Brutal Freelancer changes in new patch (false alarm see Edit 2)

[Rocket]

1. SA No Firearms: Dartgun usage now prohibited. Understandable but rough.
2. Alt-F4 causes mission failure. No more experimentation.
3. Target Jingle removed. No more easy to find Showdown targets.

While I understand, this is going to make an already painful mode even more exclusive, shutting players out. Imagine doing 30 minutes of setup and still failing because you messed up a coin toss due to a miniscule error in a very small window of time. Or being forced to wait another 10 minutes on a loop.

I'm saying all this full well knowing what other people are going to say (it's cheating, it wasn't intended this way, you need to be more dynamic), yeah that's all well and good but I learned the most from Freelancer, while experimenting with Freelancer.

Challenges are one thing, but what are they doing to encourage learning and experimentation? When failure is too painful, it drives people away.

Since you can no longer Alt-F4 to plan out a nicely executed run, Freelancer would benefit massively from a free-roam mode where you can choose Alerted, Hardcore, different objectives, prestige objectives, selecting your own targets, etc, just to test things out.

I have said this many times before, but every mode, save for Elusive Targets should give you some way to practice and experiment. Alt-F4 may have been a crutch, but I would bet more people use Alt-F4 because there isn't a proper free-roam in Freelancer.

The campaign missions with its lack of loadout options, different item layouts and lack of crates etc, aren't a substitute.

Because here's the thing. When forced between a rock and a hard place (losing all your stuff), people will almost always go the path of least resistance. They'll use the remote emetic gas briefcase trick, and lots of other low risk methods to win, like countless people already do whenever Elusive Targets go live. It makes for much more boring playstyles. I'll say it again, the timing for some of the more elaborate and entertaining runs require some level of experimentation unless you've memorized every single NPC's routes already. Sue me if I like to experiment a bit with timing for high risk tricks before I do them.

I will also add that this doesn't affect progression for me, as I'm already level 100, and have no intention of prestiging.

Edit: I can confirm killing it from the Task Manager works. You need to Alt-Tab out, open Task Manager and click End Task twice in quick succession, once in game and once on the new loading screen to get it before it saves.

I would however, prefer a Free-Roam map test in Freelancer that lets you choose the map state. Or even just a practice option with no targets prior to the beginning of each mission.

Edit 2: FALSE ALARM ALT-F4 WORKS. Just press it twice. Once again at the loading screen

[voces junior]

And what about shutting off the power PC? Will make a fail mission too?

[dbond1]

No alt-F4 will put a big dent in Freelancer play. When I started I relied on it quite often, as I learned the nuances and best approach. With experience you can overcome this, although it is still nice to have in your back pocket. But if the goal is to attract more players I reckon this ain't it.

[Material Defender]

I agree with everything OP said, except the lvl 100, as I am not there yet.

Originally posted by dbond1:

No alt-F4 will put a big dent in Freelancer play. When I started I relied on it quite often, as I learned the nuances and best approach. With experience you can overcome this, although it is still nice to have in your back pocket. But if the goal is to attract more players I reckon this ain't it.

Agreed.

Originally posted by voces junior:

And what about shutting off the power PC? Will make a fail mission too?

The same effect can be done by using Task manager in more details and in processes to right click hitman and end task.

[Material Defender]

Originally posted by Material Defender:

Originally posted by voces junior:

And what about shutting off the power PC? Will make a fail mission too?

The same effect can be done by using Task manager in more details and in processes to right click hitman and end task.

Just checked, initial testing seems to make it work the same, more testing may be required. May not work for those on console.

[Rocket]

I should probably add this to the OP, but what about bugs? I know they apparently went into the game and fixed a lot of the bugs, but what if you die from 2 people at the toilet now or someone walking in?

What about a coin toss that attracts the wrong person from a different floor due to some unique characteristic of the map?


Even the tiniest bug could be game ending now.

Are all see through walls definitely fixed now? I've definitely gotten seen through far away walls in Hokkaido. It didn't infuriate me because it was early in my mission and I could Alt-F4. Now that I can't? I'll be furious if something like that were to happen because it wasn't my mistake.


How brutal is alerted Colorado or Hokkaido going to be now if you make a tiny error with a bad spawn?

I need to learn the patterns if I'm going to do something high risk. I could do low risk but that's boring. I'm not so sure I want every choice I make to be so high risk. That kinda sucks the fun out of it.

I'm not so sure I want everything I do to potentially become a massive firefight. Sure, that's part of why I play Hitman, but not the main reason.

At this point it almost makes more sense to enter a map without items, or as few expensive items as possible. And Hardcore would be something I'm definitely not going to want to try.

[Phantom Limb]

I knew this kind of change was going to happen. That's why I've earned lvl 100 before the patch to make sure typical dumb decisions by IOI won't affect my progression.
Glad to see I was right all along.

[Rocket]

Originally posted by Material Defender:

Originally posted by Material Defender:

The same effect can be done by using Task manager in more details and in processes to right click hitman and end task.

