Do you think ICA Electrocution Phone should come back?

[「La+ Darknesss ⸸」]

Since IOI stated that there will be more stuffs release in 2024, do you think ICA Electrocution Phone should be back? For me personally, absolutely, it's singleplayer game with leaderboard that many people don't care. Adding it back shouldn't hurt any casual players.

[Phantom Limb]

Don't really care that much. The game already has a lot of powerful tools to make most challenges trivial. An extra one won't change anything.

[TheOrangeBox]

Yes, I miss making electrified calls

[Eekhoorn]

Yes! It was a lot of fun to use.

[tmwfte]

Sure, but they should nerf it so that it only knocks people out unless they're standing in water.

[Rudiger]

As is, no. It is too broken, like the molotov cocktail's original version.

With changes, yes.
Either:
1. Still kills but you lose SA.
2. Knockouts the NPC, but you keep SA. If in water, it kills them, keeping SA.

[Lar Dass]

I mean the game has enough broken items, what harm is one more!
Personally i dont mind if they added it back its not like you need to use it anyways, Most people just abuse the sieker/briefcase fart anyways
besides theres a mod that brings it back too

[Osmium]

The main problem with the electrified phone is that it trivializes getting silent assassin on elusive targets. You only have once chance at ET's so the player is pressured to find whichever method is the safest and easiest. Most ET's are out in the open and the trick is isolating them. Most ET's are already made much easier than they were intended to be if you just use the Sieker to break their pathing. The phone was much worse and negates nearly all of the remaining puzzle solving in this game. You don't need to find a line of sight to hit the target with an awkward dart gun while hidden, or know where the nearest bathroom is, or take care of the guards that will follow them there.

Instead, you could stand in front of the target in a crowd, drop the phone 2 feet away, watch them pick it up, and accident kill them in plain sight from any spot on any map in the game. There's a lot of map pathing, item selection, and game mechanics that are completely bypassed by the phone. It's less of an assassination tool and more of a developer tool like flying or permanently blinding every NPC on the map. It's fun at first to screw around with, but quickly makes the game boring. This is harmful even in a single-player game. Players will have less fun overall and quit playing the game sooner while having less meaningful experiences.

It's similar to why most people don't SASO China the normal way when one of the missions literally tells you how to quickly and easily summon both targets to stand next to an explosive cylinder that you can shoot with a provided sniper rifle. There's little incentive to do something the challenging but fun way when you can press the "I win" button to get the same rewards.

There's already a tool that any NPC can pick up that will kill them in water when triggered: the remote EMP charge. The EMP can also ignite nearby gas leaks so it's kind of like a way to force your target to "smoke" next to a propane flask that you've thrown. With the phone, items like the EMP are completely overshadowed and I bet someone here didn't even know the EMP could do this.

[Trindalas]

Originally posted by Osmium:

The main problem with the electrified phone is that it trivializes getting silent assassin on elusive targets. You only have once chance at ET's so the player is pressured to find whichever method is the safest and easiest. Most ET's are out in the open and the trick is isolating them. Most ET's are already made much easier than they were intended to be if you just use the Sieker to break their pathing. The phone was much worse and negates nearly all of the remaining puzzle solving in this game. You don't need to find a line of sight to hit the target with an awkward dart gun while hidden, or know where the nearest bathroom is, or take care of the guards that will follow them there.

Instead, you could stand in front of the target in a crowd, drop the phone 2 feet away, watch them pick it up, and accident kill them in plain sight from any spot on any map in the game. There's a lot of map pathing, item selection, and game mechanics that are completely bypassed by the phone. It's less of an assassination tool and more of a developer tool like flying or permanently blinding every NPC on the map. It's fun at first to screw around with, but quickly makes the game boring. This is harmful even in a single-player game. Players will have less fun overall and quit playing the game sooner while having less meaningful experiences.

It's similar to why most people don't SASO China the normal way when one of the missions literally tells you how to quickly and easily summon both targets to stand next to an explosive cylinder that you can shoot with a provided sniper rifle. There's little incentive to do something the challenging but fun way when you can press the "I win" button to get the same rewards.

There's already a tool that any NPC can pick up that will kill them in water when triggered: the remote EMP charge. The EMP can also ignite nearby gas leaks so it's kind of like a way to force your target to "smoke" next to a propane flask that you've thrown. With the phone, items like the EMP are completely overshadowed and I bet someone here didn't even know the EMP could do this.

It’s easy enough to just not use something if you don’t like it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Osmium]

Originally posted by Trindalas:

It’s easy enough to just not use something if you don’t like it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

sigh
There is a point where more options and more power to the player actually makes the game worse, whether or not you use it.

If the developers made an item that put everyone on the map to sleep, it would ruin the game. Same thing for something that made you fly or turn invisible. If you get really stuck, you might assume that the cheat item is the only way to get out of it. If these items exist, even if unused, they become crutches that keep you from being creative.

A small number of people are willing to avoid using items that are "too good". Most players, on the other hand, will use whatever items you give them. They then complain that the game is too easy and quit playing because they didn't realize that overpowered item was why they weren't having fun.

A game with no challenge is not a game. It becomes a task to do, like brushing your teeth. Press this button and watch the reward screen. Playing becomes no different than watching a Youtube video.

[Eekhoorn]

So if they make it unlock after you have mastered every mission in the game and you can't get SA with it, we're good?

Let's bring it back :)

[supersand]

if they nerfed it, yes. Silent remote kill is fine but the body needs to not be SA, or not kill the target and just "sedate" them, if the sedative route is taken then give it accident kill capability too like SA kill in water / over oil / nearby prepped explosive so it can be like an automatic taser that is more precise then the proximity ones

[Osmium]

Originally posted by Eekhoorn:

So if they make it unlock after you have mastered every mission in the game and you can't get SA with it, we're good?

Let's bring it back :)

Sure, I guess. I mean, if you can't get SA with it, it's basically the same as the explosive phone. If you wanna electrocute your target there's already a dozen items that let you do that, including the EMP, which is already very similar to what some people have suggested nerfing the phone to. It's a remote device that a target will pick up and accident kills them in water.

With a little more preparation, work, and creativity you can already do almost anything the phone could have done. Anything except SASO any ET within 30 seconds.

I think something that would make everyone happy would be to make a separate sandbox mode where you can just go nuts with items that aren't allowed in campaign mode. Give the players the electric phone, the unnerfed molotov cocktail, and unlocked console commands. They can even unlock all the easter eggs for every map, like the scarecrow one on Colorado that sets people on fire when you get near them. I'm sure someone would love to do that on Miami. You can give the players all this wacky and overpowered stuff as long as it doesn't mess with the other game modes.

[Devang]

It could be a fairly rare random drop in Freelancer crates with no attached rarity i.e. cannot be kept

[- PatteDeFruit -]

Yes it definitely needs to come back but without silent assassin rating, like the explosive phone.