Overview
Some things I noticed while playing through the game.There will be spoilers.
Stealth
A few things.
- Take risks. If you need to get somewhere, you should save, and then try to crouch-walk over there. If you get caught, try swooping. If you get caught again, cause a distraction. If you still get caught, then look for another, easier route.
- Hug walls. If there’s a torch on one wall, the opposing wall will be darker than the wall the torch is mounted on. If there are two torches, you can douse them with two water arrows. The guard nearby will only relight one of the torches.
- The high-ground can be more dangerous than the low-ground. Don’t trust your instincts and try to get as high as you can, because often times, there will be more guards up top than there will be below. Guards have pretty bad vertical vision (if you’ve played Dishonored, you can take similar risks) so hiding on a 1x1x2 crate can keep you unseen.
- Peeking is almost always better than hiding in a corner. It’s much harder to be seen if you’re peeking, even if a guard walks right by you, or if the location you’re peeking from is in direct light.
- Adapt your playstyle. If you’re trying to be unseen, and you’re in chapter 5 with a bunch of freaks running around, don’t be afraid to light them up. There aren’t any bonuses to having a streak of full-ghost, full-opportunist, or full-predator playstyle labels, so feel free to experiment.
- Never knock out a guard. It’s unnecessary and it’ll stop you from getting no-knockout bonuses.
- Never kill a guard, either. It’s even more unnecessary and it’ll stop you from getting no-kill and no-knockout bonuses. Depending on how clumsy/cruel you are, it’s also possible to be seen right before killing the enemy, blocking out no-kill, no-knockout, and unseen bonuses.
- Shooting a blunt arrow at a guard will distract them without raising their suspicion. Doing this in a chapter can affect the “true” ghost rating (though perhaps not), so take caution.
- Creeping decreases your visibility, even if you’re not making noise in the first place. While you may try to swoop past a guard and hope that he doesn’t notice you, you can also simply creep past him. It takes longer than swooping, but can improve your chances of staying hidden.
Combat
I haven’t done much in this area but I do know some things.
- Try not to initiate combat, whenever possible. Even if you want to get the predator labels, you can do so without getting seen. If you’re insane about killing everything you can also beat things while they’re knocked out to kill them.
- Hit, hit, dodge. After hitting an enemy twice, they’ll retaliate. There’s no way around this, so dodge.
- Hit, dodge. Sometimes an enemy will block your attack. When they do this, they retaliate instantly, so dodge.
- Towards the beginning of the game, guards aren’t as efficient in combat. You can get in three or more strikes without needing to dodge, so go wild.
- Don’t bother fighting freaks. If you don’t have fire arrows, explosive arrows, a nearby light, or a flash bomb, you won’t get anywhere. In this situation you should probably reload and try to sneak past it. Remember not to use focus when you’re sneaking past, and not to move too quickly.
- There is no need to upgrade your bow unless you’re playing on master difficulty. It’s too costly, and you’re better off just buying broadhead or sawtooth arrows. Remember to aim for the head, even if they’re wearing a helmet. Helmets block critical damage, but they don’t reduce normal damage; besides, it’s good practice.
- If you want the enemy to remain at the yellow alert level, don’t keep shooting them. Every time you shoot them, they go up an alert level, and once they reach red, they automatically know where you are.
- Upgrade speed before you upgrade combat. It makes it easier to target the enemy, not get killed in the process, and generally makes it far less dangerous to initiate combat. The higher the speed, the better, although you should keep your combat level at level one at the very least.
- Guards can still hit you with ranged weapons, even if they don’t have a crossbow. These makeshift weapons typically deal very little damage, but can knock you off ledges, which will most likely lead to your death.
- If you’re taking out an enemy with the bow, make sure to strafe, run, or hit them with a choke arrow or flash bomb. If you don’t, they’ll hit you often enough that you won’t be able to tighten your aiming reticle to a reasonable size.
Convenience
(Yes, convenience is correct. If you correct me I shall laugh at you)
Some general things that may not be immediately apparent.
- The queen of beggars is extremely cheap for the first 4 to 5 focus points. If you don’t have the option to donate to her yet, complete another chapter, and try again.
- You can get focus points for free throughout the game, usually at the end of chapters.
- The last 3 trinkets in the game are stupidly expensive. They’re ~9000 and ~28000 gold. Don’t bother saving up money unless you’re replaying chapters, because you most likely won’t be able to afford these trinkets.
- Buy cheap trinkets. The lucky coin is an excellent example. The increased maximum focus is more helpful than you would think and it’s only 150 gold.
- If using focus with level 2 dexterity, picking locks makes absolutely no noise, and there’s no “feeling around” for the sweet spots. Move your mouse left or right to select a pin, and then move it upwards. When the pin turns blue, hit E to set it. The entire process takes but a few seconds and you can’t be detected while doing it, so invest in dexterity early on if you want the later levels to be easier.
- Picking locks with level 2 dexterity and knocking out opponents with level 1/2 combat drains your focus at an unholy rate.
- Get level 2 efficiency as fast as possible. It makes focus usage trivial, and you can leave it on for longer periods of time.
- Get better lockpicks. The upgrades are cheap and you can pick locks in record times, even while being searched for or chased.
- Focus stones are infinitely valuable. Early on, you might think that they’re useless because you can just go to the queen of beggars and get a focus point for 150 gold, but once you’ve used up the queen of beggars, her required payment will get silly rather fast. Don’t think of it as one focus point plus the 6 focus points you got from the queen of beggars; instead, think of it as 1200 gold saved, and a flat-increase to a resource with increasingly high value.
- Guards can only remember one action at a time. If a guard is walking to a location, and he hears a noise, he’ll stop. If a guard is standing still, and you douse the torch right above him, he’ll naturally try to relight it. However, if you shoot a blunt arrow at his feet, he’ll forget about the doused torch. Be careful not to let them reach alert level 3, because they’ll start searching for you.
- Side jobs aren’t necessary but it’s still a very good idea to do them. There are a lot of them, and they all have a low reward, so if you get stuck, skip it.
- Lockpicking, opening chests, and generally interacting with anything in the environment directly will move you to a specified location. This can cause you to activate pressure plates, step into direct light, or even nudge a guard.
- There is no penalty for your actions in the city. You can beat a guard to death with your blackjack without losing any previous or future ghost labels.
- Selecting “Play Again” at the end of a chapter resets everything you earned that chapter. In order to 100% a chapter, you must collect everything in a single run.
- Be careful while swooping. Swooping is essentially a low, silent sprint, so if you swoop towards a crate and then climb it while swooping, you’ll barrel over it and make a lot of noise. This can also be used to your advantage, however, because you can move quickly while also keeping a low vertical profile, reducing your chances of being hit by ranged weaponry.
- Feel free to watch a walkthrough of chapter 5 if you can’t handle it. You’re not alone.
- Holding shift while opening a door will cause you to bust it open. This makes a lot of noise, obviously, but it can be used to knock down enemies or get into areas quickly.
- A guards vision can be blocked by an entity, such as another guard. Use this to sneak up behind a guard and pickpocket them, using the guard himself as cover. You can do this to pick locks, open chests, pickpocket, and generally any other action that doesn’t create noise. Guards also cast shadows; by getting them into the right position, you can create a small veil of darkness to hide in while you lockpick a door.
- Most (if not all) chapters change something in the city that will allow/prevent you from visiting a previous chapter. For example, after finishing chapter 1, its path will be blocked and you’ll be forced to visit chapter 2 next. Chapter 1 may reopen at a later chapter, however.