Why isle of sgail sucks (rant)

[Скіф]

First of all, before people start bashing me and saying git gud keep in mind that i did the mission around 8 times, exploring every room, doing all mission stories and completing all classic challenges both on pro and master.

With that out of the way lets get to it. Isle of sgail is by far the worst h2 mission imo and the only one that i hate.

Why the hate?

1. The map is quite big but tons of rooms remain pretty much unused, so much wasted potential

2. Targets have by far the worst pattern of all targets in this game. Zoe stays on floor 3 all the time, sophia goes from 4 to 5. (Im obviously not taking mission stories in consideration, im talking about saso runs)

3. Their patterns are also rly rly bad and provide close to 0 chance to kill them.

For sophia the only thing that worked is placing audio device in the small corridor on floor 5 that has the door which leads to the glass bridge and the door that leads to some kind of storage room. I used an audio device to distract and subdue her guard, waited for her to loop around again (which takes forever) and finally killed her. The only other chance i found was to climb the pipe from helipad into the security room, take out 2 guards and wait for her to come. That did not work on master tho, cuz guards spot you more easily so i couldnt even climb the pipe.

For zoe i found 2 solutions so far. Both are rly sloppy and messy. The first solution is to wait for her to pass the outdoor launge area, distract her at the bar and if you are lucky she will check the distraction and not call someone else to do it. You can kill her there but its rly risky. The other solution was again to use the audio device and place it under gibbet in the area where janus coffin is. Again rly risky as you gotta move through grass and pass through an open area, with 4 guards and 4 ark members close to you.

Another big problem for all saso runners is the fact that you are tresspassing on every floor where targets roam. And there are tons of people in pretty much every room that targets visit.

Tldr:

Mission stories are fun but being unable to do any of them in a suit sucks. A nightmare for saso runs.
Targets having rly bad and useless patterns unless changed by mission stories.

As a season finale its much worse than hokkaido.

[Kunovega]

You've missed several chances at killing both of them SA/SO

There are numerous chandeliers and cages hanging around that they both walk under which can be dropped on them. Zoe walks under cages outside, and under chandeliers inside. The easiest to shoot is from the outdoor passage next to the warehouse, shooting in as she comes out of the museum, or shoot the cages near the funeral area.

For sophia, there's a very easy music distraction in one of the sitting rooms, it's a radio on the shelf. you can either knock out the one guard that comes with her or leave a weapon on the floor, he'll wander off leaving her alone. The only trick is knowing the timing so that you don't attract everyone else out in the hallway first.

All the solutions you suggest are harder than what I've used for SA/SO

The game rarely offers more than a few suit-only paths, if it did all the missions would be super easy. If you drop the SO requirement there's tons and tons of really good/fun SA options, scripted and otherwise

[🎇TYPHOON🎇]

Originally posted by Hays:

i did the mission around 8 times

Amazing. So did you "explore all rooms" 8 times then? I'm asking, because I did the mission around 40 times and still am in no shape to be able to claim that I "know" the whole map like my pockets. It's a huge, complex map, and that's a great thing. Makes me want to play some more so I can check out all those dqark corners and hidden secrets.

Every map has parts that are "unused". Because when you run straight to your targets, shoot them in the skull, and head straight to the next exit, you will not see 80-90% of the maps. But I personally wouldn't call that "wasted potential" because I'm not a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ moron.

When a person claims there is a "close to 0 chance" to do something, or "being unable to do any of them", I instantly know that this person was just too lazy or too stupid (most likely both) to explore all the possibilities available.

Tldr:
Git gud.

[lexilogo]

Originally posted by Hays:

1. The map is quite big but tons of rooms remain pretty much unused, so much wasted potential

I wouldn't say this is a bad thing.

It's true that Sigail has a lot of areas that you only need to visit on specific runs, but I honestly don't think this is the hallmark of a bad map. Look at Sapienza, it has numerous back alleys that have nothing to do with the targets, and the church/town hall have full interiors despite the targets never visiting them.

