Getting Into The Beta
First of all, you will want to get into the Beta if you are not in it yet.
Getting into the Beta takes 2 minutes, the game runs smoother, there are leaderboards and you get proper settings. What's not to like?
Just follow these instructions:
Step 1:
Right click the game in your library and click properties.
Step 2:
Choose the Beta tab.
Step 3:
Type in "hlm" and click "check code".
Step 4:
Choose the Beta branch from the drop down menu and let it download.
Congratulations! You are now in the Beta.
Point System
It's hard to pin down exactly what goes into the points, so if you know more than me or I talk nonsense on here, feel free to correct me. This is simply what I have noticed when I tried to find out exactly what goes into it.
Not too much to explain here, this is simply the score you get for how you kill your enemies.
The points you get differ based on the weapons you use. Firearms usually give the least points, so if you can, always try to do unarmed kills since those give you points for the knockdown AND the kill. For me the most viable strategy always was knocking down an enemy unarmed (trying very hard not to knock him against a wall) and then taking him out with a melee weapon while he is on the ground. Ground kills with melee weapons give 1000 points, as opposed to the usual 600 points you get for unarmed ground kills, but I will go into more detail with strategies later.
Uncommon weapons also give more points, the best example being the drill you get if you use the Carl Mask. A ground kill with the drill gives 1100 points as opposed to the usual 1000 (used to be even more, but it got patched).
When I first got this game I thought you get more points when you get detected rarely, boy was I wrong. Boldness is one of the most important factors of getting high scores and this is how it works.
Basically, the more people see you when you do something, the more points you will get.
Examples:If you knock down an enemy unarmed and he does not see you, you get 600 points.
If you knock down an enemy unarmed and he does see you, you get 1000 points.
If you knock down an enemy unarmed and he does see you while a different enemy is chasing you, you get 1400 points.
And so on.
So as you can see, getting the attention of a lot of enemies before knocking them down is good, you just have to look out which enemies see you, you can easily survive an enemy with a melee weapon charging at you, but if you get the attention of enemies with firearms and you don't have cover, it won't end well.
Arguably the most important factor of getting high scores. That's also why
this guy
is represented in the masks used on top leaderboard scores so often.
Combos are pretty straightforward so I will not explain every detail of the general concept.
But here are a couple of facts some people don't seem to realize:
The longer the combo is, the more points you get. Getting one 12 combo gives you more than getting two 6 combos.
Combos carry over floors if you are fast enough, so if you get the last kill on floor 1 and then proceed to floor 2 and kill someone fast enough you can string the combo through it.
Knockdowns extend combo times, if your combo is about to run out and you knock down an enemy whether by throwing something, doors or just unarmed, it gets extended by a little. Not as much as killing someone though.
Knocking down an enemy a second time or knocking down an unarmed enemy does NOT extend the combo. I think it's not wrong to say that you generally always extend your combo if you receive points for something you did.
This also is very straightforward. The faster you finish the level, the more points you get.
The only thing that I did not realize when I started was that the time runs all the time.
After you choose a mask the time starts running and doesnt stop until you get back into the car. That means it also runs when you finish a floor and proceed to the next one, and it also runs when you already killed everything and are on your way back to the car.
It does not run through different lives though, when you die it gets reset to what it was when you entered the current floor.
I don't know exactly which factors play into this. I do know that one factor (possibly the only one too) is your choice of weapons. If you use the same weapon throughout the entire level you will get a low score, if you constantly change your weapons (even if it's just reskins or different versions of the same weapon) you will get more points here.
This is the one I believe to know the least about. I did numerous runs to try and find out what this is and what I noticed is that the points you get for this probably mainly have to do with how you move around. I think if you move around a lot instead of standing still and waiting for opportunities you get more points.
Strategies
Here I'll talk a bit about strategies and tips I found useful when trying to get high scores on the leaderboard.
It's very important that you take every opportunity for points you get, so in shorter levels you should try your hardest to keep the combo going through the entire level. In later and longer levels this gets pretty much impossible. Because of the focus on combos, you should use the Zack mask in most cases.
If you do not have Zack yet, you should probably go back to playing and come back when you do have him and are trying to get a good rank on the leaderboards. If you are just looking for a relatively easy way to get A+ on most maps, read the Don Juan Strategy which I will come to later on.
Back to what I consider to be a pretty viable strategy.
Most of the times you should go unarmed, because as I already said before, you get twice the points if you first knock down an enemy and then finish him on the ground.
If you did knock down an enemy and there is a melee weapon nearby, take it and finish him off with that, it gives you 400 extra points.
If there is the chance of knocking someone over with a door and getting back to him later, do it, door knockdowns and regular knockdowns are separate. So if you knock him down with the door and wait for him to stand up and pick up a weapon again and then knock him down unarmed, you will still receive the points for the knockdown and the ground kill.
Try to always at least get seen by the enemy you are attacking, it gives you 400 extra points, if possible get seen by more, but don't go out of your way to do it unless it seems easily doable.
Memorize where the enemies are and plan a route which you can try again and again, it's much easier if you have a goal in mind than if you just keep randomizing every time.
If you get stuck on a single obstacle which breaks your combo too early or gets you killed too frequently, restart and try again, some enemies have randomized weapons so it could get more convenient if you restart.
Don Juan Strategy
What I've seen a couple of people doing is using the Don Juan mask which seemed pointless to me. I asked a friend and he pointed out that doing wallkills with Don Juan gives you almost 4 times the points (2200 instead of 600) than if you do it with any other mask. This is also stated on the Don Juan Mask Hotline Miami Wiki Page[hotline-miami.wikia.com] .
So without much effort or focus on combos you can get A+ easily on most maps, it gets a bit more complicated in later levels. If you use this strategy you have to rely on chance a lot, not always do enemies land on the wall correctly so they get into the wallkill position.
Outro
I hope you got some use out of this and I helped you improve your scores, if you feel like I shouldhave mentioned something that I did not, please post a comment.
Of course, any sort of feedback is also greatly appreciated since this is my first guide.
Thanks for reading.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=161855564
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