Should this be done retroactively with the score & classic items relocked?
1 Like
That’ll never happen, but I’m all for it 
This literally was the worst item in the game. It took away from the puzzle side of things which hitman is a huge part of being….a puzzle. And that phone contradicted the very core of the game design.
If ever they bring it back, it should just be a KO item, not lethal.
Same should be with the regular tasers, they should not electrocute to kill, but shock to knock out. And body found should not negate SA.
3 Likes
Could not disagree more, at least with the part about it being the worst item and that it should only be KO. It was fun to use, funny to see, is a perfectly sensible assassination tool, and it’s not as easy to use as people think, because it has to be placed right in order for the target to pick it up and not an NPC. People were just upset because it disrupted speedrunner contests, and that’s certainly no concern of mine.
8 Likes
But hitman is a puzzle game at its core. Just because it was a little game in itself with having the target pick up the phone while being in a crowd, it was indeed the item that took literally no skill to kill a target. It was a free kill.
It was the only item that there was no consequence in trying to use. If a target holding the phone was standing in water, then I could say yes, make it lethal, but out of water then KO.
But the fact that it killed without any consequence, made it the worst item.
Some ppl say the fart box is just as cheap. That’s not true, because you can still get seen killing the target drowning them, fibre wiring them or even pinching them with a lethal needle. There is still a chance to get seen while you kill. But the phone has literally nothing off that.
It had nothing to do with speed running. It had to do with contradicting the puzzle element of the game. It made no sense to keep that item due to broken risk/reward. It was 0% risk & 100% reward.
2 Likes
So those who didn’t like that could simply not use it. It’s no different than using poison on a glass that only the target will drink from when there’s nobody else in the room, meaning you can’t be seen, no other NPC is at risk of drinking from it, and there’s no consequence afterward. In any event, there was still consequence, because you had to make sure the target was the one who picked it up, so you had to lay it in their path in a way that nobody else would get to it, which could be challenging in public areas, which one would have to do if they wanted to avoid the risk of being detected, because otherwise they’d have to go to the restricted areas where the target roams, decreasing the likelihood of the wrong person picking up the phone, and increasing the risk of exposure in doing so. Those who think that’s too simple can just not use it.
6 Likes
I´m just gonna throw my two cents in by saying I would love to have it back, but have no problem if it gets nerfed. Either by being lethal only when used in puddles, or by not granting SA if the body is found (similar to the explosive phone).
Anyways, if you guys wish to discuss your opinions on the matter further, there is a dedicated thread you can use:
2 Likes
It being there was an option. Even if you feel it’s busted, it’s up to the player to first unlock it, and the choose to use it.
I’d rather have one OP optional item instead of the 47 reskins of existing weapons as “choice.”
3 Likes
Already expressed the opinion in the Freelancer topic : I wouldn’t be against seeing the electrocution phone back as a costly one time use item in the Freelancer game mode. Too costly in merces to use while still retaining the possibility to make a profit with the contract. It could be a good balance.
More broadly : the electrocution phone largest balance issue was with the Elusive Targets. Outside of them it was an indirectly useful tool.
Honestly I liked it in Hitman 2. Hitman 2 has some of the largest maps of the trilogy.
And where most hitman 2016 targets had an easy two minute setup with the right entrance/starting disguise and the right loadout to start a chain of event eliminating them, Hitman 2 did not.
Most of the time when I replay a level I’m just interested to play around one target. In Hitman 2016 all I had to do was quickly eliminate the other one before going for a more complex, multi step plan for the other. The right staff entrance, the right poison… I think everyone here knows the type.
Hitman 2 was lacking that at first. Worst some maps demanded most of the eliminations to be not a “set and let the events run their course”, but a “wait the target here, don’t move because you need to do the last button press yourself”. Santa Fortuna was the worst for that. Mumbai a close second.
The electrocution phone actually gave me a free target elimination before going to the main point of a fun run. Without it I did a lot of experimentation in levels, but I rarely finished them because I wasn’t interested in running all the targets. And egress is a good part of the game, a part I rarely played in Hitman 2 level.
I love Mumbai as a map, it’s actually one of my most played/explored map, but it’s also surprisingly the one I properly exited the less in the trilogy, because of this lack of easy set-ups.
I started to replay (and finish) Santa Fortuna only because of the electrocution phone. Mostly with Jorge before going for some of the largest set-up with Andrea and Rico. But I also eliminated a bunch of time Andrea this way when I wanted to experiment more in the Coca Fields.
(Hitman III is much better for that by the way, special mention to the server entrance in Mendoza which makes Vidal litteraly descends the stairs to us in the first ten seconds)
4 Likes
Understandable, but again hitman is a puzzle game at its core so that statement in itself doesn’t make sense.
I guess we agree to disagree?
And I’ve outlined how it is still a puzzle on how to use the phone. I guess it is an agree to disagree.
3 Likes
Where’s the puzzle? I can do this with every single target. Maybe confused. 
