Elusive Target Arcade

Since it’s an Arcade, I think it would be more fun if you could pick your complication (or lack thereof) each level, and get a score bonus depending on the complication you picked.

So you could go through the whole thing with no complications for a low score, or pick a bunch of hard ones for a high score.

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I updated the game, opened the arcade menu and The Codices already failed without entering it :smile: Oh well I’ll try again tomorrow i guess, I hope they fix the issue by then

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I really don’t get iO anymore as well. Still love the game, but why did they stop to hitman?
Hitman: Big open sandbox, not only multiple but lots and lots of different approaches, mix of social stealth, accidents and optional action, lots of experimentation.

But for months now almost all of the new stuff we get is completely different. Very strict, almost linear missions (not linear per se, but less “do it how you want to” instead more “find the one specific way to make it work”), always some kind of complication, many of them against the Hitman gameplay style like no changing costumes (removing the social stealth aspect, simply reducing it to “crouch to not be seen”, great -.-) and and and and.

Just does no feel like Hitman anymore, everything from the escalations, 7DS, now this arcade…

I hope that 007 will be like Hitman, and I mean like Hitman-Hitman and not like what it envolved to the last months

:frowning:

EDIT: To put it in other, simpler words: I love Hitman for this loop: “Hm, how can I do that? Will that work… ooohhh no shit shit hide, phew. Maybe that way? Ah, nice, I could… oh damn, he mioght see me, I should try that” and so on and so on.
But all those escalations, the 7DS, now this Arcade is more like: “Maybe I can do this… NO FAILED BACK TO ZERO! Okay, damn, let me try this again, this time that door… NO FAILED BACK TO ZERO! Oookay, let me prepare a third time, I guesss I could just NO FAILED BACK TO ZERO!”

Even if “I restart to get a better result” and “the game forces me to restart” might be eventually the same thing, on is my own motivation (good thing), the other one is frustrating and infuriating (bad thing).

I just don’t get it.

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I hate the complications, in the Ascensionist there’s 3, i get that it’s meant to be a challenge, but you’re telling me i can’t shoot her if i want, i think they should have had 1 complication and make it a random one, that would have made them more interesting

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I think it’s pretty funny. I’m one of the people that always thought that them just unlocking them to play whenever would make them pretty boring, but I assumed they would just have a mode that would have a random ET, and if you failed it, another random one would be up next, meaning you couldn’t get another try at the one you just failed until it came up again. Then you would just try to new one and fail or succeed before then getting another random one. With the amount of ET they have it would still mean failing had consciences.

It’s funny that when they had to come up with a way to make use of ET’s in a new mode the only thing they could come up with was to turn them into escalations.

“Hey guys, what should we make the extra content for the H3 deluxe version be?”
Escalations.
“What should the new paid DLC be after the game launch?”
Escalations.
“Hey, we want to make changes to the maps of Berlin and Dartmore for the seasonal content!” Escalations.
“Wait a minute, that one wasn’t a question, why would we…”
ESCALATIONS!
“But this game has always been about letting players explore maps and play the way they want, like how we created a bunch of different targets called Elusive Targets, and a mode called Ghost Mode where…”
Ghost Mode is dead, ET’s are now ESCALATIONS!
“but…”
There is no but, only ESCALATIONS!

haha, shit’s fucking hilarious.

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Damn what a weird move from the devs :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Most of people only wanted to be able to replay the Elusive Targets as a simple formula and they give us more complications and restrictions to it instead.

Disappointing :confused:

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To be honest most of the complications seem fine, but god I hate hide bodies so much it’s unreal. Genuinely killed all of my interest in doing the H3 ones.

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They’ve been working on this trilogy for a while, so it’s not surprising to me that IO would be tired of doing the same formula over and over. With Hitman 3 they’ve constantly been shaking things up, even during the campaign.
They’re constantly trying new things, sometimes it works, and most of the time… it doesn’t because it feels to far removed from what people like about this trilogy in the first place. By trying to make the formula less stale, they’ve been pushing away players that actually genuinely love this formula to death, and I think it’s a bit sad honestly.

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hot topic :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

image

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Just played a few of the arcades and my feelings can be summed up with this image

Why io decided to limit creativity in one the most free and fun gamemodes they had (ets) baffles me beyond belief. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot like this

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Played them all. Don’t feel like I’ll ever want to come back to them ever again.

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Whike i appreciate the inclusion of this mode as a fun extra, i hope IOI doesn’t genuinely believe this satisfies the demand for replayable ETs in their original version.

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For my “looking from afar” impressions on this, this is definitely not what I was expecting, and I think the mode is worse-off as it is right now.

  • ETs in a bundle with a 12-hour lockout is challenging enough as it is I’d say.

  • Even with the addition of complications I thought we’d be getting a more open-ended style of it

    • think of Elusive Target bundles but with a randomly-generated single-complication twist. Each time you open one, it swaps out the complication. Sometimes it’s “one pacification”, sometimes it’s “hide bodies”, etc. But for the entire time the Bundle is active.
      The way it is now looks way too restrictive, and that’s been a common problem with Escalations in the past.
  • Instead of blocking off hiding bodies or using tons of disguises (entire ways to maintain stealth), they should block off specific kill conditions, make players think of how to kill in non-accidental or poison ways.

  • ETs in this pure Escalation format is just madness! Complications stack and they’re ever-increasing.
    It really is “Escalations: ET Edition” and considering how people reacted to Escalations this past year… Uh Oh.

