Does anybody actually know why the arrange meeting objective doesn't work sometimes/ever?

Hitman 3 (2021) Freelancer
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I am not putting this in the bug thread because there are theories that this is an intended feature. I think those theories are wrong but I don’t want to discredit them without evidence.

Anyways, pretty much any time I arrange a meeting with the burner phones, the corresponding objective doesn’t complete. Other people have reported this, but other people say it works fine. There are other places in the forum and elsewhere that describe this. This is still the case after the May patch that allegedly fixed any problems with the phones.

The big problem is that I have found no consistent explanation for why this happens. There are more theories about this burner phone problem than there are about Jack the Ripper. I have heard that this is a feature that requires you to remember the exact location of meetings, that it is a bug with no cause behind it, that you can’t kill the target before arranging the meeting, that you CAN kill the target, etc. It seems that nobody has stumbled across an explanation and obviously IOI has not been forthcoming with one either - we wouldn’t have so many “explanations” otherwise.

Has anyone come up with some sort of definitive evidence in this regard?

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It was supposedly patched in the recent May 11 Patch

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While I have nothing definitive, knocking somebody out and arranging a second meeting always seemed to work for me.

While it might be completely placebo, standing perfectly still for a few seconds, arranging the meeting, and then standing perfectly still for 3-5 seconds after seemed to have a better success for triggering the objective.

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No, it’s not patched.
Or they patched something related, but not this specific thing.
Bug still persists

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If you set up a meeting with the target AND Jack the Ripper, 60% of the time, it works everytime. Make sure to like and subscribe for more helpful hints!

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From what I can tell… (my apologies if I’m incorrect on this)

Okay, you have several other suspects that have different agendas (or functions of their phones).

Some might be handovers, some might be meetings, or whatever (I can’t recall or know all the different types).

So once you know who the main target actually is - you have to trail whoever they meet up with. Because the Objective has to work on the main/actual target. If their tell is a handover - using a phone that is for a meeting will not contact them. So you have to KO another target that has a phone for a handover.

You might be SOL if you KO the actual target and use their phone. Because then they’d have to be found by a guard, woken up… and at that point they could panic and try to exit. :confused: And, once a phone is activated… I don’t know if any KO’d suspects will then try to come to the phone location or not once they’re woken up. Like, if you used THEIR phone to arrange… Yeah, that wouldn’t make sense since they shouldn’t have their phone. :joy:

Edit to add list of Agenda types.

Agenda

Business Meeting :blue_square: :handshake:

  • Suspects with the Business meeting agenda will seal shady deals with handshakes
  • On-site to attend a Business meeting with other suspects
  • Business meeting suspects carry Blue burner phones

Handover Meeting :green_square: :package:

  • Suspects with the Handover meeting agenda will meet up and exchange a package
  • Suspects are on-site to exchange illegal items
  • Handover meeting suspects carry Green burner phones

Secret Meeting :red_square: :speech_balloon: :left_speech_bubble:

  • Suspects with the Secret meeting agenda will meet up for a covert conversation
  • On-site to exchange secrets with other suspects
  • Secret meeting suspects carry Red burner phones

So whatever the main suspect agenda is - you have to get another suspect’s phone for the correct agenda/meeting.

One could make a graph or scheme/plan chart…

:man_beard: meets up with :man_red_haired: and :person_red_hair:
:person_white_hair: meets up with :older_woman:
:woman: meets up with :man_beard: and :older_woman: (This one might be incorrect)

Or whatever. There can be more NPC types (a mix of random features). Some meet up with more than one person, others only have a 1 on 1 meeting, etc.

This isn’t to accurately convey what might happen, but a rough example, and to emphasize just how closely you have to watch and notice things about any of the suspects.

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So this means that you have to call the target to a meeting? I have heard of people completing the objective while the target is dead and the objective text says nothing about targets so I am not sure.

