First of all, I’d like to say that H3’s levels are probably the best in the entire trilogy. Then again, what I liked a lot less is that the unlocks are really disappointing. On one hand, the trilogy doesn’t really need more items. It pretty much has all the basics. On the other hand, it’s a bit of a bummer to finally have the ability to carry over items from the last five years of Hitman, but that the inventory itself is kind of underwhelming. There is still a lot of room to improve items and add more variety! I really hope the devs take some time post-release do it!
Without further ado, here are some ideas in a big wall of text:
The inventory is completely cluttered with reskins. If an item has variants, put a little + in a corner, add a “Variants” button (ex: press square on PS) and a sub-menu where you can choose which skin you want. I’m not sure I need to scroll though six “regular” ICA19, four lockpicks, five fiber wires, etc. You could also put the “gloved” and “gloveless” version of suits in a similar sub-menu.
Let the player bring the same item multiple times if they want to. By now, I’m pretty sure there are three copies of any item you could ever want to bring three of (poisons, ducks, etc.). It would make some room for other unlocks too…
It’s still not too late to replace Mark II weapons with something more interesting, especially since players starting from H3 don’t need them to get the essential items from the base game anymore. Heck, you could just replace them with the common enemy weapons and it would still be an improvement.
Almost all of the new H3 items don’t display their perks (ex: Suppressor) correctly compared to previous items : Bartoli Woodsman, Dak Gold & Black Covert (also incorrectly described as 1-handed), HWK21 Homemade Silencer, ICA Tactical Shotgun Covert, ICA DTI Stealth, etc. There also seems to be two items called “DAK X2 covert”, but with different models.
There are bolt-action rifles now, but 47 doesn’t operate the bolt between shots. That’s cheating!
I’m not sure about the Levitathan… Basically the one thing the 300 Ghost didn’t do better than all the other rifles was being “Piercing”, but now the Leviathan has that, plus all the other perks that matter too. It makes all the other rifles even less useful than they used to be! I think the magazine capacity is smaller, but that’s not something you’d ever know from the menu. What makes this even weirder is that the final unlock of the next mission is another reskin of the basic Sieger 300.
Speaking of magazine, maybe the menu could display more detail about the weapons, like bullets per magazine and weapon power (Very low, Low, Medium, High, Very High?). It doesn’t really change anything, but it could help appreciate the difference between the items.
In the same vein, maybe some existing items could display perks that make it clear at a glance what they do: Sawed Off (Concealable), Concept 5 (Full auto), Dart guns (have a color icon similar to the poison they inject), Assault Rifles (distinguish between auto and semi-auto). If speedrunners really like sniper rifles that pop out of the briefcase immediately, make it an official perk! (“Compact”)
All of the above is just maintenance, as Edwards would say. There’s still time to add cool new stuff like:
Weapon variety. Revolvers, a rocket launcher, break-action or sawed-off shotgun, flintlock pistol, a pen gun with a single shot, etc. There’s already a whole bunch of suggestions on the board.
Invisible “perk” items that give a passive bonus. Ex: Bullet proof vest (take 50% less damage), Ammo belt (start with full ammo), Sub-sonic ammo (all weapons are considered silenced, but deal minimum damage).
Bring back the hideout. It would make sense now more than ever! Your players have hoarded weapons and suits for five years, let them display them and goof around with them a bit.
So yeah, thanks for reading. Any comments or ideas?
I’d just like to say: I’ve been wanting the possibility to aerosolize the poisons, using your briefcase as the distribution-device. Making the briefcase an even more useful item.
Other than that I would like weapon customization for certain weapons (such as the Kalmer). Where you can pick and choose and mix between two (because there are only to darts in that weapon) poisons as you wish.
Now that thats out of the way, there is nothing left for me to say other than: I wholeheartedly support your ideas for changes. I actually kind of dislikes what a mess my inventory looks like. That’s not even all; in H2 I unlocked the ICA Titanium Crowbar for progress transfer to H3, and then IOI made the same crowbar a Mastery unlock in Whittleton H3. What happens when/if I can be bothered to grind Mastery 20 on that map? I get TWO ICA Titanium Crowbars? I mean, it is by far a favourite item of mine - but there is no need for two…
Great ideas, but never gonna happen. Just watch how they develop whole contract mode or items in this game since 2016. No changes at all, it was messy and it’s messy and they won’t do a thing because they all what they want to focus on new project. They even didn’t announce any live content or post DLCs! (ok there was an article but that isn’t any statement that they will do anything)
If they would to make a improvements they would have done it long time ago. I Have tons of ideas how to improve an equpimenet because I can’t look how that game is polished if comes to gameplay and level design, but not whole mastery and equipement system which is a pure mess.
There is only two things missing in this game which could make it a pure perfection. Mastery/Equipement system and lack of Native Speakers. Everything beside that is perfect.
One of the things that got me thinking about this topic is a review I read a while ago:
He’s pretty much spot on. Equipment is what it is in the Hitman trilogy because of some high-level design decisions.
What I’d add to this is that since you’re only up against regular ol’ humans and that you’re not actually supposed to kill them, there’s only so much you can do to differentiate guns, although MGSV did do quite a lot with similar restrictions (ex: rubber bullets, underbarrel attachments).
That 47 can kill and subdue with his bare hands also makes melee items a lot less important. Thrown items are all as lethal (or non-lethal) as any other… and as far as I can tell there’s no difference in throwing distance? Maybe that’s one thing that could be tweaked, but it’s probably now too late and too risky to mess with the mechanics in any significant way.
Still, despite the inherent limitations, there’s a lot that could be done to spice things up a bit.
Yes you can use it but after it explodes it leave traces that NPCs will identify as weapon and report to guards forever. Really disappointed that this bug has not been fixed yet.
I hope the February patch solves at least the most obvious issues with items. Working tiers for the H3 Featured Contracts would be nice too!
Some people have said it elsewhere, but the ICA 19 Covert doesn’t actually seem to be silenced. The Pale one doesn’t start with a full magazine, which seems like a bug. Not sure about the black one.
The Breaching Charge Mk III states twice that it has the signature Mk III look. When you really need to make sure they know…
I also noticed that many items aren’t where they should logically be in the item order.
