I Tried To Like Freelancer...

[DrakeyC]

...but it's too punishing to lose a campaign. Losing all your tools, half your money, and any gear you brought with you? All because you made one little mistake, roused suspicion, and turned the entire map against you? NPCs glance your way for a split second while you do something suspicious and they decide to open fire, GG you're dead. Your target can be an NPC who only patrols a small area with other NPCs and guards everywhere, and they never drink or eat or leave, so how are you supposed to isolate them? Oh, and better pray you spawn somewhere reasonable. I once spawned in Morroco in the back alley of the school, the most fortified area of the map where everyone is hostile, and my optional objective was SASO. Naturally, I failed.

But what really frustrates me the most about Freelancer mode is that, having played through the main trilogy - it's like they want you to play the exact opposite of how they've trained you. There's basically no penalty for collateral damage, in fact a lot of bonus objectives encourage you to kill non-targets and to gun down guards. The maps are randomized with where you spawn and who the target is, so planning ahead is much more difficult. You can only take objects with rarity back with you and object spawns are randomized too, so exploring to scavenge is pointless. The missions usually demand you kill targets in specific ways, and in tandem with your target being someone random you usually have a limited amount of options to accomplish what is expected. And if things go pear-shaped you better haul ass out of the level before you get killed, or else find a safe corner to camp and gun down every guard that comes after you.

I don't get the same satisfaction I get from the normal levels. Freelancer takes the "stealth is optional" joke literally. Go ahead, shoot anyone you want, go on a killing spree, as long as you make it out alive the game doesn't care. Just make sure you kill the targets in whatever precise way the objectives demand. Actually not even that, because doing so only means you get money, as long as the target is dead nothing else matters. Speaking of, it's nice when optional objectives ignore the main ones. One mission had only one target and the primary objective wanted me to kill them with a sniper rifle, two my three choices of optional objectives were "Silent Assassin, No Firearms" and "Epic Melee Target Kill". Nothing like giving players contradictory objectives to "make them think outside the box", huh?

Oh, and screw the purple finale missions, whatever they're called. Enforcers everywhere, assassins that kill you in a few shots, and more often than not the potential targets are also enforcers so how the hell are you supposed to get a picture of them to examine to see if they fit the profile? Not that it really helps anyway, too often the lighting in locations is so awful I can't see if they have a tattoo or earrings and can't be certain of their hair color. Meh, might as well gun them all down and let Diana sort 'em out. The leader is escaping on the other side of the map? Forget stealth, grab an assault rifle and Rambo your way through the level if you want a chance at stopping them.

For those curious, what finally broke me - I finally made it to the fourth tier of a campaign. Mission was in Sapienza. I had won the level, just had to retrieve my Legendary sniper rifle which had been confiscated (even though I left it in my safehouse apartment). Shotgun blasted a door into the villa, two guards overhead, saw me hide in the crate, and opened fire. Downed me in six shots. Six bullets, I'm dead, and two full days of play are down the tubes. And while this is the first time I made it to the fourth tier, I'd made it to the third tier several times. But always, inevitably, someone get suspicious of me for no reason, shooting breaks out, and I'm downed.

I'm done. Freelancer is a game mode that brutally punishes tiny mistakes, encourages wanton murder sprees in defiance of the campaign's MO, and doesn't give you enough information or resources to plan ahead and play smart.

[Yay]

this mode has a giant problem in that it does not respect player time, at all, or player agency. if one played the maps in campaign, knowing where to find an access-all card in the stupid bangkok hotel is easy. even the coins to distract the hotel staff that are in that room, are in that same room. as the card is.

so, why is it there in the first place? if they wanted a roguelike, why not do it like payday 2 does access tools? keycard can spawn in one of x locations instead of every single time in an area that is mandatory otherwise you inconvenience yourself to an extreme degree. but this is the case on almost every map. that pirate island that takes place at night time? yeah, go around the back to the beach, take a detour machette the one isolated guard, drag him into concealed bushes, return to beach, climb vines, walk through enforcers, kill targets, leave.

have a spare card sometimes spawn somewhere, or on someone, or have the seller have spare cards etc for sale.

or even give players a way to spend money onto buying keycards and disguises ahead of time, paying off guards through cut-out deals, spiking drinks, having civilians concentrate in one area. and then tie these monetary favors into player's notoriety (completion of regions so far, stealth or loud), prestige, and then give ways to reset rank in exchange for permanently unlocking a set of, say, syringes for the next leveling process.

how did they miss this? i am not a game designer but this just seems like an obvious flaw. you get a sandbox without the sand, then find yourself sitting in the box wondering wtf are you supposed to play with, let alone why are you in that box in the first place.

