Same, although I usually do have Big Pharma as the final syndicate in a campaign, along with Eco Crimes and Psy Ops, as I see those as the most evil ones. BP is at least the easiest one to do since it involves so much poison.
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No combat is easy to understand, hard to pull off sometimes. You just canāt let anyone see you do anything illegal that would cause them to enter a combat state.
For example if you kill guard A and guard B sees him drop, guard B will enter a combat state. If you kill guard A but guard B doesnāt see him drop, guard B wonāt enter combat state even when he sees guard Aās dead body.
So even if you snipe someone across the map, if someone sees that body drop that means they will enter combat state and you will fail.
Easy explanation to get no combat obj is donāt let anyone see you doing anything illegal and donāt let anyone see any bodies hit the floor. NPCs discovering dead bodies is fine, just donāt let them see them die.
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What if the guards hear bullets fired ? They enter combat state also ?
If they hear it, they enter alert status. They have to see a crime be committed to enter combat. I donāt know if finding a body counts or if they have to see the NPC be killed for it to count, but hearing a shot or explosion doesnāt count unless you get busted.
Finding a body doesnāt make NPCs enter combat state. Even if you chuck someone off a roof and an NPC sees the body falling mid flight they still wonāt enter combat unless they saw you chuck em. I would bet even if you electrocuted someone in front of an NPC they wouldnāt enter combat state because itās accident.
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The officer in the entry hall behind the glass is easiest to kill with an explosive rubber duck. Sniping works too if you clear out the police patrols first.
I have finished 70 campaigns and have all achievements except completion of 100 campaigns. Have a nest egg of 700,000 + mercs.
Finished my first and only hard mode campaign. Didnāt die but restarted a few times when things got a bit complicated. Just made sure I could complete each prestige objective in hard mode. I chose all the prestige objectives that donāt have a failure state, and didnāt need to meet any other objectives outside the prestige objectives because I donāt need the mercs.
One achievement that IOI could have had is to win 11,000 mercs in one mission.
Colorado and Marrakesh are the only two maps that I try to avoid. With Colorado and Marrakesh, I set up in a sniper nest if I can to hit targets in the crowded open areas.
Colorado has a ring around the outside of the map, which are easier to isolate because it is cut off from the center of the map.
Haven Island lacks verticality ā so I tend to hide and shoot from the tall vegetation or behind doorways in the outside huts, except within the major buildings.
Hokkaido is mostly a series of short corridors and small rooms. You have to dart in and out. Not a big fan of Hokkaido or Bangkok, but these locations are not as bad as Marrakesh or Colorado for me.
Now that I have excessive mercs, I use the shortballer / goldballer / silverballer rather than the assassin covert. The legendary pistols are much, much better than any of the other pistols, outside the Striker/El Matador, which you can blast anything from a distance but is too loud. Striker/El Matador is great for instant push kill off of ledges.
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I finally get prestige level 10. Iām at 54 completed campaigns and about 310 leaders killed. I miss only two challenges (100 campaigns and 500 leaders). Now Iām collecting for the last time all the weapons and then I wonāt care anymore to get money, but only to do the last challenges
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I am at 70 completed campaigns, and donāt need to collect weapons or collect mercs anymore. What I do instead is play around, trying new approaches. I almost never have to restart anymore, and I can speed run every mission.
I think that the problem with Hitman is that you donāt really get to live the Agent Fantasy until you are good at it.
Hitman would be as popular as Call of Duty or Fortnite if it wasnāt so difficult to get good at it. With Hitman Freelancer, you have to get used to the steep risk/reward system, not completing every non-prestige objective every time, and accepting that the mayhem that you cause leads to failed campaigns periodically, even at the final syndicate leader of a campaign, then you can enjoy Hitman Freelancer for what it is ā which is a mode that is a lot harder and a lot more enjoyable than regular Hitman.
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Thereās no multiplayer component in Hitman and itās probably the main reason for COD and Fortniteās success so I wouldnāt bet on that :x Stealth games have always been kind of a niche anyway.
