Your semantics argument is really, really boring and also off-topic. Give it a rest.
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No Fact is or should be indisputable.
You can take something for a fact when you hear it, so that does not mean that you should or that it must be true.
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Now imagine if they had outdone themselves and removed the “restart mission” option right when you’re caught on camera. 
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sorry to butt in, but this kind of semantic nitpicking is infuriating to read. it doesn’t progress the conversation; it mires it in irrelevancy for no reason other than oneupmanship.
you basically said - in a lot more words - that io doesn’t care about the concerns of speedrunners, yeah? @frote7 - a well regarded member of the community your opinion is about - posted this:
…and that’s the point where you maybe think “hmmm, i need to take this new information onboard and possibly rethink my position” rather than immediately calcifying your position and digging your heels in with tiresome semantic sleight of hand. you’ll be better for it.
you’re entitled to your opinion, of course, but bear in mind that some opinions are better informed or more insightful than others; for instance, those of the well regarded member of the community your opinion is about.
take the loss and move on, champ.
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To get the discussion back onto the regular Arcade stuff, I might as well post my own suggestion for how ET Arcade could work without Complications, while still being interesting.
IMO part of the reason for the Complications was IOI being worried players would resort to meta, quick and easy strategies to kill targets safely instead of thinking through levels. (and it backfired, resulting in meta, slow and boring strategies to kill targets) This should ideally incentivise that with a carrot, rather than a stick.
Each level of the Arcade (as displayed by their icons displaying the Elusive Targets) will earn “Silent Assassin Marks” if you completed their tier with a Silent Assassin Rating. Here’s a crap example I made in five minutes:
This way, you can see someone’s done The Ellipses completely SA, but The Quanta/The Vitae have some levels done SA, some without.
Your Silent Assassin Marks progress you on an second track of Arcade reward tiers, and IMO these should be where classic Elusive Target rewards are placed.
I don’t think this idea by itself is perfect or complete, because it’s focused on the individual levels as opposed to the bundle (unlike Frote7’s idea to have bundle based challenges) but I think it’d be a good way to add more optional challenge value to the Arcade without Complications being necessary.
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Few days ago I wrote a comment about ET arcade:
As it was fixed yesterday, I had the opportunity to test this new gamemode yesterday evening. I only played the Codices and the Ellipses. But playing them has changed my mind on some points. I would like to update my opinion.
For the Ellipses, “hide all bodies” and “no firearms kill” are quite annoying. If I would go for a sniper assassin run, it’s not possible with these restrictions.
There are other complications who don’t discard such runs like those for the Codices.
Overall, some restrictions are good because they don’t decrease the number of ways of killing a target. But others like “no firearms” are still frustrating.
It bothered me at first, but now, I change my mind. It’s OK to play three missions in a row, as you can have a break between ET missions. Moreover, as you don’t need to go for a SA run, it’s still possible to “recover” a failed run. It has no effect (no related challenge or blocking the escalation).
Still frustrated by this 
Hope it will be the case in a near future (for example through buying them in Freelancer mode).
Still a big issue for me! Why not three levels for H1 ET missions?
Conclusion: After seeing the half empty glass, I see now the half full glass. The ET Arcade mode is a good opportunity to have a touch on ET missions. When the restrictions are well balanced, we can enjoy the different runs.
I wouldn’t say that now. I see it as a good improvement: now some ET missions are permanently available in Hitman 3. In the future, the arcade catalogue will be increased, proposing other ET missions.
It’s not the best gamemode, but after having a touch on it, it’s not as bad as I expected. In contrary! Always have a try
Hope that Miami ET mission makes a return: I really enjoy this ET mission. I know that Sean Bean was present and maybe there are contracts or something else… But why not replacing the Undying by someone else more generic?
Still my first and foremost expectation for Year 2!
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I still say they should embrace it being called Arcade Mode and make it be a Score Attack mode.
