Killing people and Success Rating | Forums

[lactose_]

Right. I've finally completed it. Great game, but one thing bugs me - the Success Rating.

Oh, I can get my 100%s, so I'm not complaining about how hard it is to achieve it. Rather, I'm questioning the decision to deduct points for killing enemies. It just does not make sense! The Success Rating is there mainly for the sake of replayability, but let's not kid ourselves, it is rather gimmicky.

Firstly, what does the Success Rating provide? There are no tangible rewards for achieving 100%. What you do get is that feeling of accomplishment when you get that elusive score of perfection. All well and good, and I applaud this feature for its ability to hook players for a longer time. But what is perfection?

The developers of this stealth/action game will have you believe that perfection can be achieved if nobody gets killed (barring the obvious "Eliminate xxx" objective kills). But why? You can knock out as many people as you want, shoot out lights, hack terminals, etc and keep that 100%. But kill one person and that rating drops.

I don't see why people should be penalised for killing if they take the effort to cover tracks and hide the bodies. Realistically speaking, a kill can be stealthier than knocking people out. Take the ship mission for example. Let's say you knock everyone out. Come next morning, the crew will be telling tales of the night before.

Bad Guy 1: "He got me good. Came out of nowhere and grabbed me. I had to tell him about Lacerda or he'd have gutted me with that scary knife!"

Bad Guy 2: "Yeah. Who knows what he'd have done to me if I didn't tell him about the escape boat. These Americans are crazy."

Bad Guy 3: "So... an American spy was after Lacerda and escaped on the boat eh? And the whole crew is intact? I say he deserves 100%."

But if you make just one non-objective kill, and leave everyone else untouched...

Bad Guy 2: "My computer was hacked into, and the escape boat is missing! What the hell?!"

Bad Guy 3: "It seems like Bad Guy 1 is gone too. Without a trace! I wonder what could have happened..."

Bad Guy 2: "Maybe 1 was the one who hacked the computer and then escaped with the info? He must be a spy."

Bad Guy 3: "Hmm that's possible. But... whatever! We'll just give Fisher a 97%."



This feature is also strange from a gameplay point of view. One one hand, you get all these cool new moves to kill enemies: the knife stab, rail-throw, inverse neck snap, etc. But on the other hand, you have to avoid using these to achieve 100%! Let's not forget the shotgun and sniper attachments... Say it with me, "What?! Why?!"

Thing is, the appeal of Splinter Cell is the combination of stealth and action. In the first 2 games you sneaked past some, you killed some, and nobody could say you weren't perfect. Real gameplay ghosting is more applicable to a game like Thief, where the level design lends itself to full stealth. Using a scoring system like this for SC, while adding to replay value, only serves to dilute the core gameplay somewhat. Sigh.

[/rant]

Anybody know what files I can edit or what mods I can d/l to to change this?

[lactose_]

Right. I've finally completed it. Great game, but one thing bugs me - the Success Rating.

Oh, I can get my 100%s, so I'm not complaining about how hard it is to achieve it. Rather, I'm questioning the decision to deduct points for killing enemies. It just does not make sense! The Success Rating is there mainly for the sake of replayability, but let's not kid ourselves, it is rather gimmicky.

Firstly, what does the Success Rating provide? There are no tangible rewards for achieving 100%. What you do get is that feeling of accomplishment when you get that elusive score of perfection. All well and good, and I applaud this feature for its ability to hook players for a longer time. But what is perfection?

The developers of this stealth/action game will have you believe that perfection can be achieved if nobody gets killed (barring the obvious "Eliminate xxx" objective kills). But why? You can knock out as many people as you want, shoot out lights, hack terminals, etc and keep that 100%. But kill one person and that rating drops.

I don't see why people should be penalised for killing if they take the effort to cover tracks and hide the bodies. Realistically speaking, a kill can be stealthier than knocking people out. Take the ship mission for example. Let's say you knock everyone out. Come next morning, the crew will be telling tales of the night before.

Bad Guy 1: "He got me good. Came out of nowhere and grabbed me. I had to tell him about Lacerda or he'd have gutted me with that scary knife!"

Bad Guy 2: "Yeah. Who knows what he'd have done to me if I didn't tell him about the escape boat. These Americans are crazy."

Bad Guy 3: "So... an American spy was after Lacerda and escaped on the boat eh? And the whole crew is intact? I say he deserves 100%."

But if you make just one non-objective kill, and leave everyone else untouched...

Bad Guy 2: "My computer was hacked into, and the escape boat is missing! What the hell?!"

Bad Guy 3: "It seems like Bad Guy 1 is gone too. Without a trace! I wonder what could have happened..."

Bad Guy 2: "Maybe 1 was the one who hacked the computer and then escaped with the info? He must be a spy."

Bad Guy 3: "Hmm that's possible. But... whatever! We'll just give Fisher a 97%."



This feature is also strange from a gameplay point of view. One one hand, you get all these cool new moves to kill enemies: the knife stab, rail-throw, inverse neck snap, etc. But on the other hand, you have to avoid using these to achieve 100%! Let's not forget the shotgun and sniper attachments... Say it with me, "What?! Why?!"

Thing is, the appeal of Splinter Cell is the combination of stealth and action. In the first 2 games you sneaked past some, you killed some, and nobody could say you weren't perfect. Real gameplay ghosting is more applicable to a game like Thief, where the level design lends itself to full stealth. Using a scoring system like this for SC, while adding to replay value, only serves to dilute the core gameplay somewhat. Sigh.

[/rant]

Anybody know what files I can edit or what mods I can d/l to to change this?

