I know this topic has been flogged to death, but I still am compelled to write.
WTF is up with Progression carryover?!?
I’m just… so disappointed. I love the Hitman games. I love unlocking the levels, teasing them apart, savoring every moment. I am a completionist. And it’s so so very confusing that progression is so very very broken.
IOI, can you PLEASE explain what’s happening behind the scenes? I have an IOI login! Why can’t you carry over progression? Why is cross-play such an impossible task? Why is carryover a one-time deal? For a “world of assassination” this is absolutely bonkers!
- Why can’t I carry over my achievements from Hitmans 1 → 2? I spent so much time 100%-ing the first maps, why is this broken?
- Why can’t I cross-play Steam and Xbox installs? They’re both PC! They should both be essentially the same binary!
- Even though I have XBox GamePass, I waited through the Epic exclusive to purchase on Steam so I could have everything in one place. I was even willing to re-buy content (something I otherwise never do)! But then I learned that Mission Stories and Escalations don’t carry over from Hitman 2–>3. Even on the same platform, with the same login, my gameplay is lost. This is so so SO stupid.
- What’s the deal with the new “Rocky” map and the Freelancer mode? Will they cost more? How much? Do I buy now, or wait for something later? The lack of information is ludicrous!
I’m just so very frustrated. I love this series. I’ve sunk so many hours into the Hitman games. The level design, story, software quality, everything is EXCELLENT. Truly top-notch. So it’s hard to have this bad taste in my mouth for HM3. I want all my levels, side-by-side, in one place. I want all my achievements together. I want my 100% completion, with all the escalations, stacked up in a tidy little row. I want to pay for the game, even paying extra for an extra-deluxe edition, knowing that I’ll get all the content (now and future). Right now I just feel jerked around.
Hey IOI! Here’s what needs to be done (and in priority order too)!
- Publish a blog post from your technical team explaining why everything is so janky. Please help your fanbase understand, in terrible detail, why this sucky situation even exists.
- Fix carryover to include ALL achievements: Missions Stories, Escalations, etc. If there are items that need to be dropped (electrocution phone) that’s fine, but carry over everything else!
- Fix carryover within platforms. If it’s impossible to sync Playstation with PC with Xbox, at least let people port between the PC builds at will (Epic, Steam, Xbox for PC).
- Allow “Progression merge”. You made this mess, it’s time to clean it up. If there are different levels of progression between platforms with the same IOI account, merge them into one. I’m sure this one is really hard, and totally sucks. That’s tech debt for you.
- Remove limitations for one-time carryover. Whose idea was that anyway? Everything should be synchronized all the time. I should be able to take my PC progress, play on console for a while, and then pick up where I left off on PC. Even if that means that I don’t get certain platform achievements (maybe I can’t get XBox achivements for Steam PC play) at least track the in-game progress correctly.
This series was promised as an ever-growing World of Assassination. What a great idea! So why can’t you get this vital piece correct?
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Though someone more knowledgeable in the forum may respond, here are some answers.
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There was no carryover between Hitman (2016) and Hitman 2. This is an unfortunate result of IOI separating from Square Enix. To unlock everything in Hitman 2, you had to do both. Only H2 progress can be transferred to H3
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Though the hardware is PC, the MS Store version connects to the Xbox servers for the game. This is most likely the result of The Xbox Play Anywhere for Xbox, PC, and XCloud (as my progress and saves carries between those platforms), and was most likely requested by MS for homogeny on their platform (this is my assumption). There is no cross-saves between any platform (PC, PS, Xbox et al).
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I can not recall the reason for this. Probably with how that data is managed between games. A forum search may answer that.
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When they are ready to announce the release for the map and modes, this information will be released as well. Patience.
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“Technical reasons”. No really. They can’t do it because they don’t want to do it. Had they wanted to do it, we would’ve gotten the functionality by now. Any game with a third party server allows for cross-saves and cross-purchases on anything except Sony. While the consoles being left out at least makes sense, there is no reason why anyone can’t transfer between Steam and EGS as the reverse is already possible.
It’s an amazingly bad design decision.
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Could you elaborate on this?
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My response to the OP was numbered to his items.