[DrakeyC]

The lack of ways to spend money really is glaring. I have yet to play any mission with more than one vendor, and they always sell the same stuff - a few rifles, a pistol or two, and some tools. Except a lot of the tools are explosives (which aren't really useful; there's always a fire extinguisher or propane tank around when you need it), or literal tools like wrenches or screwdrivers, which can be found in pretty much every level in abundance. Yeah, you can occasionally buy card hackers, but they're single use (which is a major oversight, that you're not allowed to stockpile multiples of the same item in the safehouse, and single-use items like syringes and poisons are lost once you use them).

I love your idea, allow the player to pay to start in a specific location already in a disguise, that'd be great.

Oh, an additional complaint - supply chests are a joke. Occasionally they have something useful, and I don't expect them to hand out valuable stuff for free. But when a crate contains a Coconut, a Soda Can, and an Iron, that is a waste of my time to even open. Supply crates should contain things actually useful, not generic interchangeable melee items. Pool Balls, Baseballs, Scissors, Apples, Muffins, Cigar Box, Apricot. Occasionally you get Car Batteries, explosives (another reason you never need to buy them), Oil/Water cans, etc, but most of the time it's useless junk. There are missions where finding a Rusty Nail would be a godsend, but they don't seem to be in the item pool.

[Rocket]

In hardcore, Showdown assassins kill you in 1 shot lol.

Freelancer seems to be designed around making all the tools and weapons from the base game useful. The entire rest of the game is based around stealth. This gives people who've played the base game and Contracts to death something fresh to do.

There's almost always a way into important areas without a keycard. I don't know which villa you're talking about to get in, Silvio's mansion? Just go to your safehouse apartment, from the back door, jump to the third floor apartment, KO the guy in his underwear, free keycard but you won't even need it, just climb down on one side and you're in the villa instead. One the other side, you can also climb down to different apartments, there a mansion guard disguise on the right.

A loud shotgun blast to a door isn't so great in public lol. You could use a silenced one if you're not seen. You can also do a pistol mudshot.

If I'm not right about the location give a screenshot.

You can only have 1 of each tool in your toolbox, so just keep buying tools until you get all the ones you need. I've seen so many people play Freelancer and ignore the useless tools. That works against you so much.

You'll get everything so much faster if you buy every tool, and unless you have enough for a gun you absolutely need or want, the tools help with objectives and easy kills.

Frankly, the tools are so overpowered once you get them all:
Explosive and Concussion Ducks, Explosive Phone (you can call it and pick it up and it won't explode, it's the longest range distraction/KO tool and weighs 1), Sieker, Kalmer, Emetic Gas Tool

Once your level is high enough, the safehouse gives you many useful items for free.

If you're trying to get all objectives, then Freelancer won't respect your time at all. However, if you know the ins and outs of each destination, and you ignore the time consuming objectives, then it's not unreasonable to complete a whole syndicate in 1 hour. I find ignoring No Bodies Found, Hide all Target Bodies, and No Combat to be a good idea most of the time.

If you insist on doing things the risky way, at least make sure you've planned your escape and next disguise.

If you want any specific help let me know or feel free to add me.

Use hitmaps.com and the search function to check for anything else.

[DrakeyC]

I decided to give it another shot after learning about the Alt + F4 trick. Came in handy just now in Morroco - after killing the syndicate leader in a consulate bathroom disguised as a military officer, I ran to the storage room above the auditorium, dumped my visible weapons and changed into a janitor outfit to go get the safe contents, in case it had Merces.

Someone found the body and the consul went into alert. No big deal; there were no witnesses to the murder, I changed disguises unseen, I'm not trespassing or doing anything suspicious, and I'm nowhere near any enforcers. Just wait in the storage room until it dies down. When I saw a few officers in the hall, I climbed into the crate in the room to be sure, best to hide in case one of them comes in here and get testy.

