Hitman Megathread: I didn't realize frog was an option

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Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

I'm sure you guys have all heard it before, but those of you who waited for Hitman 3 to hit Steam before you got it... oh man are you in for a treat. I think it's the best of the trilogy, and you're going to have such a good time.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2022 00:48

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 07:00

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Yeah, just add all of the maps. Hawke's Bay, First Test, Final Test, Carpathian Mountains, everything. Could just have them as mini missions for Freelancer that only shows up in the first half or something.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2023 19:34

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

I emetic gassed him and drowned him, ezpz. But then I got seen by a guard going for the safe and they shot me dead. I got lazy and cocky and paid the price.

I just want my Undying Suit back! I had it back in Hitman 2 and it hasn't transferred over.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2023 04:03

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Alerted Hokkaido is the god drat worst. What disguise is even good for the top floor? Both Elite Guard and The Director still run into plenty of enforcers.

At one point I just gave up and accepted straight out combat and I must have mowed down fifty people before I finally managed to grab a doctor disguise and sprint out of there, leaving my epic assault rifle behind.

I'll buy it back soon enough, but drat that still stung.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2023 02:33

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

KillHour posted:

You're going to be really mad when I tell you it's Jason Portman

No way, shut up, you're kidding! Not cool man, shut up! (I should have guessed. Thanks!)

Yuri Lowenthal's best role in this game, I swear, shut up!

# ¿ Mar 29, 2023 02:57

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Mierenneuker posted:

Which made me wonder just now: who the hell is "Ayakashi"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoWz4KsUPl8

Oh my god, I love this.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2023 13:58

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

I love the Hitman: WoA storyline. I don't actually think anyone's gonna sing its praises as a top-tier super-intelligent script worthy of the game-equivalent of an Oscar or anything, but it's a really solid spy/assassin story.

Fun Illuminati bad guys, personal twists and turns involving the hero, and fun villains and sidekicks, all to serve the function of leading the player through lots of fun missions with fun variety of gameplay, scenery, and goals.

I think the villains are memorable, there are tons of fun quotes, and I look back fondly upon the entire thing, even divorced from the gameplay.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2023 19:08

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Dabir posted:

Wow, the forum rules have got a lot laxer suddenly

Okay, this was a good joke and I didn't want it to pass by without a thumb up.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2023 01:01

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

It's just a gameplay mechanic. It doesn't make sense and isn't realistic, but tons of things in the game aren't. Anyway here's their reasoning, agree or disagree as much as you want.

https://ioi.dk/hitman/blogs/2023/freelancer-difficulty-and-the-persistency-rules-of-freelancer-tools posted:

But another key part of the frustration seems to revolve specifically around losing Freelancer Tools, when failing a campaign. In the following we�ll address this issue and go a bit more in depth around the thoughts behind this part of the design.

Frustration1: Inconsistency and lack of communication
HITMAN is a quite complex and difficult game in itself and the rules of HITMAN: Freelancer are adding to this complexity level. For many players the specific rules for Freelancer Tools seems unintuitive.
Losing gear when you die on a level is a stable of Rogue-likes. It seems fair and it�s intuitive because it makes sense on a fantasy-level.
The rules for Freelancer Tools can come across as breaking this �contract� established between the game and the players. Adding to that it can be difficult to distinguish between Freelancer Tools and the other items.
We have decided to address the latter by introducing a label that can be seen in the inventory wheel menu or when inspecting a Freelancer Tool, so that the information about what category an item belongs to is always available.
For the complexity itself we have tried to make elegant and clear rules as much as we can. But we have also chosen to accept that the game mode requires a bit of extra commitment from the players to understand the rules, rather than removing depth by simplifying the game mode too much.

Frustration 2: The breaking of immersion
A problem with losing the Freelancer Tools on campaign fail, is that it can easily come across as immersion breaking. The safehouse should be an impeachable location � it�s in the name! � so who removes those items? It can easily either feel like burglary or come across as very �gamy.� In both cases it undermines the fantasy of the safehouse � which is bad.
We thought long and hard about if we could make a believable narrative reason for losing Freelancer Tools but without success. An idea could have been to never store the Freelancer Tools in the safehouse, but instead have them be available as a loadout crate at the starting locations on missions. This would probably have alleviated the breaking of immersion a lot. But the trade-off would be that the strategic gameplay of planning would be impacted negatively. By making all Freelancer Tools available on location, players would miss out on the interesting decisions in the safehouse of which Freelancer Tools to bring, that will be optimal for a given location, set of payout and prestige objectives and mission type, thus making the experience much more handheld. Here we decided to not compromise the planning gameplay and instead accept the breaking of immersion.

