No, it’s not punishing me. That score means nothing, it doesn’t affect my gameplay.
2 Likes
You’re funny. 
And by the design of the game there is the consequence of not getting a higher rating no matter whether you as a player think it’s irrelevant or not. I made a whole reply highlighting this that you seem to have missed.
The rating system still existent in Freelancer also punishes you for sloppy play whether you care or not. So therefore you must agree that there is a consequence for not playing stealthily in Freelancer, even if it’s not one that matters to you.
3 Likes
I normally tend to play the Assassination syndicates because they normally thrown up some good objectives. Normally it’s Fiberwire kill, Headshot kills etc. The Prestige objectives are pretty good under Assassination as well because they’re normally Headshot Kill Legendary, SMG Kill, or Silent Assassin.
My favourite type to play in my opinion 
This post also sums up my opinion of Colorado as well. Literally hate everything about that map.
In my opinion, I now actually enjoy Freelancer more than the actual Campaign!
I’ve done the main Campaigns multiple times now so that might be something to do with it, but I just love the concept and gameplay of Freelancer mode. Think its also because I like the appealing aspect of 47 and Diana being rouge operatives and it’s a cool interesting route for IOI to go down. Hope 47 and Diana’s Freelance work continues in the next game.
4 Likes
Not me. This blue-collar, do the legwork yourself, killing street-level scum thing is fun as a cap to the World of Assassination era of the series. But, for the next game, I want a return to the series standard of working for a quasi-government agency doing nothing but the pure assassination aspect of the job, and going for the head honchos right from the get-go, like taking down IAGO and the Delgado Cartel by just going straight for the leaders rather than taking out the small fry on the way up, letting the spies and analysts and field vendors of the organization they’re working for do the research to find the who and where and when. That’s why I want the ICA to be reborn in future games, with Diana and 47 establishing it off of their Freelancer funds. Let’s get back to the high profile contracts that deals just with the main targets. Let Freelancer stay it’s own thing for this era.
4 Likes
“Voulez vous fibrewire avec moi, ce soir?”
6 Likes
I want to see Hitman fully become the straight-up immersive sim it was always meant to be.
2 Likes
You didn’t bring a sniper rifle by any chance?
Anyway, that’s another legitimate reason for Alt+F4 (or the console equivalent).
7 Likes
I managed to hit him with a pistol, which caused him to fall through the map and die. For some reason it didn’t fail the SA+No firearms objective.
7 Likes
You’ll probably lose your SA with that cuz one body will see the other before it’s ko’d.
Edit: if you want to save your SA and get this done on 2 guards, since they are pretty much in a straight line, distract them to look away in 1 direction where one guard see the back of the head of the other and then place the concussion device behind the back of the behind guard and set it off. That way, the explosion will ko the back guard first then the second guard won’t see the first one get ko’d before he gets ko’d.
6 Likes
Though I’ve read this discussion here and there since the release, I wanted to wait until Level 100 to chime in on Freelancer. I didn’t follow much of the press leading up the release or sweat the pushbacks at all. I had no expectations. I gotta say, this mode has absolutely breathed new life into the franchise for me! Simply put, it’s fucking great!!
Most of us have played the main campaign countless times with self-imposed restrictions. All poisons. Most brutal and public deaths. Kill EVERYONE Silent Assassin. Lightest touch. The list goes on. And all that time, your score; any objective measure of success outside of your own head was tied to the Silent Assassin rating. Freelancer has successfully freed us of those shackles. Sure, there’s room for improvement, but what’s already been delivered is a revolutionary addition to this game.
It’s such a fun development, I genuinely hope iO continues to flesh it out. A lot of the shortcomings are well-documented already, including on this forum. Below is a summary of missed opportunities and pipe dreams that distracted or inspired me on the road to 100.
SAFEHOUSE
It’s kind of growing on me, but I don’t really care much for everything outside of the bunker. It’s fun to go to Colorado on the quad bike and leave Colorado on the quad bike or Dartmoor with the hearse, but I’ve had trouble shaking that initial judgement of how mundane of a task rearranging patio furniture is in a game like this. Most of the customization felt the same way. I think the target missed was gearing the motifs of the decorative options toward what type of cold-blooded assassin you are (classic, street, bloodthirsty maniac). Changing your bed sheets from gold to pink just isn’t enough of a reason to go upstairs.
