My Idea On How IOI Can Revive Ghost Mode

Hitman 3 (2021)
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Hello my fellow hitman enjoyers!
As i am pretty sure, most people on this forum, including me, miss the ghost mode a lot, i came up with an idea how IOI can bring the mode back, but not loose so much money and effort on maintenance, since nobody really played that mode outside of this hitmanforum bubble, it was an understandable decision to remove the mode.

Now hear me out, i have no idea how game servers work, and in what state are the ghost mode servers, but judging by the fact that, there is a mod for the steam version, that allows us to enjoy it, i assume that servers are still out there and can be activated if necessary, if this is not the case, or it doesn’t work like that, feel free not to read past this point.

What if, ghost mode came back in a form of elusive targets, like it would be available only for a certain fixed period of time throughout the year, foe example: the game mode would be activated twice a year, first in January, from January 1st to January 20th and then the second time in July, with the same time restriction, the mode would still be kept in GAME MODES section in the menu, just not available until the next “window”.

There are a lot of pros for why ghost mode would work a lot better as an event rather then how it did, first of all, the time limitation would ease the server maintenance and expenses, it will also build excitement and hype for players to enjoy it in that short period of time, especially because there are so many people who never even played it, the traffic would be larger then usual and worth it for IOI, also the matchmaking would be packed in those short time periods, so you would get the best experience ghost mode could ever offer.

Again, i have no prior knowledge of how the game servers, or really any servers, work, so please take my post with the pinch of salt, thanks for your attention and i hope this discussion goes beyond the first comment saying, “well it doesn’t really work like that”.

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That is not the case, it doesn’t work like that. :stuck_out_tongue: Although I also only talk about how I understood it.

GM matches are client-client sessions. You are not connected to an official server besides match-making. At least not to a degree that makes that connection necessary for playing GM. Instead you are directly connected to your opponent.

So bringing GM back does less need some server and more it needs to bring back game functionality to offer such a mode. Functionality that for some weird reason seems to be present in the files of Steam version.

I am not sure how this is not so expensive or maintenance heavy? You ask for something that never existed so far, so this is less about reactivating previous GM, it is about implementing a new thing. That is far from cheap.

You might have thought running GM servers is the expensive part, but as I pointed out, the server only did match making. That should be a very cheap thing if bought back. It likely was also not the deciding factor of removing GM. More likely, the mode was always like a beta of a mode and would have required much more time/money investment to finalize while the numbers indicated there was not the needed demand.

Also I am kinda confused that suggesting the mode being functional only twice a year is really a good compromise?

I think people are better off to rely on the modding community to bake a woking GM, even if it is only for PC, maybe with a few extras some day. Without playing down the effort IO put into developing in the last year, let me point out that the long desired ET overhaul ended up to be yet another Escalation mode with seemingly random complications. I am not sure we should push IO to reinvent GM as well. :grimacing:

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My idea on how IOI can revive the Ghost Mode is as simple as plugging the servers on.
That’s it.
Well, maybe doing some tweaks, bugfixes and expandings…

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the part which doesn’t make sense for me is, why would you get rid of the mode all together, just because you couldn’t finalize it, yeah it was buggy soemtimes, but it worked mostly fine for me, and i don’t really understand the notion of it being a beta mode, it was a perfectly fun and fine mode, again since i have no idea about how game servers work, i thought that keeping servers running was the expensive part, because if is isn’t just leave the mode be, those few who play it, enjoy it nonetheless, so why removing it? thats the part that doesn’t make sense for me.

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i miss that mode so much i love playing against everyone

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Because Hitman is a product that the developers want to reach a certain level of quality. Sure there are bug all over in Hitman, but GM was always a good amount of bugs more than that, plus the lag was quite much. Even to the point where the match result is different for each player.

It might have been good enough for you and me, but it was not great overall technically speaking. And it was only two maps.

Again, I can only speculate IO was not happy to improve it up to the minimum level of quality/stability to be consistent with the rest of the game. Seemingly to the point they invested development time into removing the mode from the game.

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For it to be worthwhile, they’d need to make it available in more maps which they’re definitely not going to do.

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Ghost Mode died for the same reason ALL online games that require a server die: not enough people playing it to justify the cost.

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I respect anyone who loves and misses ghost mode. Personally I don’t care for this mode. I think Hitman could benefit more from a co-op system.

Imagine playing Paris or Berlin in co-op… you handle one target while your partner handles the other. Timing your hits precisely at the same time. Or you take out the bodyguards and your partner takes out the target. The possibilities are endless.

