How good is the leader/suspect visual and route variety between showdowns?
I haven’t seen a lot of showdowns since I only watched a few Freelancer streams, but from what I’ve seen so far almost every leader seemed to be wearing a hat and had the agenda of either handover meeting or secret meeting. Also noticed someone’s showdown in Dartmoor having the same suspects as official showcase video from the blog post.
Are character models “modular” (e.g. the same suspect can appear both with a tattoo or without it in separate missions)? If not, I could see it become a problem since it could lead to potential situation of the player with enough playtime and suspect appearance memorisation to see the intel list and immediately think “that one guy in green shirt with short pants” right after starting the mission, which seems to go against the vibe these missions give of having to stalk each suspect thoroughly to identify the target.
The visual aspects were definitely quite bugged for the CTT so its a bit hard to say. Quite often the target didn’t have one of the physical attributes that they were meant to have. It was easier to just start taking down the suspects until you found the right phone to call a meeting and just lure them to a secluded area and kill them all instead of looking for an NPC that didn’t exist with the right tells and features.
I really didn’t have any issue with suspects not having most/all the possible physical attributes. It was not difficult to narrow it down to usually 2-3 likely suspects, then knock out one of the possibles and use their phone to call a meeting. Only once did I kill the wrong person, because I had narrowed it down to two possibles and I guessed wrong. It’s a simple process of elimination.
I don’t think this ever happened to me.
What I did observe was that some of these attributes could be hard to spot, like a tattoo on someone’s hand, or a necklace over a sweater that almost looked like a part of the pattern of the sweater, or sunglasses that were flipped up and resting on the characters head, instead of in front of their eyes.
I had one instance where a characteristic was “Tatoos”. One suspect had all the other descriptors but any tattoos… That is until I noticed a small like symbol on her wrist. And for earrings? They can be small too… It seems especially on male NPCs. While female NPCs might have something that hangs or is more ornamental. Some female NPCs might’ve had the smaller earring… But not that I can recall, honestly.
If/when you have 2 or more with matching characteristics, that’s usually when you have to tail them to catch their “tells” to narrow them down even further. Obviously.
I think we’ll eventually need a glossary of ‘tells’. Like smoking, reading, eating, drinking, sweet tooth (they can carry their own candy bar for this - they don’t necessarily have to eat something sitting out like a dessert), …there’s also the ‘scheming’ tell where there’s a handshake above their head… Or maybe another one where they’re calling on their phone.
Another ‘tell’ that I never did see attributed to any Leader was something with squiggly lines on it… I’m going to guess this was (something like) nervous or paranoid behavior. The one suspect that did it did that animation where they’re swinging their arms a little and looking left and right, like over their shoulders.
Quick question : in the end did anyone found an ICA Performance Coin for the tool crates ?
Because if not, I feel like it could be an unlock. As a mastery treat.
Coins are pretty much the one tool I could see be permanently present as a reward, regardless of campaign failure.
I’m partially saying this because part of me feels like the safehouse mastery could have some late game gameplay unlock. I wouldn’t even be surprised if in the end we have an unlock of “when a campaign is failed only two/one tool crate is emptied”.
Which one would be the best for “I like the sentiment of it, but come on”.
I don’t mind having a challenge that will be unlocked way beyond the completion of mastery, and with multiple months. Hell, even a full year. As an ultimate follow for the long term play of the game.
But 10.000 is egregious. If it’s not a placeholder.
Best amount for me would be : IOI takes the time needed to reach full freelancer mastery/unlock, double or triple it according to their wish, and then adjust the GOAT challenges so that it can be completed in this time.
It would keep the spirit of it, without being too much (for me).
Having grindy challenges can be cool but they need to be carefully considered in application. This is especially true when the challenge is for an alternate game mode that’s being added post-launch.
Even if we assume playing ~2 hours of Freelancer every day for a year is a reasonable estimate for 10,000 target kills (I have my doubts), cmon, I’m hyped for Freelancer but nobody got time for that. The most dedicated Hitman players are also going to be engaging with Elusive Targets, Contracts, routing for the good old main campaign, etc.
The quickest fix would just be changing GOAT to a meta-achievement for beating all other Challenges in Freelancer.
My nitpicks with some other challenges:
I don’t think having challenges for failure is a bad idea, but Sometimes Maybe Good. Sometimes Maybe Shit (fail 10 Showdowns) and Cold Feet (exit 20 missions without eliminating all Targets) feel like a bit much to me. I would prefer just having both as single-time achievements
Strelok (100 target headshots with the Druzhina 34) is a bit much, at least make it 47 like the Way of the Samurai (47 katana kills) challenge
I think the Destination Challenges having kill counts of 50 per Destination is a bit much and something like 20/25 would be more suitable
Broadly I would like to see more weird Challenges to specifically target on a run. Things like “Complete a campaign from start to finish without killing a Target by any means except a Sniper Rifle” for example. Tangible, fun goals to shoot for, instead of essentially being asked to call back after I’ve done 100 campaigns first
I disagree, if that was the case I’d have done multiple of those challenges in just the CTT (keep in mind I played 3 campaigns worth of missions over 4 runs)
That’s definitely something I would like to see, I think developments to far in to add challenges like that though (as they need to have a physical place in the safehouse)
Yeah, agreed. I wasn’t particularly excited about these either. A lot of players already have an issue with losing all their stuff upon failure. Can’t imagine doing it deliberately several times to complete a challenge… Either the inventory loss needs to be tweaked or these challenges changed to single-time ones.
I think 50 is fine. It will easily accumulate over repeated play, and is nowhere near the grind of the challenges that go into the thousands.
For me it’s Colorado SA SONKO for the final showdown. I love the challenge that this map will bring. It will really bring out the danger from that map. Can’t wait.
like symbol on her wrist. And for earrings? They can be small too… It seems especially on male NPCs. While female NPCs might have something that hangs or is more ornamental. Some female NPCs might’ve had the smaller earring… But not that I can recall, honestly.