As areas unlocked, I kept hoping for something that would contribute to gameplay in one way or another. The shooting range qualifies. I guess I was hoping for a more elaborate bomb shop or chem lab or a melee weapons range or something that felt like 47 recreated some of the resources he had been exposed to during his time with the ICA.
Other additions that would just add flavor:
-I’ve read speculation Freelancer is the finale of the franchise. If this is a send off; a final gift, it would’ve been amazing to be able to earn decorative mementos from 47’s various contracts going all the way back to St. Petersburg. His own personal “trophies.” Picture something similar to the basement room in Colorado, but instead of just pictures, post-its and string, there’s pamphlets or level specific items or little easter eggs from the missions, etc. The big blank wall behind the ‘check gun parts’ animation is a perfect place for display.
-mannequins to display a few favorite suits
-ability to take gloves on and off in wardrobe
-a guest room for Agent Smith
GAMEPLAY
For players who aren’t motivated by completing every challenge and feat as fast as possible, you reach a point fairly quickly where it doesn’t really matter if you win or lose a campaign. Gear is easily replaceable and gameplay is the same whether you’re at the beginning or end of the campaign. The only difference is the cinematics, and the Campaign Failed cinematic is probably the coolest one. The biggest punishment in this mode is by far the load screens and you encounter those whether you win or lose.
The cinematics feel like place holders iO intended to swap for something more elaborate but ran out of time. Release dates don’t get pushed back when everything is going super smoothly. The generic state of the current cinematics have the slight stink of compromise. I would’ve like to see cinematics and Diana’s voice over tied to each Syndicate type. If you took down an Organ Trafficking syndicate, who did you save? If you failed, who died as a result? Some hint at real world consequences could at least add the illusion of stakes.
A couple other ways to differentiate gameplay as you move through campaigns could be making tells more subtle the deeper you get into the campaign or making the payout challenges more difficult in the latter legs. Maybe the number of guard eliminations or pacifications increases from 3 to 5 to 9 to 12. (I’d personally dig a prestige objective that was “Kill 25 Guards” or “Kill EVERY Guard”)
What are the implications of 47 being on his own now without the backing of the ICA? Who’s his competition as a freelance assassin? I don’t quite understand the assassins in showdowns. Maybe, if I waited long enough, they’d eventually assassinate somebody, but from what I can tell, they are hired escorts more than assassins and the only difference between them and every guard is that they kill you faster. What if showdowns were a race to kill the leader before the other assassins? They’re going after the same contract as you and you have to complete it first? What if, now that you don’t have a gigantic shadow agency protecting you, there are periodic shots on your life? What if there were assassins in the showdowns looking for you while you’re looking for the leader? There’s room for rivals or law enforcement or some entity attacking you at your safehouse too, though I don’t really know what that would look like.
On a semi-related note, how cool would it be if you were able to take an assassin’s disguise and follow a suspect around with a traveling ‘Blend In’ perimeter around them?
A few objectives that could be fun and add variety:
-Kill “X” amount of a specific NPC. Basically, the same as the Guard objective but with Race Marshalls or Chefs or Field Workers, etc.
-Pacify Target or NPC with “Item A” (like the Sheik with gold brick, Guards with fish challenges)
-Kill All Suspects, Lookouts and Assassins (that would probably be prestige)
-47 Minutes in Heaven. Basically a combo of “Hide Target Bodies” and “Hide and Seek” that requires more precise crate management. After you hide a target body, you have to climb in the crate with them.
MERCES
Unless you die a whole lot, merces become abundant very quickly. My weapon wall has been full for a while. Replacing whatever items you may have lost and filling all three cases takes a single campaign if you know which locations have freelancer tools to grab, make sure to buy out the supplier and don’t forget the reward crate each time.
Some ideas on how to make merces more valuable:
-Add some decorations, suits, vehicles, briefcases, items or weaponry available for a ridiculously large amount
-Payout objectives and leader tells have to be purchased from informants, forcing the players to spend money to make money. If they spend 200 merces to unlock a payout objective worth 1000, there’s more of an incentive to complete it and added risk of actually taking a loss on a contract.
