The performance updates were immediately noticeable! Chonqing runs much smoother for me now! Although, exiting the Safe House shooting range still drops to about 20 fps for me. But, once I get far enough away, it goes back to about 60 again, so 
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I get your frustration, it can be really painful sometimes.
This is a different way of playing, having goods and wrongs.
A rogueless/arcade option would probably benefit this mode for sure.
Weâre having a personal time in our own safehouse after all!
Looking forward to the next updates 
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Freelancer killed Hitman but left too many witnesses to achieve the Silent Assassin ranking. Very few of them believe it was an accident.
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I agree with a lot of these points. Especially the frustration over hardcore, the lost âleader is nearbyâ jingle, and the current objectives that are still glitched. However, Iâve realized what makes this feeling worse is actively grinding instead of playing for fun. If you fail and then quickly try again, youâre more likely to fail and the cycle repeats until you lose everything and hate yourself. Suddenly youâre fueled by rage and not sport. Freelancer often doesnât feel like a fair or forgiving game mode. It definitely lives up to the definition of rogue. Itâs unfortunate that it can be this way, but it can have its awesome moments too - like narrowly escaping a triumphant showdown, earning a great silenced sniper rifle, and upgrading your safe house. This is only possible though when you can take a breather and laugh at things. And itâs hard to do that when youâve lost all of your gear 3 times in a row due to rage (been there 
). I guess my point is, take breaks when possible if you still want to enjoy Freelancer for what it is. And forget mastery. I just hit level 40 and donât care about 100. Havenât even touched Hardcore because of all the gripes people have mentioned.
Given your frustrations and reasonings, if you are done with it itâs understandable. Theyâve said theyâre not totally done with Freelancer just yet though, so maybe come back to it when they have patched more things?
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My only issue with Freelancer more specifically Hardcore mode is the mandatory objectives. Same reason people complain when Curated Contracts have instant fail conditions cause of mandatory objectives. Itâs not fun, and takes away a lot of what makes HITMAN great. Especially when it comes to freedom.
Everything else about Hardcore is fine, but the mandatory objectives needs to change.
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I was really hesitant about Hardcore mode at first, but if you can get some Prestige objectives like âHeadshot Kill-Legendaryâ, âMelee Killâ or objectives of that nature then youâve cracked it.
My problem came with the Timed objectives, but thankfully I only came across them around three times throughout the whole Hardcore run.
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(For those who are confused by the frustration around Freelancer:)
Consider what Freelancer is asking of any given player.
ââââ
Everybody plays different amounts, at different speeds, and different skill levels.
There are 18 missions in a campaign, 4 of those are Showdowns. Assuming a player never fails or dies, achieving âEmployee of the yearâ (eliminate 100 syndicate leaders) requires 25 campaigns, or 450 missions minimum.
With the right objectives, killing 1â2 targets on a mission can take less than 2 minutes. And sometimes, a 4 target mission or a 12 suspect showdown could take a player 10, 15, or even 20+ minutes to comfortably complete.
If this hypothetical player has an average time of 5 minutes per mission, it would take 90 minutes (1.5 hours) to complete a campaign.
For 25 Campaigns, thatâs 37.5 hours (not including failures, load times, or safe house preparation/ exploration/ decoration)
for reference, here are other various hypothetical average times:
3 m = 22.5 hours
5 m = 37.5 hours
7.5 m = 56.25 hours
10 m = 75 hours
And that is only in-game mission time
One might think that âEmployee of the Yearâ is a strange metric to judge this by, but with 92% mastery, Iâm 87% there. By my estimation, Iâll achieve Mastery 100 around the time I achieve âEmployee of the Year.â
Now, whether a player thinks these times are âreasonableâ is really up to personal taste.
howlongtobeat.com suggests that the Hitman Triology takes anywhere from 28-71 hours to complete (265 hours for completionist).
Thatâs 23 story missions, across 3 games, with approx. 50 unique, fully-voiced targets.
Meanwhile, Freelancer asks the player to commit the same amount of time for significantly less content and unengaging âcardboardâ targets.
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this was cheese and you know it. it completely circumvented the entire purpose of those missions.
this i agree on, this is a problem and they need to add a basic logic system to the prestige objectives. no safes in any campaign maps? dont appear. for the weapon rarity prestige objectives, i believe they made it the way they are in case you find said weapons in the level in a supply crate or from the shop. if you dont want to take that risk pick another lane i guess.
balancing. that being said there are still other silenced weapons available in some maps. dubai max security guards have silenced aks. cassidy guards in whittleton have silenced smgs. the silenced gun buried on sgail. pretty sure theres a few other cases im forgetting.
??? ??? ??? ??? ??? then dont use the stock market??? you know its a gamble??? whats the complaint here??? ??? ??? ??? ???
balancing. it was far too easy money.
so what you mean to tell me is⌠you think silent assassin is broken or doesnt work⌠because youre not good enough to get it�?? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
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Prestige objectives do have logic, you canât get showdown objectives on takedowns.
