Leading the hostage out of the mission

[Display Name]

During a mission I was on today where we led the hostage out, one person made the comment that they wished "x" power increased the Perception of the hostage to allow them to see the person they were locked onto.  I thought it was an interesting suggestion.

[biostem]

4 minutes ago, Display Name said:

During a mission I was on today where we led the hostage out, one person made the comment that they wished "x" power increased the Perception of the hostage to allow them to see the person they were locked onto.  I thought it was an interesting suggestion.

It's one of those sticking points that really need addressing;  For the most part, those hostages are invincible, so just have it where you only need to free them from their captors then make it back to the exit safely, or give them much much higher perception to see through player stealth.

[Haijinx]

Make them faster, too

[Outrider_01]

Increasing perception would allow it to be stealthed.  Point of the ambush is to slow down the player.  Not sure if the hostage cowers and stops, Incarnate players just ROLF stomp hostage missions.  When its rescued, you can get out in about a minute and don't need to run at max speed; all you got to do is run in short bursts so they catch up.

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, Outrider_01 said:

Increasing perception would allow it to be stealthed.  Point of the ambush is to slow down the player.  Not sure if the hostage cowers and stops, Incarnate players just ROLF stomp hostage missions.  When its rescued, you can get out in about a minute and don't need to run at max speed; all you got to do is run in short bursts so they catch up.

 

Increasing perception would keep from hobbling Stalkers and Illusion players. And half the time the ambushes see through stealth anyway. (I seem to recall running into three types of ambushes back on live - the ones that home in on you no matter what, the ones that go to the location you were at and the ones - which i think are more of a subset of the second - which go to the location you *are* but don't see through stealth.)

 

If you're worried about stealthing, have live enemies in some range override your "rescue" so you have to fight them. *shrug*

[Oubliette_Red]

This would be at the top of my list for an overhaul. Update all the escorts missions to rescues and have them fade out or escape under their own power like newer content does.

[Parabola]

I could get behind giving hostages much improved perception so they can follow even a hidden stalker. The mechanic of leading them to the door through ambushes isn't my favourite thing in the world but at least it's variety. The pain of it is them losing track all the time.

[Roderick]

There are already NPCs you have to rescue that use something more like the pet AI; even if you try to ditch them, they'll try to catch up to you, even from halfway across the city.

 

However, if you boost make it so that non-combat hostages have can follow a stealthed character, you end up with situations where the guards don't see the PC and just ignore the escaping hostage running past them. You also end up with situations where the NPC ends up latched onto a PC that isn't heading for the target location, like when Sister Solaris grabs the tank that's trying to control aggro, and not one of the seven other people trying to lead her to the pedestal.

 

A better solution, in my opinion, would be to give them a power similar to the [Positioning] power used by certain Cabal and Longbow.  The PC leading them gets knocked out of stealth, so that the NPC can follow them, without forcing the player to detoggle, but they can still get out of range to transfer the NPC to a different player if necessary.

 

And if there isn't a reason for the NPCs to be slow (like the Tip mission where the hostage is injured, so they go at walking speed and can't fight), please speed them up. Nothing was changed with escort NPCs when the Fitness pool was made inherent, so now, even if you turn off all your toggles, you still go fast enough to constantly drop the average hostage.

[SeraphimKensai]

Teleportable NPC escorts. Like Katie Hannon and Dr. Todd.

[quixoteprog]

I'm cool with some missions forcing you to lead the hostage to the exit. In fact I think it would be cool to have them be vulnerable to attack, the way some mission NPCs are. It would need to be a special class of escort mission, though. Not the norm. One CLEARLY MARKED as special where you NEED to read the briefing if you want to succeed. Like in some timed missions where it warns you there will be a time limit.

 

In this case it would be CLEARLY spelled out in the mission briefing that the hostage would be vulnerable and the bad guys would try to kill them. If you DID succeed, however, you would get a much bigger XP/INF. bonus. Because it would be very difficult, and probably frustrating for some people. And harder for some ATs than others. But as long as it was optional, people could ignore it if they don't want to do it.