When you are in the Planning Stage of a level, you can choose which (and how many) complications you have – even none. Each Complication you choose will give you a score multiplier like the Challenges in Sniper Assassin, with harder complications giving you bigger scores.
So if you want you can just play them with no complications and get a low score, or you can figure out a crazy strategy to complete them with a ton of complications and rule the leaderboard.
Of course, I also think they should just have all the Elusive Targets available in the mode as single level entries so you can play whatever you want when you want, and then the grouped Escalation-style entries of 3-5 levels can be where you really flex your Score Attack skills.
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Sorry but to clarify (because people picked up on this, and not on my actual point) I wasn’t talking about semantics. At all. My position is ioi (and honestly ALL game developers) hate speedrunning/speedrunners. That position is based off of changes ioi has made to the game specifically to prevent/reduce speedrunning. You can see an example of those changes with the Elusive Target Arcade and the complications they added (on topic). Frote’s position is the opposite, and that’s based off of his (I guess!?) interactions with people at ioi. Two opinions. Only reason I brought up his “I know for a fact” bs is because that’s impossible. Only the people at ioi could know that for a fact. And even then it would be impossible to gauge if they were being truthful (publicly) because it would be bad business to publicly say “yeah, fuck speedrunners, we hate them!” since that could lead to losing customers and revenue. Does that make more sense?
Not a big deal. We can’t all agree on everything. Not the end of the world. 
I want to remind people this topic is not about speedrunning (How you can say IO hates them despite having leaderboards on every mission which hugely factors time scores is beyond me) but about the ET Arcade.
If there are private disputes between two people, then I suggest that is done in private entirely.
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I keep thinking of making a poll of which ET group is your favorite (or maybe the one you hate the least? 
j/k )… I think I like the 5 (classic) ETs, despite their complications. Perhaps it’s due in part of the new gadgets, but I find myself getting better at them. I don’t think there’s a lack of tension as there is a familiarity with what to do (i.e. confidence). Or have at least found consistent starts… and that (again) is due to the complications.
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The Deceits (5 Season 1 ETs) is my favorite too. The Black Hat/Protagonist is the hardest one and the one where, due to the complications, I pretty much do the same strat every time, with slight variations. Level 1, The Prince, however, I find that I’ve played and approached and assassinated differently almost every time, despite being similarly heavily guarded.
For every target at every level of each arcade run, I find I’ve improved as a player.
To me, good complications: only one pacification, don’t kill civilians.
Neutral complications: only one disguise change, complete mission quick if recorded.
Bad complications: hide all bodies, hide all bodies, hide all bodies.
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So how do you feel about hiding all bodies? 
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I played the first set of these on my ps4, and…I’m not even mad. I’m just disappointed. The complications just made me spend 90% of my playtime waiting, in a room, near a box, for the target to get close so I could take them out. That’s not the most interesting hitmanning. But I unlocked the gun and don’t really see any reason to even bother with the other sets. This is like the wrath escalation for me. Not fun and never to be revisited.
It’s just. Disappointing. 
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I think all the eta targets will be cycled through multiple times with different complications. I think that’s their idea. So even tho Etta Davis has hide body, I’m sure they will make another time where you have to kill her with an accident only. Or nothing at all. I’m sure they will do that as we’ve seen the liability already used twice.
I am just so disappointed with how Elusive Target Arcade was implemented.
It has 3 missions, with 3-5 targets all back to back with new complications, and for all that effort you get 4 Challenges with 1 unlock, and that unlock is just a reskin.
I expected so much more from this.
The only thing I have seen people saying about ETs basically since the start of HITMAN 2, was for ETs to be re-playable.
Why isn’t there challenges for this mode that unlocks a “Free Play” version of the target, that you can play at your leisure like a normal mission, for each target that you complete (or even Silent Assassin). Then in that free play mode have challenges and unlocks attached to each target, where you could have these kind of complications as part of the challenges, that could be tied to some kind of unlock. I.E. You could unlock the targets “suit” for completing certain (or all) of the challenges associated with them. Who wouldn’t want to see 47 wearing the grannies outfit as he goes on a killing spree.
