Nah, it’s not you. It’s an official statement on what we’ve pretty much knew already, although I’m glad that it’s at least stayers plain now. Do love the hidden exasperation in there where they essentially say, in a polite manner, figure it out yourselves. Frustrating though the thing with the Freelancer Tools may be, the rules for them aren’t complicated, so I’m with them in that.
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I disagree, I understand their thinking better now. They want the tools to be like the “perks” in a roguelike, the kind that only stay with you for the current run, like the god boons in Hades for example. The supply crate is like the boons: pick one of the three choices. I’m not sure it’s a satisfying perk system, but I get the point.
If anything, the only flaw in the system right now is that you should also lose all items when winning a campaign. Then it would be consistent and fair. They should do that!
So, fellow Hitman players, aren’t I full of good design ideas? 
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It does in fact explain some key considerations on balancing that a developer will understand, but that might be unintuitive to a frustrated gamer - in particular one who just lost a campaign and is looking for someone to blame.
I like their reasoning around just how much of a determining factor the tools are for the strategies available to the player, how the lack of a tool pushes the player out of their comfort zone, and how the power-growth of gaining the tools quicker than weapons keeps things interesting.
Good on IO for sticking to their guns, a lot of us are enjoying the mode for what it is.
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After seven failed attempts, I finally finished my first ever campaign on Hardcore 
In other news, after seven failed and one successful attempt, I will never touch Hardcore ever again.
There were some bits, that I enjoyed. But overall Hardcore is just painful and annoying. The alerted regular contracts can be fun, if you get a cool selection of targets and get lucky with the mandatory prestige objectives. However, with timed or collateral objectives, they can get really obnoxious. But the worst aspect have to be the showdowns, with all the extra lookouts and assassins. Even a map like Dartmoor suddenly feels crowded (slight exaggeration) and for me it’s no fun to play these contracts. In the end I’m happy that I made it through, but never again.
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What the heck is that floating orb at the top of your picture?
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In the blog, you say “This is a linear progression that largely impacts the safehouse and the availability of cosmetics (Except for gear capacity increases and some money rewards).”
Mastery isn’t “linear” though. Later levels (90-100 seem to be the worst) take MUCH longer to progress through than earlier levels. Mastery seems exponential rather than linear.
At the earliest levels, it’s possible to progress through a full level or more in a single map while at the last levels, it can take an entire campaign or more to progress through a single level.
Can you provide any reasoning that IOI used to establish this exponential increase?
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There were a few key things that this blog revealed. Some of this was intuitive to established players and some may not have been. We also have a community here with a very in depth understanding of the game and its mechanics. I expect that the reaction to the post on Reddit (for example) is going to be somewhat different than this forum.
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There was a well established logic to losing gear but keeping weapons. Whether anyone agrees is besides the point. The devs very much understood what they were doing and it wasn’t an error or mistake.
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While some players did not understand how to tell the difference between tools and weapons, it’s something IOI did intentionally and will provide better communication to the player on what is kept and what isn’t (and how).
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IOI is actually listening to the concerns of players in regard to tools, difficulty, loss of items, etc. Sometimes they may choose to leave things as they are and sometimes they may implement a change, but they are hearing the concerns and actively discussing them.
I, for one, appreciate the dialog. Especially given the lack of monthly blogs or updates over the last year or more (IOI insider, for example), hearing the IOI is not only listening to the concerns of players but considering those concerns and how to address them is encouraging.
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Technically, if it slows down over time, it is logarithmical. 
Is it because there are less challenges boosting you? I don’t care for challanges at all at the moment which makes me guess I progress as slow as you do in higher levels. It is quite slow yeah but unless we get a good bunch of more challenges I don’t think something can be done about it.
I don’t know what you get after lv90 but maybe it is worth to have a more open end where you can play alot more while still unlocking stuff then? It feels like a mode I don’t want to get behind me but return to which fits that. Unlike main missions you can get sick of if you play the same one over and over again.
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THAT is the A Necklace To Die For challenge (strangle/garotte 10 leaders wearing necklace).
Uniquely, it’s blended with the Bullseye challenge (25 leaders eliminated with a sniper)
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Mastery is tied mostly to cosmetics of the safe house. There are unlocks for gear capacity and some of the cosmetics come with non-permanent items/mechanisms like poison crafting, banana in kitchen, etc. About every 10 or so levels you’ll get a Merces unlock where you’ll get a few thousand Merces.
