Who would like a difficulty mode similar?
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There was a professional mode in C47? 
Personally the only change I’d make to H3 master mode is perhaps seperating cameras into multiple boxes for respective areas
Me and my 20 clones. I was disappointed to see that we can now take disguises from NPCs that were shot. My primary gripes with these last three games will always be with the core mechanics.
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Some parts were interesting, ruined disguises, more illegal items, cameras can compromise you (which fortunately made it to the normal game).
But it was all ruined for me by the stupid footsteps mechanic. Like really the guard standing on the rooftop overlooking a crowded city market happened to hear the footsteps of a single man enter a building and instantly knew he wasn’t supposed to be there. Having to walk all the time is not fun.
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Yes! I’m all about pro difficulty being somewhat accessible to the masses. Casual should be the “I’m here for one play though and the story” or “I’m just not good at video games,” pro should be harder but still not aggravating for those this understand the game. I’m all for the 3rd difficulty to be like a racing games simulator mode where you can’t even press the gas pedal without knowing what you’re doing. The separate zones for CCTV made sense to me. Smarter guards make sense to me. Basically YES! I’d love a really difficult mode.
I do like realism though so I’m not a fan of rat poison being on the chef instead of in the kitchen. Only bc it would be near the drain IRL. Other things like keys are fine to be on people though. If they ask “is their realistic?” I think they will find the difficulty setting that says “yes” will usually be harder than what we have now.
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On Master difficulty?
I really miss it. Every weapon should be as illegal as the dangerous letter opener.
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I feel like Master/ top difficulty has been watered down more and more over this trilogy.
In Hitman 1, Pro mode meant that many items such as propane flasks or wrenches were illegal in civilian disguise, many key items were moved around, guards were added, camera placement shifted, NPC viewcones and hearing enhanced.
In Hitman 2, the item illegality differences were removed, but there were still a good amount of changed item spots/ guard locations as well as overall better perception in the NPC’s. A lack of car batteries on Santa Fortuna Master mode comes to mind, as well as some key pesky extra enforcers in the Mumbai slums.
In the new Hitman 3 maps, I barely can tell what master mode changes beyond just NPC’s hearing and seeing more. The camera placements seem about the same this time (and Dartmoor and Romania have no cameras to begin with, while Mendoza has like one camera). Guard placements and item placements seem identical as well.
It’s like IO’s budget for “difficulty differences” has been steadily declining or something. I do think that some of the illegal item rules in Hitman 1 pro mode were a little much, but at the same time higher difficulty should mean something, change the maps to make you think different. Not just play a little more careful due to better vision.
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I really prefer audible footsteps and more hidden items, but I wouldn’t want to play master all the time because of the lack of saves. Hitman is too random for one save per level IMO. If they gave you one per target or something I’d probably play master all the time, but one is too few for anything but a practiced route (in my case anyway).
That said I’d love a new pro mode that worked similar to 2016’s where there’s a selection of limited challenges to accomplish as the ultimate test. Once you know the maps well from normal mode it would be a great reason to play again.
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I might be a little weird, but my favorite part of Hitman (2016)'s Professional Difficulty was toggling in and out of the mode from the main menu. I loved how the music slowed down when entering Pro. Very cool. I wish H2 & H3 did something similar.
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“Master mode” (I use this name to avoid confusion with Pro mode in H2/3) in Hitman 2016 had interesting gameplay choices (footsteps, more cameras, more suspicious items), but what I really dislike is the separate mastery levels.
Every challenges ask you to finish the level (with the one-save limitation) and that’s the same for the six maps. It takes too much time and effort (especially if you’re an average player like me).
I prefer the system in H2 where mastery levels and challenges are shared between pro and master (only the classics are tied to difficulty mode).
A good compromise would be the “master mode 2016” coupled to the shared mastery levels from H2/3.
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I agree. Only the classics should have been tied to difficulty levels. Now we don’t even have that 
. Maybe IO will add them later on.
The biggest thing for me would be the separate camera zones. I was so excited in sapienza when I had already shot the TiVo box and then got seen by a camera and realised there were multiple zones. That’s an obvious one that should be in the hard difficulty.
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I mean, the whole point of the mode for me was getting those selected challenges again on the harder difficulty. If the challenges are all shared, it’s the same as the master mode we have now.
Yeah same! My reason for avoiding the difficulties is cause they remove disguises and stuff on levels, which I feel kinda takes away from the “vision” of the level. None of the prior entries removed things on harder difficulties. I really miss audible footsteps.
In Hitman 1, Pro mode meant that many items such as propane flasks or wrenches were illegal in civilian disguise, many key items were moved around, guards were added, camera placement shifted, NPC viewcones and hearing enhanced.
These were some of my favorite changes but I still hated how they removed all the free disguises around the levels.
IO if you’re planning a new hard mode for HITMAN III, I strongly recommend you only ADD things, not remove them from levels.
Id like challenges to have 3* ratings to show which difficulty you did them on. An indicator for having Silent Assassin achievable at the moment of completion too would be fantastic.
Well, I partially agree there. On one side, it was an interesting feature, but being compromised just because I just taken a simple wrench was ridicolous. That was neither a distinction between “suspicious” or “illegal” items, beside the former were legal with a proper disguise (example, a chef can bring a propane tank). It was however an interesting feature, it just needed a better balancing IMO.
For all the rest, I agree the mastery track was awful on Pro mode from 2016, the added guards were something challenging, but sometimes a bit on the weird side, like the helicopter area from Paris being overly enforced by extra patrols, while the hallway behind the dressing room, where Novikov still passing, was still pretty empty.
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One of the problems with this approach though is that frequently more stuff makes leaves more manageable as it ultimately boils down to more options - going against the increased difficulty curve.
Generally I only played on Master level to complete challenges and unlock items, but not being able to rely upon the same strategies but better was what made that genuinely challenging and not just an annoying chore.
Limiting doing that to adding just more guards, cameras, undermines that to an extent because it means any changes are just one more item “I have to shoot an extra two cameras” rather than “I have to source a new disguise”.
(Disclaimer: Most of the time I was trying to do the Suit Only/Silent Assassin challenge so the disguises weren’t that big a deal to me - but the point about creating new challenges rather than just new obstacles still stands)
Hitman levels are always going to have weird security like this, because at the end of the day the goal is to make a setup the player can beat reliably - so there have to be artificial weaknesses implemented into the design or else it’d just be frustrating or encourage non-fun grinding tactics like luring and KO’ing 40 guards one at a time.
Where have people got it in their heads that audible footsteps aren’t a thing? If you run behind an enforcer in Master mode in H3, they’ll hear you and turn around
Edit: example
Pretty sure we’re saying we miss audible footsteps when playing on professional difficulty. At leas that’s what I was saying.
1 Like