In the main game, SA is literally imposed by the game, that is, there are only two passages: to green pistols and not. In freelancer, SA is not required, which is great, because now it makes sense to use sniper rifles, play aggressively. SA simplifies life not from the point of view of receiving a salary, but from the point of view of gameplay: by arranging skirmishes in locations, you have a higher chance of dying, and the alarm does not disappear on them the next time you play. If some bonuses are given for the SA, other than those given for additional tests, then again the meaning will disappear in any other passage of the location.
I believe that the fact that there are additional conditions that the agent can take on SA is already enough.
Someone (I think it was Kevin Rudd?) mentioned earlier they looked at the NPC files and found some for new NPCs. Iāve seen a few of them as targets (during regular missions, not showdowns), like a naked guy in Berlin, in the bikers building
while i canāt argue that it is held up as one of the highest ranks we can attain, i donāt think it is fair to say āsa is literally imposedā on players when we can complete literally every mission without getting it.
Maybe not literally, but a serious passage always goes only to SA. And as I said, there are only green and red (well, yellow) pistols: either SA or not.
The new target in Berlin caught me off guard, and gave me a chuckle. I mean if there is a NPC that would wander off in places he shouldnāt go, this is the type.
Nice to see IOI hasnāt lost their sense of humor.
As for the āvehicle drives and kill an NPC during an exit, costing SAā, I remember that it infamously costed SA rating for some players on some Sapienza Elusive Targets.
If you were ever wondering why the Deceivers ET has the car exit next to the mansion disabled, this is why (it has a chance of running over the cyclist, or the flower delivery man at the crash site.
I believe that they resolved the issue by freezing the score when (or slightly after) the player pushes the exit button, instead of when the cinematic ends.
This is also why the sewer exit on Berlin was bugged : the player could use the exit prompt, but no exit would actually be made. The score (and timer) was set, while the run continued. Which allowed for things like killing non-targets without losing SA.
Freelancer is almost fully managed by the game client, the servers just provide all the challenges, mastery & contract data, etc. All of which could be moved offline.
Challenges are fully tracked by the client, the little completion notifier in the top right is fully done by the game, separate from the servers. Same with the XP you get from things like guard headshots, etc. That hud element is tracked by the client. Theyāre just not offline although they feasibly could be.
Iām not saying it would be easy for IOI to fully phase out online mode, it would obviously take them time, but the foundations are already there for them.
The fact that the game rewards you for sniping a target, doesnāt allow for freedom of play. It is forcing you to play the game a certain way to achieve the most payout. So regardless of game style, this āfreedomā is made up. The only way the game is āfreedomā, is when itās any any.
When I say SA, Iām not talking about a play style, Iām talking about a reward system.
There have ppl who sniped the sensation ET and got SA. THATS what Iām talking about.
Maybe IOI could just go for a compromise regarding Prestige Objectives.
Basically at the beginning or each campaign phase youāre choosing what type of playstyle you prefer and thatās what determines which category of Prestige Objectives appear to choose from.
Purist always gives a choice between 3 same objectives (Silent Assassin, Silent Assassin Suit Only and Sniper Assassin).
Speedrun gives 3 random timed objectives.
Freestyle gives 3 random non-timed objectives.
They more or less already do that. Each campaign type is suited towards a specific play style. Theyād just need to make sure that the prestige objectives were better tailored to the campaign type.
Sure I get it, but at least for me, when I played campaigns tailored towards more silent approaches I was also doing a non-SA related objectives.
I donāt think that Iād like if more professional types of campaigns restricted random objectives to ones only related to SA.
Thatās basically why I prefer more choices when it comes to the ability to shuffle available possibilities.
Fact is they are never going to manage to please everyone. There will always be players who insist that Silent Assassin, Suit Only is the only legitimate end goal and any rewards geared towards ālesserā play will be put down.
Other players will want rewards for other styles of play and will complain that Silent Assassin is so highly revered.
Still others will just want to blow everything up and ignore any sort of ranking whatsoever.
IOI will release Freelancer and it will be what it will be.
Well thatās extremely surprising. I always thought that the online nature of the game mostly tracked your every move and action (and that of other NPCs), which is why the challenges can unlock so quickly once completed.
I suppose the way we can look at it, we donāt know whatās going to change from the CTT until launch? If this was noted by a lot of players in the Freelancer feedback thread, thereās a good chance IOI may look at tweaking things.
Nobody is saying other styles shouldnāt be rewarded. You want to blow up the target? Great. 5M. You want to blow him up SA? Great. 10M.
We are saying higher reward, not only reward.
I hate that SA is highly rewarded in the main game for example and if it were higher rewarded in Freelancer it would bring back the fatigue Ive been feeling with the main game
Plus freelancer doesnt have savescumming so rewarding higher for that is just rewarding higher for better luck