Several seconds after I climbed into the crate, two guards came into the room. Suddenly my minimap displayed "Hunted", all the guards went hostile, and a second later they began firing on my hiding spot. The only thing I can assume is another "they can see through this wall" glitch like I posted about before and saw me hide, otherwise they had no way to know where I was and no reason to be suspicious of me.

If I hadn't used Alt + F4, that would have been another end of my campaign due to absolutely no error on my part.

[Anonyma]

there are mods that fix your problems
https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/470

[DrakeyC]

Looks like its buggy though, and it does a lot that I don't want. Honestly, allowing me to keep my Tools that are back in the safehouse and not resetting a campaign would be fine. Actually, I'd even take a campaign being reset, but only to the last showdown completed. Like you failed to take down one branch of the syndicate but could go after another, and if you blow that one then you lose all progress.

[Rexali_]

It's an RNG roguelike. I'm starting to become familiar with roguelikes and played some games like Crime Boss recently. It's a very great way to keep entertaining players for more hours. Freelance is a challenging mode that makes you search the map even for the most basic items like coins, crowbars, lockpicks, etc., and it's kind of survival too. It was a great idea from developers and a much better mode compared to contracts.

RNG can be effective only if developers use it in rightful ways. Not like advertising that says let A.I. create a game or movie from the bottom, as you saw how No Man's Sky and Starfield generated planets were empty and soulless.

The only issue I have with it is that I wish the rating system and Silent Assassin were a thing in this mode too by default or appeared more often in prestiges. Or developers can put prestiges to give us rewards for not killing non-targets, hiding the bodies, not being spotted, etc.
---------------------------------------------------
So, since the Agent 47 story has come to an end and we may not see any Hitman game in the near future, I don't want to see any Agent 47 without voice acting of David Bateson either, like Remedy wants to bring another voice actor for the Max Payne remake due to unfortunate James Maccafery passing out. Long live David Bateson.

But since developers continue to support this game, I recommend they remake the best missions from Hitman: CodeName 47 to Blood Money. That prologue cutscene in the ICA facility, which shows a flashback of previous Hitman games, made me think about this.

I prefer they remake every blood money mission into the WoA with an expansion pass and remake only one mission with a unique theme from Codename 47 and Hitman 2 Silent Assassin. Because if you know in Hitman Codename 47 and Hitman 2 SA, each multiple mission used to have the same location. So, just remake one mission from Chinatown in Codename47: the hotel mission, one mission from the jungle location, one mission from the industry location, and the hospital one.

The same for Hitman 2: Silent Assassin: Just remake one mission from each theme and location in the first two Hitman games and remake every Blood Money mission.

Though half of the Hitman Contract missions themselves were remakes of Codename 47, like the hotel and China missions during the night. So, just remake the best unique ones like Beldingford Manor.

[nary]

Alt f4 to help you through your first time.
Then you'll probably find you don't need it afterward.

[Rocket]

Even ignoring the bug, there are a few of those broken walls in a few maps, which you'll eventually learn to workaround (I always play new york because the bathrooms are fine, once you learn the quirks, you can play them so you're never seen through them).

That's actually the best part of alt f4, you can try again from a different angle or timing and work around the crap bugs like that.

A Freelancer safe always has merces. A base game safe always contains the same item/merces. Claus' safe always has an emetic gas grenade which you can't take back to the safehouse with you.

This is a handy though imperfect guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2931568179

Marrakesh is usually fine in the first set of 3. The targets often spawn in the central market. Get on a roof, take out the npcs there, pop a couple shots and leave.

It's a nuisance in the later sets especially alerted. Consulate is best played with a couple explosives on hand, ignoring the stealth objectives. If you want a challenge go for it, but the map is annoying.

But I can't imagine doing Maraakesh in a Showdown. The consulate area is just asking for punishment, even without bugs.

You'll learn to avoid certain maps in Showdowns. I'd advise avoiding Marrakesh, though everyone has their own preferences.

I say all this realizing you did nothing wrong, the game failed you.

[Church]

Not to be condescending but this is a roguelite gamemode. They were very upfront about that and explained indepth how it was going to work in that it works like literally any other roguelite. The normal gameplay on normal maps is reserved for the normal game. Additionally you can install the 'roulette mod' for a new randomized gamemode, but freelancer was advertised and implemented as a high difficulty, high risk roguelite gamemode.

[DrakeyC]

Originally posted by Rocket:

But I can't imagine doing Maraakesh in a Showdown. The consulate area is just asking for punishment, even without bugs.

