Hitman Absolution -- The Living Breathing World

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by Frag Maniac

Color me intrigued, I was wondering if there was a high route I missed. I scanned a bit with Instinct before crossing the street, but saw no highlighted ledges or windows. I'll have to look again I guess.

I missed it too until I was looking down from it. It's very well hidden.

[Frag Maniac]

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

I missed it too until I was looking down from it. It's very well hidden.

You aren't talking about the ledge you can climb up on to the right where the player activated checkpoint is by any chance are you? That one is not a through route and doesn't continue along ledges or open window paths, it just takes you down some stairs and right to the street.

You mentioned BBQs too, and I don't recall seeing any even when circling to the left. it doesn't even make sense that there would be BBQs in the front parking lot of a police station, which I take it is where you meant, because you said it avoids taking the street.

[FordGT90Concept]

Yeah, that sounds like it. You can bypass about 10 guards by taking that path.

Oh, they were boxes to put bodies in, not BBQs; my bad.

This is from memory if you haven't noticed.

[Frag Maniac]

I just found what I think you were referring to in your first post about it. There's a high place to get up to on the left too. Unlike the one on the right it takes a carefully timed and placed distraction toss to get to, and it's a two story perch via ladder vs the one story ledge climb on the right.

Both take you down to the street though. The only difference with the one on the left is it takes you to the far end of it, vs near the exit. I still prefer the one on the right even if you have to use Instinct to cross the street because the long route along the other side of the street is a very difficult sneak.

What did you score on Hard btw? I'm at the start of the final rooftop part and have 3.5 mill so far. That's with a botched score on Saints though, because I was trying for Angel of Death and forget you couldn't go back and play it over from Level Select after completing the level, because Level Select saves are separate from campaign saves, so the LS points don't add to your campaign score. I figure I lost over 350,000 points due to that.

[FordGT90Concept]

I've only played it on Normal:

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

Just beat it one normal difficulty getting "Suit Only" on all levels, Infiltrator (do not be spotted) on most, and Silent Assassin on almost every mission that involved killing someone. My "Absolution Score" on that run through was over 3.2 million.

That includes replaying the three Saints missions (did it violently with suit then replayed using disguises to get silent assassin) and the first mission (because the tutorial insisted I take a disguise--had to replay it to get suit only).

Normal has a 25% multiplier (2.56 approximate base score). Hard probably has 50% (would have been 3.84).

350,000 sounds about right. The Saints levels are huge earners because of all the targets.

[Guitarrassdeamor]

I just got to the mission where I have to face that huge army of guys in the street. Considering I'm not exactly stealthy, this isn't working so good. Gotta find some kind of disguise.

I am liking it more because I dgaf about score and just go "stealthy" until I get discovered and shoot everyone, but almost feel I'm playing it just to finish it at this point.

[rickss69]

Originally Posted by Guitarrassdeamor

I just got to the mission where I have to face that huge army of guys in the street. Considering I'm not exactly stealthy, this isn't working so good. Gotta find some kind of disguise.

I am liking it more because I dgaf about score and just go "stealthy" until I get discovered and shoot everyone, but almost feel I'm playing it just to finish it at this point.

Don't get caught up in the belief you must play this game a certain way...just enjoy it. You can always go back and try different methods at a later date.

[Guitarrassdeamor]

Originally Posted by rickss69

Don't get caught up in the belief you must play this game a certain way...just enjoy it. You can always go back and try different methods at a later date.

I'm not. The fact is I don't find it that "fun" honestly. It's interesting and I like the mechanics as I do any Hitman game but it just doesn't do anything to wow me.

[FordGT90Concept]

Hitman is as much a puzzle game as a shooter. If you don't like puzzle games, you probably won't like it much.

[Frag Maniac]

Yeah I know you said 3.2 mill on Normal, but I thought you had a Hard run through too. Anyways, I probably could have gotten close to 4 mill on this run were it not for botching Saints with that useless Angel of Death attempt, and they still aren't even talking about fixing that challenge so it works right.

I get to the last level of this game on that foggy rooftop and I just don't want to play it anymore anyway. It has to be one of the worst endings of a Hitman game I've ever seen. Started playing AC3 today. It's got some real annoying things in it too.

[FordGT90Concept]

The foggy rooftop was relatively easy using distraction. I thought the ending was pretty good.

And by the way, that's not last level. The epilogue is the end.

[Frag Maniac]

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

The foggy rooftop was relatively easy using distraction. I thought the ending was pretty good.

And by the way, that's not last level. The epilogue is the end.

Oh yeah, forgot about the romp through the heavies at the real end.

Didn't notice anything to toss as a distraction on the roof, have to look again.

