We’ll just have to agree to disagree then.
Yes but this way they get to charge $5.
IOI does have some balance issues but at the end of the day the bigger issue to me is the predatory greed of the “live service single player game” model.
I don’t mean to distract from the conversation at hand which I think is an important one for us in the community to have.
2 Likes
I honestly stopped caring about balance because the PC leaderboards are cheated and if something is a degenerate playstyle the speedrun ruleboards will ban it. We still have tranq glitch and i know the e phone is traumatic but that couldve gotten the same nerf the moltov got and still be a fascinating item. So idk itd be nice if the game was more balanced, but i also feel like balance would require IO to sit down with a really clever community member and suggest changes for every item in the game to actually make every item unique and usable
1 Like
This, so much.
People throw muffins around and get a boner from being in the top 5 or even being 1st, yet it doesn’t do anything and is something nobody with common sense wants to copycat, which is why there is no competition for those folks and they can keep telling themselves that they’re the masters of this game.
People who actually cheat by using a trainer or something… yeah, I don’t think they care about anything, except for being done with the game as quickly as possible.
“I got all achievements, all challenges, and every unlock, my playtime being less than 2 hours is a bug, just don’t pay attention to that. What? Show you how I play Freelancer? Uhh, I’m a little rusty and stuff, and I’m in the middle of a hardcore campaign, I get nervous and mess up when people watch, and I’m babysitting my little brother today. Also, my mouse, keyboard, and controller just broke, all I have is a steering wheel, and I only use that for Dark Souls.”
That aside, this is a singleplayer game, if someone can cheese something with an unlock or some DLC item, then just let them do it ffs, it doesn’t affect your fun/experience/sex life/whatever at all, unless you watch them playing and go full Undertale fan. You’re skilled, some stranger is not, great, congrats, anyway…
Have them start with the MKII and MKIII items, and the 23 (!) ICA19 pistols.
They should turn the latter into parts and let people assemble their own pistols with 5 save slots. Add blueprints for the original pistols (Floral Baller, Gold Baller etc.), so you can always re-assemble them.
The Inventory is just a mess right now.
2 Likes
We agree on lots of things, Happy, but the way I see it this isn’t an Individualist vs Collectivist argument - I disagree with your view on this one step earlier in that I don’t think players need protecting from themselves. If using ‘OP’ items makes the game less fun for players I trust people to regulate their own behaviour and reduce their use of these items until the game becomes fun for them again, even if they are newbies to the series. I work on the assumption (which is true for myself) that anyone who chooses to use ‘OP’ items is doing so because it’s fun to do so, and if it stops being fun then they’ll modify their behaviour accordingly.
It’s not a case of the individual vs the collective, IMO, it’s trusting people to know for themselves what they find fun or not.
9 Likes
This comment is so condescending and dismissive, that it is much more insulting than anything about the game itself. Kneecapping conversations such as this, and encouraging people to suppress game issues by not mentioning it, is not what this forum is for. It is for all kinds of discussion, even ones you and other people don’t like.
I respect your opinion, but do not pretend that others think this outside this bubble, or that my own thesis on game balance is somehow just wrong or irrelevant because it opposes your own.
My goal with talking about game balance on here and in my videos has always been to do with unity and health. A unified place where everyone understands each other for the betterment for the health of the game.
My views on it are based on my own understandings of game development, and what I’ve picked up from devs and people cleverer than myself who know much more, not my own pride or ego or “perception” on how the game should be run. This is not about me. It’s about all of us.
I would like this game to be better and more consistent, not to play like how I personally want it to. I am trying to hold discussions on this for the benefit of everyone. You are trying to quash discussion because it makes you uncomfortable.
And your attempt to run away with a pre-emptive request for me to not respond to the comment, in a clear attempt at trying to absolve yourself of any wrongdoing the moment I respond back with anything you dislike, is, and I don’t think there’s any other word for this, weaselly.
“You warned me”, so now you’re putting the blame on me for continuing to comment. Not only is that just flagrantly not how conversations work on a forum, or really in general conversation, but also it’s incredibly manipulative because now, the onus and blame is put on me, passing the buck of your own responsibility and behaviour to someone else, all the while trying to sound reasonable, so no matter how I respond, I am seen as the problem because I did not leave well enough alone. The raging lunatic who… just wants this game to play better. That’s what this is about.
And If you, or anyone else, thinks that my views on game balance are just my “personal preferences”, then you clearly do not know me very well, enough to use such downplaying language to make me look worse. And perhaps more tellingly, you did not read my, very well-reasoned, comments, or listen to my video where I deconstruct the very common excuses and arguments being made here. Because that’s what they are; excuses to maintain a comfy status quo that benefits only the individual playing, and not the wider populace of players.
All this comment does is divide members when they should be unified, and encourages forum-members to act self-centered and with their own interests first and not others, and pretend nothing is wrong. This forum is meant to be the place to discuss issues such as this, where the most vocal people in the community talk about issues relating to the game and its health. Outright ignoring one aspect of the game, a big aspect at that, because of self-centered rhetoric is untenable and should never be encouraged.
3 Likes
Sigh. And you still didn’t listen. Well, at least you soaked it in for a while, I was wrong on that prediction.
3 Likes
Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
3 Likes
And those who impart what they believe to be sage wisdom would do well to heed their own.
3 Likes
Arrogance and condescension do not embiggen rhetoric.
Smoke weed every day.
6 Likes
There’s two points here.