Frustration 3: The frustration of losing gear that has been earned
In HITMAN: Freelancer we simply believe that gear in the Freelancer Tools category is closely related to the freedom and choice you have on a mission. A lockpick will to a large extend determine what areas you can access (even though there�s other ways to open a locked door), access to poison, explosives etc. will heavily influence which payout and prestige objectives it is possible to carry out and so on.
Therefore, it feels very punishing to lose these opportunities and this agency, upon failing a Campaign (or aborted by the player). We realize and respect that!
We have still chosen to stick to the hardcore rule for Freelancer Tools because we believe it is the best choice for the game mode. This last part is a deep dive into our reasons for this decision.
HITMAN: Freelancer has a number of different progression systems at play that are important to line out to show how the rules for Freelancer Tools fit this ecosystem.

Mastery: The slow and linear power-growth:
There�s the long-term persistent growth of the mastery levels. This is a linear progression that largely impacts the safehouse and the availability of cosmetics (Except for gear capacity increases and some money rewards). It is driven by earning XP, which a player can do independent of the success of a mission or campaign. Unlike money and gear, the player gets to keep XP earned, even when dying on a mission. So, this growth is steady and available for players at all skill levels. It is motivated by offering roleplaying opportunities and to stimulate collectors and completionists.

Gear: The steady, occasionally bumpy ride:
Then we have the gear persistency system. Gear availability will impact player agency on a mission. Having access to silenced weapons, for instance, means a big difference for what a player can pull of on a mission and to how various challenges can be approached. That being said the different firearms within a subcategory isn�t a hugely differentiating factor for gameplay approaches, in the way the firearms are designed.
We have added a layer on top of this in the game mode, by making the rarity of a weapon have associated prestige objectives, which makes it important what specific weapon the players bring and adds an incentive to risk a rare and valuable piece of gear.
Even with this, the power-growth of weapons, is a system where players will stock up their arsenal incrementally over time, and lose fewer weapons than they acquire, with a relatively small impact on agency/actual power, once some key categories of weapons have been secured. It�s a power-growth curve that rises slowly, with a few dents when a piece of gear is lost, and then flattens out over time.

Freelancer Tools: The dramatic shark fin:
The design of the rules for losing Freelancer Tools mean that we can be very generous with these items. That�s why we can have a system like the Safehouse Supply Crate, where the player gets a free item for every return to the safehouse. And that�s why we have the low prices for Freelancer Tools, which means that players can almost always afford a Freelancer Tool found at a supplier. We can give the player a lot of tools, precisely because we know that they are almost certainly for limited ownership.
This gives a much steeper power-growth, where we can give the player the experience of quickly gaining power � the From Zero to Hero journey that is so important to drive engaging experiences in a game mode inspired by Rogue-likes.
If we wanted this type of power-growth without the flip side of taking the Freelancer Tools away form the players, the experience of the game mode would be very short, because the arsenal of Freelancer Tools would be depleted too quickly � so this would hurt the replayability a lot.
The Freelancer Tools a player is given makes a big difference towards what gameplay styles are accessible. Together with the Syndicate Type property of the syndicates the player is going up against (that determines what objectives are giving payouts) this is our main way of incentivizing different playstyles.
This means that ensuring a dramatic influx of Freelancer Tools between Campaigns, is a huge driver in making the individual Campaign run different. A more dramatic difference between the availability of tools between campaign runs, forces players to try out tools and strategies that might be outside of the comfort zone instead of relying on go-to strategies. This gives much more variation and a much wider dynamic range of experiences.
This is the main reason we have chosen to stick to this design, even with all of the known issues and frustrations it brings. We simply believe that it makes the differences between runs much more memorable and interesting. And that is the promise of HITMAN: Freelancer � that any approach is valid, and any challenge is different from the previous one.
As a mitigation for players that gets turned off by not having reliable access to some of the more iconic tools in the HITMAN arsenal, we have added new versions of these tools based on feedback from the CTT. This means that players can now find and purchase a lockpick, coins, and dart guns that are persistent and not part of the Freelancer Tools category; these versions of the items can be bought and safely stored on your gear walls in the safehouse.

