Why are escort mechanics hated?

[Ovplain]

Fucking WoW... when I played that game, I started as a Night Elf and I still remember cursing my head off to 'The Absent Minded Prospector'. People saying Shit WoW escort quests cause future anxiety regarding other escort quests in other quests definitely have a point!

 

[Metro]

For me they suck because in most games the AI to be escorted is either totally passive or has only one style of attack. If you're playing a game that allows for multiple character builds this can be problematic. Example: you play a stealth based character but the AI you escort can't stealth causing you to openly fight a ton of things you're not necessarily built to fight. Most other drawbacks have been covered: slow moving npcs, terrible pathing, poor combat AI, etc.

 

[Neanderthal]

Sacred had a pretty good mechanic in that it dint care how you got NPC to his destination, so if you'd opened up portals then you could not bother wi going along path just hop in portal wi em an bobs your uncle, fannys your aunt, you were there an rewarded. In general though if they're gonna do escort quest, or workin wi any NPC, then they should gi you control of em just like your companions an not half arse it. Remember that siege thing in that Dragon Age game, at that village, everybody runnin forward into fuckin fire like lemmings, dipshits made fight artificially difficult.

 

[Metro]

With a little effort you could fix some issues with escort quests and make them more engaging. IE, make it multi-staged with scouting, planning an escape route, preparing, etc. Program multiple potential escape paths -- maybe you find some leave or shit to disguise the guy. Maybe you sabotage some widgets that distract guards. Maybe you can reprogram/hijack a rocket/catapult at the top of a tower to launch the escort npc to safety.

WoW is the most famous example for annoying escort quests because after a decade they still rely on the same shitty paradigms: collect X items on the ground, collect X items from corpses, kill X monsters, escort Y, kill A/B/C named npcs, etc.

 

[Fowyr]

Escort mission - the game.

 

[Riskbreaker]

- Dragon's Dogma has a few main story escorts IIRC.

Eh, I'm playing thru Dragon's Dogma right now, and I finished one such quest that had me worried about encountering its more crappy version at some future point. It suffered from at least two problems that were mentioned in here: it was extremely slow, and AI lacked common sense - wagon you're escorting will continue to move forward even when monsters are spotted at some distance ahead of it.
At least it was easy, since opposition would appear from only one direction so it was enough to just run forward and slay everything you happen upon, but it has me genuinely worried for what may come latter.

 

[Excidium II]

Escort NPCs also have a tendency to walk faster than you walk but run slower than you run. So you are forced to jitter around them like an imbecile because you can't risk getting a few steps away and leaving them undefended.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

What countless Codexers have said - the reason I dislike Escort mechanics is because the mechanic is (almost) always badly coded, the AI dumber than a rock and often runs counter to the game's basic design.

That said...

Escort quests have a shit reputation due to their incredibly shitty implementation in very popular MMOs - see WoW.

These things have been long since fixed but the memory causes angst still.

I didn't need to play any MMO to loathe escort missions - they've sucked since 1994.

Syndicate: American Revolt has an escort mission where you have to escort an unarmed civilian through a warfare scenario - a game where heavily modified cybernetic agents fight each other using heavy weaponry. Escorting a wimpy little pile of flesh in a suit is like juggling a snowball through hell.

Privateer had an escort mission that put me off the game, and various Codexers can tell you about the pleasures of escort missions in the X-Wing/TIE Fighter games.

And how have many games "fixed" escort missions nowadays? By having YOU being the escorted one, the weaker entity. How many times did the Gothic/Risen games pull that stunt, where your companion proceeds to murder everything that as much as looked at you the wrong way while you strolled along a path to some destination? (Count yourself lucky if the game awarded you XP for the kills.)

THEN THERE'S THIS BITCH.

Getting her killed is actually a challenge in and of itself.

 

[JarlFrank]

And how have many games "fixed" escort missions nowadays? By having YOU being the escorted one, the weaker entity. How many times did the Gothic/Risen games pull that stunt, where your companion proceeds to murder everything that as much as looked at you the wrong way while you strolled along a path to some destination? (Count yourself lucky if the game awarded you XP for the kills.)

I actually liked those. They were mostly a "yeah I'm gonna lead you to the place, and if anything comes nearby that could fuck you up, I help you out cause you're too weak on your own lol" affair because in the Gothics, you are too weak on your own in the beginning.

And as far as I remember, if you have someone escort you in one of those quests, all kills he makes give you XP. It was exploitable as fuck.

 

[Carrion]

THEN THERE'S THIS BITCH.

Alyx is actually tolerable as an escort because

1) she has excellent pathfinding, not just following a predetermined route but not getting stuck in the terrain either
2) she moves at the right speed, and you don't have to worry about leaving her too far behind
3) you won't have to babysit her, but you can't let her do all of the killing for you either as she's not all that powerful and can get killed if abandoned.

Of course, she's mostly there to provide some variety, give exposition and show off the game's great facial animations, and it's debatable whether you can classify her as an escort to begin with.

