Talk:Delilah's Masterwork/@comment-26438896-20160111222743/@comment-1500935-20160112002535

The last Thief was, well, disappointing albeit a few good ideas. I really liked the hub areas where you could freely move from roof to roof, climb down to steal a purse and then go back up, but the missions themselves were just too linear, leaving too few options for progression, and so making stealth a banality. Purchasable tools like the wrench or wire cutter were no different than simple keys, opening new ways, instead of offering creative use, which made them boring. To not be able to anchor a rope wherever you wanted was also boring. The first two Thief games never had such issues, levels were generally open, which several routes to the objectives, and ropes could be attached to any wooden surface. It offered a balance between stealth and free exploration, but not combat, something the last Thief did not bother changing either, unfortunately.

Still, I don't think Dishonored achieved that equilibrium of stealth and combat, at least not in each mission, but frankly I blame map resource management for that. The Flooded District mission, as atmospheric as it is, has that issue of not knowing if it was designed for stealth/exploration (the Rudshore Waterfront and the Refinery) or combat (Daud's base and the sewers), which can make it awkward for both types of players. Same for The Light at the End, where stealth leaves few options of progression, though perhaps it was by design, like breaking in the fortress, one layer of security at a time.