Rescuing NPCs

[Ukase]

This just happened - and it's probably my fault for being in a rush. In Serpent Drummer's arc, there's an npc to rescue from the Ritki in Portal Corp. I'm on a blaster, I see the Adept on his knees, blast the intimidating figure away - and am attacked by another nearby Ritki - so having killed the initial Ritki, I move on the the other and clear the map. Still one more adept to rescue. 

I revisit in the right side portal corp building - clear. Roofs, clear. Parking lot, clear. Back areas behind the buildings, clear. Nothing but Vanguard around. 

I look, and look. And after about 8 minutes, I just happen to come across that same guy in his knees. Still. Despite having killed the intimidating Ritki that was "holding" him. When I got next to him, then he stood up and mission completed. 

I have no idea what the code looks like. Even if I had a copy of it that I could look at, I'd have no idea (or desire) to look through all the code to find it - but is there a way to have rescued npc's recognize they're rescued when the captor's are defeated, as opposed to having them defeated and being next to them? 

I mean, I have low expectations for something like this - it's not a bug - but just thought I'd ask. 

[Razor Cure]

That mission is SO hard to actually complete. Drummer has a few actually..the warehouse one with Nem, and the cave map, also nems. The aoes from Fakes and exploding Warhulks kill the hostages a LOT.

[ninja surprise]

It's the same in the Yin TF, rescuing the city council members, you can taunt and defeat all the Freakshow without rescuing anyone until you stand right next to them.

[Razor Cure]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

I look, and look. And after about 8 minutes, I just happen to come across that same guy in his knees. Still. Despite having killed the intimidating Ritki that was "holding" him. When I got next to him, then he stood up and mission completed. 

Every hostage in the game works that way. You have to get near them, to trigger the rescue.

[Ukase]

4 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Every hostage in the game works that way. You have to get near them, to trigger the rescue.

Thus, the reason for my post. Playing melee, I don't notice it, as I'm already right there. On my blaster, not so much. 

[Rathulfr]

And heaven help you if you have Stealth turned on for the minor defense bonus. 😒 

 

Hostage: "Rathstar! Where did you go?"

 

Me:  "I'm right here, you moron!"  😡 

 

Edited October 20, 2019 by Rathulfr

[srmalloy]

13 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

Every hostage in the game works that way. You have to get near them, to trigger the rescue.

And it's useful to have it this way in some missions. For example, the low-level "Rescue the Missing Homeless People" mission, where you go down into the sewers and fight Lost to rescue three civilian NPCs, almost always has an ambush or two associated with it when you're leading the hostages out. After playing with the circumstances, it appears that the 'front' hostage (the one closest to the mission entrance) is the trigger for the ambush(es). If you are careful and stay away from the hostages, pulling their captors away from them to defeat them without getting within "rescue range" of the hostage, you can defeat the captors and clear the room, then proceed deeper into the mission and do the same for the other hostages. Then, once you've cleared out the Lost, you sweep past each hostage in turn, 'freeing' them to follow you, and can either make it to the entrance before the ambush(es) appear, or duck to the side in a room and watch each ambush thunder past you on its way to the back of the mission, then head for the entrance unopposed.

[Call Me Awesome]

1 hour ago, srmalloy said:

And it's useful to have it this way in some missions. For example, the low-level "Rescue the Missing Homeless People" mission, where you go down into the sewers and fight Lost to rescue three civilian NPCs, almost always has an ambush or two associated with it when you're leading the hostages out. After playing with the circumstances, it appears that the 'front' hostage (the one closest to the mission entrance) is the trigger for the ambush(es). If you are careful and stay away from the hostages, pulling their captors away from them to defeat them without getting within "rescue range" of the hostage, you can defeat the captors and clear the room, then proceed deeper into the mission and do the same for the other hostages. Then, once you've cleared out the Lost, you sweep past each hostage in turn, 'freeing' them to follow you, and can either make it to the entrance before the ambush(es) appear, or duck to the side in a room and watch each ambush thunder past you on its way to the back of the mission, then head for the entrance unopposed.

Oh, how much I hate any "lead out" mission.  They're prime choices to drop or auto complete.

[Soulstinger]

I would love for all Hostages to be given stealth vision. They already rubber-band like mad and having them drop escort-status repeatedly is incredibly frustrating.