I think doing it this way satisfies both requirements. What the fans want, and the “elusive” nature of the ETs. Where you’d only get whatever ETs they give you during the window they give it to you, and failing makes you wait 12 (or more) hours, but also allowing people to unlock the ETs the way they have wanted so we can try out a bunch of different possibilities that we were too afraid to try before because we didn’t want to risk losing.
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The irony is that during my regular play I’m rather meticulous about cleaning up after myself and leaving no trace, but so many ETs and indeed targets in general are built around cheeky accident kills, and this takes almost all the fun away.
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Like I understand why IOI implements a Hide Bodies restriction: they don’t want us cheesing the mission by manipulating a quick entry and poisoning opportunity and then running, or similarly doing an emetic-to-drown quick-ish kill via a combo of well placed sieker shots, guru grenades, or fart-boxes…
…but The Ascentionist, hide all bodies? Look. It’s obviously doable. But it takes too long. And if you’re playing Team Restarts and want that coveted SA, there’s just too much waiting. If you emetic her at the beginning in the atrium, she goes to the atrium toilet where there are at least 4 other NPCs to displace/sedate (and any that you knock out not using sedation, you have to hide their body). If you wait till she makes it up to the VIP drinking area, and manage to sneak by two event staff enforcers, and manage to green-poison her drink in another displacement attempt, she goes to the nearby bathroom, but to the stall with a witness and no cabinet in which to hide her.
Unless you are an absolute MONSTER of a player, you have to fucking wait at least until she and her mark go into the back of house staff area for a good opportunity to kill her and dump/hide the body. In that staff area there’s a janitor with potential body-discovery properties and a guard with the same. You have to therefore take care of 3 NPCs (the janitor, the guard, and her mark) and the target, and hide all the bodies of those you’ve pacified… there are nearby crates, but it’s a pain in the ass!
I’m pretty creative and I can’t think of a faster, more efficient way to get her and fulfill the arcade complications — at least not for novice to intermediate players.
Is there a more creative way to get her sooner? There must be. I don’t watch many videos; I spend my time figuring out the puzzles myself and that’s what I enjoy. I’m working on a master-level strat involving two tranq guns smuggled by the opening guards, a whole precision-timing distraction dance in the atrium toilet, a keypad, a camera to avoid, and a locked maintenance closet. I know I can make a beautiful run out of it. But like… for new and not-daily-players, what, you just have to wait around 10 minutes for her to get to a semi-private area, and if you mess up in the slightest, you restart and wait around 10 minutes again?
Fun.
I used the sieker on the two people in the bathroom to the right when you go up the stairs, so they occupy them toilets, then used the remote emetic on the target and her friend, he goes to the bathroom without a closet and the target goes to the one with the closet or she goes down the stairs behind the bar, where there’s also a locker.
The hide bodies complication just forces you to use emetic gear mostly, they should change it to no bodies found or something better 
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If you want a clean and easy way to emetic/drown for SASO, you can drop a duck to get through the guards by the stairs at the start, then make your way up to the VIP toilet area. She will wander up there and have a conversation outside the toilets after a couple of minutes or so. Just before she arrives emetic shot the lady in the right stall; trigger an emetic in a briefcase behind the target and she will go to the left stall with a hiding spot for the ezdrown and exit. Not super fast, but it’s consistent at least.
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I finished the first batch of these yesterday, and bugs saying I’ve failed stuff I haven’t failed not withstanding, I feel like I’ve enjoyed this (though not massively). However, I do feel that the complications really limit replayability. I have no desire to redo The Blackhat with a “hide all bodies” complication for instance.
I’m sure this could be fixed in a number of ways, but I’mma shamelessly throw a link to my “Medals in HITMAN 4” thread here, as i think transforming the complications into Medals, and giving unlocks if you get all of the Medals in one sitting would be the best solution.
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