[darkshadow5k5]

i totally agree, and the shotgun is my fav weapon in every game, so the second i was able to use it .........well lets just say my rating was like uhm..9%
its just stupid, tactical kills should not be penalised

[Tiny_Splinter]

Yeah! I should be able to make tactical kills if I want to. Like on cargo ship,I can kill a guy, and throw him overboard, and nobody would search the Pacific for him! In Penthouse, I could drop a body into a dumpster!

[Luseinad]

Making a snipe shot to some guy's head is easy, you have much more ammo that ring airfoils, sticky shocker, smoke grenades and sticky cameras put together and they aren't as hard to use because you don’t have to get closer and they are far more accurate. So I think being stealthy and using non-lethal weapons requires more skill.

And killing someone can produce bad repercussions because the groups that were affected will be much keener on discovering who did it to their men, which could draw attentions to Third Echelon itself. And attention is THE last thing a spy agency needs. Why do you think that in some missions you can't kill anyone? Because it would draw the attention to your actions and could easily be proved that they were attacked by someone else other than the group itself. But how can you prove that an unconscious guard was attacked instead of just fallen asleep?

And besides, like lactose said, getting 100% or not doesn't affect anything, it's just a kind of â«meterâ» to show you how good you were. So if you want to kill people with your sniper/shotgun, break some necks, stab everyone in your way, throw them from the top of buildings who's stopping you? Some people draw fun from being as stealthy as possible and getting 100% while others prefer to smash everything on their way. Why don't you just play as you like and forget about the rest?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by darkshadow5k5:
i totally agree, and the shotgun is my fav weapon in every game, so the second i was able to use it .........well lets just say my rating was like uhm..9%
its just stupid, tactical kills should not be penalised </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You bashed through the whole level with a shotgun, being as subtle as an elephant in a glass shop, raising alarms like hell, getting seen by everyone and popping heads like crazy. That's not the stealthiest way of playing the game, so what did you expect?

[cooldude6681]

I do agree with you, Lactose, Sam shouldn't get penalized if he really doesn't leave any trace (like throwing people overboard). Or maybe he should only get penalized for killing the people he doesn't grab. As long as they don't know you were there, there's no reason to kill them, right?

[lactose_]

You make interesting points, Luseinad.

It is true that you get more lethal ammo than non-lethal. But is it really easier to kill than to knock someone out?

In an one-on-one situation, sniping to kill is definitely easier than catching the enemy to knock him out. But when there are 3 enemies holed up in a room, the tables are turned. I know for sure it is easier to take the stealth route; going in FPS style will definitely leave me with more holes than French cheese. I'd rather shut off the lights and knock them out while they're confused. Therefore it depends on the situation when discussing the level of skill involved.

You say killing has worse repurcussions than knocking out. How can this be possible? The knocked-out guy will be able to describe what happened when he regains consciousness. If you had interrogated him before knocking him out, there'd be many things he could tell about you. The dead guy, however, can tell no tales. Which one is more likely to pinpoint you as a spy? Definitely not the dead one.

Many people get the impression that killing is less stealthy than knockouts. Not True! Shooting people in the back with a silenced weapon is as stealthy as choking them with an arm-lock. It is definitely possible to kill stealthily with the shotgun too. In Seoul for example, with all the environment noise, nobody will even notice a shotgun going off if you use it correctly.

In my first Seoul playthrough, I never got detected, the dead bodies were never found, didn't trigger any alarms, etc. In short, I was stealthy. I left no evidence that I was ever there. But the rating DID NOT reward my stealth...



The rating does not favour kills, no matter how stealthy. Naturally, I was disappointed.

I like your idea, cooldude6681. Maybe that will be implemented in SC4. But until then, we're stuck with this. Nobody knows how to mod it?

[Chimera87]

so u say a dead body on the ground is stealthy - in seoul i admit, dead bodies anywhere even if u act stealthy.... but normally like in bank you cant dispose those bodies and they will b found...

however a knocked-out guard can wake up without knowing what exactly hit him, so he might think that he just somehow fell asleep....
if you interrogated someone and knock him out he would remember it tho, so that is indeed not stealthy, but knocking someone out from the back leaves no trace or memory of that u were there....

i say the penalty on killing is ok, unless u really dispose of a body and that is not placing him in a dark spot, cuz those spots arent dark in the morning when the guards go search for their mission fellow guards

[Red_SoN]

i disagree with the point that score shouldnt reduce when u kill, because of two reasons.
first, the one in reality...its just that killing should be prevented if possible in any way..
second is just, that if u gain score or at least keep it for killing, u kill more often..and they dont really want to show u that killing is good...so killing = bad = less score...easy huh?
the thing is: score should be reduced for knocking out enemies....because not touching the enemies at all is really stealthy, its true that if u knock them out it will have same effect as if u kill them...but not touching anyone will result in that they never know there was an intruder...u maybe hack doors and computers and break locks..but they wont notice the comp was hacked, since they will just wonder why theres sumthing different..and the broken lock? hm maybe thieves, or its broken and some a guy was gonna repair, whatever...they wont expect there a SIGINT ninja to be infiltrating the location

but actually THAT would take the fun...so u keep the score

[CovertKi11]

Ok, personally, I don't think a US government agency is going to prefer if their agents kill as few terrorists/enemies as possible. Hell, those organizations have every once in a while shown that they barely care about civilian deaths, uhh I mean "Collateral Damage".

Besides, I really doubt if I ever was some hardcore elite mercenary/soldier I would believe I fell asleep if I found myself laying in a hallway in an awkward position. I might not remember what happened, but I'd still suspect being assaulted and knocked out before I'd believe falling asleep.

On top of that, if someone is interrogated and is knocked out, when their buddies wake them up they're going to know who was there and what they were after (Well, maybe not that part, but Sam seems to give that away a lot during interrogations). If their buddies just find their dead body, they have no idea who was there unless they have it on camera or something.