Hence my other discussion point on “unbalanced” and “broken” being different things. In any case, I think we all agree that there are parts of the item that IOI would probably be better off fixing.
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I get what you’re saying. When I mentioned the “gamebreaking”-rhetoric, it’s because: if it is true that a lot of people on the broader internet are using that specific rhetoric about the Molotov, which is something you can’t really say without also implicitly deeming it unbalanced (and going even further), then it’s not necessarily just a vocal minority who are on the “it’s unbalanced” side of the argument. That’s at least how I see it. That was why I brought it up. But yeah, how representative that sentiment really is for all Hitman-players, we can only really guess. I just wouldn’t necessarily write the opinion off as a vocal minority entirely.
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Yep, the game has been broken since at least Blood Money. IOI’s aim for WoA was to try and recreate the Blood Money experience people loved, an experience that can include running through areas in your suit while being chased and shot at, yet still managing to complete the objectives by killing the targets in a ridiculous way and get out with the best possible rating, despite being full of bullet holes.
One could argue the whole point of Hitman is to be broken. It’s a sandbox game that invites doing things in crazy, ridiculous ways, not for any actual reason other than fun. Hitman is exactly the game that should facilitate launching an object across the map and killing a supposedly highly secured target. Where else are you going to get that experience?
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Yeah but obviously - no one creates a video called “this new item is a decent amount of fun, fair and well balanced”. You only create an opinion clip if you have a strong opinion on something. Search for many other items and you will also only find videos about tricks and glitches that make the item very op.
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That’s not the general consensus at all. As shown on this very threads’ poll, people don’t find it unbalanced, and this thread is more than likely filled with a lot more of the core fanbase than most other places online. And there’s a difference between “unbalanced” and “broken”, as @schatenjager points out.
Hitman, unlike most other games, relies a lot on players relying on consistent mechanics and the puzzles and the situations that it creates. I play the game to challenge myself, and I do not like it when a game releases something that makes the game easier without any downsides. Free kills are boring. People play this game to outsmart it and to abuse the AI, not to throw down a phone and bypass the games’ entire gameplay loop. This defence of “It’s a single player game” is so surface-level. It ignores the prevalance of Youtube and walkthroughs that encouraged its use, and it ignores the benefit of hindsight and experience we now have.
Leaderboards are important to people (even I check my time out of curiosity when I do a FC), but I don’t think items are balanced around that. I’d sooner wager IOI takes contracts mode more into consideration when an item releases versus a runs’ collective time.
There was every reason that it was removed; you just decided to ignore it in favour of your own viewpoint…time and time again. It was OP, it broke the games’ intended gameplay loop, and was far too easy to abuse at all skill levels. To fix this, IOI replaced it with something more balanced (the ICA Elec device which only works in puddles, which is far more situational and more balanced because of it). I’m not even against the phone being rebalanced, but I’m not sad to see it go either.
I don’t like using meme words like “cope” or “you are breathing in so much copium”, but it feels accurate to this situation.
Relying on extreme examples is leaning into the slippery slope fallacy a bit, providing false weight to your argument. You can use other items to make runs faster, but those items have downsides that the player has to contend with. You didn’t use it, but many others did.
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I mean, I personally don’t think it’s too unbalanced, I quite like it.
But it’s hard to find someone who won’t agree it has some quirks and bugs, here’s two:
- The molotov wallbangs
- Shooting the molotov with a tranq will activate the AOE fire kill but not the explosion allowing you to then pick it up and throw it as an explosive (with no AOE).
Maybe saying it that way was flawed as I didn’t get my point across properly, I apologise.
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For your first point: I addressed that in my previous reply, saying it that way was poor wording on my part, as I’m now seeing my point was mis-interpreted.
Well they shouldn’t be, the first page or two is normally filled with cheaters (especially on main missions)! IOI don’t care either, they just made it so runs less than 7 seconds don’t show.
So is the molotov.
The molotov is just as easy to exploit. You just need to know how, and some didn’t realise how good the electrocution phone was before seeing someone else use it.
So does the remote emetic device in a briefcase, what’s your point? There are quite a few items that “break the games’ intended gameplay loop”.
You play the game to challenge yourself. Others just want to have fun and get free kills, who are you to basically judge them for that? You don’t have to use every single item you get, no one does, there are so many items in the game (even if most of them are the same).
Of course if you’re watching a walkthrough they’ll encourage it, it’s the easy way. Players who use walkthroughs are not wanting to challenge themselves like you are, they’re wanting to either get a mission done as fast as possible or learn more about the game. Gives them ample opportunity to learn about the item and see how useful it could be.
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Yeah, the wallbang thing is definitely the most arguably ‘broken’ thing, though honestly I think people are grossly exaggerating that. Sure, for speed runners who are fine with grinding a run to perfection, it’s a really powerful tool. But getting a wallbang on only a target (who may be moving) with no NTKs, and without getting caught up in the resulting panic, isn’t even a trivial matter in many cases.
The dart thing I’d say is very, very niche and barely even worth patching (I swear I’m not just saying that to keep my discovery in the game lol). I imagine it could be abused in contracts (though it could possibly also allow for some interesting puzzle-like scenarios), but honestly who is wanting to waste a dart just to get that AoE effect, when firing a dart is just as illegal as throwing the thing and requires way more setup. You might as well just KO the target and throw it near them. Heck, you might as well spend that same dart on tranqing the target before throwing it, as NPCs insta-die of the fire (before the explosion even hits them) when they’re KO’d.