Just checked, initial testing seems to make it work the same, more testing may be required. May not work for those on console.

Wait, so are you saying that Alt-F4 still works? Or do you mean you can now close from the Task Manager safely instead?

[boris.glevrk]

Originally posted by RocketJump:

I should probably add this to the OP, but what about bugs? I know they apparently went into the game and fixed a lot of the bugs, but what if you die from 2 people at the toilet now or someone walking in?

What about a coin toss that attracts the wrong person from a different floor due to some unique characteristic of the map?


Even the tiniest bug could be game ending now.

Are all see through walls definitely fixed now?

I just failed a full campaign because someone immediately identified me as the shooter without seeing me shooting, but saw me out of a corner 3 seconds after the shooting. And then the "compromised" status infected everyone including civilians across other regions. I alt+F4'd and found I failed the mission and the entire campaign.

So no, I would say only the bugs beneficial for players are fixed, nothing else.

[renegade]

Originally posted by RocketJump:

Originally posted by Material Defender:

Just checked, initial testing seems to make it work the same, more testing may be required. May not work for those on console.

Wait, so are you saying that Alt-F4 still works? Or do you mean you can now close from the Task Manager safely instead?

Alt+F4 twice, before the loading screen completes.

[Material Defender]

Originally posted by RocketJump:

Originally posted by Material Defender:

Just checked, initial testing seems to make it work the same, more testing may be required. May not work for those on console.

Wait, so are you saying that Alt-F4 still works? Or do you mean you can now close from the Task Manager safely instead?

you can safely close from task manager is what I meant. For some reason, using alt-f4 while in freelancer triggers a loading screen before closing, it never did that before the patch.

[Fry]

Yeah, that alt-f4 thing is going to hurt. Probably would have given up entirely on freelancer day 1 if I couldn't have used it while I got used to the mode. Can certainly see a lot of new players being turned off.

[Rocket]

Originally posted by renegade:

Originally posted by RocketJump:

Wait, so are you saying that Alt-F4 still works? Or do you mean you can now close from the Task Manager safely instead?

Alt+F4 twice, before the loading screen completes.

Originally posted by Material Defender:

Originally posted by RocketJump:

Wait, so are you saying that Alt-F4 still works? Or do you mean you can now close from the Task Manager safely instead?

you can safely close from task manager is what I meant. For some reason, using alt-f4 while in freelancer triggers a loading screen before closing, it never did that before the patch.

I haven't tested anything, but what you guys are both saying here corroborates with the other.

[Material Defender]

Originally posted by RocketJump:

Originally posted by renegade:

Alt+F4 twice, before the loading screen completes.

Originally posted by Material Defender:

you can safely close from task manager is what I meant. For some reason, using alt-f4 while in freelancer triggers a loading screen before closing, it never did that before the patch.

I haven't tested anything, but what you guys are both saying here corroborates with the other.

I only tested the alt-f4 part after my 1st prestige (there's 5 new challenges added just for prestiging, one for each level), since I had nothing to lose.

Note on Prestiging, if you have a current campaign going on, it does not end or change the campaign once the prestige happens.

[boris.glevrk]

Originally posted by Fry:

Yeah, that alt-f4 thing is going to hurt. Probably would have given up entirely on freelancer day 1 if I couldn't have used it while I got used to the mode. Can certainly see a lot of new players being turned off.

That's the problem. The new freelancer is not impossible to win, it's impossible to *learn*. You NEED to have the restart option or the player will never get past their first mission at all.

[Rocket]

Prestige Objective Picks
We’ve tweaked the logic of Prestige Objectives to ensure that you cannot get more than one from the same category (Silent Assassin, Timed, Multikill).

Urgent Call
We’ve resolved an issue where some characters would ‘teleport’ to Agent 47’s location in certain circumstances. It’s now impossible to arrange a meeting in places that are inaccessible to AI characters. We’ve also fixed a related issue where the 'Arrange Meeting' Prestige Objective would not complete under certain circumstances.

Bat Crazy
We’ve resolved an issue where the Collectors Baseball Bat found in Santa Fortuna would not complete the ‘Pacify – Baseball Bat’ Prestige objective. Now, it will.

Collateral Kills
We’ve made some backend changes to make the “Collateral Kill” Prestige Objective variants complete more reliably. This includes broadening the window of opportunity across ballistic kills, accident kills, fire kills and explosive kills to register.
Extra note: A collateral kill won’t register if two targets are eliminated together. A non-target kill as ‘collateral’ with the target is required for this to complete.

No Silencer For You
We’ve removed a couple of Silenced Pistols from guards in Dubai and Dartmoor. It’s not in their remit to have silenced weapons.

More things I noticed. The first 4 are great.

The last is mind boggling. So is the only way to get a quick silenced pistol from an Assassin or the shovel trick in Isle of S'Gail? Where even is the shovel and how far away is it from the sewer?