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Cryle posted:It could be a good thing. Savescumming is pretty detrimental to the gameplay, even on professional. No, you're missing the point. What I'm saying is that changing from manual saves to checkpointed auto-saves necessitates some pretty dramatic changes in the core gameplay. Previous games in the Hitman series would have been frustrating as gently caress to play with auto-save, even if was a well-designed system. To prevent Absolution from being a disaster, they'd have to make more changes just to make the game fun to play. Even if they go back on the decision and bring back manual saves, you still have levels designed around the idea that the game would be automatically saving for the player, necessitating some fail-proofing, some railroading, etc. I'm not saying it's going to be a bad game, I'm saying what many others are saying: that they're straying from what Hitman should be and are turning it into a less unique franchise.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 23:01 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 20:10 |
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doctor iono posted:No, you're missing the point. What I'm saying is that changing from manual saves to checkpointed auto-saves necessitates some pretty dramatic changes in the core gameplay. Previous games in the Hitman series would have been frustrating as gently caress to play with auto-save, even if was a well-designed system. To prevent Absolution from being a disaster, they'd have to make more changes just to make the game fun to play. Even if they go back on the decision and bring back manual saves, you still have levels designed around the idea that the game would be automatically saving for the player, necessitating some fail-proofing, some railroading, etc. Why would the old ones be annoying without saves though? Because loving up means you're usually hosed and need to reload a save so you don't have to run around the level with everyone shooting you on sight or you'll always be on that edge of them shooting you. It seems like what they want to do is stop you having to save a lot by making the consequences of loving up being a minor setback or a bit of damage control, not screwing up the playthrough of the mission. This is a good thing, accidentally going past the wrong door in the wrong disguise and suddenly everyone shooting you on sight is a pretty lovely thing to have happen. In the white house mission of Blood Money you can put your gun in the ladies suitcase, when she goes past security they just shuffle her off to another room, if you go through with a gun they shoot at you instantly. Their design decisions so far seem to be focusing on making it more obvious when you are about to cross a line, make it easier to recover from a bad decision and play through a level as one experience, versus playing through a level as an 'attempt' to beat that level. What we love about Hitman isn't that we need to save before we kill someone or risk having to restart, what we love is a mix of doing goofy stuff like dressing as a clown and killing everyone with garden shears, being a professional awesome assassin, and figuring out how to go through each mission and what you can do to get rid of your targets. I haven't seen any detail about this game so far that really tells us that it won't be like that, just that it will be a more understandable experience.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 02:14 |
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Wasn't aware of the answers finally being posted. Looks like all of mine were answered. I'm the psycho that asked about slitting a cops throat and watching his buddy cry...tell me how that wouldn't be fun. Anyway, I didn't learn much from those answers other than 'you'll find out later'. I don't like the fact that the overhead map is gone though as it does sound like those who don't want to use instinct are being punished.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 02:23 |
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piratepilates posted:Why would the old ones be annoying without saves though? Because loving up means you're usually hosed and need to reload a save so you don't have to run around the level with everyone shooting you on sight or you'll always be on that edge of them shooting you. I also love being able to traverse a level in more than one way. Checkpoints hinder that design goal.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 02:39 |
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Doc Hawkins posted:I also love being able to traverse a level in more than one way. Checkpoints hinder that design goal. How? If a checkpointed area is self-contained and has multiple targets or goals, which are spread out in various corners of the map, how does that prevent or even hinder you from not being able to take multiple approaches? Even if there's a scene of you being pursued by a bunch of guys that forces you down a mostly-linear path (and I assume there are going to be scenes like that), that doesn't make every single checkpointed section of the game like that. We don't know yet what they've "taken away" from the old Hitman formula, if anything. All we know so far is what they've added, and all we can do is take them at their word that it's still the same game. We can also take the word of people who've actually played the game, who are longtime fans of the series and who claim that the game still feels like Hitman.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 02:44 |
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^^^^ You know that's not how it's actually going to work. By making the areas as large as normal Hitman levels, it would completely go against their intended goal of not making players lose much progress by failing. The areas between bottlenecked checkpoints are most definitely going to be substantially smaller than any areas in previous hitman games.piratepilates posted:What we love about Hitman isn't that we need to save before we kill someone or risk having to restart, what we love is a mix of doing goofy stuff like dressing as a clown and killing everyone with garden shears, being a professional awesome assassin, and figuring out how to go through each mission and what you can do to get rid of your targets. I haven't seen any detail about this game so far that really tells us that it won't be like that, just that it will be a more understandable experience. No, sorry, what I love about Hitman is having a big open level open before me and exploring all the possible ways to kill my target. If one of those ways is with garden shears while dressed as a clown, that's just a bonus. Having linear levels with checkpoints every few minutes kinda completely ruins this.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 02:47 |
