would iterate over the same area over & over & over & over with slightly different settings to get it "feeling" good: sharp guards and fair gameplay. If you want to help, the best strategy I've found is saving right before your favorite scene, quitting the game, changing something (and taking a note of it!!!), remember to set that .ini file back to read-only, and then jump back in to see how things are different. I usually go for big changes at the start so that they are obvious. A lot of those big changes actually ended up in the mod: quite a few of the settings are 2x their defaults (so I guess the game is 2x harder?) But I'm still open to tweaking those things.
The great thing about dishonored is the devs really created an amazingly detailed world with tonnes of emergent properties. Therefore, changing little things in these .ini files has pretty incredible ramifications in the game world. This sort of mod only works with a well-crafted & complex game.
I've been wanting something like this since after my first playthrough, ty
The levels I've done are Prison, Campbell, Pendletons, and Royal Physician.
For the most part, everything has been fine. Though the NPCs' improved hearing making them hear other hostile NPCs has created some janky moments, like when a swarm of guards attack a Slackjaw gangster, or a weeper.
The worst incident was when during the Campbell mission, the guards heard something in an alley bellow the street with the art Museum and Laboratory, looked around for the source of the sound, and were eaten 1 by 1 by a swarm of rats. This killed at least 7 guards.
When its working right, which is most of the time, this is great. Maybe you could tune it so sound distance isn't buffed to be so far? Sometimes, a guard hearing your footsteps and getting pissed at you is a little weird when the other 5 guards walking around don't seem to bother him at all. All I know is that I like their improved vision distance and confirmation speed, and the lean being a small peek.
edit: another issue I remembered, placing bodies quietly is an issue and the distance they hear you thwomp carried bodies to the floor is annoying.
Last edited by lammiwonks; 8th Jun 2013 at 05:42.
Not exactly the thread for this, but since this is somewhat recent I'll ask here:
I intended to play this game over again, opting for a nonlethal approach this time, as I had just done a nonlethal playthrough of Deus Ex and it was a lot of fun. However, it just seems like the game mechanics are not really set up for this. Maybe I haven't toyed with it enough, but let me present to you a situation:
In the very first mission, where you must scatter the thugs knocking on Grannys door, how do you take them all out in a nonlethal way without being seen? The only luck I've had has been with a clumsy combination of blink/choking one of them and then sleep darting the other. I tried using the sleep dart first and then choking the second, but the third always notices. That wouldn't be so big of a deal except that my option from there is pretty much blink away and wait for him to forget me. I can see how this might get easier once I have the Slow Time skill and the Possess skill, should I just wing it until I do, or is there a mod that replaces the Sword with a blackjack or something...
Either you skip them entirely, or you can do what I do: I choke the guy furthest from the door and backstep while choking, blink to the 2nd floor of Granny's building and drop the body, get behind the next guy furthest from the door and line it up so I can sleep dart the guy knocking on the door, then as fast as humanly possible I choke the guy I'm next to. I'm pretty sure you can still get ghost/no bodies found in the ending summary if you are really quick. I'd double check somewhere else first though.