You picked literally the easiest target in the game for your example, who does not enter any restricted zones that require you to stay hidden or get a disguise, which is the puzzle aspect because you have to determine where you’re going leave the phone in an area where circumstances exist that put you at risk. He also spends half the time in a wide open area away from other NPCs who could wander into range and spot the phone first, which is also a challenge because this doesn’t work if the target is not the first to spot the phone. Yeah, Dimitri here is an easy example; try leaving it for Novikov or Margolis so easily. You can’t; you either drop it in front of them in public areas with NPCs all around who might see the phone first, so there’s a risk factor even if you succeed, or you have to take the steps necessary to get into the areas where they are in private, and that involves collecting passes, getting a disguise, or purely stealthing your way there, and that’s the puzzle. And let’s not forget, under certain conditions, the target might actually turn to their bodyguard and ask them to pick up the phone (I’ve seen this), so even in that area in the back where Novikov goes to make a phone call that is not a restricted zone requiring a pass, there’s still a chance that he wouldn’t even pick it up.
I’m not saying that using the phone isn’t easy; it is, and it’s entertaining. But your claim that it does not have any puzzle aspect at all is flatly wrong.
5 Likes
Did you miss the part where I said…
No, I didn’t miss it. And I went and explained, in detail, how if you do that with every other target, it is not done as easily as the example you provided due to risks I mentioned over and over.
4 Likes
And I’m just saying there was literally no risk. What risk are you talking about? I can even make vids for you of any target you like.
E-phone maded electrocution kills trivial. I really don’t miss it that much. Using micro taser and emp combined with puddles and sinks is way more puzzling and fun than leaving that electro shit of phone in front of the target.
If players liked to use it, I’m fine with that: but please, don’t tell me that’s a challenge.
1 Like
They need to relock the classic achievements on professional/expert, deduct the number of points, and confiscate the items pertaining to those achievements.
Was away for a few days for some personal stuff, but here we go. I’m gonna address these two things from the Elusive Target Arcade thread because one ties into the subject from here, and the other is partially related to the same question.
Play as intended means play as Agent 47: take your time, stalk your prey, so what you have to do to get the target into a position where you can take them out without being seen, and then escape. I’d you have to throw 30 coins to achieve that, then that’s what you have to do. Running up to the guy, shooting him in the head, then running for the exit, is not challenging, not fun, and nothing to be proud of.
The game is intended to be played as 47 figuring out how to get to his target, take them out, then escape, without being seen. It is not intended to be played speed running or guns blazing. The player can choose to do so, and the option to do so has be set into the game for those who want it, but that’s not how it’s meant to be, that’s not how it’s crafted. The stealth approach of using disguises, triggering events, locating useful items, quietly and carefully is how the game is meant to be played, with the others included as extra for those who don’t want to do it that way at that particular moment. Besides, didn’t you say the game is a puzzle game? Now you’re saying it’s for however the player chooses. Which is is it?
That was my point; you used your video on a target where there was no risk. Dimitri goes to three places on that map, one of which has no NPCs in close proximity, so there’s no chance another person will pick up the phone that you didn’t intend, and it’s not a restricted area, so you have full access to the same place. You tried to make your example by doing it where nothing could happen except the target picking up the phone, and you did it in a location where there was no chance of you getting caught for being there to place it, because you were allowed to be there. The only possible risk you had was that if you’d stood closer to the building in the spot where he picked up the phone, you might have been caught in the security camera, but that was it. In my previous post, I went over in detail an example of how you can’t do that with every target in the game, or even most targets.
You say Hitman is a puzzle game, and you’re right about that. Killing the target, however, is not the puzzle; the puzzle is getting to them without being caught, taking them out without being caught, and then leaving without getting caught. Solving the puzzle means taking the actions needed to accomplish that. In your video, you performed no puzzle solving action, because you showed your example on a completely exposed target in a neutral area. All you did was walk, open a door, drop the phone, and trigger the phone. You can do that with this target. But with virtually any of the other targets, such simplicity does not exist. You have to pick up passes, get disguises, unlock doors, toss distractions, pass pat-downs, enter restricted zones, climb through windows, vault over obstacles, climb pipes, all without being seen or triggering an alarm. Killing the target is the simplest thing, and how you can kill them depends on what you did to get to them and where you are when you do. But any action you take other than simply walking right to them and killing them, like you did, means engaging in the puzzle.
Let me provide an example: Galen Vholes of A Bitter Pill, poisoned wine glass kill, Silent Assassin, Suit Only, no knockouts. You can start with the poison in your inventory, have it in a drop off, or get the pill jar from Helen West’s basement or get one of the poison frogs behind Cassidy’s house. If you do anything other than starting with it in your inventory, you are already performing puzzle-solving action: how to get the tool you need to perform the task, the tool in this case being the poison. Getting to the target is as simple as walking to his house, but to get in through the front door (without being caught), you need a disguise. This example is suit only, like your video, so that is not an option. The only other possible way to get to Vholes is to either unlock the door to his fence, or jump over the fence. If the poison began in the inventory, then this is the first puzzle-solving action taken: how to get in. Take the stairs down into the basement, and then the next stairs up into the house. This is also puzzle-solving behavior: avoiding the people inside by taking an unobserved route. Open the door at the top and move immediately to the kitchen, the open door shielding you from view of those in the living room and at the front door. You put the poison in the wine glass.