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:^^^^ You know that's not how it's actually going to work. By making the areas as large as normal Hitman levels, it would completely go against their intended goal of not making players lose much progress by failing. The areas between bottlenecked checkpoints are most definitely going to be substantially smaller than any areas in previous hitman games. Thats the thing. We don't know much of anything, yet people are commenting about how it will be the death of the Hitman franchise. Its obvious that they are still fine tuning what works and what doesn't work. Besides, Blood Money is the only game in the franchise that is like what you describe.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 02:52 |
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:^^^^ You know that's not how it's actually going to work. By making the areas as large as normal Hitman levels, it would completely go against their intended goal of not making players lose much progress by failing. The areas between bottlenecked checkpoints are most definitely going to be substantially smaller than any areas in previous hitman games. quote:The checkpoint system. Are the checkpoints just going to be used to tie in larger areas together? Say, if you were to remake some H2:SA missions with this forumula, Hidden Valley, At the Gates and Shogun Showdown could be just one larger level in which the old three levels were just areas separated by checkpoints. Something like that. It looks like the checkpoints are just to segregate the levels with each area being as open as they were in previous games.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 02:58 |
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For the checkpoint system to work and not change one of my favourite design elements of Hitman, the checkpoints would have to be between areas that were the size and design of (for example) Blood Money levels themselves. Anything else and the game would necessarily become more linear. I consider that to be a bad thing. There is no way that the checkpoints will be spaced that way. If they were, all they'd be doing was making a regular Hitman game and removing manual saving. I honestly don't understand how checkpoints could be integrated into Hitman without significantly limiting the freedom and openness offered by the previous games. I defy you, for example, to think of places to put checkpoints in a level like Death On The Mississippi. The only thing I can think of is checkpointing on achieved objectives. In which case, thanks, but I was fine with the way it was before. piratepilates posted:It looks like the checkpoints are just to segregate the levels with each area being as open as they were in previous games. Like I say, there's no way that's the case. But even if it were, why not just keep them as separate levels, like before?
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 03:00 |
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piratepilates posted:It looks like the checkpoints are just to segregate the levels with each area being as open as they were in previous games. That doesn't make any sense. Like I just said, they want to make it so players don't lose significant progress when dieing. By removing the save system entirely but leaving each area as large as a blood money level, they'd be doing the complete opposite, people really WOULD lose hours of progress from dieing with literally no way of preventing it. You're putting too much stock into "something like that".
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 03:06 |
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Leovinus posted:For the checkpoint system to work and not change one of my favourite design elements of Hitman, the checkpoints would have to be between areas that were the size and design of (for example) Blood Money levels themselves. Actually, both quotes we've seen on the topic of checkpoints (this last one which compares it, or does not deny the similarities, to the Japan levels in Hitman 2, and the first mention which says the separated sections could be larger than Blood Money levels - I'm too lazy to go look for the exact quote, since there's pages upon pages of whining in between) seems to suggest this to be the case. Of course, everyone jumped on the 'could be' from the first quote and decided that the wording meant 'almost never' and figured this was going to be a corridor stealth shooter instead. Which is reasonable.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 03:10 |
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Leovinus posted:I honestly don't understand how checkpoints could be integrated into Hitman without significantly limiting the freedom and openness offered by the previous games. Really? I can easily see where a level like the White House or "You Better Watch Out" could be broken up into checkpoints. They're basically "checkpointed" already. In "You Better Watch Out", you even have two targets on two different floors who never meet each other. They're completely self-contained and isolated, and nothing you do to one affects the other. It's like two separate levels combined into one. In the White House level, your second targets starts a scripted event where you're forced into a chase sequence and then have a battle on the roof. You could put a checkpoint before you enter that entire wing, or before the chase, whatever. We don't even know if we'll be doubling back, going through checkpoints to areas we've been already. We could have whole levels which are broken up into checkpoints, and all the checkpoints are would be save areas and loading zones.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 03:13 |