-Players could have to pay to replace their suit if they left it behind
-Players could have to pay for body removal. Presumably some contractor 47 and Diana found that provide services the ICA used to. We could still massacre as often as we’d like, but with an attached fee for each victim.
-Every bullet should cost money
-Costly advantages could be available once per Syndicate (Prestige Auto-Complete, Retry)
-What if there was a way to bet against other players on who can beat a certain mission with the best cumulative score? Maybe something like H.O.R.S.E.?
-If people could just see other players’ bank rolls, that could start a whole other avenue of competition.
-Taking a cue from GTA online, the vault could fill and empty as you lose and gain your fortune
-Suppliers could have a delegated “rare item” single-level slot that always replenishes with stuff like the Molotov, letter parcel, rfid explosive, electrocution phone, etc.
-Wear and tear on weapons and clothing that needs to be maintained in some area of the safehouse before they break and the player has to find or buy them again.
That about sums it up.
With all that being said, a sincere congratulations to iO for this incredibly fun and addictive game mode! I mean, this is a mode; a side piece to the main game. Who could really ask for more? The years of manufacturing new challenges in the main game are over. The years of cruising the trending or most played contracts, done. We’ve been given a new version of a game we love reframed in a way that cracks the possibilities wide open. The diversity of the challenges and incorporation of the whole spectrum of tools at 47’s disposal cleverly nudges players out of their go-to, standard loadout and forces them to experiment. I was all about propane and poison for quite some time. I can’t recall ever selecting a rubber duck for my loadout. Now, collateral explosion and figuring which 3 guards can be concussed with a single duck are two of my favorite things. I’m running around blinding everybody, throwing magnesium pouches into security rooms for the fun of it. It’s great.
Thank you, iO.
9 Likes
That’s a long time to wait! I like lots of your ideas.
The fact that they’re called assassins does make me wonder if one of these was the original concept.
This also made me think - as I’m not a fan of lookouts - what if the role of assassins & lookouts switched around. The lookouts become the non-enforcer NPCs following the targets around. If they see you perform illegal actions, they will alert the syndicate. Meanwhile, the assassins become the roaming enforcers who will shoot you on sight. But they won’t alert the syndicate, so you have more of a chance to recover from being spotted by killing the assassin.
It does this already. You might have just maintained too much wealth throughout!
1 Like
How often are y’all changing your suits? When I first started playing I changed my suit for every single mission, but now I generally just use the same suit for a whole campaign
After every death. It is a new 47 that takes over.
6 Likes
Most of these ideas would make sense from the point of view of a level 100 player who has thousands of merces to spare, but would also completely cripple new players or the most casual ones and turn them away from Freelancer very fast 
I pretty much do the same as you do. I tend to go back to my favorite suits and swap them after a few syndicates. Generally I change into a different suit whenever I’m killed. At some point I did a suit only campaign where I only used the most ugly ones and that was hilarious 
1 Like
Can’t wait until Io nerf hardcore mode. I want the added difficulty, just with the ability to reroll prestige objectives and a less buggy version of freelancer.
Not touching hardcore mode again without them.
2 Likes
Actually ‘Traceless ICA Assassin’ is more strict than clean. There’s also ‘Stealth ICA Assassin’ seemingly just under that. Shadow ICA Assassin is another one that seems to be more lenient than SA. Professional ICA Assassin seems to tolerate a fair bit of sloppiness (pretty sure this is given for 4 star runs in main game a lot), which kind of makes sense after seeing the agents in Berlin.
Honestly I love the idea about having multiple levels of SA rather than just one, and they seem to work more flexibly than the binary SA system, e.g. it seems like you can get spotted by one civilian and lose points towards those ratings, but if you hide all the killed bodies and KO minimal people you might actually recoup points - like Absolution in a way. However getting into combat with guards and killing multiple non targets seems to put you out of ‘ICA Assassin’ ratings for good.
However this system isn’t understood well enough yet as it seems everyone just stops at “it doesn’t give us SA anymore”. I’m still trying to research and figure out how the system works but it’s difficult as the game basically tracks and considers almost everything you do in a run.
Also, public targets can be trivialized mostly with emetics, and also the micro proximity taser which works sort of like the electrophone from Hitman 2.
3 Likes