So, I’m thinking of starting the dreaded Hardcore mode in Freelancer once the patch arrives on 11th May! reason for that is because I’ve heard a couple of people have experienced a few bugs with the Prestige objectives in Hardcore mode, so I want to wait until the patch is live because I don’t want to experience any hiccups in the road.
Anyway, so my question is, which is the preferred Syndicate type to play in Hardcode mode? I’ve heard a lot of people advice ‘Assassination’, but it looks like there is a lot of the ‘Timed Hide & Seek’ and ‘Timed Disguise’ objectives in that Syndicate Campaign? I might be me and all the Syndicates probably have totally randomised Prestige objectives!
Since the best advice for Hardcore mode seems to be ignoring any objectives except the Prestige ones, I’d say probably avoid Sick Games, Eco Crimes, and Psy Ops, as those can involve more accident-related objectives like collateral and such. Any of the others should be fine as they’d be more like blow open a safe or epic melee kill and such, when not saddled with timed objectives.
It doesn’t matter much. The prestige objectives aren’t based on the syndicate type, and you generally won’t go out of your way to accomplish any objectives aside from the prestige one (unless you want it to be particularly painful I guess), since there’s no penaly from doing so aside from getting less merces. So just go for whichever you’re more comfortable with, or whichever has the maps you want. Personally I went for any syndicate which had the specific maps I wanted for showdowns (I mostly used Paris and Miami) and rerolled the syndicate selection if there was none (by quitting to the main menu and reloading the save).
Psy Ops for the distract target objective making it easy to identify suspects. Poison objectives can also work this way, albeit less convenient than just bumping into people, so Big Pharma can be a decent pick too. Just make sure you leave a map with one of those objectives for the showdown.
I also use Chongqing whenever I can, because of its open spaces with good vantage points for sniping, and because of the secluded places where you can leave KO’ed suspects, and take their phones to other isolated places to draw the target to you. I’ve said it before, but the very thing I disliked about Chongqing in the main game - its lack of large crowds - is what makes it great for Freelancer.