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Tewratomeh posted:Really? I can easily see where a level like the White House or "You Better Watch Out" could be broken up into checkpoints. They're basically "checkpointed" already. In "You Better Watch Out", you even have two targets on two different floors who never meet each other. They're completely self-contained and isolated, and nothing you do to one affects the other. It's like two separate levels combined into one. In the White House level, your second targets starts a scripted event where you're forced into a chase sequence and then have a battle on the roof. You could put a checkpoint before you enter that entire wing, or before the chase, whatever. The White House level is fairly unique in the game in that it has that cutscene and chase sequence. I still don't see where you'd put the checkpoints in You Better Watch Out - there's several ways to kill Bingham, for example, and they occur in very different places. You can do the hits in whatever order you like, and there are two exits. And again, it just wouldn't work in other levels. Where would they go in A New Life, Death On The Mississippi, or Curtains Down? It might work for the two levels you cherry-picked, but most of the others are far too open for it. A checkpoint system like that would also give you less control of your saves - say, you knock someone out for an outfit, go through a checkpoint, and then the body is discovered - now you have to start over if you want a good rating. I just can't see any way of implementing checkpoints without designing levels around them. If it's just a between-levels thing, fine, but again that would just be Hitman with the saves removed, which is another move I wouldn't be able to understand.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 07:07 |
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Leovinus posted:The White House level is fairly unique in the game in that it has that cutscene and chase sequence. I still don't see where you'd put the checkpoints in You Better Watch Out - there's several ways to kill Bingham, for example, and they occur in very different places. You can do the hits in whatever order you like, and there are two exits. Although they wouldn't have this problem because they wouldn't be designing the levels in such a way that checkpoints wouldn't fit so You Better Watch Out wouldn't have been made for it. quote:And again, it just wouldn't work in other levels. Where would they go in A New Life, quote:Death On The Mississippi, quote:or Curtains Down? quote:It might work for the two levels you cherry-picked, but most of the others are far too open for it. A checkpoint system like that would also give you less control of your saves - say, you knock someone out for an outfit, go through a checkpoint, and then the body is discovered - now you have to start over if you want a good rating. quote:I just can't see any way of implementing checkpoints without designing levels around them. If it's just a between-levels thing, fine, but again that would just be Hitman with the saves removed, which is another move I wouldn't be able to understand. And again saves aren't really a fun mechanic, they're there because getting rid of them from the previous games would be very annoying, not necessarily because saves add that much to the game as what happens when you mess up in the other games take away. If they're changing the way the AI handles and the way you can blend in (which the developers have said they are) then saves aren't really needed at all and I'd say it would probably be more fun to have to work around a body being found or witnesses, as long as the player has a good way of handling that. I'm scared that I'm coming off a bit too defensive about this game especially since there are so few details but I really just want it to be good and nothing I've heard so far really makes it sound like they're going to ruin it so it irks me when so many people are already declaring the game as the end to the Hitman franchise and it will be terrible and so on when really we just don't know how it will turn out this early in to development.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 07:43 |
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The other thing about checkpoints: If they are points of no return, then yes, they gently caress up a major part of what people loved about the Hitman franchise. They move it toward more of a linear corridor game and there's no way around that. Either way, I would like to know how they work if checkpoints are just arbitrary areas in a map, ie. pass through a door, and the game records the checkpoint, so that if you die/fail, you'll return to that chekpoint. In this instance, what happens if you knock a guy out earlier in the map, drag him somewhere isolated and continue with the game, go through the checkpoint and a few minutes after that, a guard on patrol finds the body. Would that mean that everytime you go back to that checkpoint after a failure, you'll always have the guard find the body a few minutes after? Cause if that's the case, you're getting screwed with checkpoints and to get a flawless run, you'd have to restart the entire mission every time something unforeseen like that happens, and saves would have been better since you could go back to a save before knocking the guy out (as long as you don't overwrite saves, and create new ones). I'm wondering how things like that would be resolved if checkpoints were arbitrary points in a map, and if they aren't that is worrying in itself for reasons already stated by me and others. I agree that there doesn't seem to be any good way of doing it without significantly changing the old (and great, in my opinion) formula. We will see though. I'm just not optimistic, it feels like I've been here before.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 08:20 |
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piratepilates posted:Put a checkpoint at the elevator going up to Havilland's level (is there even another way to get to him?) re: Absolution, I'm just going to watch and wait. We still don't know any specifics.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 09:50 |
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Leovinus posted:I still don't see where you'd put the checkpoints in You Better Watch Out - there's several ways to kill Bingham, for example, and they occur in very different places. Are there? The two main ways of killing him that don't involve straight-up shooting him in front of a dozen witnesses involve two very specific places. You can either shoot out the glass below him in the hot tub or get him to go to the balcony to get pushed off. That entire area, being the main party area and massage/restricted areas could all be one checkpoint.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 12:06 |
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piratepilates posted:Although they wouldn't have this problem because they wouldn't be designing the levels in such a way that checkpoints wouldn't fit so You Better Watch Out wouldn't have been made for it. ...and this is exactly what we're saying - the fundamentals of Hitman's level design are going to need to change. It could be amazing and we'll all love it, but, for the moment, it's worrying. Past experience of videogames and PR talk and what have you all point to danger / disaster. I hope I am wrong. emoticon posted:Many elitists are merely maladjusted nerds who hate anything popular because they consider themselves to be better than their peers. Yeah, I've heard that about many elitists.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 13:10 |