Tempting you with easy wins if you prioritise certain weapons or maps is deliberate, it creates friction with all the other things youâre choosing to spend your time & money on.
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Hereâs the point in which I stopped playing, I played almost exclusively SA/SO. The game is too unreliable to invest into playing like this.
Freelancer SA/SO is UNPLAYABLE (Hereâs Why) - HITMAN WoA - YouTube
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I think freelancer is fine addition to the game, for starters though if you complain at bugs at launch for any product in this day in age youâll tire yourself out complaining about issues that will most likely be fixed by the next development cycle (that doesnât mean you shouldnât report it though). Itâs infuriating to have to deal with it (trust me I know), but the fixes are slowly getting better and at the end of the day it does have quite a few enjoyable elements
I also think we all burned ourselves out rushing ourselves to level 100 and got burned out on the mode grinding. I do also think however that the numbers were too high with the late game challenges (even with the newly added prestige mode, 100 campaigns and 500 syndicate leaders is ridiculous, prestige even makes it worse because you have to go through like 10 levels of it, which is too much as well).
However, I do think it shows the foundational elements for a promising concept of a more freeform hitman entry with randomly generated elements of surprise to keep you on your toes and methods of progression. Obviously in freelancer it comes off as a bit more formulaic due to the lower amount of base levels, as well as assassins, lookouts, members, and leaders not having the same amount of polish if it was solo entry instead of a FREE (I feel the need to remind everyone of that) product launched TWO YEARS after launch, and furthering our ability to get even more FREE content outside of its mode with new unlocks and stuff
This product is very clearly testing the waters for IO to do something far bigger and crazier in the future:
My guess is a kind of XCOM/ Evil Genius worldmap mixed with a hitman game, with handcrafted missions and even entire syndicates that you have to work your way up that are presented to you in a random order while you build up your gear and influence. Before missions will consist of creating a network of your own around the worldmap, managing your movements and assets on the map against various syndicates and law enforcement.
Missions are of varying size but built around certain targets, however randomized elements play into these missions: perhaps the targets routine or location will be completely different, perhaps there will be more security or people who might recognize you depending on how alerted the syndicate or territory your in is, there might be assassins that are more custom crafted have setups with traps, sniper spots, or hiding in plain sights, lookouts that vary their methods as well and want to expose, understand, or reveal the legendary 47 to the syndicate or the world, etc. Other things could be added into this as well with syndicates having custom complications (like an arms trafficking syndicate having better equipped guards, a Psy Ops syndicate making it harder to identify members, etc.), Different showdown types instead of just picking the leader from a bunch of other NPCs, or even a nemesis system existing in place for assassins and lookouts (much like the shadow of war / shadow of war series).
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Has anyone, in the history of EVER, liked grinding in a video game!?
I can look past all of the other flaws in Freelancer, but I canât turn a blind eye to all the bullshit grinding in it. Not to mention they added even more last update with that Prestige reset garbage!
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Would be cool to see the Mastery increased to level 150 or something! 
now Iâve got to level 100, I kind of miss the progression if that makes sense. You canât beat unlocking new areas and items for the Safehouse.
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Depends on what the grinding involved.
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Blockquote Has anyone, in the history of EVER, liked grinding in a video game!?
I can look past all of the other flaws in Freelancer, but I canât turn a blind eye to all the bullshit grinding in it. Not to mention they added even more last update with that Prestige reset garbage!
I think like in Tactical Strategy some people like that build up of power.
In Hitman itâs new tools and weapons that could change your playstyle.
However all I get from Freelancer (especially Hardcore) is "Just kill target and do Prestige)
Itâs a complete 180 to the exploitative gameplay of regular Hitman. Itâs geared towards the players that know every nanameter of the map and every NPCs patrols.
Showdown was the draw and IMO instead of âYou fail, give us your gear and moneyâ perhaps they should just add optional difficulty modifiers. Like those trip mines on escalations or using the Envy Assassin but theyâre hunting you down.
But in general, no normal person like grinding
What a fucking terrible suggestion that is infinitely worse than anything IO did put into Freelancer.
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- Itâs an optional modifier, you donât want them just donât activate them pre campaign like Hardcore or per contact like a Prestige Objective
- Naturally this would increase XP and Mercs Payout
- Whatâs wrong with wanting a challenge?
That Patrick Mculloch fella: âI have the worst takes on the forum.â
This guy: Hold my beer.
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Iâm one of the few people who doesnât think the mine objective on escalations is that bad and that those escalations should all be brought back in Hitman 3. However, with how unforgiving and brutal Freelancer is already designed to be, adding mines to the missions would cause so much frustration that any potential reward for using the complication would not be worth it
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Iâm not sure what they could add in terms of new areas to the Safehouse, but I would definitely like new customization items.
I know you mentioned raising the Mastery Level Cap to 150⌠Iâm torn on that. On one hand, Level 100 already takes forever, not sure I would want to go for another 50 levels. On the other, increasing the level cap would justify adding more Challenges, and expanding the mode even further - whether it be adding more weapons, gear, unlockable suits, adding more ways to spend Merces, and so on.
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