Ultimately neither are nearly as useful as people might imagine, and removing them will also get rid of the potential to actually do a super elaborate setup where you place the molotov way in advance, wait until the target gets near it, and tranq snipe it from insane distances. Or launching it insane distances in order to kill targets (I mean that would still be possible, but in fewer situations). I think wallbanging probably should be fixed (if it even can, since fire was never designed to be summoned just anywhere), but mostly because it’s annoying to use an item that may get NTKs through solid walls when your target happens to be by one… the wallbanging in most cases is more of a disadvantage than an advantage IMO. But also, I don’t think it’s the end of the world if it doesn’t get patched, because before it we had nothing, and a slightly broken but still overall fun item is still a win in my books.
And this 100%. I don’t see the logic in complaining about the presence of something that makes the game easier, when it’s a sandbox game with the option to not use it. GTA games have cheats built into the game that make things easier - does the mere existence of them cause a detriment to the difficulty of the games? Do they “break the gameplay loop”? Hell nah. YOU (not you Anthony, just hijacking your point lol) ‘break the gameplay loop’ if you use them. The game just gives you that option.
And as someone very involved in studying game design, the entire “break the gameplay loop” argument seems super flawed to me. The gameplay loop of the WoA games (if not all Hitman games to an extent) is to do the mission, and then do it again in a new way, to find your own challenge and “vary your strategy, improvise” in the words of training mission Diana. You’re not trying new things if you use the molotov or e-phone over and over, nor are you challenging yourself (assuming you find it easy). Hitman is a game that can be fun for people of multiple skill levels, and people can choose to play according to the challenge they wish to face.
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Quite frankly does it matter, its a single player game, the lsaderboards arecall full of cheaters and we have things like gun lures. Really why is the molotov nedding to be less op. You need to know how to use its “op” abilities anyway, some new random joe whos playing Ambrose for hte first time ain’t gonna know that its really “op”
Cased closed.
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Definitely, those are just two bugs I could remember, and one is a bit annoying (plus the explosion is non-accidental so it wallbanging isn’t too bad), and The Serpent’s Bite from Lust also wallbanged at launch if I recall correctly.
Yeah, I’m probably just bringing up some niche things, but with the tranq-tov (that’s what I’m calling it from now on) you are able to very easily complete The Chameleon (as the fire is a non-explosion accident) and The Ex-Dictator. Which is funny considering they’re both considered annoying ETs (mostly because of the hostile zone in the former and the latter being in Colorado).
Moving onto the second half of your response: yeah, World of Assassination is meant to be a stealth sandbox (but lets be honest, it’s more of a sandbox). I completely agree with everything you said there.
Or assuming you’ve gotten that close anyway (presumably in a disguise if we’re calling this easy), could just Sieker him and drown him in the nearby bathroom, or stick him with a syringe when no one is looking. Remember when people thought lethal syringes in were OP back in 2016? lol.
Well using fire is flashy since normally you’d only be able to use a gun lure or something to get him to an oil barrel.
True, but it obviously loses serious style points if you just tranq a molotov to get it. You get to see a cool effect and animation, sure, but to me the cool part of a run isn’t the kill you ultimately get, it’s the path you had to take to get it. I literally did a Paris double fire kill a couple weeks prior to Ambrose, and while I could now get a double fire kill much easier, it obviously wouldn’t be nearly as fun as getting both targets to one barrel. Likewise I could’ve used the weapon fetch glitch but I never do just because the fun is in the chase.
Can’t even think of many in-game challenges the molotov helps you conquer since the vampire magician fire challenge was removed… but even if it wasn’t, the existing way most people completed it involved just killing people and dragging bodies far just to get it done… so comparatively, using a code 17 and then chucking a molotov at them from the attic is way more skilful than that (and while it should be easy to execute, I think having the ingenuity to come up with that solution is exactly the kind of skill Hitman, often said to be like a puzzle game, should demand, over mere execution).
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Oh definitely, it’s more a novelty as you’re using the hot (pun intended), new, cool item.
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And that’s the big blocker for a lot of players. You need to know how to abuse it.
Considering how simple the weapon is to use, that isn’t surprising. And I don’t recall it taking very long for even casual players to notice this.
That it was bad for the game? The fartcase still requires more setup, and while it is relatively easy to do, it was not nearly as popular or well-known. That too should be nerfed, but that weapon isn’t what we’re talking about.
Also “this is also OP, why does it matter?!?” is another fallacy. Just because one OP method exists does not mean another OP item should not exist either.
Cheats are deliberate breaks in power, and are definitely not valid for weapon balance discussion.
Then just call the weapons you don’t like “cheats” 
Other than the name of the gameplay feature, there’s literally no effective difference. They’re both things you have to choose to use (and specifically, have to choose to use specifically to make things easier - when the molotov could make things harder if you’re clever enough to find a challenging use).
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That part of my response was meant to be more used in tandem with my walkthrough point.
What are your thoughts about the other points brought up by BluntsNBeatz about playing the game as the user wants to play it, including my criticism of you basically judging people who want free kills.
The game doesn’t need to be balanced.
There. Since everybody seems to be getting sick of the argument throughout the forum, let that be my lasting statement on the matter.
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sorry I did not mean to sound so harsh. No offense, my friend.
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WTF is this “free kill” being spoken of? Relatively menial as they may be, both the Molotov and E-Phone still require setups of their own, meaning they necessarily aren’t “free”.
The only immediate instance that would perhaps qualify as “free” or whatever is the insane wallbang you can do on Soders in Hokkaido.
Give me 3 coins, a few shoulder bumps, and a lethal syringe and I’ll show you an amount of cheese that’ll make you consider the Molotov and E-Phone about as “free” as a tank of gas.
The most fundamental problem with removing the Molotov and/or E-Phone is that you’re removing bullshit, campy items from a game which still by and large permits bullshit, campy kills in a myriad other ways. You fundamentally change nothing for yourself (as you weren’t using them to begin with) and only impose your inane play style beliefs on other players to their detriment.
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