Firstly, the individualism vs collectivism thing was primarily me addressing the argument that there’s no need to care about how others play the game because only my individual experience should matter to me. As I’ve explained, I’m not interested in such reasoning because I am choosing to take an interest in other people even though I know this doesn’t affect me directly.
Secondly, we have the question of OP items themselves. It seems you don’t mind the idea of IOI adding overpowered items to the game, and think the decision of whether to use them (or resist the temptation) should be left up to individual responsibility. That’s totally fine. I just take a very different stance on this.
I absolutely don’t trust players not to spoil their own fun by relying on such items. I believe IOI should curate their game to preserve the design philosophy that makes Hitman a fun puzzle to solve. To be clear, this is an argument against individual freedom. I’m in favour of top-down developer regulation of their game which I regard as being for the collective good.
Naturally, I respect your take on the matter. I’m just glad there are also people making the contrary case, encouraging IOI to exercise restraint with new items!
3 Likes
There is plenty of evidence online that makes this fear entirely justified. Anytime an OP item is added, players use it and showcase the power it has in videos. Other players replicate it, and then the issue gets worse. This is what I was getting at with the whole “influencer” thing a few days back. Gaming is not an insular hobby, especially a series known for speedruns and general strats.
I could use my power on Youtube for “evil” so to speak, and join the crowd that showcases the OP content and how to best use it. But I don’t. I would rather use my power as a Youtube personality to bring IO to task and report on what works and what doesn’t. To educate and inform, not to encourage bad behaviours in players.
In the end, the player-developer relationship is important. We keep IOI in line and tell them what works and what doesn’t, as much as IO keep us satisfied with content and gameplay, and they explain how and why they did what they did.
for the collective good.
2 Likes
Allow me to clarify my own stance on this point, and do a little bit of meeting halfway. I am all for IOI exercising restraint, using caution when making new items and gameplay elements, and that proper consideration for how such things will be received and utilized by the player base once released. They should carefully consider the outcomes, weight the pros and cons, and test them out before releasing anything to us. The flip side: once they do release them, that’s it. What’s done is done. No take-backs. So consider all new things carefully and how they will affect (
) balance before handing them over, but once they are, if balance is affected 
oh well.
2 Likes
Whole lot of whining in here today…
3 Likes
Welcome to Hitman forum.
6 Likes
That’s not half-way Heisey, that’s just reiterating what we already knew, but under a more reasonable-sounding stance, when it isn’t reasonable as a whole really.
There’s an argument to be made that an item’s inherent power may not show up in playtesting until it releases. There’s only so much playtesting you can do before you turn into Valve, and either never release something because of minor issues, or that they have to re-do the weapon because the ammo count wasn’t quite good enough. At some point, you have to let the players become the playtesters. But for the balloon and SPF47, they seem deliberately designed to be powerful, I cannot see how they were not.
Devs can also be dead-set on their own ideas that turn out to be just bad in actual release. This was the mountain I am still climbing when trying to showcase them the flaws of Freelancer; It’s just a grindy gameplay loop that leads to irritation because it is too punishing when failure inevitably occurs (and they did give an explanation, which was basically “we don’t want to change it because we’re sure this is the right thing to do”), so it stops players of all skill levels, particuarly new players, from playing it more.
As their customers, we have a right to criticise and offer solutions to the game they make. After all, they are making it for all of us, we’re the people who play the game. To not exersize that right just seems…wasteful of our power.
Bear in mind, passing off QA to the audience entirely should not be used as a general design philosophy, that’s just a first-class ticket to Powercreep, Hell. But trying to argue that items as they release should stay like they are when they release is not agreeable to my own sensibilities at all. It’s an excuse motivated by the aforementioned self-serving, selfish mindset of the individualist that does not consider the ramifications of the wider game design of the title they’re playing.
2 Likes
Why the hard rule on this? Patching to nerf/buff and balance gameplay is a very standard part of game development post-release. Dunno why you’d want developers to restrict themselves from the possibility of making such improvements.
4 Likes
Every time a new roadmap is released, there’s always a predictable pattern on this forum. There’s going to be a bunch of posts lauding IOI for the content and a handful complaining about the same content (or perceived lack thereof). There will be posts celebrating new items right along with the posts decrying them for either being “overpowered” or “reskins”. There will be discussions on the new map variations, twitch drops, elusive targets, and that will repeat with every new roadmap.
Once the excitement dies down though and everyone here has played the new content, there will be a lull for a few days to weeks while we wait for the next thing to happen. Right now everyone that’s going to play the Herbalist probably has already so what else is there to do other than fill the gap with chat. Currently it’s discussing whether items are or are not (or should or should not be) overpowered. Next week after the Politician is released it may be something else entirely. Ignore it or don’t, I guess.
3 Likes
It’s a single player game. The leaderboards are meaningless. If this was online and player interaction was a thing, then I could see “balance” mattering. But it’s a single player game. This whole silly argument reminds me of some incredibly stupid drama that’s going on another game I play called Love and Deepspace, some players got mad that a new character was being added and essentially bullied the company into cancelling him, through fabricated lies about him and mass reporting, before he was ever properly introduced; and now everyone else is boycotting the game and the company is now hemorrhaging money. All because some people couldn’t just ignore something they didn’t like.
JFC. It’s not that hard. If you don’t like something don’t interact with it. But don’t freaking make it so that no one else can interact with it. How other people enjoy something is none of your or my business. It literally does not affect me or you.
5 Likes
It does, just in a different way. Read my comments above.
https://www.hitmanforum.com/t/season-of-the-herbalist-roadmap-fall-2026/27090/409?u=dribbleondo
1 Like