At the end of the day, pick your contacts wisely. Meaning choose the syndicates that have the maps you’re most familiar and comfortable with.
I don’t find hardcore that crazy hard as some ppl are saying. It’s all about planning so make sure you chose the maps you are best in with the objectives that make you play best along with proper choosing of PO and choosing the proper free items from loot boxes.
You really need to figure out the best possible plan and of course at the end, your gameplay shouldn’t be rushed. Sometimes I’ve taken a good 40 minutes to kill 1 Target.
And really last, avoid trying to get SA. Snipe and run seems to work or setting up bombs. lol. Forget about making money. Hardcore really isn’t made for that, imo. Just finish the contract and get out.
I think that’s exactly the issue people are having: hardcore mode is so difficult, so punishing, and must be played such a restrictive way to have any hope of success, that they’re finding that they only want to beat it for the challenges/trophies to unlock, and then never have any need to touch it again, and that kind of makes it a waste. Nobody is getting any real joy out of playing it just to want to play it, because it’s almost impossible to win unless you play in one particular way, which most players of this game don’t regularly do. Not enough people see it as being fun, but more of an obstacle.
So then what will make “hardcore” mode play more……”hardcore“?
Forget adding higher payout/XP cuz that doesn’t change gameplay so…
Remove mandatory PO?
That could work because these timed ones just don’t make sense in a mode about planning and patience.
Playing a full campaign in normal mode then switching to hardcode, you don’t lose your freelancer tools. That would help make the mode a little more useful, gear-wise.
Don’t make every map alerted? Well that would make the mode watered down and that doesn’t make sense. They should be that way.
Actually “timed - get disguises” is all about planning since you can’t use the same disguise twice. So you need to plan an efficient route through your targets. Besides that the SA prestige objectives don’t really suit HC that much either. So much stuff can go wrong and you can’t restart.
I for once like doing a timed objective from time to time. I believe it adds to planning part, since it made me think more about routes I take based on their time and presence of “resets spots” (isolated NPCs, easy disguise sources, or closets depending on the exact type of timed PO), rather than just taking the convenient option.
My opinion on keeping timed POs is also shaped by my personal experience, and how some of my most memorable and exciting showdowns from hardcore mode attempts were ones where I ended up with a timed objective, thus I had to take risks and make decisions on the move in scenarios that would never occur without the time pressure.
Though I can agree that timed objectives feel quite unbalanced between each other, and could use changes.
The thing is, whether someone likes it or not is irrelevant. It doesn’t enhance what freelancer is about. It just feels like a circus. You’re doing things that contradicts the mode. You’re there to plan for your TARGETS, not doing “silly side quests” while playing the mode.
The higher the difficulty the more you’re incentivised to play every mission the one way you feel most “safe”, be it crawling around for an hour setting up a surefire kill, or just blatting a guy in the face with your silenced pistol & disappearing round the corner. The mandatory objectives ensure there’s at least ONE thing you have to think about, so the whole mode doesn’t just blur together.
I just did a mission in alerted Ambrose with “timed - get disguises”. The other objectives were “frag grenade kill”, “kill 3 guards with assault rifle” and “kill 3 guards with shotgun”. Considering there are very few disguises in Ambrose and only 2 that can carry large weapons legally, it made for a particularly hectic run that would have felt completly different, and probably not as memorable, if I had been able to play it safe with a single guard disguise. So yeah timed objectives can totally enhance the mode when you have to play around them.
Well would you say that this applies to escalations and puzzle contracts as well? There would be no point for a hitman to do stuff like burning his target while disguised as a cook when he could just snipe it from afar much more easily. In fact I’m pretty sure you could yolo through an entire Freelancer campaign with nothing but the Ghost. Would it feel more realistic? Probably. Would it make for interesting gameplay? Depends if you wanted to ignore a large part of the mode’s gameplay or not.
I didn’t know you were a game designer at IOI. Why would these elements be in Freelancer if it wasn’t designed for them? Just because you’re not into speedrunning doesn’t mean it’s not a legitimate playstyle IOI envisioned when designing Freelancer.
I don’t think it’s necessary to enforce creativity. To get to mastery level 100 takes around 30 campaigns. That’s 540 distinct map runs. Some of them are going to be straight “cheese it” attempts where you just snipe everyone from the tallest point. Some are going to be detailed, multi-hour stretches. I think most players wouldn’t necessarily want to just sit there and cheese their way thought 540 maps.
Creativity, unique play, and bizarre styles are going to come naturally, I think.
Mandatory complications aren’t necessary. I think players will gravitate to them regardless.
After finishing a hardcore campaign I have to say It wasn’t as bad as I thought. I only failed once and that was due, you guessed it, a shitty PO roll that fucked my entire run, I was on the last syndicate too.
However, the only satisfaction I got upon finishing was the knowledge that I don’t have to try It ever again in my life. It’s just not worth to even try to do the optional objectives, so I just ignored them and focused on the PO and used the Ghost for the rest. This makes it pointless for me because playing this way gives so little money and xp it will take an eternity to get to 100 mastery.
Overall I didn’t have any fun with it. Most of the time I was praying that I didn’t get any shitty objective and when I got something I could work with I focused on getting it done as quickly as possible without any enjoyment whatsoever. I didn’t learn anything from my mistakes because most of them were just god giving me the middle finger. It’s definitely not worth it, the punishment for trying to be creative is too big and the reward too small.
It’s not an issue of difficulty in my eyes. The point of the mode is literally in the name, purposed to be BROOTAL.
There is no appreciable greater reward, which is the biggest issue.
I was completely disappointed to find out that the “greater reward” for Hardcore mode is bullshit. I thought I was going to have my sexy bath tub much, much sooner.
IOI needs to provide significantly more XP and/or Merces (but especially more XP) when in Hardcore mode; something more tangible to make the switch worth a damn aside from the difficulty challenge.
Terrible costs-benefits balancing from IOI as it stands.
I’ll only be switching back once I’ve reached mastery level 100.
Not at all worth the trouble while aiming to complete that challenge. It’d take much longer than necessary.
Just look at this shit:
I for one am trying to complete my safehouse before receiving the Requiem treatment.
On my first Hardcore campaign attempt, I made it right through to the final Showdown of the last Syndicate. I took out the target and started heading for the exit, already celebrating my success and looking forward to never having to play another Hardcore campaign. I found the whole thing rather tedious.
Unfortunately, I got careless and was gunned down on my way to the exit.
Cue several more attempts at varying speeds. The first couple I tried rushing. This proved futile. So once again I went for the slow, methodical approach of my first campaign. I made it all the way to the final Syndicate, only to be hit with the SASO; SA/No Firearms; Time Trial combination of Prestige Objectives.
Another campaign failed. Back to the drawing board. In my frustration, I rushed another couple of attempts, again dying at early stages. A third patient campaign saw me get to the penultimate showdown (i.e. mission no. 12). Again I’m hit with the nightmare Prestige Objective combo. Another campaign fail.
I am now half-way through what I hope will be my final Hardcore campaign attempt. This time, I have decided I will abuse ALT+F4 if things go wrong. I have had enough of this. It’s boring.