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Ghost mode was an attempt at multiplayer Hitman, but yes, stealth games are kind of niche.
Spec Ops, Metal Gear and Dishonored have reached a level of popularity that was worth the effort financially in making them.
It could be possible to have an Oceanās Eleven kind of heist with cooperative Hitman, like PayDay stealth.
Or alternatively, you could play live as an elusive target, or to map out a route as an elusive target, for another person to play Hitman.
As a perfectionist I cannot say that Freelancer is more fun than regular Hitman. The fact that often you canāt reach all objectives even if you are the ultimate genetically engineered assassin itās discouraging. I want a game that challenge me to be perfect in what I do. Occasionally I can do that in FL, but sometimes in an artificial way (i.e. Killings three guards who are not really protecting the target). If I was a professional hitman, I would not want having the responsability to choose my targets.
On the other hand I understand that after all these years people wanted to be free of the SA limitations. I was frustrated myself losing sa with a simple intrusion without the possibility to fix that and I really like the no witnesses objective in FL because it makes a lot of sense and it give you more targets which means more fun.
For the next Hitman game I would like the game to have multiple score systems, like the ones I remember in Splinter Cell Blacklist, so that you can play the way you like.
I am a perfectionist too and started playing freelancer with having to meet every objective and maximize mercs. I would restart a freelancer mission just to get an extra $1000 mercs. In almost all cases, I lost campaigns by being too much the perfectionist.
Now having played freelancer a lot, I see that hardcore mode is the only real mode in freelancer, because in being able to leave the mission without reaching at least one objective, the prestige objective, is a design flaw in normal mode hitman freelancer.
Even hardcore mode isnāt really hard enough IMHO, because it is easy enough to get a single prestige objective with a melee / gun kill / baseball bat hit, playing it really safe, removing or killing all surrounding non-targets when needed to meet the prestige objective.
I think purists would prefer if silent assassin was a mandatory prestige objective for every mission, but then it would eliminate the arms trafficking playstyle, where you purposely go in guns blazing for objectives. I think the mix of achievements that force you to try the different playstyles in freelancer is good.
I am really curious how IOI will implement sandbox hitman within Project 007. IOI can follow player choice because they automatically store all player choices on their Microsoft Azure online platform. They can create better puzzles in Project 007 because they know how their hitman player base solves their current puzzles.
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If an NPC enters ābullet panicā (AKA sniper shot location) then they will be in a combat state also.
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I guess you can still pursue the Silent Assassin route in Freelancer through Prestige objectives and how you play the game. Personally, I sometimes ignore some of the objectives in Freelancer and continue my play style as a āSilent Assassinā, much like how I play in the normal campaign. Plus, I usually play the Assassination syndicate as thatās generally more themed for Silent Assassin play style.
To answer the start of your question, after completing the WOA Campaign on numerous occasions, I now play Freelancer mode more often than not and I enjoy it just as much as the Story Campaign.
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If the incentive is gathering maximal mercs per time spent in a map location, then silent assassin is not really worth it.
In ~ 2 to 5 minutes, I can kill 1 to 4 targets and meet a non-silent assassin prestige objective in an average map for $4500 to $6500 mercs. The highest mercs are for the timed prestige objectives outside of silent assassin, and usually they are easy to achieve in time.
To open safes, gather mercs from couriers and meet all non-prestige objectives as well as the prestige objective takes ~8 to 15 minutes, in an average map (not NY Bank) for $8000 to $11000 mercs.
I find that Freelancer is most rewarding playing a fast run-and-gun style, sniping when possible in open areas, and quickly maneuvering around the map, isolating and taking down targets, with melee or guns, and then quickly exiting.
Iāve finished 88 campaigns now, and have a general strategy tailored for every map depending on starting location on the maps. Each map has its advantages and disadvantages. Only in Colorado do I find that I have to be really careful, because a dozen guards quickly swarm, especially when sniping on rooftops or in the barn. No other map is like Colorado I find.