But yeah, like many people have mentioned, poor pathfinding, godawful AI, bugginess and general randomness are the main reasons escort missions tend to suck. It's just fucking terrible to try to escort a weak noblewoman across some hellishly dangerous wastes and then find out that she runs off to beat a bear/troll/deathclaw/cliffracer to death with her bare fists, or that she can't jump over even the smallest rock and gets permanently stuck in every hill that you're trying to climb. The option to say "Follow me" and "Stay here" usually helps things a lot, but it also tends to slow things down to a crawl, which makes the whole thing tedious and often nullifies the only aspect that makes escort missions different from every other mission, which is the need to protect another character from harm.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Fug]

NPC's with bad AI, or the dreaded 'moves faster than your walking speed but slower than your running speed' mechanic, are two of the main reasons people hate escorts I would imagine.

 

[Scroo]

- mm6 and princess ironfist. I really liked that one. 1st time I did it I took a rest near castle

Spoiler

she dissapeared and I had no idea where. Castle was closed. I went to nearest dungeon to find out that there was a scheme to kidnap her. I was destroying all the thieves hideouts just to learn that she is safe with a circus. I think I found prince of thieves sooner than her

All in all escort is limited to going from A to B with a companion, yet its still enjoyable

Sorry for nitpicking but I have to correct this else I cannot sleep tonight But the princess in M&M VI is actually a prince (nicolai ironfist)

Phew that needed to be said

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Fug]

- mm6 and princess ironfist. I really liked that one. 1st time I did it I took a rest near castle

Spoiler

she dissapeared and I had no idea where. Castle was closed. I went to nearest dungeon to find out that there was a scheme to kidnap her. I was destroying all the thieves hideouts just to learn that she is safe with a circus. I think I found prince of thieves sooner than her

All in all escort is limited to going from A to B with a companion, yet its still enjoyable

Sorry for nitpicking but I have to correct this else I cannot sleep tonight But the princess in M&M VI is actually a prince (nicolai ironfist)

Phew that needed to be said

Oh my god... my whole life was a lie!

All I remembered was that she look like a girl

Heh, he looks like a blue-haired SJW.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

There have been good movies made with the "escort" theme, but that's because there it's a lot more psychological, the conflict between the two parties for example. In games, with their simplistic AI, escort quests are like having to carry some item somewhere, except that this item walks on its own (as opposed to comfortably staying in your bag), at an annoyingly slow pace, gets stuck on terrain, does really stupid shit during fighting, and when you get close to bringing it to your destination, you just KNOW there will be 30-40 bad guys jumping out of some hole in the ground to "surprise" attack you and your walking paraphernalia.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Syndicate: American Revolt has an escort mission where you have to escort an unarmed civilian through a warfare scenario - a game where heavily modified cybernetic agents fight each other using heavy weaponry. Escorting a wimpy little pile of flesh in a suit is like juggling a snowball through hell.

Mission from the base game in Argentina was just an aperitif compared to this.



Talking about some bad escort experiences.

Damn you Ashley!

 

[NullFlow]

There's nothing inherently wrong with an escort mission as long as the pathing is functional, the level design is accommodating, the AI is smart and responsive, and they don't drag on longer than necessary. Problem is, a good deal of escort missions do not give you these elements, which is incredibly frustrating when combined with barely any control over the objective. In the aforementioned case of AoM as an example, you have control over the objective to be escorted, so the factor to blame is primarily the player, which is fine.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Vagiel]

Why not? You payed her you can do it in any position you like!

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

 

[shihonage]

Thank you for your thoughts, everyone. This has been very helpful.

(goes on to design a game that is one big escort quest)

 

[Cyberarmy]

Fucking WoW... when I played that game, I started as a Night Elf and I still remember cursing my head off to 'The Absent Minded Prospector'. People saying Shit WoW escort quests cause future anxiety regarding other escort quests in other quests definitely have a point!

Nothing can top that quest where we try to escort a turtle from middle of Tanaris to nearst coast...
And I tried it with a resto druid...

 

[Metro]

Actually that one wasn't so bad because, from what I recall, he would actually follow you versus take a random path of his own. At the very least you could try to avoid shit.

 

[pippin]

All the npcs that ask me to escort them in Tales of MajEyal die brutally.

 

[adrix89]

I fucking love escort quests.

In Gothic when I had my ass escorted it changed my whole gaming experience.

In Dragon's Dogma having to protect someone or something can spice things up. Outside of the Caravan Mission you also have normal escort mission and if you don't us portal you can have a fun challenge where you have to evaluate your encounters and your path to the destination as well as run the fuck away when a mini boss appears.

It has already been reiterated a number of times why "The Escort Mission" can fail miserably if badly designed. But lets also talk about what good escort missions can bring to the table.

The escorts are a weakness but that weakness can be made interesting from the usual unstoppable supper efficient bulldozer party players make.

Escort missions should have a right balance and giving the players too much control can just be just as bad in making the mission a glorified fetch quest.