[Frag Maniac]

OK, got through Countdown with two non target NPCs subdued and hidden. My score was zeroed before Dexter. Signature killed him, but I only got Professional rating. Are you kidding me? Is it even possible to get Silent Assassin on Countdown? Some claim they have, but I've yet to see anyone prove it.

I was real close to sneaking by the first bunch after shooting one of the bombs as a distraction, but then I got caught after grabbing the hammer and every reload resulted in the AI taking different paths after that when shooting that same TNT pack. It's easy to sneak by the second bunch after the checkpoint with a moderate amount of Instinct, but at this point I'm not sure even sneaking without any pacification would get me a better score.

Maybe you have to accident kill Dexter to get Silent Assassin.

I'm on Epilogue now and I had to take a break because the game has got yet another odd thing about it. I got by several of the first guys unseen, then found a good spot to hold up until the coast is clear, but it involves pacifying and hiding an NPC. I get him subdued, take his disguise, wait patiently behind cover while a nearby NPC stands looking my direction, then when I go to hide his body in the grave it counts as killing him.

Again, are you friggin kidding me? A 6' grave with a coffin in it is all of a 4' drop, and that's going to kill a subdued NPC? I've seen places in the game where NPCs survive twice that high of a drop when you hide them. Just can't stand this total inconsistency in the way the game plays. Then again, maybe this is one of many unintended bugs.

[Guitarrassdeamor]

I finished it. Meh. 12 hours or so I think total (Hard difficulty). Not impressed TBH, really wish I had've waited until it was like $20 or so. Luckily I didn't pay full price for it thanks to GMG, but still.

[lyndonguitar]

Originally Posted by Guitarrassdeamor

I finished it. Meh. 12 hours or so I think total (Hard difficulty). Not impressed TBH, really wish I had've waited until it was like $20 or so. Luckily I didn't pay full price for it thanks to GMG, but still.

The Contracts mode is pretty fun though if you are a fan of previous games

[BlackZero]

New patch (1.0.444.0) but no release notes on steam yet, also loads up instantly now and performance is up!

1080p/All ultra/4xmsaa - MSI 7970 OC (Stock clocks)




And a video using above settings.

[rickss69]

Benchmark with new patch - HD 5850

[...PACMAN...]

Looks to be at least a bit more optimised now. Thanks for the update

[Frag Maniac]

Originally Posted by BlackZero

New patch (1.0.444.0) but no release notes on steam yet, also loads up instantly now and performance is up!

1. Added option to lower or disable Bloom effect
2. Change Cover' action can now be mapped on a separate key
3. Country leaderboards are now in the correct language
4. Weapon selector doesn't appear when point shooting anymore
5. Pausing game doesn't skip cutscenes anymore
6. Slightly improved general performance
7. Performance improvements for MSAA and HBAO
8. Fixed King of Chinatown behavior
9. Disabled use of all DirectInput devices (as they are unsupported)
10. The disguise parameters on Professional difficulties have been tweaked
11. Difficulty adjustments
12. Displayed high scores are now selected from all difficulty levels
13. Fix for negative scores
14. Fixed disappearing user interface on AMD HD 3650

Bloom adjustment and performance improvements sound great. Just hope they got the disguise parameters right without making it too easy. "Difficulty adjustments"? A bit vague. I'm not sure what they mean by fix for negative scores either. My main problem with scoring is in some ways it's too lenient, and in others to punitive. For instance I don't feel you should get a bonus for silent killing non target NPCs, especially when it results in more points than subduing, which it often does. On the other hand I don't think dropping a subdued NPC 4' onto a coffin in an open grave should result in a casualty penalty.

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by Frag Maniac

What did you score on Hard btw? I'm at the start of the final rooftop part and have 3.5 mill so far.

I'm doing Purist, on level 4/20 and already have 3.1 million. XD

[Frag Maniac]

Well I've yet to go for my attempt at my highest scoring run. Already beat Purist, but without a lot of challenges completed, so that skewed the results. I also missed like 350,000 or something trying to get Angel of Death 2 in Attack of the Saints again (since some are now claiming it's doable). Adding that amount at the end would have given me very close to 8 mill though, which I'm sure is possible with all challenges completed.

I was going to refuse a high score attempt until Eidos admits to and fixes the AoD2 challenge bug, but it looks like they have no intention of doing that. So I guess I'll either have to add 10% to my Attack of the Saints score to make up for AoD 2&3, or shelve the damn game. I'm kinda sufficing with the latter for now, since I'm engrossed with Dead Space 3, which is a far better game with more replay value anyway.

[FordGT90Concept]

If Angle of Death is what I think it is, you have to do part 1, 2, and 3 in succession (continuous. no checkpoints, if you fail, you have to "restart level" which sets you back to the beginning of the part you are playing) for the challenge to be marked completed.