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They've specifically said that guards on the "other side" of checkpoints will be reset and won't be alerted from things you did before you hit the checkpoint. This excludes the possibility of the level being congruous.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 13:42 |
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KillHour posted:They've specifically said that guards on the "other side" of checkpoints will be reset and won't be alerted from things you did before you hit the checkpoint. This excludes the possibility of the level being congruous. Calling it now - an unfunny Penny Arcade cartoon where there's an open doorway with 47 shouting at the guard who is technically in the next checkpoint but he can't see or hear him. Oh how we'll laugh.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 14:04 |
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Tewratomeh posted:That entire area, being the main party area and massage/restricted areas could all be one checkpoint. But why should they? Did anyone at any point during one of the previous games think to himself ''Hmmm, I wish this game had checkpoints''? The (limited) save system worked just fine and there wasn't anything wrong with it. I seriously can't think of any reason for checkpoints to be there unless the game is going to be much more linear and not a single damned person that loved the previous games is hoping for a more linear Hitman game. I can't possibly see this turning out well and on the off chance that it does I bet people will be saying stuff like ''It's a good game, but not a good Hitman game''.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 14:07 |
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Rascar posted:But why should they? Did anyone at any point during one of the previous games think to himself ''Hmmm, I wish this game had checkpoints''? The (limited) save system worked just fine and there wasn't anything wrong with it. I seriously can't think of any reason for checkpoints to be there unless the game is going to be much more linear and not a single damned person that loved the previous games is hoping for a more linear Hitman game. I can't possibly see this turning out well and on the off chance that it does I bet people will be saying stuff like ''It's a good game, but not a good Hitman game''. My fiance likes the Hitman games, but is absolutely terrified of choice. Walking out of the vault in Fallout 3, she asked me what she was supposed to do. When I told her "Whatever you want," she immediately shut off the game and walked away. So, yes, there's at least one person hoping for a corridor shooter.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 14:16 |
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Rascar posted:I can't possibly see this turning out well and on the off chance that it does I bet people will be saying stuff like ''It's a good game, but not a good Hitman game''. That's pretty much what I've been arguing for. There are people claiming that there's no possible way that the game will be good because of the checkpoint system, and I was trying to illustrate ways that it could. I was also trying to explain that even Blood Money was a little more linear in places than people seem to remember it being. Contracts was very linear. The first few missions all but forced you to take very specific paths and do very specific things in a certain order. It also seemed to be the least popular Hitman game, so I guess people will argue that going back to Contracts will be a "step backward".
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 14:18 |
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KillHour posted:My fiance likes the Hitman games, but is absolutely terrified of choice. Walking out of the vault in Fallout 3, she asked me what she was supposed to do. When I told her "Whatever you want," she immediately shut off the game and walked away. So, yes, there's at least one person hoping for a corridor shooter.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 14:37 |
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Tewratomeh posted:That's pretty much what I've been arguing for. There are people claiming that there's no possible way that the game will be good because of the checkpoint system, and I was trying to illustrate ways that it could. Actually, all of the other Hitman games were pretty linear.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 15:32 |
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KillHour posted:My fiance likes the Hitman games, but is absolutely terrified of choice. Walking out of the vault in Fallout 3, she asked me what she was supposed to do. When I told her "Whatever you want," she immediately shut off the game and walked away. So, yes, there's at least one person hoping for a corridor shooter. No offence but your fiancé can get to gently caress 
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 16:20 |
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blackguy32 posted:Actually, all of the other Hitman games were pretty linear. This is also true, and most of the "open-endedness" boiled down to "which one of these pre-selected ways will you choose to do this task?" It was never exactly a "sandbox" series. The only thing I'm worried about is that by spelling out why the AI behaves the way it does in-game, they'll take away the fun, game-breaking ways of exploiting the NPC's. The description of the new AI routines doesn't bode well for NPC-fuckery. Not that I did any of that personally, but we might not get very many amusing videos of people loving around in Absolution.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 16:43 |
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Tewratomeh posted:This is also true, and most of the "open-endedness" boiled down to "which one of these pre-selected ways will you choose to do this task?" It was never exactly a "sandbox" series. I beg your pardon good chap, but I'm pretty sure that in the porn party level on Bloody Money, the designers did not specifically have in mind the pre-selected assassination method of "throw a knife in the back of drunk Santa's head, pull said knife out, wear Santa outfit, go the second floor and throw knife into the cock of target in jacuzzi".