IMO having "extra areas" has two main points of map design value that Sigail does utilise decently:

-Maps in 2016/18 Hitman aren't just built around the one mission, they're designed for all kinds of other targets as well that appear in other locations.

-These extra areas can often have "opportunities" in the form of items to grab. Hitman '18 actually IMO does this arguably better than '16 because many of its extra area items are especially valuable, like the Kashmirian's unique sniper rifle, the remote explosive hidden in the ruins of San Fortuna, and so on. Sigail fufils this in spades with the unique knight armor that partially blocks damage, the wealth of stuff in the storehouse, the uber-OP Elite Guard disguise, and the commemorative token treasure hunt that can give you dozens of distraction items to use.

I can definitely understand why some people dislike Sigail of course, I'm just not one of them and I feel like the implication that "areas aren't important if I don't need to pass through them to get to my target" isn't a correct one.

[Eddo]

I don't disagree with the general statement that Sgail is not the best level, especially compared to Mumbai and Whittleton that preceded it. It is a quite different level compared to any of the new gen Hitman game; it is very vertical, Paris has a lot of levels but it is a wide area, and I guess naturally the design will be different to what we are used to.


It certainly is the hardest to do SA:SO (bar Colorado probably), there aren't scripted, deviation from a scripted or naturally obvious way to do it; but that's fine being a harder and final level. My problem with the twins is that most of their scripted actions need direct interaction with NPCs. Basically, they are like Caruso, but without the possibility to trigger things like the tape, telescope and the food bell. Like the only deviation from natural movement possible is through the delivery man or the psychiatrist. Most other targets in both games, there are a lot of hand's off method to tick things on; Mumbai being the shining example. And there is nothing interesting about killing Sophia and Zoe with a radio and coin distraction; it feel a lot like a typical kill in Contracts mode.

I don't think having "extra" area for other stuff is a valid excuse. My problem is not that is it is spare, but there is a lot of fluff to pad out the level. There are plenty of spare rooms dotted around Sapienza for whatever ET or challenges, but they never feel unused, just spare. You point to Sapienza, but the church and the town hall are valid methods to attack the target via sniping. But the difference is that, they are there and out of the way but can still be useful, instead of being in the way.

Or out it another way, the game design couldn't convince me that a lot of "unused" areas as to be part of a grand design, rather than just there to be a road block to make the level bigger in size.

[librious]

It's like you forget that the maps aren't just for the main missions targets, they are also used for escalations and contracts, so there's endless possibilities for whatever room you think is "useless".

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by jqtaxpayer:

And there's no bedrooms. Hard to believe that they went all the way out there just to spend a few hours, and all plan to leave the island at once. Not very discreet for a "secret society" lol. For that matter, what were the arrangements for getting them ON the island? Did they take turns sailing their mega-yachts into that dinky dock area?

There are two helicopter landing sites, one near the chapel and the other on top of the constants tower in addition to the boat docks (and they would use smaller landing craft / speed boats, you don't dock at a facility that size with a mega yacht) This is an old castle, it would not have modern suites to stay in. Very likely they are all expected to return to their yachts after the party which would be anchored just off shore that they can speed boat over to or helicopter back and forth from easily in minutes

As a secret meeting location that is rarely used it's no surprise they don't have a bunch of bedrooms. The few they do have are probably taken apart and repurposed during the party and would be reassembled after. There's several storage rooms full of clutter.

There is a bunk room for guards, so there are at least on site staff that stay there year round

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by jqtaxpayer:

They're usually pretty good about making the locations believable in these games

I don't find any of the locations believable, most are truncated versions of a theme

Hokkaido:

What hospital has 1 surgery room and only 4 patient suites?

Where are all those other patients staying? Where do they even get examined?

Why are patients expected to use stairs and walk everywhere? Any modern hospital I've been in would move patients around by wheelchair and have elevators

How do you even move a body in and out of that morgue? In what world would those dead bodies get dragged up and down stairs like that?

Why is the morgue larger than the hospital itself?

