Seeing a lot of comments here mentioning how IO wanted to make Freelancer an immersive experience, and if that is the case they have absolutely missed the mark. Freelancer feels way more arcadey and gamey than the storyline and the penalty for failing a mission does not match up with how fun it is to basically keep starting again.
Getting into the swing of it is fun and I like the mini objectives and it’s had me playing for the last two days, but then I’ve failed three missions and having it take half your money and all of your equipment is just stupid and has put me off playing further. This feature doesn’t even correlate to anything in reality, why would 47 forfeit half his money and throw away all his equipment upon a mission failure? Stupid arcade mechanics
There is zero substance or back story to missions, targets, level starting locations, which is okay I guess, but doesn’t allow for any immersion whatsoever and adds to the arcade feel; start at random point, hit mission objectives as fast as possible, run to the exit. It’s basically a better version of contracts mode.
Fun, but the whole premise with losing your stuff feels like two steps forward one step back the whole time. Hopefully IO tweaks things now it’s been released but until then I’ve seen and played enough, won’t really bother much more
Incomplete Quests for Freelancer specifically? Interesting tidbit
I don’t think I’ve noticed those on non-showdown missions yet, but I have noticed that – for whatever reason – the game seems to be able to spawn Leader-type NPCs to normal missions.
Maybe it’s an accident or something, but in a recent New York run today, I found multiple unique civilian NPCs (all had grey hair) walking around the Deposit box area.
One of them – this man – walked between the IT office and in front of the damn vault, meaning I could use him to get by a keycard scanner.
That’s not a Showdown NPC, that’s a default New York outfit.
Non-showdown variants have typically 20 new NPCs, but usually only a few spawn each time. They are intended as targets but some spawn despite not being targets. Colorado is the only map I’ve noticed so far which has no new NPCs.
Thanks for the explanation! Seems I got a lot of new people spawn in the Deposit area then.
I have noticed that some Targets are totally new NPCs I’ve never seen before in a level, but I guess I hadn’t noticed any other new person than my target at once
This is why they need to make a “safehouse raid” level. When you fail a mission, a small number of armed guards attack the safehouse which you need to protect. Something like the wrath 7DS.
And if you die during this, you lose everything on your walls. It’s like they robbed you. But failing any mission shouldn’t lose anything stored in your safehouse, only during a raid.
I agree we need a house raid event (the safe house feels like it’s built for it - especially with the ladders going from the basement to the bedroom, and the fact that you can scale the building.
But losing all the weapons on the wall is too harsh, I’ve spent the past three days playing so I can fill up the wall (I’m a completist) - I only have about a week left to play before my vacation is up! I probably wouldn’t play again if it meant the risk of losing my wall of weapons.
Was in Paris and had 3 objectives. Kill target with silenced pistol, kill 3 guards with shotgun. Kill 3 guards with AR.
So I killed the target with a silenced pistol.
I then went into the recorder room in the basement and stole the shotgun and blasted those 3 guards there.
I then went to the speedboat area to ko the guard walking there and took his AR. Ran back to the helicopter and shot and killed the 3 guards there with the AR.
So all 3 objectives completed.
And since I was right there, I exited with the helicopter. But as soon as I tried to exit, a prompt popped up saying off I exit the mission, I will fail the entire campaign.
But I killed the target and completed 3 objectives as well. I couldn’t exit the mission with a fail despite killing the target already.
Hardcore mode isn’t worthy. Being force to choose a circumstancial prestige objective for a showdown is total trash. Isn’t fun, isn’t something even challenging that feels fun, is plain frustrating and absurd.
Freelancer update: I have finally taken some decent time to play the mode and it is honestly a lot of fun and I think old veterans who struggled to come back to the game after having completed most or all of the main game’s content will enjoy this new look on it.
As for my own progress, I made a stupid mistake on my first ever Showdown in Mendoza that killed me - I foolishly forgot that the baseball I had in my inventory was not a distraction item as it was the ‘explosive’ variant from the crate drop I picked up 10 minutes before…so that ended my first campaign pretty swiftly. However, I’ve come back and redeemed myself to the completion of my first ever campaign and onto the next one tomorrow!
My real main complaint is that too many items have been removed for the sake of having to rely on Freelancer tools/drops you find in crates. In my opinion, players should be rewarded for knowing intricate map details such as where crucial tools and weapons are. If I were IOI, I’d compromise and have more missing items at the latter stages of campaign syndicates or whenever a territory is alerted.
But other than that, I thank all those who worked exceptionally hard at IOI to bring this to the community, and I appreciate all those players in the CTT who gave their feedback which led to improvements. Thank you!
Gotta say, I’m quite loving the amount of XP you get from playing this mode. I just earned a whooping 13.200 XP from doing one mission in Miami, having completed 2 of the 3 objectives along with one Prestige Objective. And that’s really just nice, I like seeing all that XP at once and am surprised how easy it’s to level up when playing, I was at level 1109 when Freelacer launched and after playing it for the last two days I’m at level 1145 now. I hadn’t leveled up so much and so fast since the Ghost Mode days! Really fun thing to keep track of.
I’m close to finishing a full Campaign for the first time and I hope there’s a massive amount of XP at the end. Love this new mode a lot, it’s the most fun I’ve had with Hitman in years.
Ok, what am I missing for arranging a meeting. I get the phone. I place the phone. The guy comes or sometimes 2 people come. No reward for arranging a meeting.
Oh and what’s with the Merces on the hospital bed when you die?
I swear I must’ve had a “wallhack” (NPC Instinct) event the other day (also) in Whittleton Creek! What makes it harder to accept is how careful I thought I was being.
I know Beldingford already answered… But they’ll be standing in place and looking left and right. An example would be like if you sneak into the shoe-shop in Marrakesh. Watch the 2 guards talking about “Who’d you have to salute to get this position?” and shortly after that - one of them will be like “Oh crap! I forgot to take this security card to (wherever)!” The way one of those guards is moving is similar to how they’ll act.
Hanlon’s Razor… But I highly doubt it was intentional. It has to be a bug.
Does anyone know if the base payouts work in showdown missions? I failed all my optional objectives in the first showdown and had 0M payout, even though I probably should´ve received 200 or whatever.
I honestly didn´t check whether the payment had been on the mission selection screen beforehand, and I have 3 more missions to go in the next syndicate before I can check again, so I just wanted to ask.
Can anyone help find the 3 clues for the safe in the train in Mumbai? I can’t find the third clue, two of them are inside the wagon with the safe, cant find any other
Very serious note: make the Prestige objecties optional even in Harcore mode. Sure, if you choose one and fail it then you lose all the cash and fail the campaing but don’t force the player to pick one then. Totally ruins the fun of alerted territories where you gotta improvise even more by creating a totally chaotic scenario where RNG is hell. Doesn’t makes things tense, just infuriating with nonsense.
