My play style, finally explained

[Heisenberg]

@VRO3886

It’s still realistically a potentially compromising modus operandi that could be identified as a consistent variable through cross-referencing. It’s a very specific thing – a distinct “trace” of 47 – which makes it all the more potentially compromising. This is the same reason players rag on “Tobias Rieper” being 47’s universal alias in WoA – it’s very specific, potentially compromising, and just careless to use so consistently.

Yes, it raises potential questions that something fishy happened to the people who are passed out, however, sometimes it is unavoidable to do so. A good example is the guy in Santa Fortuna carrying Hector’s love letter to Andrea; if you want her to walk onto the balcony for her signature accident death, which I almost always do, you have to knock out the guard carrying it. Another one is loosening the wheel on Sierra’s car to cause a crash; you have to take a pit crew member’s suit to do so. However, in both cases, although there’s still a potential trace that someone knocked these guys out through uncommon means, there’s still the potential that nobody will realize that and that these guys just passed out from the stresses of their jobs, and the pit crewman in particular started to experience heat stroke and took off his uniform to cool off before he passed out. The alternative, knocking them out by hand and stuffing them into a container, makes it absolutely certain that somebody attacked them, and ruins the story of an accident having happened to the target, and will clue authorities in that somebody set it all up.

@VRO3886

And about the tranq gun: shit’s incredibly unrealistic for a number of reasons and Hollywood as fuck. Namely, a dose potent enough to put victims on their ass as fast as it does would very likely be lethal. Its credibility as something 47 could/would realistically use on randoms is very questionable.

Almost every discrepancy with reality, outside of how accidental kills play out, can be explained in Hitman. How can 47 strangle someone so quickly, how can he break someone’s neck so easily, how can he choke someone out so carefully, how can he throw a wrench at someone’s head and knock them out non-lethally, how do his pistol suppressors shoot so quietly, how do poisons make the target die so swiftly?

As to those first four: his greater strength, unfailingly steady hands, and lifetime of practice, has allowed him to know the exact amount of force and pressure needed to accomplish these deeds successfully, that would not be possible in the real world. As to the other two, the ICA has designed and perfected suppressors and poisons to work better than they do in the real world, and ones found onsite that are not ICA brand are made by companies making such advances on their own.

This can be applied to the tranquilizer guns as well: they are specifically designed to work on adult humans of a general body mass, both swiftly and non-lethally. In-universe, 47 is either stopping for a moment to pull out the dart, or the dart is falling out on its own and those who find and wake up the npc just don’t notice it because they’re too focused on making sure the NPC is alright and don’t think to look for a tranquilizer dart. Problem solved, discrepancies neutralized, my parameters of perfection are intact.

[Hotel_Pollisya]

@VRO3886

And about the tranq gun: shit’s incredibly unrealistic for a number of reasons and Hollywood as fuck.

So are all pacifying/knock out methods in the game. To a lesser degree, but still.

[VRO3886]

@Heisenberg

Almost every discrepancy with reality, outside of how accidental kills play out, can be explained in Hitman.

Indeed, all such discrepancies can be swept under the rug in the Hitmanverse. Better yet, when you put it that way, they aren’t even discrepancies to begin with! I do have a better understanding of the reasoning behind the Heisenberg Parameters of Perfection. While you restrict yourself to a subset of play that is very realistic, you permit “discrepancies” in accordance with the lovely, oh-so campy Hitmanverse when they are more or less absolutely necessary to a given approach. I figured you may only do so when going for particular challenges and in edge cases, not in your general play.

We play largely the same when approaching the game this way, but diverge in how we tend to handle those discrepancies; anything that could realistically (as in out-of-universe; in our reality) compromise 47 or that is not realistically viable that I can account for I try to avoid if possible, that is when I do play this way. That’s why I only play this way in runs, rather than it being my absolute approach.

Am I correct in understanding that this is how you play exclusively, and how you have played since the beginning of WoA? Even in your approach to the more wonky challenges? If so, that is most impressive. I only do so in runs. I’ve permitted the whole gamut of Hitman campiness in my completion of many challenges. My “No Traces” approach is sort of an import of how I’ve played other stealth titles, specifically MGSV (in which “No Traces” is literally the in-game grading name for this overarching play style). Tranq someone in MGSV and your “No Traces” bonus is lost. In my eyes, 47 is the more capable field operative compared to Sam Fisher and Big Boss/Solid Snake, and definitely my favorite out of the bunch, so I often times approach Hitman as I do those more clandestine game worlds in an effort to get the best of all of them in one.