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 16:50 |
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I SOMEHOW managed to lob a mine into the jacuzzi from the roof once and blow it all to hell without being seen. How? No idea. It was boss though.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 16:53 |
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Lasher posted:I SOMEHOW managed to lob a mine into the jacuzzi from the roof once and blow it all to hell without being seen. How? No idea. It was boss though. I can only hear this in Matt Berry's voice, thanks to your avatar.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 17:01 |
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KillHour posted:My fiance likes the Hitman games, but is absolutely terrified of choice. Walking out of the vault in Fallout 3, she asked me what she was supposed to do. When I told her "Whatever you want," she immediately shut off the game and walked away. So, yes, there's at least one person hoping for a corridor shooter. This is probably the saddest thing I have heard about a human being ever. Tewratomeh posted:This is also true, and most of the "open-endedness" boiled down to "which one of these pre-selected ways will you choose to do this task?" It was never exactly a "sandbox" series.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 18:16 |
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piratepilates posted:Is it really that fun to not know what the AI is thinking though? The games could really do without stone-faced NPCs just suddenly shooting you and you don't know why. I guess that's true, but it doesn't make it any less hilarious when they do stupid things like walking in a single-file line into a closed area to get murdered one after the other without noticing you.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 18:55 |
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Tewratomeh posted:I guess that's true, but it doesn't make it any less hilarious when they do stupid things like walking in a single-file line into a closed area to get murdered one after the other without noticing you. Don't worry there will always be some oversight or dumb bug that makes it in to the final game.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 19:09 |
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Pretty much every stealth game ever made can be cheesed by luring people around corners and killing them one by one. The point is not to do that though. I always thought the gun-down everyone approach was easy as gently caress in Blood Money, even on the hardest difficulty. Your Silverballers will wreck all. fake edit: this is why I tend to go non-lethal in all games that allow it. SolidSnakesBandana fucked around with this message at Jul 1, 2011 around 01:35 |
| # ? Jul 1, 2011 01:30 |
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KillHour posted:My fiance likes the Hitman games, but is absolutely terrified of choice. Walking out of the vault in Fallout 3, she asked me what she was supposed to do. When I told her "Whatever you want," she immediately shut off the game and walked away. So, yes, there's at least one person hoping for a corridor shooter. Maybe buy her a modern FPS game if all she wants is a linear corridor shooter. Or better yet, put on a movie, she won't even have to input anything at all. Just be sure to navigate the menu for her so she doesn't have a nervous breakdown.
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| # ? Jul 1, 2011 01:49 |
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Not exactly Hitman related but is Velvet Assassin any good? I'm really wanting a nice Blood Money/ Chaos Theory type game.
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| # ? Jul 1, 2011 12:56 |
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Nckdictator posted:Not exactly Hitman related but is Velvet Assassin any good? I'm really wanting a nice Blood Money/ Chaos Theory type game. It's quite good, yeah. It's much more linear than Blood Money, more like the earlier Splinter Cells. It's also pretty atmospheric with a good story and some moral ambiguity. If you can find it somewhere for cheap you should definitely give it a try.
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| # ? Jul 1, 2011 13:02 |
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Perestroika posted:It's quite good, yeah. It's much more linear than Blood Money, more like the earlier Splinter Cells. It's also pretty atmospheric with a good story and some moral ambiguity. If you can find it somewhere for cheap you should definitely give it a try. It's only  on Steam, hence why I asked, thanks!
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| # ? Jul 1, 2011 13:13 |
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Nckdictator posted:It's only It is pretty good too. I had made a thread on it when it was first release and it didn't get any replies, but it's an overlooked and fun game.
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| # ? Jul 1, 2011 15:44 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 20:10 |
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Yeah seems to be interesting - and cheap - enough to give it a shot.
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| # ? Jul 2, 2011 12:45 |
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