Does anyone else feel like the difficulty and challenge have been upped a little for this DLC?

Maybe I'm just clumsy AND stupid (or lazy), and I play on the Elite difficulty, but

a ) the enemies are tougher. And it's not just they deal a lot of damage (that's the difficulty level), but you pretty much can't approach the butchers from the front. Even when you're playing violently, you STILL have to be stealthy. I guess you could say the main game contained different enemies, like the tallboys, which were hard to kill, or watchtowers which couldn't be killed at all, but those were few, while the butchers are a common enemy in the slaughterhouse.

b ) puzzles. In the main game, whenever you came across a locked safe, the hint to the combination would be right there, next to the safe, with very few exceptions and the puzzle would be really obvious. I didn't manage to open either of the safes in the first KoD mission and I left 1 rune there and 1 bone charm (I know the rune was in the safe, but I still don't know where the last bone charm is). The removal of the heart makes hunting for bone charms and runes a bit of a challenge for once.

I found it all to be a good thing. Don't know if it's the same in the other missions, I've only played the first, I'm trying to take it slow and savour it, heh

I appreciate the added challenge, but I'm still finding the DLC to be rather easy on my Elite pacifist run. As for the puzzles, you need to pay better attention to your optional objectives. Although, the second safe was tricky, and I doubt I would have gotten it if I hadn't accidentally read someone's hint about it.

It was about right for me. I got spotted every now and then and sometimes killed. If I had to reload more than I did I would probably be frustrated (then again, this was supposed to be the "elite" difficulty, so I guess it could have been more hardcoe). But I did like the fact that even when you're not bothered about chaos at all, you still had to plan and sneak, that's a big plus.


Damn, I thought I did. I mean, I knew what I was supposed to look for but I couldn't find the favour. Then again, I have a tendency to look really far for stuff that is staring me in the face, so maybe it was another case of that. In the very first mission in the main game, when I came across Jelly's safe, I thought the hint "look to your whisky" meant the code was on the bottle. Unfortunately for me, there actually was a three digit number on the bottle label; t was really frustrating when that didn't turn out to be the code, lol.


I'm intentionally trying to avoid those hints so I can get back to this puzzle on another playthrough For now at least. But again, I like they made them less obvious, 'cause some of the earlier ones just weren't too satisfying.

Ok, I take back what I said about the good type of difficulty. It's not the good kind, it's the broken kind, at least in some cases.

Turns out, it's not that the safe code on the wall is difficult to find. It's IMPOSSIBLE to find UNLESS YOU HAVE OBJECTIVE MARKERS ON. This is absolutely ridiculous.

The enemies' eyesight seems to have improved.... or perhaps it's only because it's been awhile since my Dishonored
playthrough

I'm currently playing on Elite, going for Cleaner Hands achievement, (no kills), and actually find it overall
easier. Largely due to the fact that you can buy upgrades to increase the size of your Sleeping Dart cache, where in the
original game you were limited to just 10. Could increase how many regular bolts you could carry, but not the non-lethal
kind.

I don't find it difficult at all. it was really satisfying working out the safe codes and just being patient, studying the area. I don't kill anybody and hardly ever get detected so I won't know much about the combat aspect but those butchers are brutal from my observations.

I played on veteran which was the normal difficulty. enemies now deals more damage than they did in the original game. as well as being twice as many.

I like the additional challenge for the most part, although there are a few occasions like...

...I wish Arkane would design the level to be played without the markers first and then add them later, that makes the most sense to me.

Did anyone else struggle with the High Chaos playthrougth boss on Master Assassin difficulty? That fight made me want to curl up into the fetal position. But winning was so satisfying!

The added difficulty to the safes was a nice change although I do have objective markers on. I have no idea how people could play without them.

I have no idea how you can play without objective markers AND on Elite difficulty!!! kudos to you all!

I played on newbie player player level and still struggled, though it seemed on a par with my first-ever play of the main game - where there seemed to be too many guards (remember the first play at returning to Dunwall Tower - all those blasted guards everywhere). I'm thinking it will get easier once I become familiar with all the guard points and new ways to access my goals. Next time I'll play on veteran (normal) level and have hope for half a chance at low-chaos after my unintended ridiculous high-chaos attempt!

Well, no objective markers is, IMO, the way this game is supposed to be played. And the fact that people say this I see as proof (not that I needed it anymore) that there's something seriously wrong with the quest design. The quest isn't supposed to boil down to "go to this arrow", that's just wrong. There should be clues that allow you to figure it out.

I had the markers on in the main game, because I didn't fully trust myself to get all the clues. This time, since this DLC is so short, I thought it would be conducive to slow-paced exploration to have them off. And I was right for the most part - it's a different experiene, it's way more fun to explore without artificial arrows pointing you in the right direction and I encourage everyone to try it. But there are those occasions where you're at a disadvantage for no real reason. I agree with InDIGnation that the way to do this is first design the levels with no markers in mind, and then add them as additional help, not rely on them.

I personally find objective markers to be obtrusive and immersion-breaking. It wasn't until I played games like Thief that I realised how much better games are objective markers; piecing together the clues and finding the objective yourself is far more satisfying than chasing after a floating arrow.

Plus playing Dishonored with the markers on actually causes me to eschew exploration altogether, which is half the game as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, totally agreed. The missions are where grandpa Thief is a shining example. Everything you need to know is provided by the environment and you have to piece it together yourself. There's a secret passage in the mansion and you know it's in the bedroom but don't know how to open it? Tough luck, we're not pointing you to the switch, you'll have to find it yourself.
This approach "it's too difficult to follow clues so we'll just give you an arrow pointing to it" is ruining games these days. It's why so many Assassin's Creed missions are so unsatisfying. All the side missions boil down to "go to this person, get quest, follow marker, turn on this power that we provided because it's too difficult for you to recognise your target in a crowd and we can't be bothered to make them stand out, kill target".

It just occurred to me now that one other reason that I'm saying the game is fairly/more difficult now but other people don't is the fact that I never upgraded Void Gaze and I don't use it except when I hear the rune music.

Back on the 'Difficulty' note, I think that the difficulties translate from the main game to KoD like this:

Novice = Normal
Veteran = Hard
Elite = Very Hard
Master Assassin = Very Hard and a half

My first playthrough I went with the default veteran, and I did remark a few times to the person watching me play that I was finding it a lot more difficult than the main game.

The first level I managed to complete in low chaos, though I'm not quite sure how I managed that when it felt like I'd had to kill half the complex, but the next two really tested my patience and I ended up in high chaos. In the last level I got swarmed and ended up snatching the odd bullet off the body I'd just dropped in order to finish off the next one running at me!

I don't mind high chaos so much though, having played through the main game a lot in different styles now, I know that killing can be just as fun as knocking out, especially if you're going stealthy and plan out your kills.

I dropped the difficulty for my second playthrough and it was a bit easier, I wasn't necessarily going for either chaos, just choosing different options and doing different things, but I ended up with high so I guess I'll have to try for low in my third go!

I found high chaos really hard, but then I find it harder than low chaos in the main game too. I guess I'm not one for combat and full-on confrontation.

I fully enjoyed playing the DLC in low-stealth - especially with trying to avoid any detection. Everybody's simply too mean in high-chaos, especially those butchers who pinky-swore that we were buddies...

yep, it got tougher.. definetely