  • The rewards progression looks like it’s a bit weird too! I was expecting the same format as what Escalations and Featured Contracts did.
    A "Complete X out of Y to get this reward would have sufficed, but instead it’s a “complete one of these 3 for this reward.” Who would want to complete the 5-stage Season 1 ET bundle over the other 2 available for a Krugermeier reskin?

    • Should have done a “complete 1/3 … 4/6 … 7/9” format that offers a lot more freedom of choice.
  • The multitude of bugs at launch is really unfortunate too. I don’t think people would have gotten too mad if you’d posted that it needed to be delayed for bug fixes, IOI…

At this point I do still have faith in the Freelancer mode. What we’ve seen looks like it offers a lot more freedom of choice and agency in the player of how challenging YOU want to make your campaign and of how far YOU want to push your luck in adding different Optional complications for more money.

But this really doesn’t look like it, chief.

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It’s a little unnerving watching this space in all their tears and their finallys about how this arcade is bad when I can’t even boot up my game at all due to incessant crashes. Today I reinstalling this game at 6 in the morning and I’m one in-game crash away from typing up a storm. Jesus Christ I am not in the mood today.

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When I play something with the title ARCADE I expect to have a fun experience all around and not to feel like I’m doing homework with all these complications.

Alas, at least is nice to revisit these ETs but they quite missed the mark at forcing complications at all times. I think that could be fixed that once you completed a contract, you get them again but their vanilla versions as they were originally for your own leisure.

20200622_185209

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Nicely put :joy:

I love the game but I absolutely don’t regret not getting any of the DLCs till now.

The “hide all bodies” complication actually made level 2 of The Ellipses challenging for me. However, I think the complications (and the target order) should be randomized and/or optional and/or able to be removed after completion. As it is, I have to rethink my interest in this mode (which will also depend on what future additions to it look like).

I appreciate that ETs are now permanent because it doesn’t make sense to let all that extra time/effort/content go to waste but the mode definitely has room for improvement. That said, I think we got carried away by our hype and expectations (as usual) but my interest for Freelancer has been way higher since they explained it more anyway.

(As for that bug where it fails you even if you didn’t fail, I just restarted the game and and it let me back in. It might work as a temporary fix until IOI sorts it out.)

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It’s frustrating…

I can see an idea here but they really should of made this a challenge ladder. Set all ETs as playable along with suit unlocks as rewards.

For the challenge ladder go though a set of ETs one by one, player can’t choose a starting location and items are precure on site. With the odd drop crate similar to Ghost Mode where can only choose 1 item out of three. Then every 3-4 ETs done the player has to choose a complication to tack-on. So the player has some degree of choice and lot more work with the situation.

Can still do a track based system by separating ETs into games and then have one massive one for players who own everything.

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So, after some back and forth to make the game recognise that indeed I haven’t failed and should be able to continue on, I finally managed to finish the Ellipses and the Codices.

I’m not going to go too much on the current technical issues. I am certain they will be soon resolved (and they are certainly not helped by a surge of players).

But I am going to give my opinion on the game mode as it is inteded to be, as it is designed. Because I think some at IO will read the thread to see the returns, so it would be good to give something on this intended part of the experience. (hello Travis, love the rest of the game, lots of good work and great level design)

I did not have fun completing the contracts. I have no desire to replay them a second time.


Simple as that. The complications restrict too much. It changed the elusive mission too much to the point of loosing some of their substance and the fun and exploration they could give.

I play Hitman for its openess, for its level design. I play the ET to be able to have the pression of assessing the situation and act on the pressure points. Not to always tell to myself “no, this will arbitrarely fail the mission”.

Some of the stages are so restricted that I can see only one (unfun) way to do them. No (fun and explorable) replayability. No poison, no accident.
Worst for some the best way to pass the stage is to use the emetic briefcase. One of the most lackluster way to play the game.

Half of the gameplay possibilities are just not allowed.


  • The Codices is still relatively open. Of the three contracts it’s the one I could see myself replay to try to do some other runs. It does allow for sniper assassin after all.

  • The Ellipses just doesn’t even allow for accident kills with its “all bodies hidden”. I wanted to see if it was possible to eliminate the Collector with a propane flask thrown in a fireplace (as a prompt exist to do this kind of sabotage), but I can’t. It’s fiberwire in the locker room, and nothing else.

  • The Deceits is just a large no for me. The restrictions are too much of an hindrance. Not just an hindrance to the missions, but an hindrance to the fun of playing Hitman.


We already have escalations for the challenges. Restricting one try every 12 hours, and forcing ordered playlist is enough of a twist on the ET formula to make them retain their prestige, their challenge, their “oh dear now I have to wait or loop around the playlist to redo this one in a different way”.

As I said before, the ethos of the game mode might not be to make us replay the ETs, but to give a challenge that happens to use the ET as the framwork. A kind of “more in depth and complex escalations”. But it just spoiled the ETs. If this was the objective, then the design is genuinely good.

But, if this was the objective of the game mode, then the communication around it was a miss. If not a breakdown of communication of intentions. Because it was not what I understood the game mode to be. I thought it was going to be mainly the ET with a side of challenges, not the reverse.

And if the intent was to create curated contracts, each with their own narrative, then it is also a miss. Maybe if it was a general twist applied to all stages (accident only for all stages, poison only…) it could have been better. Right now it’s just adding more and more negative to the gameplay and not exploring a gameplay narrative more and more in depth (as the best escalation can do)


Optional complications or general themes, please. I just want to play Hitman.

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