The ones that give me trouble most are the more wide-open maps with a lot of room to cover. Miami, Santa Fortuna, Whittleton Creek, and Ambrose have often given me trouble, because one an alert goes out they scatter like cockroaches and there is no way you're going to be able to catch them in time. On the other hand if you get into a sudden shoot-out, there's a lot of enemies with weapons around that'll come at you from different angles and overwhelm you. I've not had much of Colorado, Hokkaido, or Berlin, either as Showdowns or normal missions. And ofc Bangkok sucks as always.

Though that does remind me of the one time I did get Hokkaido as the site of my Showdown, and my spawning position was in the morgue with the two doctors AND two guards patrolling in and out of the room. I cursed out loud because come on, wtf is that? I had to wait more than a full minute before there was a safe enough gap in their patrols that I could finally get off the table and sneak out. Ended up losing still, ofc, once one of the guards saw me the entire hospital security forces swarmed in from all directions. I've never imagined what it may be like to receive a colonoscopy from an assault rifle, but I think that experience comes close.

As for Maraakesh, I managed. Aside from that flub I mentioned, I spawned in the back of the school again and decided "screw Silent Assassin bonus, time to gtfo". Grabbed a soldier disguise, headed to the consulate where most of the potential targets were, and ended up deducing the leader fairly easily, and from there was a simple kill. Grabbed his phone, went into the underground tunnel, and activated it to lure the rest to me and gun them down, as well as their assassins. Was cathartic after the first time this happened.

PS - it's dumb that you get penalized for killing the wrong suspects. They're STILL ringleaders in these crime syndicates, as far as I'm concerned they're fair game, same with the assassins and lookouts. In a mob war there's no rule that you can only go for the don, his made men and enforcers are off-limits.

[Rocket]

Originally posted by DrakeyC:

The ones that give me trouble most are the more wide-open maps with a lot of room to cover. Miami, Santa Fortuna, Whittleton Creek, and Ambrose have often given me trouble, because one an alert goes out they scatter like cockroaches and there is no way you're going to be able to catch them in time. On the other hand if you get into a sudden shoot-out, there's a lot of enemies with weapons around that'll come at you from different angles and overwhelm you. I've not had much of Colorado, Hokkaido, or Berlin, either as Showdowns or normal missions. And ofc Bangkok sucks as always.

If you have emetic gas tool and a briefcase and put it in there (fish for driftwood log at the safe house its a 0 weight briefcase) or a sieker, you can identify or cross off targets if you have poison target or poison target emetic objective easily. This objective is in many Syndicates but Big Pharma has the most.

Distract Target makes it easy too. Just bump them or throw a distraction. If it's the target, your objective will complete. This is Psy Ops syndicate. Psy Ops also has Poison Target. Can't go wrong for Showdowns with either of those if you get a good map selection.

Miami

Suspects are often in the underground garage or tunnels. And there are bathrooms nearby. Easy to isolate.

If they're at the top floor of the Kronstadt building you can get there easily by unlocking the overpass gate next that one garage entrance. Go up those loud rickety stairs, enter the building at the top of the stairs into storage area, wait for all enforcers in the hallway to leave, enter the hallway and immediately climb out the window. Now climb up the pipe, peek a boo the guard to come outside, do a corner subdue, take his disguise and dump his body off the building. Bodies dumped in the racetrack area are never found because nobody looks or goes there. This huge paragraph takes less 2 minutes to do. Best disguise in the map on standard difficulty.

Another great one is even easier on the way to that one. The race marshal disguise is on that overpass and allows you almost everywhere that isn't security related. Again, you can dump his body onto the race track area safely. Nobody can go there.

I think there's also a free researcher disguise in the coat room of the Kronstadt building. Just vault over the ledge. Not in hardcore and maybe alerted though. And a staff key in a side room near the garage bathrooms.

Even the standard guard disguise is good on that map. It's big but great for showdowns.

Whittleton

It's way harder on hardcore but not TOO bad on standard difficulty. Once you know the puke areas you can waste two sieker darts, one on any other npc, and one on the target, to get a target to a safer one.

The nurse disguise is great on that map and so is the muffin disguise.

Ambrose

Has 3 free Durians. 2 in a tree that you shoot above the poison crafter, 1 in the storage cook area near the slap fight. Pirate guard disguise gets you in safely just climb through the window.