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Just started playing Freelancer and I enjoy it. I started playing Hitman in the Hitman 2: Silent Assassin days and thereās been a lot of friction between what I want in a Hitman game, how I like to play, and how the World of Assassination trilogy functions.
The biggest problem Iāve had with the new games is what I call the āfun policeāā the personal bodyguards that hang tight to targets unless you lure them away individually using silly strategies/exploits (or have your hand held through one of the unintuitive āmission storiesā).
Therefore I enjoy having a random target who doesnāt have such suffocating security around him and a bit more freedom in my approach. I do wish more of the traditional Hitman rules would apply to freelancerā¦ it doesnāt seem quite right that I can do a mass shooting of civilians without penalty as long as I escape, but whatever. I guess thereās something for everyone in this mode. At the end of the day this is finally a mode where I donāt have to feel guilty for sniping a target so Iām grateful for that.
The safehouse is cool.
Thereās been some pretty messed up spawn locations and map decisions (where certain items from the campaign have been inexplicably removed) but nothing too bad.
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ā 100% everything in Hitman Freelancer, including 100 campaigns completed ā that is a hell of a lot of Hitman Freelancer to complete everything.
Love the game and really got expert at it over time, but it took a while to adjust from cautious, silent assassin, suit only Hitman to Hitman Freelancer. I quit for a month over having lost a campaign ā until I understood that failure and getting used to the risk/reward system in Hitman Freelancer was key to conquering Hitman Freelancer !
All the micro details of the map locations, and the thousands and thousands of different NPC dialogue reactions are unbelievable. It is a deep and immersive game.
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Congratulations! I know how much time that took!
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Thanks.
It took awhile.
Once you get into the millions of mercs and have no guns to add to your wall, it is just a complete blast to find the fastest and most creative way to take down targets, and then I am just in an out of each map in less than a minute or a few minutes maximum.
As soon as you start a mission, you look at which targets are out of doors, and which are indoors, and you take down as many as possible sniping. You can lure many targets by shooting near them to where you can get a good shot. I realized that Bangkok, Marrakesh and Colorado are really just set up as sniping maps mostly.
In Bangkok for example, from the second floor, between the two sides (Jordan Crossā and Ken Morganās), you can lure targets to snipe through windows on both sides laterally, you can shoot down to everyone below through the glass ceiling in the reception area and you can shoot all targets in the exposed front or back areas of the Himmapan Hotel.
It is way more convenient to snipe in Berlin, Dubai and Colorado because you donāt alert anyone carrying a sniper rifle with disguises on these maps.
Some maps like Bangkokās Jordan Crossā third floor or Sapienzaās viral lab, the school or consulate in Marrakesh, the mansion in Colorado, or Hokkaidoās medical operating theatre on the upper floors for example are a bit more tedious to get in and get out, but you get used to it.
For some targets inside rooms, you either shoot the target into the crowded room, or you remove everyone in the room, and kill the target with the door closed.
I learned that the easiest and fastest way to escape is verticality - killing the targets and then escaping by going up or going down immediately.
Even if you get caught and it gets messy, you drag an unconscious dude with a new costume to a place where you are not seen, and then you are free.
In alerted territories or with any enforcer with the dot above their head, you can just purposely get caught and then they chase you to your safe location where you take them out.
In a pinch, throw the proximity micro taser that is like a coin or the explosive remote duck, and for added fun, throw multiple propane flasks, fire extinguishers, and remote demo block, into a crowded area like the mosh pit in the Berlin rave, and you have yourself mayhem, where hundreds of NPCs are high tailing it in all directions. It makes you feel like a psychotic killer.
Hitman Freelancer is so simple once you get used to it.
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Congrats on the 100%. Iām aiming for 100% on my Switch version too, but after buying Hitman PSVR and soon Hitman 3 Reloaded, it has made my progress extremely slow. Probably wonāt even get it done this year now, but itās something I intend to do at some point!
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