At this point, poisoning a wine glass is as simple, by your standards, as dropping the electrocution phone. In fact, it is even more certain to kill the target, because if you left the phone next to the wine glass instead, there is no guarantee that the NPCs wandering the house won’t see it and pick it up before the target does, and obviously in this house you can’t drop it in front of him without a disguise because being spotted by anyone ruins the SA ranking. The poison, however, is guaranteed, because absolutely nobody else will drink from that glass. So by your standards, poison has the phone beat. Anyway, retrace your steps back to the street and wait by an exit for the target to die.
Your method, of simply walking directly to the target, opening an unlocked door, dropping the phone, triggering the phone and waking away, is impossible. You would have to take some other action; get a disguise, trigger an evacuation to get Vholes outside to an unrestricted area, hop/unlock a fence, wait for a patrol to move past you before acting. You would have to do something to get that phone in front of him. Your video with Federov is impossible in this scenario, and virtually all others in the game.
Having said that, you want to make a video, ok then. I want you to make a video doing what you did to Federov to another target. I want you to do it to Silvio Caruso, or Reza Zaydan, or Claus Strandberg, or Jordan Cross, or Sean Rose, or Rico Delgado, or one of the Washingtons. You said, quoting yourself, that you can do what you did in that video with every single target, and so you must do it exactly how you did it in that video. I want you to walk straight to the target and drop the phone in front of them and trigger it. You can do nothing that I have identified as a puzzle-solving action. You can take no disguise, you cannot throw or activate any distractions, you cannot climb through windows or climb pipes or ledges, you cannot vault over any rails or tables, you cannot hug a corner, you cannot crouch, you cannot dodge guards by waiting for them to pass and then going, you cannot unlock any doors, you cannot equip any tools to assist you, you cannot trigger an evacuation to bring the target to you. The only thing you can do, as you did in that video, is walk, open doors that are already unlocked, drop the phone, and trigger it. I will also make an allowance for one thing you didn’t do in the video, and that is eliminate the target in a restricted zone, because all the targets I offered you are only found in restricted zones, but you cannot throw the phone into that zone to get it there. All of these prohibited actions are steps to solving the puzzle of getting to the target and avoiding being caught, and by your logic that the phone does not contribute to the puzzle solving aspect of the game, you can perform none of them in using the phone. You also cannot start the game inside the place where the target is in a pre-equipped disguise. You must start at the default starting location and walk straight to the target without stopping, and without performing any of the actions I listed, and drop the phone in front of them, then head to an exit after triggering, still only walking and not taking any actions to solve the puzzle of getting out unscathed. You must do all of this without being spotted in the restricted zones.
That is the challenge you claimed you could do and that’s what I have set for you. Make your video following those requirements to replicate the same conditions that you had in your first one, as you said you could, and if you cannot, then you are wrong about being able to do that same thing to literally every target, as well as the phone taking away the puzzle aspect of the game. If you try to claim that those actions I listed are not what you consider part of solving the puzzle, I would first ask what precisely you consider a “puzzle” for this game, then, and secondly I’d point out that our disagreement over what constitutes the puzzle aspect of the game means that your claim about the phone is entirely subjective.
The thing is, IO didn’t remove the phone because it was over powered and took away the challenge aspect of the game; they removed it because of the number of complaints they received about it being such from people who felt that it was allowing unfair victories in speed run competitions, with a few claiming that it made ETs too easy for good measure.
Anyway, there’s your challenge. I’ll leave you to prepare.
2 Likes
I guess you have inside information from IOI.
And I also guess that ioi put leaderboards in the game to see who can finish the contract the fastest while slowly walking, hiding behind boxes and blending in as a waiter for 5 minutes.
Maybe if you’re new to the game. Someone who has 5000+ hours of gameplay experience may not enjoy playing the game like that because it’s way too easy. Speedrunning is a style that a player may want to adapt and doing so is well about how it’s intended, hence open ended.
No. I said puzzle at its core. Meaning SA is the main objective but if a player doesn’t want or care for that, they are not obligated to do so. Play style is open ended.
My video contradicts that.
Not at all because not all targets drink (or eat). So there is a drawback (or risk involved that someone else drinks or eats it and dies and you lose SA). So not comparable at all.
Now you’re being funny. The video isn’t about walking up to a target, dropping/placing it and walking away. You totally missed the point of the video. The point is there is no risk to using the phone. It’s a free kill with 0 risk and 100% reward.
It’s an item that takes away all challenge in the game. That was the point of the video. The video was just an exaggeration to make the phone look so bad as an item to be in this game but you took it too literally and totally missed the point of it all.
I guess you have that insider IOI information again. 
2 Likes