There's way too many donated organs in storage for a tiny hospital that size. Donated organs (whether harvested illegally or not) simply do not have a very long shelf life, these things need to be implanted within hours of harvest, not sit around in storage waiting on that one surgery room to be available

I could go on and on, but Hokkaido makes no sense as a hospital design or as a resort

Whittleton Creek: you can't even go in all the houses, some of them you go in have rooms that you can't enter. That secret tunnel that leads into the house next to Janus has a basement and garage that don't even have doors leading into the rest of the house.

None of the attics make sense, big heavy stuff up there with just ladders instead of fold out stairs

Sapienza: it's mid day, why are most of the shops and stores closed? why are so many of the apartments not able to be entered and the ones that can are super tiny, I've seen closets bigger than some of these apartments. And what's with the walk-through bathrooms that lead to strange parts of buildings?

And really: no traffic? ever?

Paris: where did all these people park? there's like 1000 people at the party and very few parked cars visible.

Sapienza again but: there's a massive staff in that cavern under the mansion and thats in addition to mansion staff, where do all these staff park? There's like 3 cars for 500 people. A mansion that size would have more bedrooms, there's like 2 and one of them isn't used because it's a museum to silvio's mother.

Colorado: did all those people walk there? Where do they all sleep? There's really only Sean's bedroom and a couple of bunk beds in the house and a few more in the barn. It's set up for like 10 people not the hundreds present.

Marrakesh: you know what stands out the most? All of those pyramid spice piles. Those aren't as common as you would think from how commonly placed they are. There's even pyramid spice piles in storage rooms as if they are that easy to move. In storage those spices would be covered and contained or they would simply fall over or blow away while being moved. Spice piles like that are famous images from Marrakesh spice shops, but they are only done for displays and only while they are busy, those piles get used up during peak sales times. They are not kept that way all the time because the spices would be lost and/or contaminated. It's one thing to have them out in the market area, they make no sense in the storage rooms.

These are just a few things off the top of my head, but honestly you can nit pick every location. It's not about making them real, it's just a theme with interesting bits that lend themselves to game play

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by jqtaxpayer:

Yeah, you're right. I'm probably just more bothered by it because, unlike Hokkaido or Sapienza, Sgail isn't a very good map. And this whole Ark Society plotline is ridiculous. IO needs to fire the nine-year-old they have writing this garb and go back to basics.

My first comment on getting to Sgail was why are these spoiled children in charge? It felt very out of place

However, if you listen to every piece of evidence you can gather in whittleton creek, it made me feel a little bit better. Janus hated those girls too and the Ark society is actually divided over whether they should be following those twits or not, the entire society is in turmoil over the change of who is in charge. The extended story of Jerimiah Block further cements just how foolish the society overall has become. Block himself is a fool who has handed over billions without even understanding what he's been buying into and he along with others are fighting for control against the two sisters.

As childish and stupid as much of the Ark society story is, it's not quite as bad as it first appears once you start digging into the details of how the entire society is falling apart from within and the sisters are barely clinging to power.

[Shoebsy]

Originally posted by jqtaxpayer:

It's still a great game, but the writing is sooo so bad.

The writing? The writing is the best it''s been for a long while, Hitman 2 fully embraces it's straight-faced hangman humour better than any other installment in the series. Blood money tried the 'disgraced, sap who needs to die" literally at the start, middle and end of most all assassinations. And absolution wanted to try a serious angle.. Hitman 2 maybe does the vague nature of who you're playing with a bit much, but the bios you're given in the mission selects are pretty good.



As for the actually topic..

I've no issues with assassinations here, I think the stories are some of the coolest, but I find the design of the level to be underused, I totally agree. Much of their routes don't push them anywhere interesting for 'boring kills'.. and many locations force stories to be used. Not terrible, just very rail-roady... It's too bad that most of them require other suits, making SASO runs a bit more resourceful.

I feel the mission is much more interesting in contracts and escalations. Rather than the main assassinations. The elusive target hosted here was good too.