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I’m guessing GM was killed off because they didn’t want to develop it further and allocated those resources to H3’s development instead. If H3 ended up being a better product at launch than what it would’ve been otherwise, I’m glad they killed it off.

It was a fun mode while it existed, but do I miss it? Not really. Would I play it if they did revive it? Maybe a couple of times at the most.

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Well, it’s P2P, there is no cost. Which is the reason it’s easily readded to the game through mods.

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According to ioi, Ghost Mode used a server not P2P.

we have made the difficult decision to shut down the Ghost Mode servers for HITMAN 2 on Monday 31st August 2020.

*Edit

I understand what @Urben is saying, that the server was probably just used for matchmaking, etc and that the actual game mode was probably P2P (hybrid) which is why people on PC can still play it. But that server still costs money and ANY cost, no matter how small, wasn’t worth it to ioi obviously, to maintain it for the small amount of people who were still playing GM & Sniper mode.

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I think they just went the wrong way.PVP is not suitable for this game.I think we can learn from the multiplayer model of Assassin’s Creed:Cooperation, not competition.(about GM)

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thank you man for respecting us for ghost mode and yeah imagine co op that would be sick

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Here’s my idea on how they could revive the Ghost Mode:

They could add it to the game.

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Any idea of multiplayer mode in HITMAN could be interesting.

They have tried different things with Sniper and Ghost Mode but in the end it was a soft and beta experience that wasn’t really fully implemented into the game.

I think that they should prior focus on the game itself instead, including Singleplayer gameplay experience, technical issues and fixes, and graphic improvements and tweaks :warning:

Now that they have acquired some experience and knowledge about multiplayer features, there is time to make something different and greater about multiplayer that could be implemented as an entire mode at the image of Freelancer in some time later :+1:

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What I can see working well and requires less work than Ghost Mode did, is to implement Roulette Rivals as it is played at @Frote7 speedrun community. It is the main mission but instead of Any Method Any Disguise it is random Kill/Disguise requirements that are diced at the start of the match. Whoever finishes the mission first with Silent Assassin wins the round. Restarting and picking desired loadout is part of that.

It might sound like this is more a speedrun thing but it really is more a matter of the skills of the two players. If they are not far from each other it can be an interesting match. Such a mode would not require new mechanics besides having better sync than GM had.

There is also already a mod that adds this to the game.

https://roulette.hitmaps.com/

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When GM first dropped it was fun. It died after ioi made unnecessary changes to it. First they changed the initial target locations (originally the first target was relatively near where you started). That slowed down the game considerably. Then they changed the Ghostcrate items (whole games played with only cocaine bricks, soda cans and other blunt melee items). And then the nail in the coffin was the decision to add Santa Fortuna plus all the ghost items. After that, at least on Xbox, no one wanted to play anymore. As soon as Santa Fortuna would start people would immediately quit. Killed the whole mode.

I think Ghost Mode could’ve been successful if:

  1. They never made ANY of the changes above.

  2. They added Whittleton Creek as the second H2 GM map.

  3. They added the bank in New York as the third H2 GM map.

  4. Then later on, add in Paris + Hokkaido from H1 and pretty much every level in H3 (since they’re smaller/more condensed).

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Wouldn’t cost them anything to merely turn off the matchmaking while still allowing people to send invites

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I enjoyed Ghost Mode at the start (on Xbox). But after they added Santa Fortuna, I started to get bored of it (and it was not the grind to 100 kills for the Phantom Suit that did it).

  1. Santa Fortuna was a poor map choice. Whittleton Creek or Sgail would have be my preference.

  2. On Xbox at least, the players dropped quickly. After the update, most players were unfamiliar with the game mechanics. Some had microphones and would ask me for help seeing the high rank I had, and I had no problem coaching them.

  3. Related to above, towards the end I notice players were just grinding for the suit, and going for the Kill Everyone approach to get easier access to targets (typically if I matched on Miami). Unfortunately for them, I was too experienced and I think all but one or two games I won (the others were either through my mistakes or timing on the final kill).

Because of that, shortly after I had the suit I stopped search as it was not enjoyable as I would be going through motions unlike at the game launch where it required planning and effort. Through the Xbox Club for Hitman, I would still get messages and invites, and I would accept, but it was mostly novice players who I would help and coach through the mode (that was rewarding in itself).

Obviously, this is just my experience on one platform and I understand that there is a demand on PC through mods. But I think that IOI efforts are better used elsewhere.

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