It’s all nice and rewarding but the mastery progression in the highest levels is punishing in its slowness. Ostensibly by the time you’re up to level 90+ you’re also unlocking a lot of the challenges like 50 victories in a given map or large amounts of sniper or katana kills, but it just feels like the biggest reward for a player who earns their way through 90 levels of mastery is a very slow grind to the remaining 10 levels.
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It’s linear (1 to 90). You start with 6000exp per level and add 500, ending with about 50000 at level 90 (or 89).
Then it jumps to 150k for the last 10 level. Personally, missing only 3 challenges but quitted at 91. Challenges pay 1000-4000, almost irrelevant
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Exactly. I actually had some of your posts in mind when I phrased the original question to the blog post. I’m seeing the same thing in my own progression. Quite frustrating for those last levels.
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I’m slowly but steadily going through the mastery 90-100. From my estimate it takes 30 campaigns to reach.
Which is fine by me : progression wise the players can expect to :
- complete their weapons wall by 10 campaigns,
- have all of the gameplay unlocks by 20 campaigns,
- mastery 100 at 30 campaigns,
- and dust of all of the non-grinding challenges by 40 campaigns.
After them it’s all about Employee of the Year, and Top dog.
Which I am honestly fine with. I said it pre-release : I am fine with grinding challenge as long as it is between 2 and 3 time as long as what is needed to unlock the rest.
Mastery 100 is slow, and the rewards are only cosmetic, and mostly of the “bragging” side of things. So it’s by design.
But currently the only things that truly keep me going is the hope that, maybe, the ICA Coin is unlocked this way.
It does not really seems to be it though. Making this coin a mystery. Currently. I can also see that there might be one emplacement that will be empty on the shelves, I’m unsure, in addition to the four ones in the basement.
This, plus a few other things, make me believe that more is to come.
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Realized something weird today: almost two weeks in, and the one location I still have not had any contract take me to is Berlin. I have no idea how well I’ll do when I get there.
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How much is the amount of merces unlocked by mastery levels? Because seems like that I never got one.
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I remember that the one at Mastery 90 is 45.000 Merces.
I remember it because my only thought was “wow, this is useless, gives me the impression of having wasted my time, and gives me an empty level at a time were just going up once is a multi-hour endeavour”
Again, Merces are unfortunately useless later on. Haven’t touched a courier or a safe since last week. And I expect to forget about doing as many payouts as I can once Mastery 100 is reached.
Which is a shame, since all three are supposed to be the foundation of the gameplay.
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Would you recommend to fully grind for xp and mastery levels? As a high level yourself. Are the rewards great or just meh?
I don’t remember what the amounts were but they are at the -9’s, generally.
Levels 9, 19, 29, 39, 49, 59, 69, 79, 90 and 99 all grant escalating levels of Merces. By that late in the game it’s largely immaterial though.
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They’re pretty much just cosmetic. New helicopter, new bathtub, Hitman 3 soundtrack on the stereo, etc. Nothing particularly exotic or special, frankly.
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Personally I like it. Because Hitman finally became what I wanted it to be : a game I can play without audio, while having an audio book in my ears. Or like that. Without being too brain off.
Currently, I play while having Noah Caldwell-Gervais last video in my ears. It is soothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmFQR0IltDQ
Back to topic
Gameplay wise there are two cutoff :
- Mastery Level 64, a garage improvement. And the last “you can pick up/create an item” in the Safehouse. Makeshift Remote Explosive, honestly useful
- Mastery Level 81, the last Increase gear Cap unlock, for one of 15. Its real use can be debated, since by this time you can expect to have legendary gear that only takes 1 capacity. I’m mostly at 13-14 currently.
Cosmetic wise, there were still some that I genuinely looked for, and went for with purpose.
And some of them come with unique blend in/animations. Or Easter Eggs that I always appreciate.
The gym is a good example of that. (push ups at 94, and music when using the training bag at 96)
Also some of them I needed, because that rug really puts the room together, it is mandatory that I have it.
The office at 92 was one of them. And I was able to put a bedroom I found satisfying only at level 85, before the styles were too clashing.
But, if you care about the Safehouse, level after 70 were also the land of small disappointments : level 97 bathroom doesn’t come with the Hokkaido “I need to use the bathroom” easter egg as I hoped, and I will not start with the infirmary, which doesn’t bring anything outside of “now with more red” since the promising, but in retrospect last, upgrade of the syringe crafting at level 38.
And still no ICA Coin is sight.
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