Regarding crossplay. There are a lot of reasons why crossplay is not enabled. The biggest, as most would state, comes down to MS, Sony, Steam, etc. and if they want crossplay between platforms. But there could be more technical reasons, from leaderboards, to how contracts are saved, to how game saves and data are handled. Plus, when Hitman (2016) launched, crossplay wasn’t a thing other than consumer demand. H2 and H3 are built upon those games and their servers, and the cost to rework for multi-platform saves could be prohibitive for an independent studio like IOI.
Crossplay is the exception, not the norm at present time. Why should IOI invest the time, money, and resources into this for a small percentage of games (I refer to PC-PS-Xbox, I release there is a far greater demand for Epic-Steam because of the 2021 exclusivity) instead of features that benefit the larger community?
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My gripes are more with the cross-saves and cross-purchasing tbh.
It took IOI a month after release to add a cross-save and DLC transfers option to transfer DLC’s from Steam to Epic. In fact, it released before any major game update.
If they wanted to make the same system for the reverse (epic to steam), they seriously would’ve considered it and made it by now.
Why should IOI invest the time, money, and resources into this for a small percentage of games (I refer to PC-PS-Xbox, I release there is a far greater demand for Epic-Steam because of the 2021 exclusivity) instead of features that benefit the larger community?
Because the current behavior actively subverts the player expectation. It’s just really bad product design.
If everything was local-save-only, then current behavior sort of makes sense. Of course you can’t port between console and PC. But if you have a local savegame then it’s easy to import that across PC binaries.
If you are encouraged (required?) to sign up for an IOI account, then yay cloud save! That’s the entire reason to have an account! What do you mean my progress isn’t synced. It’s the same account!
These failed expectations lead to the absurd situation we have today. Fixing this situation is not just a Hitman thing… investments in cloud save and proper APIs will also be useful for 007 and anything else IOI makes. Remember, the player experience is key: a bad experience here means a delayed purchase later, and the difference between a day1 purchase and a day120 purchase can easily be 40-60% revenue difference for IOI (with discounts, etc).
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I’ll say it again, crossplay is the exception, not the norm.
I have a Rockstar Social Club account. It doesn’t mean that I can go from PlayStation to Xbox at whim in GTA or RDR. Even with the current Gen release of GTA V, there is a one-time import between generations and even then you cannot import between platforms.
It’s nice that games like Call of Duty and Fortnite have crossplay/saves. But MS, Sony, et al aren’t doing this out of the kindness of their hearts, there is money involved and not everyone has the money that those franchises have to play with. Even those that do, such as 2K/Rockstar mentioned above, choose not to for whatever reasons they choose, whether it be cost, technical, or just plain greed.
I will concede about the Steam and Epic issues. However, this most likely stems from the Epic contract. IOI may not be able to implement this because Epic wants to keep players in their ecosystem. It also may require game patches, something we have not had much of in Year 2. I’m sure IOI is aware and working on this, if contractually allowed, and will announce something when it is at a state to be released.
Customer demand does not equal reality. I would love for Lego Star Wars to have crossplay so my son can continue his progress from the Xbox on the Switch for when he goes to his grandparents instead of replaying everything for the characters he wants. But that is not happening. I’m sure there are Hitman player who would love crossplay for the contracts, but the game and servers weren’t designed and built for that.
I’ll say it for a third time: crossplay is the exception, not the norm.
So why do Rogue Company and Hades, previously both Epic Exclusive titles, have cross-saving with other platforms? (Hades has PC to Switch support, RoCo has cross saves and cross purchases with every platform bar Sony because Sony are dicks).
No, this isn’t Epic’s style. They mandate any multiplayer game on EGS to have cross-play on PC, as, in their own words, it’s expected by players. That doesn’t sound like a good way to build an ecosystem, now does it? Hell, Epic did more to help steam users when the Exclusivity for H3 was active (telling IOI “yo, what the H, why are you locking DLC’s like that” behind the scenes) than when it ended.
Contrary to popular belief, Epic are not omniscient and everywhere at once, much like Valve and GOG they are merely the overseers of the store. And even if they were involved (and that’s a big if), as soon as that exclusivity contract ended, Epic have no say in how IOI operates or uses EOS (outside of violating it’s ToS). This was an IOI decision, through and through, Epic has nothing to do with this.
Well it shouldn’t be. Make the future what you want it to be, not how it is now.
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16 posts were merged into an existing topic: ICA Electrocution Phone removed from HITMAN 3