For me is easily the fact that stairs and inclines “break” combat rules/mechanics quite severely. On stairs and inclines subduing does not work, eliminating with silenced pistol does not work, stabbing and other killing melees does not work, the little fistfight minigame does not work, everything just turn into that generic karate chop to the neck KO. This is especially outrageous in escalations that demand you don’t pacify anyone, as any little step or slightly too steep incline (can’t tell in any way except by map knowledge) turns a kill or stun into that KO. It ruins challenges, feats and mastery as you are just about to perform the required kill only to get a generic KO unexpectedly because you had one foot on a step. It ruins silent takedowns because the KO can be heard as “combat” and alert NPC’s, simply because the target stood on a slightly uneven rock.
I understand that to make it look okay there would need to be special variant animations for melee combat both going uphill and downhill, but it can’t be that many animations, and they would only need to be tweaks of existing animations. I really hate this arbitrary restriction and I can’t understand why it was never addressed in any patch or release of these games.
A close second for me is in not being able to use fiber wire or syringes on targets who are sitting down as you could in Blood Money. It’s good that you can subdue/neck snap some who are sitting (which is inconsistent with the kind of chairs they have to be sitting in), but it stands out more that you can’t use those other two items as a result.
It’s amazing that they haven’t addressed this issue at all and it’s been in the game since day 1. Of course, there are bigger problems so I guess that’s why it’s been less of a priority to fix it
I think it’s a tie between this judo chop/incline bullshit and the punch glitch; instead of silently subduing/killing an NPC from behind, they turn around when you hit the prompt and instead you loudly punch them in the face, losing SA.
It’s awesome… especially if you suffer from low blood pressure!
Hard to argue with the nominations above, but I’d like to give a quick shout-out to 47’s Usain Bolt walking speed on stairs, no matter how gently the player is pushing the analogue stick on their controller.
Completely kills the immersion when you are doing a scripted NPC escort and you keep pace with their slow walking speed on the flat, and then as soon as you get to the stairwell you race ahead of them despite actively trying to stay in step.
lol agreed. Also on that same note, no matter how low you keep your controller sensitivity, when you’re in a bin/closet and you want to look around, it’s like ioi forgot to keep your settings. The sensitivity goes right to MAX. lol
All great nominations, but if I had to pick just one, including the one I made since it wasn’t mentioned, I would have to agree with @Heisenberg here. Killing an npc with Fw or a syringe or sliting the throat of a sitting npc would have the biggest impact on gameplay.
I believe all this aforementioned control ambiguity is worse than this mechanic, because it’s far more likely to frustrate any given player, but flipping panic induced enforcer blindness.
I applaud the well designed gamut of NPC and detection behaviour and mechanics in this game for the most part. Which makes it all the more painful that this stands out like an unsightly wart.
Two gunshots out of direct vision and people run like idiots with blindfolds. It’s cheap, it’s distinctly “gamey”, and it’s all too commonly featured in speed runs that would probably be more interesting without it.