As frustrating as it can be to lose them, I agree with their reasoning.

Rythian fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Apr 24, 2023

# ¿ Apr 24, 2023 01:55

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Strange. A crash should be like Alt-F4ing, which functions as just flat out resetting the mission. Unlucky that somehow that didn't happen for you.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2023 17:21

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Sassy Sasquatch posted:

I don�t even know.

It has nothing to do with the crowbar, you don't even have that in your hands. They were already searching for you (SEARCHING in the minimap), and you just happened to get seen by an enforcer guard that approached you while you were buying from the Supplier.

And btw what is up with the colors on that video?

# ¿ Apr 29, 2023 19:12

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Sassy Sasquatch posted:

The title is a joke, I�m just stunned that bodyguard took his sweet time getting to the basement because usually they drop the ��suspicious�� status fairly quickly (he spotted me by the freaking kitchen !) NPCs don�t chase you across the map like heat seeking missiles for seeing through your disguise 2 minutes ago. That guy had absolutely no way to know my current position. I thought it could have been the camera but when NPCs spot you that way you get the yellow indicator.

Sorry if the colors are weird, that�s probably HDR messing with things.

Yeah you got massively unlucky for sure. RIP your campaign. I'm staying far away from Hardcore due to stuff like that, really.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2023 22:53

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

It's a mod.

# ¿ May 9, 2023 23:02

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Sensenmann posted:

It's still working on PC, all you need to do is hold ALT and tap F4 twice in quick succession. They only check for Alt-F4 to trigger a save, the second Alt-F4 terminates the save.

You can also open the Task Manager and close it from there.

# ¿ May 16, 2023 18:08

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Sorry about your stroke, pal.

# ¿ May 24, 2023 22:14

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Was I the one having a stroke all along?!

# ¿ May 28, 2023 00:26

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Phew, I'm safe.

# ¿ May 28, 2023 01:03

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

I just 100% completely ignore earrings/tattoos, and just check all the other stuff. Hair/glasses/tells/meetings is much more reliable.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2023 00:36

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions, the Maneuver�.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2023 15:31

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Make a Super Easy Mode For Babies Mode or something that lets you restart, and give some extra cool rewards if you play on Normal Mode or Hardcore mode.

I'll slam-pick SEMFBM all day long.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2023 00:24

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Freelancer is incredible, I love it. It's difficult, and it's rough to start out when you have no gear and not a ton of experience, but that's the point of rogue-likes, really.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2023 18:40

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

It's working for me.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2023 00:03

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Hedgehog Pie posted:

I just don't get it, buf it's one of many things that's passed me by apparently.

What's not to get? IOI gives away a cosmetic to people who watch any Hitman streamer for long enough. This makes people want to get a free cosmetic, so they watch the stream, increasing the viewers for Hitman on Twitch, which is good advertising. It also might get more streamers streaming Hitman since drops will attract viewers, so more people streaming Hitman, more people watching Hitman, maybe more people buying Hitman?

It's pretty basic advertising. You can argue if it's particularly effective or not, but the thought process behind it makes sense.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2023 20:06

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Hedgehog Pie posted:

Not going to lie, trying to read this post made my eyes do weird things. I may be having that stroke I've been expecting.

Did you happen to drink a glass with a very suspicious green smoke around it recently? :ohdear:

# ¿ Oct 27, 2023 20:34

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Just watched The Killer and yeah, it's very Hitman, except for all the darkly comedic stuff from the games. Worth watching, great movie.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2023 05:06

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Hell yes.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2024 20:53

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Rubber Duck Time.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2024 22:36

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

It says in the description "An option to upgrade to the full World of Assassination is available." so that's probably somewhere, maybe inside the game itself.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 20:49

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

Wolfsheim posted:

I love hitman but they had maybe the worst release strategy of all time

And it's not getting better. I was hoping once they finally got all of it in one bit for WoA we'd be done with this poo poo, but nooooooo. Still way too many packs and individual DLCs that require spreadsheets to know what you get.

The game owns. Everything about buying it sucks.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 21:13

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 07:00

Rythian: Dec 31, 2007; You take what comes, and the rest is void.

What a "psycho-phant".

# ¿ Apr 11, 2024 20:45

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