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I’m not really sure either. I did have a potential target KO’d once, got a few other phones to activate and I never got the ‘Schedule Meeting’ objective to tick. So I could only assume that I had KO’d the Leader, and since he wasn’t able to respond to a meeting… :man_shrugging:

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If the target is dead, it doesn’t trigger. This also applies to the feat trophy for arranging 10 meetings

I’m not sure if you also have to trigger the correct type of meeting or if it still works if they’re unconscious.

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We don’t really know. With the random bugs and glitches it is sometimes triggered, sometimes not.

Best thing to do is trying to take down/knockout the target while she is a few meters away from the triggered phone:

  • phone should be activated on the ground
  • the colored circle is enabled
  • the target is en route to the phone

Hopefully the issue will be fixed soon :+1:

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I completed the challenge/ trophy before the May 11 patch, and I can guarantee you that I had killed the target and then arranged a meeting with their burner phone afterward several times.

Although, like most people, it would not always trigger. Usually, pacifying another suspect and doing it again would work. And once or twice I had to do it a third time and it would finally trigger.

I don’t see any mention of this being changed though, so it’s entirely possible that what I did before was not supposed to work and has been “fixed”

Which would only be even more confusing and unclear :face_with_spiral_eyes:

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From experimentation today, the requirements seem to be:

  1. The correct target must be alive
  2. The correct target can be unconscious
  3. The correct target must not be in the “escaping state”, knocking them unconscious does not fix this.

My go-to is to basically knock them out, use their phone, then go kill them.

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It is inconsistent. Using burner phones normally does not work, not even with it is a prestige objective. I racked up to 9 arranged meetings. A couple with unknown conditions counted. Either call the leader or use the leader’s phone to call others. The way I did 4-5 of those was nearly the same. I had a great starting location with the luck that the leader walks past without being followed. Took him out, made a call, a suspect responded, and it counted. Used the close application trick to restart. This worked a couple of times. However, I do not know if it was timing, but I had to figure out different things to get it to count. I had to pick a different spot for the call. Even trying the same spots didn’t work. I ran all over the map to get it to work with a lack of success. Too frustrated in trying to get the 10th. So I quit with the hopes that 1 will work later, as I still have 97 to go for top dog. Yet, I’m still missing 1.

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I recently did this and it worked first try!

So the anecdotal bias in me says that this is the best and only practice, and any evidence to the contrary will be met with hostility and logical fallacy until the end of time :relieved:

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Not true. Talking from experience. To finish the prank call challenge I use the killed leader’s phone to progress.

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Yesterday I chose Arrange Meeting PO for normal mode showdown on Ambrose Island.

The tell was Handover Meeting. Only two targets matched the physical descriptions, and they met up with each other for a handover.

Since I was playing on normal after a glitch fucked up my hardcore run, I was playing looser and not caring about the PO as much. I figured I had a 50/50 chance of picking the correct real target, so after their handover meeting I killed the one who isolated herself first.

It wasn’t the target, but that’s cool, now I can arrange the meeting for the PO. Grabbed her phone, went somewhere quiet, called the meeting. The other suspect came by, stood around a bit, and the PO didn’t register. Shot him in the head and “leader eliminated.”

So maybe PO Arrange Meeting doesn’t work if only one of the targets is still alive for the meeting?

Or maybe it’s just glitched to hell.

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mmm, this started working, either it’s an intermittent bug, or something entirely server-side that they’ve ninja-fixed without telling anyone.

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So the objective is supposed to be “arrange a meeting with the target?” If so this is a rare double-punch of the objective being worded badly AND it not working (at least until now if you are correct).

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The only times the objective worked for me was when I used a phone of the same meeting type and stand still for a while before arranging the meeting. The leader being alive or dead did not interfere.

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So, I recently did a 4 suspect showdown and had to use 3 phones for it to finally trigger the “arrange meeting”

The leader does not need to be alive (they were already dead).

Best I can tell: it’s kinda random whether it works or doesn’t

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Fixed it for you :slight_smile:

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