Safest way to use Durian is to drop it at someone's feet. Plus you can craft emetic grenades. It's time consuming so I avoid it for Showdowns but you get a ton of resources for poison there

Santa Fortuna

Easy but very time consuming.

Free mansion guard disguise at the waterfall near the construction site at the edge of the grass.

Free submarine disguise if you vault to the guy's house who is hiding from going to his job somewhat near the bar where P Power is. If you use that disguise, the bartender gives you a key to his basement if you talk to him, and there's a secret door to enter the caves. The security room has a keycard. Practice this in the base game first. That guy or his wife can wreck your showdown.

All that together lets you roam the whole map for free aside from enforcers and lookouts. Time consuming though.

Originally posted by DrakeyC:

Though that does remind me of the one time I did get Hokkaido as the site of my Showdown, and my spawning position was in the morgue with the two doctors AND two guards patrolling in and out of the room. I cursed out loud because come on, wtf is that? I had to wait more than a full minute before there was a safe enough gap in their patrols that I could finally get off the table and sneak out. Ended up losing still, ofc, once one of the guards saw me the entire hospital security forces swarmed in from all directions. I've never imagined what it may be like to receive a colonoscopy from an assault rifle, but I think that experience comes close.

I absolutely hate that start lol.

Not in the base game but in freelancer you have a few seconds to unblend. Morgue start is one of those. Get off the table right away and run for the stairs and you're safe.

Otherwise wait for the doctors to both be facing away. On hardcore it's even harder lol. I urge you never to do a final hardcore Showdown on Hokkaido lol.

Originally posted by DrakeyC:

As for Maraakesh, I managed. Aside from that flub I mentioned, I spawned in the back of the school again and decided "screw Silent Assassin bonus, time to gtfo". Grabbed a soldier disguise, headed to the consulate where most of the potential targets were, and ended up deducing the leader fairly easily, and from there was a simple kill. Grabbed his phone, went into the underground tunnel, and activated it to lure the rest to me and gun them down, as well as their assassins. Was cathartic after the first time this happened.

Congrats!

Yes! If you have OCD about getting all the rewards I URGE you to just play a few missions intentionally avoiding them so you learn to not feel bad about it lol.

Originally posted by DrakeyC:

PS - it's dumb that you get penalized for killing the wrong suspects. They're STILL ringleaders in these crime syndicates, as far as I'm concerned they're fair game, same with the assassins and lookouts. In a mob war there's no rule that you can only go for the don, his made men and enforcers are off-limits.

It'd be way too easy if you could just kill all the suspects. Game balance!

And maybe the suspects are bad but Diana hasn't determined they deserve to die lol.

[Speedy]

Originally posted by Rocket:

(fish for driftwood log at the safe house its a 0 weight briefcase)

Okay, hang on, I've been playing the Hitman WoA trilogy since the very first game and this is the first time I've heard of this. What do you mean, it's a briefcase..?

You can't store anything in it, whether it's on the ground or in your hands, and while it's effectively a throwable melee weapon, it seems to be that you're specifying it for the storage capability, which confuses me.

Is there a glitch or something I've been dreadfully unaware of all these years?

EDIT: Okay, it's a Freelancer specific thing in that a Driftwood log taken with you on a mission gets put in a free ICA Briefcase upon arrival, got it.

Car Battery seems to do the same, which may be easier for some people to get, especially before unlocking the outside.. Ofcourse, having a weight of 3 does balance out it's usefulness, but it depends on what you need.

[Bloodartist]

Originally posted by Yay:

this mode has a giant problem in that it does not respect player time, at all, or player agency.

It totally does. Its just very unforgiving in terms of mistakes. I play pretty much exclusively freelancer, and once I became good at it, I realized that the standard story mode is laughably easy in comparison. I love a challenge.

Originally posted by Speedy:

Okay, hang on, I've been playing the Hitman WoA trilogy since the very first game and this is the first time I've heard of this. What do you mean, it's a briefcase..?

If you are carrying an item that cannot be hidden on your person (such as a sniper rifle, driftwood log or fireplace iron), you start the mission carrying a free suitcase where that item is hidden. It can be pretty handy when you want to use a bomb. Enter the mission, throw that fireplace iron away and put the bomb in. Then place the suitcase near the victim..