We both like Hawke’s Bay, so I figure it’s worth asking: Do you really walk to the house all the way from the boat on such runs, and is that what you really did on your first playthrough? No way…

@Heisenberg

This can be applied to the tranquilizer guns as well: they are specifically designed to work on adult humans of a general body mass, both swiftly and non-lethally. In-universe, 47 is either stopping for a moment to pull out the dart, or the dart is falling out on its own and those who find and wake up the npc just don’t notice it because they’re too focused on making sure the NPC is alright and don’t think to look for a tranquilizer dart.

It’s like you read my mind. To that point, I genuinely considered commenting something like, “If 47’s tranq was specifically an ‘ICA’ variant, this could be explained away as the ICA having superior tech or whatever.” That 47’s using the same tranq as those in the wild is the issue, though you’ve accounted for that I see. That last bit is pretty wand-wavy, though, but it works I reckon.

@Hotel_Pollisya

So are all pacifying/knock out methods in the game. To a lesser degree, but still.

47’s neck snap is pure Hollywood, and I love it, but it’s something this style of play outright doesn’t permit. The “discrepancy” is that the tranq gun – equally Hollywood in its own right – is permitted, however.

[Mini]

But I think that people are knocked out or strangled so quickly is just for the gameplay. Of course in reality it would take much much longer to strangle someone. People wouldn’t also be knocked out for several hours. That would be a coma. And we don’t see 47 change clothes, it’s just implied.

Maybe he knows how to use his strength to knock someone out easily or to strangle someone with less effort than “normal” people. But it would still take much longer than in the game. Just like walking, he walks kinda fast.

So I think that’s all for the gameplay, because I believe most of the people would get bored if it would take 47 several minutes to strangle someone. Or to take his clothes off and on (but in this case I guess there are people around who would actually appreciate that).

[Heisenberg]

@VRO3886

Am I correct in understanding that this is how you play exclusively, and how you have played since the beginning of WoA? Even in your approach to the more wonky challenges?

That is correct. I make exceptions for challenges, and those I try to get over with quickly so I can get back to playing for real, but yes, when playing for fun, I exclusively use this style. Mind you, when I’ve decided I’m going to just straight murder the target, my requirements aren’t so strict, since it won’t matter if authorities later know that someone was there - obviously there was, when a target is shot to death - so long as there’s no in-universe way of identifying who. To use the Andrea example again, if I decide I’m gonna kill her in the balcony, but I’m gonna do a pistol execution, or cut her throat with a knife, I still need to take the letter from the guard, but I’ll just lure him into the money room, knock him out, and hid him in the bin. It won’t matter that he’s later found and they know that the person who killed Martinez KO’ed him.

@VRO3886

We both like Hawke’s Bay, so I figure it’s worth asking: Do you really walk to the house all the way from the boat on such runs, and is that what you really did on your first playthrough? No way…

Yes, unless I’m trying to unlock a challenge quickly. For example, I’ve lately been unlocking the challenges for completing legacy Featured Contracts, and they’re really not very fun, because FC’s are structured in a way that my normal play style is impossible if I want every FC I do to have SA (and I must do them SA). So, I’m required to play in the one manner that is antithetical to what Hitman is and is the antithesis to my entire play style: I must speedrun to get through them and be done with it. In cases like that, I run to the beach house, but when playing for real, I always walk, and yes, even the first time. You almost have to walk the first time because you don’t know what you’re going to encounter and do you must be slow and cautious.

@VRO3886

47’s neck snap is pure Hollywood, and I love it, but it’s something this style of play outright doesn’t permit.

Not really. See above about the strategies for direct kills. I use the neck snap at times. I prefer to snatch them from around corners or get them while they’re sitting down.

@Mini

But I think that people are knocked out or strangled so quickly is just for the gameplay. Of course in reality it would take much much longer to strangle someone. People wouldn’t also be knocked out for several hours. That would be a coma. And we don’t see 47 change clothes, it’s just implied.

Maybe he knows how to use his strength to knock someone out easily or to strangle someone with less effort than “normal” people.

The idea in-universe, I think, is that 47 is pulling the wire just right, that it kills then in seconds, and not necessarily from strangulation. I’m pretty sure he’s dislocating their vertebrae, instigating a stroke, and probably causing shock to their hearts, from the trauma of the pull alone. Add in the fact that, when I use the wire, I don’t just drop the body, I drag them to a place of disposal, so the strangle continues on past the point where they go limp. Ensuring their deaths. As for the knockouts, I think the idea is that 47 trained to do it just right, and is conditioned to be so precise, that he can knock a person out in such a way that they’re down for hours without lasting injuries. You have to lean into the fictional aspect of 47’s very existence to make it work. The ICA agents in Berlin, for example, regardless of how good they are considering would not be able to KO or strangle a person with the same swords and clean results 47 gets. Only he and other Ort-Meyer clones can do it. Maybe Victoria.