I got all challenges and play styles done before starting my Purist run. Play Styles were by far harder than most of challenges. There's one where you got to kill five people with a needle inside of a time limit of the first kill. That one was a PITA to get.

[Chevalr1c]

I am in my first playthrough, at "normal" difficulty, and it seems I need to loose from the woman at the shooting range a bunch of times in order to "collect" enough "instinct" to win from her at the shooting range (by using multi-shoot). Using an aiming system that is not very suitable for it IMHO. And what is it wich all the over-the-top action scenes, actually (especially the helicopter scene after the Hotel Terminus mission)? It is not a bad game so far, but it does not always feel like a Hitman title.

[Frag Maniac]

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

If Angle of Death is what I think it is, you have to do part 1, 2, and 3 in succession (continuous. no checkpoints, if you fail, you have to "restart level" which sets you back to the beginning of the part you are playing) for the challenge to be marked completed.

I'm well aware of that, as is anyone who's been on the AoD thread on the official forum. Many of us have played through the whole chapter non stop killing all Agency personnel silently with no checkpoints, no bodies found and no suspicion raised, only to find it won't unlock, esp those on the PC version (I myself have a Steam version).

Furthermore some whom say they HAVE completed it say after a certain patch update the AoD2 challenge was shown as uncompleted and they could not manage to complete it anymore. That in itself could be my problem since I'm on the Steam version and I have to play with the latest patch.

Part of what's annoying and mysterious is no one has yet proven what the 3 secrets are where the challenge description in the menu says "Like a hand of God" with a Saint and 3 secrets boxes showing. Thus some have tried accident kills on all Saints, hiding all Saint's bodies, etc, but it doesn't matter, still won't unock.

I got all challenges and play styles done before starting my Purist run. Play Styles were by far harder than most of challenges. There's one where you got to kill five people with a needle inside of a time limit of the first kill. That one was a PITA to get.

Yeah I did that one, but for some reason I thought it was a challenge. It seemed hard at first, then I started trying it without worrying about stealth so much and it was easy.

I don't recall seeing any score multipliers for play styles. Are they just achievements or do they boost your score too?

@Chev,
Yeah this one is clearly not the typical Hitman game. It has elements of Max Payne throughout.

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by Chevalr1c

I am in my first playthrough, at "normal" difficulty, and it seems I need to loose from the woman at the shooting range a bunch of times in order to "collect" enough "instinct" to win from her at the shooting range (by using multi-shoot). Using an aiming system that is not very suitable for it IMHO. And what is it wich all the over-the-top action scenes, actually (especially the helicopter scene after the Hotel Terminus mission)? It is not a bad game so far, but it does not always feel like a Hitman title.

I had no problem at all at the shooting range. Use an accurate pistol, aim for the center, shoot. If you hit enough centers, it's very rare a multishoot will come up that you can't hit them all.

47 was an extremely silent type throughout all previous games. All the interactions, especially with Victoria, feels out of place. At the same time, I commend the game for having a plot that is easy to follow.

Originally Posted by Frag Maniac

I'm well aware of that, as is anyone who's been on the AoD thread on the official forum. Many of us have played through the whole chapter non stop killing all Agency personnel silently with no checkpoints, no bodies found and no suspicion raised, only to find it won't unlock, esp those on the PC version (I myself have a Steam version).

Furthermore some whom say they HAVE completed it say after a certain patch update the AoD2 challenge was shown as uncompleted and they could not manage to complete it anymore. That in itself could be my problem since I'm on the Steam version and I have to play with the latest patch.

Part of what's annoying and mysterious is no one has yet proven what the 3 secrets are where the challenge description in the menu says "Like a hand of God" with a Saint and 3 secrets boxes showing. Thus some have tried accident kills on all Saints, hiding all Saint's bodies, etc, but it doesn't matter, still won't unock.Yeah I did that one, but for some reason I thought it was a challenge. It seemed hard at first, then I started trying it without worrying about stealth so much and it was easy.

I don't recall seeing any score multipliers for play styles. Are they just achievements or do they boost your score too?

I have the Steam version and I had no problems completing it on Normal difficulty. It was on the patch prior to the one that recently came out (few posts above). I already got it so obviously I can't retry.

Part 2 of Angel of Death was actually the easiest for me. I camped out back by all the trash, threw stuff, waited for them to come back behind there too, garroted them, then hid their bodies in the many chests there. When they were full, I switched to the area where the BBQ is. Remember, make sure to let the civilian get killed. You can't be spotted. In essence, you need to get the Silent Assassin rating with your kill count matching the total number of people there (less the civilian).

I have no idea if it boosts score but I know I'm going to go way higher than 8 million. I only did two missions so far where silent assassin is even possible (where the bulk of the points come from). The Attack of the Saints alone should at least double my 3.1 million.