[Marine X]

What's worse are ones that can't rescue themselves, then act like they are Unbeatable,

Three names sum it up:

 

Fusionette

Waylon McCrane

Doc Delilah

[tidge]

On 10/20/2019 at 1:32 PM, Soulstinger said:

I would love for all Hostages to be given stealth vision. They already rubber-band like mad and having them drop escort-status repeatedly is incredibly frustrating.

Amen. I had some rubber-banding in a mission where I could not get the hostage to go through the elevators (this was the 'rescue the Protector' hero mission). I felt like I needed the equivalent of a /stuck command for the NPC... as a Mastermind, I certainly would appreciate such a command for my pets! Even Gravity's Singularity finds a way to get stuck in the darndest places!

 

I'd also appreciate if the hostages were slightly quicker. It doesn't matter if I have an IO for speed in the Fitness pool, or a global boost to movement rate from IO sets, the inability for civilians to keep up (or for the player to decrease speed, without resorting to Walk) is PAINFUL.

[RikOz]

On 10/21/2019 at 12:26 PM, Marine X said:

What's worse are ones that can't rescue themselves, then act like they are Unbeatable,

Three names sum it up:

 

Fusionette

Waylon McCrane

Doc Delilah

Don't forget Overdrive, who appears in blueside alignment missions! She's always flying up into the middle of enemies up on catwalks or higher levels of a room. If she happens to be somewhere behind me when she does this, I don't see where she went, and usually only realize she's gotten herself killed after I've moved on to the next area and finally notice she's not following.

 

Then there's No Mind, our introduction to sidekicks in part 3 of the Shining Stars arc. "I cannot damage [these Praetorian Clockwork] by myself!", he says, right before he charges into the next room and runs around slapping every clockwork in there, and promptly dying. The last time I did that mission, I deliberately set my notoriety to -1 to see if that would help me to keep him alive past the first room, but no luck. He literally runs from group to group until he's aggro'd the entire room, and at that point there's nothing I can do to save him.

 

Or Grym, in the mission right before. He's not smart enough to move out of the AOE fire (the Hellions in there seem to use a variant of Fire Blast's "Burn" power), and he usually ends up "too wounded to continue" after the first spawn. Although I mentioned something about this in another thread, and the last time I did that mission he survived all the way to the end. That's when I realized I hadn't seen the Hellions use that Burn power. I don't know if the devs removed the Burn, or if I simply managed to defeat the enemies before they could use it. Though I was on a Sonic blaster, and I can't believe I managed to out-DPS every single enemy before they could use that power.

[Shadowsleuth]

On 10/21/2019 at 3:26 PM, Marine X said:

What's worse are ones that can't rescue themselves, then act like they are Unbeatable,

Three names sum it up:

 

Fusionette

Waylon McCrane

Doc Delilah

 

Flambeaux from Twinshot's arc should be on that list too.

 

Lady Jane from Montague Castanella's arc is fairly suicidical as well.

[Cutter]

WM Dietrich in Levantera's arc has a deathwish. "What, an enemy standing right in front of me?? Let me just fly halfway into this massive room full of other enemies so I can turn around and get a good shot at the enemy who is standing right in front of me!!"

[Lost Ninja]

Perhaps make NPCs that need escorting into MM style pets with a goto/wait/follow command (on the pet window). Would also work for NPCs that are combat focused like Lady Grey. Would make them much easier to protect.

[EmmySky]

No 'lead out' on these but I am especially fond of the homeless people I go rescue (low lol mish) and they thank me then run farther into the building.  Dumb.

Edited October 29, 2019 by EmmySky

[MetaVileTerror]

They're just looking for a warm place to sleep!

[RikOz]

I laugh when a hostage I've rescued tries to escape by squeezing between me and the next guy I'm trading blows with.

[GladDog]

On 10/19/2019 at 11:20 PM, Rathulfr said:

And heaven help you if you have Stealth turned on for the minor defense bonus. 😒 

 

Hostage: "Rathstar! Where did you go?"

 

Me:  "I'm right here, you moron!"  😡 

 

My main is a Dark/ Dark Scrapper, and it is normal to run with Cloak of Darkness on.  Stealth, + def, + perception, +res immobilize.  It is really annoying to have to turn off one of your primary advantages to get the hostage to the door.