[Mini]

I have the feeling that, no matter what I come up with, you definitely have a reason for everything that happens in the game. And as much as I respect your play style (and I really do), not everything that happens in the game “really” happens like this.

The reason why 47 subdues people so easily is because its for gameplay reason, not because its canon or because he has some special technique to do so. No player would watch him subdue someone for several minutes, while the victim pees itself; apart from that you would probably be seen by someone at some point and getting a SA rating would be much harder. And for the fictional aspect of 47: no matter what technique he would use, even if he would be able to subdue someone in such a short time, no one would survive being unconscious for such a long time without brain damage or damage for the circulation. Being unconscious ≠ sleeping.

[Heisenberg]

@Mini

I have the feeling that, no matter what I come up with, you definitely have a reason for everything that happens in the game.

And you would be right.

@Mini

The reason why 47 subdues people so easily is because its for gameplay reason, not because its canon or because he has some special technique to do so.

That might be why they were out in the game, but they have an in-game explanation for how they happen. Any discrepancy with what 47 is capable of compared to a normal human being can be canonically explained via his origins, which is why IOI went down the path of making him a character like that to begin with way back when. It may not be why it’s there, but if some noob plays the game and goes “that’s not how that really happens,” you can legitimately say “well, 47 can make it happen.”

@Mini

And for the fictional aspect of 47: no matter what technique he would use, even if he would be able to subdue someone in such a short time, no one would survive being unconscious for such a long time without brain damage or damage for the circulation. Being unconscious ≠ sleeping.

People are rendered unconscious via the use of anesthetics, drugs, or being comatose all the time for longer stretches than the NPCs in the game. You’re thinking oxygen deprivation rather than unconsciousness. People who are unconscious for longer than a few seconds or minutes after sustaining trauma are not in danger because of being unconscious so long, but are unconscious so long because of the damage done. 47 is able to render them unconscious for a couple hours or so (I doubt they are unconscious for long after he leaves and he’s not spending 5 hours on a map), without causing the damage that would normally cause that. They’re not in danger because he didn’t damage them that badly, he merely did it just right to achieve the result that would take them a while to wake up. It’s not realistic or possible in real life, and dangerous to try, but in this world where a man has been designed to be perfect, he’s figured out how to do it.

[Screaming_Meat]

@Mini

No player would watch him subdue someone for several minutes, while the victim pees itself;

[BEowen]

@Mini

while the victim pees itself

Can we use the puddle with the Micro Taser for an accident kill? could be useful

[sammland]

@Heisenberg

That might be why they were out in the game, but they have an in-game explanation for how they happen.

How do you explain it takes less time now for him to subdue than before?

[Heisenberg]

It doesn’t. It takes more time. Compare him knocking someone out in Blood Money vs now.

[JJoa74]

I wonder if you can do that with Abiatti.

[47saso47]

@Heisenberg

and the pit crewman in particular started to experience heat stroke and took off his uniform to cool off before he passed out.

…. I know when I am about to pass out from heat stroke, I take my clothes off and shove myself into a closet, or even better, lay down in a garbage bin.

Just saying’.

[Tetrafish_21]

Yes! The flapping of the little fly wings are so refreshing.

[Heisenberg]

If you were about to pass out, it’s unlikely you’d be aware of it. It would likely be chalked up that they started to feel sick and woozy, took their clothes off without thinking as an instinctive means to cool off, and then lost consciousness. Considering how they would feel getting stuck with a tranq dart, anything they might remember would lend credence to that theory.

[VRO3886]

I did a data core hack run on Chongqing recently and thought back to this thread: So, when Olivia says, “Use the vents to get out. Go! Now!”, you specifically walk to the vents? And then afterward, you walk throughout the entire escape sequence? During your first playthrough of the data core hack in particular?

It’s in moments such as those where I’d wager 47 canonically runs/crouch runs to get by when the coast is clear instead of walks.

[Heisenberg]

Yes, I walked. Too much uncertainty on that first run to be just hauling it, even if I had to.

[47saso47]

More questions:

Do you carry items based on realism? Like you don’t magically have bottomless pockets?

Don’t holster a crowbar?

Wearing proper clothes to match the scenery? If wearing a regular suit like the Bangkok one with no jacket, you don’t holster a gun cuz it would show in real life?

[Heisenberg]

No, I still use those things because A) the ability to hold more items hidden on you that nobody can see than anyone would think possible is an art that 47 is the kind of guy who would perfect it, and B) just as with large guns hanging off 47’a back without a strap, we’re supposed to imagine that in-universe he’s got more carrying options than the game visuals allow. And very rarely so I need to carry, and thus holster, an item like a crowbar in a jacket-less outfit like the Bangkok one.

[47saso47]

Hmm then you’re not as hardcore as I thought.