Nothing impolite at all. We really need to start staying on track around here. I promise I’m not doing it on purpose!
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That was easily one of the most succinct but comprehensive explanations of the mode I’ve seen, not to mention one full of praise. Thanks for sharing.
The fine folk over on the Friends Per Second podcast were stoked about it too, with the exception of Shillup who admits the game is high on his pile of shame. But it was nice to see the other Friends talk about it, even if Lucy got all the terminology wrong and Jake hasn’t played it yet. Blessing, sitting in for Jirard, was particularly excited.
Skillup and Gameranx are huge and I’ve been waiting for them to talk about this damn game, so it was satisfying that they finally did.
Edit: timestamped video. I recommend these folk in general.
Yeah it rounds off to the lower number. Came down to 0 after failing another campaign on purpose.
Something that needs to be fixed is when you have 1 target but 2 kill objectives. For example, drowning kill and poison kill. At the moment I just choose the one that pays more, but it is something that needs to be fixed.
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I disagree. It’s like that for the reason of options. Sometimes you don’t have the items for certain mills so it allows players, especially ones that don’t have a big arsenal or die, to still have a chance to get at least 1.
Choose what’s best for you.
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I always bring a remote duck with me on Hokkaido for this exact same reason: There’s a windowless guard room on the right side of the hallway leading into the hospital area with like six yakuza guards in it just standing in a circle looking at each other and all but one of them never move. Two of them are enforcers to their own disguise and the one in the corner often comes up as a target on that map. If you can’t bomb them out the only other way I’ve found that works is to cause a huge amount of chaos nearby and then sometimes they will come running out, but that’s very unpredictable.
There should not be a situation that corners a player into failing something when they cannot control it. It’s not just an option that you need to choose; the game is already choosing for you that you are going to fail something, regardless of your choices. That needs to be fixed.
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Unlikely given that IOI said it’s an intentional design choice.
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They did confirm it’s intentionally designed this way.
You’re not failing. You’re choosing what you want to do. There’s a difference.
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No, they confirmed that not everybody would be able to complete all objectives all the time, and they were referring to situations where maybe you didn’t yet obtain the tool you need, or maybe the order you chose the missions in boxed you into a corner when it came time for the showdown, or maybe you picked a PO that conflicts with one of the objectives already there. Each of those involves choices you make resulting in failure, but if you’d made better choices you might have succeeded. That’s what they confirmed. They never said anything about the randomly assigned objectives that conflict with each other in a no-win scenario where the player is destined to fail one of them irrespective of any choices they made.
No, you are being set up to fail at least one of the objectives that has been assigned to you, regardless of your choices. Unlike the above examples, where careful selection of what order you select your missions, or what items you buy and when, or what POs you pick, or even a case where you deliberately choose to not follow the objectives, then the failure of those objectives are effected by your choices. It is still possible to have a scenario where you can complete them all; maybe not on this playthrough, but next time you might be more prepared.
But when there are two kill conditions for a single target map, and it’s not a showdown, and one of the kill conditions was not a PO you selected, then you are being given a condition where you are absolutely going to fail an objective no matter what you do, and no matter how well you might be prepared the next time you come across that scenario again. It is completely out of the hands of any and all players in any and all instances of playing that scenario of whether or not you’ll be able to complete all your objectives. The choice of whether you pass or fail is being taken out of your hands. Being able to choose which one you fail, while yes a choice, is still not a choice, because you never had the option of completing all objectives like you would on another mission in the first place.
So yes, it needs to be addressed so that on single target, non-showdown maps, the game does not generate a two kill requirement that leaves the player unable to complete all objectives no matter what they do or could have done.
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Again, it’s not failing. It’s choosing which one you want to do. If I offer an apple and an orange and you can have only one, which one do you want? Same logic. You’re not failing the apple if you choose the orange.
From IOI’s blog on the launch of Freelancer (emphasis theirs):
The key here, is that HITMAN: Freelancer puts the strategic planning of a mission into the hands of the player. The game mode relies on randomized elements, that are rolled independently of each other. The game mode gives the player all available information, but there’s no guarantee that an objective, for instance, is possible when on the mission. To succeed, it is up to the player to ensure that a payout objective is possible, by bringing the right gear, or choosing the right combination of location, brought gear and objectives.
They designed the objectives to be potentially undo-able.
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Eventually that guard goes to the bathroom by his own free will. Not too difficult to get a sieker shot on him from a doorway either if you don’t want to wait.
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Yep. I’ve never seen any other guard from that room besides the one who goes to the bathroom be a target.
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OK. The game has started to crash to desktop when I change disguises. Not every time, but often enough to get mighty annoying. Especially since I have a habit of changing back into my suit once I’m done.
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Your analogy is not a valid one. Picking the apple or the orange is more comparable to picking the syndicate type of contract, or picking the location you want go to.
To make it more comparable, it would be more like you telling me that once I pick the apple or the orange, I can then have the other one after I eat the first one I picked, but I have 3 things you want me to do, and if I don’t do them all, I can’t have the other fruit. Say I choose the apple, and you tell me you want me to cut it up into slices, eat it while whole, and throw away the seeds. I’m not required to do any of these, but I don’t get the orange if I don’t do them all. And I point out to you that it is not possible for me to cut the apple into pieces and eat it while whole at the same time, and you tell me that unless I’m just choosing to not do any of these additional tasks, in which case I forfeit the orange, I still have to do them in order to get the orange. It makes no difference whether I choose to eat it while whole or cut it into pieces, the fact that I can’t do both will mean that I have failed to do all 3 and you will not give me the orange. It’s not a choice; it is a setup for failure.
You’ve already provided the rebuttal for me (emphasis is mine):
The key here, is that HITMAN: Freelancer puts the strategic planning of a mission into the hands of the player.
To succeed, it is up to the player to ensure that a payout objective is possible, by bringing the right gear, or choosing the right combination of location, brought gear and objectives.
They are referring solely to objectives that may not be possible to complete if you are not making the decisions you need to be able to complete them, such as having the right gear to match the objectives, and not selecting prestige objectives that conflict with other objectives.
Potentially undoable, as you said. They are emphasizing that player choices are what make an objective possible to complete. But when the game itself sets up two objectives that cannot be completed on a single target, and it’s not a showdown (that’s the player’s fault; shouldn’t have chosen the map with two kill objectives for a showdown if there had been more than one target assigned), that is not something that a player’s choices can overcome. That is the game sabotaging the player to a situation with an unwinnable objective no matter what they do or what choices they made prior. That is a flaw in allowing the game to randomize objectives.
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I agree with you that it’s a flaw. My argument though was not that it wasn’t a flaw. My argument was that it is flawed by design.
In your quoting of my post (and hence IOI’s) and your rebuttal, you left out the operative sentence which my argument relies on.
IOI designed the mode to provide three objectives per level that are completely independent and, therefore, may not all be achievable. That was their game design and they intended it to work that way.
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Just had to Alt+F4 again. This time the Druzhina had bullets that just passed straight through the syndicate leader without killing him. I was literally killing people behind him by body shotting him. I don’t think I’ve ever run into this bug before. Maybe it’s something to do with the piercing effect?
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Yeah this happened to me - slightly larger guy with grey hair and a red shirt?
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I’ve had the same issue with one specific target. He is only impacted by a head shot. It’s a bug.
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