Freelancer - General Discussion

No, but there is a limit of how many non-alerted territories you will have.

You can skip/fail max 1 in the first syndicate, and max 2 for each of the 3 remaining syndicates.

So 7 in total for a complete campaign

5 Likes

Took some time to reflect on hitting 1,000,000 merces.

The heart of Freelancer seems to be the very thing so many are resisting. If removing Silent Assassin as a rating wasn’t enough, iO designed the objective generator in a way where it’s impossible to meet every one of them all the time. It’s not a flaw. It’s a choice. The choice is “In this rouge-like iteration of the game, survival takes precedence over perfection.” Not to get too heady or give the devs too much credit, but you could take it a step further and say the choice is “In life, perfection is an elusive target few ever achieve. You’ll be much happier if you accept the goal of doing your best and moving forward. 47 clearly has.”

I’ve had GOAT on the mind, so gameplay has been about “return on time investment.” By a slim majority, I’ve maximized most payouts, but as I’m not playing Hardcore at the moment, if the prestige objective promises to double or triple the amount of time it’s going to take to complete a mission, hard skip. “No Combat” doesn’t stop me from sniping. Half the time, “Perfect Shooter” gets ignored. “Hide Target Bodies (If Convenient)” Really, I’ve only been bothered with failing an objective if I forgot to bring the necessary tool. Once every few campaigns, I’ll fail every payout objective. Don’t care so long as the targets are dead and I’m alive. It usually means that particular mission was exciting.

But no matter how disastrously any one mission falls apart, there are always more queued up at the safehouse.

8 Likes

If that is the heart of Freelancer, then IOI completely lost sight of everything they’ve done over the last 20 years. Making a mission have objectives that can’t be completed no matter what the player does - and everyone really pay attention this time because this doesn’t seem to be sinking in - is NOT A CHOICE. Making an objective where the player can fail if they screw up or don’t prepare right, that’s a choice. Hitman has always been about being able to be perfect if you want, be messy if you want, or just have fun if you want. By designing the mode in such a way where one of those is not possible, they are taking choices away, not giving us choices. If it was by design, like I’ve said before, putting the objectives into the mode should have been abandoned altogether and just let us complete each mission in whatever way we want and earn the max money and rating by how well we do, not whether we complete little side projects. If having the objectives in place and permitted to generate in such a way that the completion of one can become a pure impossibility is an example of being the heart of Freelancer, then I’d have preferred IOI not even bothered in the first place. That’s more un-Hitman than anything Absolution ever did.

2 Likes

To be fair, the post said that it was IOI’s choice, not the player’s. That is an objectively true statement. IOI did, in fact, make that choice.

1 Like

They made the wrong choice. Hence, I don’t think they made that choice deliberately, for the ones that are absolutely incompatible. Most of the situations that come up with that can be circumvented, for the most part, so if they made any choice, it was only that the odds of purely conflicting objectives coming up was so negligible that they didn’t need to address it at this time, or they overlooked it completely. I highly doubt the deliberately chose for there to be incomplete-able objectives.

You might be right. Could’ve been an oversight. I guess, we’ll find out in future patches. For the time being, I’m giving them the respect of assuming they made a bold choice in an attempt to reinvent the wheel and stood behind it despite knowing it would lead to growing pains for some people.

If that is the case, your objection to their choice is pretty well-documented and I can relate to your resistance to change. This just happens to be a change I’ve enjoyed so far. However, I completely disagree with the sentiment things should be perfect or not exist. That’s a recipe for constant disappointment.

2 Likes

I’m not saying it has to be perfect or not exist: but with Hitman, the option for perfection must be present, or it’s not Hitman (Codename 47 being an exception as it was mostly experimental).

Change is the only constant.

1 Like

Some things only change by ceasing to exist. The option for perfection in Hitman should be treated as one such subject. It can change when Hitman ceases to exist.

Absolution being another exception (top rating changes based on mission, some sections are unrated), all the Hitman games that end in a shootout being another exception.

All the missions in Absolution can be completed perfectly, and Blood Money is the only other game that ends in a required shootout, and neither of those are official contracts, so the killing of every NPC during those two specific shootouts actually is finishing it with perfection.

“Perfection” changes meaning in half of the sections of that game. Only sections with targets can get ‘Silent Assassin’, sections without them require getting evidence to get ‘Shadow’, but evidence can be ignored if there are targets. In one mission the rating system is broken and ‘Veteran’ is the top rating. Some sections don’t care if you kill everyone and get spotted.

Freelancer also has the most similar rating system to Absolution. The top rating is ‘Traceless ICA Assassin’. If you want perfection, go for that every time.

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin’s last level is also impossible to do Silent Assassin.

Now we finally know 47’s real name, but we still don’t know if he’s more of a cat or dog person :x

Nah there’s also Arthur Edwards :slight_smile:

1 Like

Uh… so untrue it’s breathtaking you said that. It’s been done.

1 Like

I would know. I do full SA ‘speed runs’ (without glitches) of that game regularly, lol… it’s impossible to get SA because killing everyone is the objective. SA in H2:SA breaks as soon as you kill more than 2 (non-target) enemies.

You can verify this using a calculator which shows you whether you get SA depending on which statistics you input. I made it, btw: H2:SA Ratings Calculator

It is possible to just kill Sergei. Going too far off topic now. This was about Freelancer being made to sacrifice a perfect run, which is a mistake if done deliberately.

And the point was that all the Hitman games have at least parts where you have to sacrifice the established form of ‘perfection’ (though that is a subjective thing to begin with). Your opinion that in Hitman “the option for perfection must be present”, while a perfectly valid opinion to have, just doesn’t have a strong basis in the series.

And in H2:SA you must kill all the enemies in order for Sergei to leave the confession booth. Even if you do the glitch to ‘kill’ him while he’s inside, he still stays inside and technically lives until you kill him again after he leaves.

Sure it does, because every game (other than the first) allows you to have a perfect run if you do choose for every mission. And yes, that is subjective for each game and level, but the point is it’s there. Every. Time. Freelancer having, even occasionally, a situation where you must choose one objective over the other or do neither, thereby condemning you to having at least one failed objective regardless of your actions, is against the way the rest of the series has been presented, and is not the Hitman way.

If it’s subjective, then by definition, it is not “there”. It is only there if you decide it is.

I cannot argue with a premise that is solely based upon your own opinion. There is no “Hitman way” as you describe, only the “Heisenberg way” it seems.

You may as well say “It’s my way or the Heiway”.

3 Likes

Let me say it again: every game, sans the first one, has a means to have a perfect run. Whether this means getting SA, or wiping out the opposition in a non-scored shootout, each of these has options available to prevent the player from seeing any notice or score at the end of the mission to show that they failed an objective or did poorly. That’s what constitutes it being a “perfect” run; not having failed anything you were supposed to do, which includes not being compromised in missions where stealth are involved. The “subjective” part is whatever constitutes getting such an ending, but regardless of what is necessary to achieve it, they are still there every time. Freelancer having a scenario where that is not possible breaks that, telling a player who likes to not have anything showing failed on their final tally that they are going to have to live with one now, not because of their own screwup that they can prevent in the future by doing better, but just because the game is set that way. So if every mission in the series up to now (exempting the experimental first game) allows avoiding that up to this point, then that clearly is the Hitman way, because it’s always been there, and now that tradition is being broken.