[Dominian]

First of all I think it's good that they offer very different things with each level. Personally I don't like Colorado and Isle of Sgail at all, but I'm sure someone else might name those levels as his favourites and that's the idea of having variety in design.

It employs the same design concepts as with the levels I like, but thematically and aesthetically it just doesn't speak to me at all. I also have very little motivation to leave anyone on that island alive. To me the ark society is quite evil and doesn't deserve the treatment of surgical precision of eliminating leaders in a tower with a scalpel, but rather a good bludgeoning with a hammer.

I want to say that the level is too big, has too many rooms and feels like three levels crammed into one, but every point I can come up with also applies to a level I like.

I think the levels are more or less all the same with the biggest difference being the theme.

What is distinct about the level is the tower. I don't like the transition points from areas to each other and feel more constricted than in other levels.

[Garou]

The only annoying thing I found so far is the secret exit setup.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Kiroshi:

Originally posted by jqtaxpayer:

It's still a great game, but the writing is sooo so bad.

The writing? The writing is the best it''s been for a long while, Hitman 2 fully embraces it's straight-faced hangman humour better than any other installment in the series. Blood money tried the 'disgraced, sap who needs to die" literally at the start, middle and end of most all assassinations. And absolution wanted to try a serious angle.. Hitman 2 maybe does the vague nature of who you're playing with a bit much, but the bios you're given in the mission selects are pretty good.



As for the actually topic..

I've no issues with assassinations here, I think the stories are some of the coolest, but I find the design of the level to be underused, I totally agree. Much of their routes don't push them anywhere interesting for 'boring kills'.. and many locations force stories to be used. Not terrible, just very rail-roady... It's too bad that most of them require other suits, making SASO runs a bit more resourceful.

I feel the mission is much more interesting in contracts and escalations. Rather than the main assassinations. The elusive target hosted here was good too.

The only Hitman game with worse writing than Hitman 2 was Absolution.....

The best ones have the least story, I just want 47 to do his job, not be fed some anti-hero conspiracy garbage that seeks to connect every mission together

I don't need missions that connect with each other, I need targets I'm paid to kill

[K1LN1K]

I just think they need to get away from this spy conspiracy crap and return to the way Blood Money did it: we're just murderers for hire. Give me the dossiers and a cool af mission intro and set me loose. Stop adding complicated and annoying secondary objectives like the virus, the basement escape, and the evidence collection on the neighborhood map. As a matter of fact, it bothers me that we have these types of objectives, and yet not one objective like in the tutorial of Hitman: Blood Money, where you must ask the target to look at the photos before he dies. Stop trying to shove 47 into awkward maps like Marrekesh (hated this map for a long time but it grew on me) & Sgail (will probably never enjoy this map). Furthermore, I want a redo on the hotel level: Bangkok is up there with the levels I hardly ever replay because it is simply not fun. Long story short: I think the devs are making their job harder with all this conspiracy crap & they need to be more thoughtful on the locations and the execution of the locations. Mumbai gets a pass only because you don't actually have to identify the Maelstrom once you familiarize yourself with the map; you can just kill him and be done with it. And, just to be clear, I'm splitting hairs on a game that I absolutely love, play almost daily, and am waiting with baited breath for new maps. But even the best games deserve criticism.

[OCTDUMPUS]

The franchise is never story-oriented to begin with，its always the gameplay that takes the center stage. However，with the SA bug，sniper bug and crashes yet to be fixed，this game still has ways to go.

[Shoebsy]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

The only Hitman game with worse writing than Hitman 2 was Absolution.....

The best ones have the least story, I just want 47 to do his job, not be fed some anti-hero conspiracy garbage that seeks to connect every mission together

I don't need missions that connect with each other, I need targets I'm paid to kill

I think you're mistaking explicit "Story" and "Writing". I'm not hyped about the story either, but the writing is great.

Story is plot, driving factors and characters.

Writing is dialog, interactions, meta and how situations come to be, along with the actual 'writing' and how characters speak obvs.