 

There is at least one mission in RWZ where you have to be careful not to meet any of the patrols; which are all drones so having stealth does not help in avoiding them. If you aggro any patrol you trigger repeated attacks by bosses and will eventually fail the mission. I think because you aggro a named mob you are not supposed to kill. The most frustrating aspect of that mission for ME is that it is not clearly spelled out that this mission is different from the other 99% of those you go on where what is written in the briefing is just flavor text you can ignore or read if you want.

[Grouchybeast]

4 hours ago, quixoteprog said:

I'm cool with some missions forcing you to lead the hostage to the exit. In fact I think it would be cool to have them be vulnerable to attack, the way some mission NPCs are. It would need to be a special class of escort mission, though. Not the norm. One CLEARLY MARKED as special where you NEED to read the briefing if you want to succeed. Like in some timed missions where it warns you there will be a time limit.

 

In this case it would be CLEARLY spelled out in the mission briefing that the hostage would be vulnerable and the bad guys would try to kill them. If you DID succeed, however, you would get a much bigger XP/INF. bonus. Because it would be very difficult, and probably frustrating for some people. And harder for some ATs than others. But as long as it was optional, people could ignore it if they don't want to do it.

 

There is at least one mission in RWZ where you have to be careful not to meet any of the patrols; which are all drones so having stealth does not help in avoiding them. If you aggro any patrol you trigger repeated attacks by bosses and will eventually fail the mission. I think because you aggro a named mob you are not supposed to kill. The most frustrating aspect of that mission for ME is that it is not clearly spelled out that this mission is different from the other 99% of those you go on where what is written in the briefing is just flavor text you can ignore or read if you want.

There's already a mission in the Lady Grey TF that fails if both the rescued hostages die.  Of course, since it just finishes the mission early and lets you move on to the next one with no penalty, that isn't so much a failure as a short-cut...

[Sailboat]

I'm always amused when the hostage runs into my Hurricane without ill effect to thank me, but moments later can't find me because of my Steamy Mist.

[Lines]

20 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

There's already a mission in the Lady Grey TF that fails if both the rescued hostages die.  Of course, since it just finishes the mission early and lets you move on to the next one with no penalty, that isn't so much a failure as a short-cut...

I think this has been changed to just advance the objective if the hostages die. RIP the old speedrun strat.

[KelvinKole]

I'd like to see the rescue mechanic changed so that rather than a lead out objective, the ambushes spawn at your location for 2-3 waves. A lot of people just avoid rescue missions when running radio missions because defeats and glowies are faster. I think a couple waves of ambushes at the hostage would level things out. 

Edited January 15, 2020 by KelvinKole

[biostem]

19 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

Increasing perception would allow it to be stealthed.  Point of the ambush is to slow down the player.  Not sure if the hostage cowers and stops, Incarnate players just ROLF stomp hostage missions.  When its rescued, you can get out in about a minute and don't need to run at max speed; all you got to do is run in short bursts so they catch up.

Except that if you have abilities to conceal yourself and your allies/the hostage, why shouldn't you be able to take advantage of them to aid in getting said hostage out?

[Display Name]

Maybe.  I think the point made earlier that hostages are "normal" and preserving them is part of the fun is a very valid point.  Stealth and tp doesn't make good brag... er, I mean "storytelling!"

[Gulbasaur]

On 1/15/2020 at 11:52 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

Teleportable NPC escorts. Like Katie Hannon and Dr. Todd.

I am 80% certain more escorts were teleportable back in the early early game, but I can't find any evidence of this. 

[Display Name]

So after carefully reading a couple of replies, I've concluded that it's really not necessary to change the hostage rescues except to:

 

1) add features that prevent or discourage the "click-and-go" habit most players have when there is an unusual hostage situations (ie: hostages are defeatable, etc)

 

2) increase variety for how hostages are handled.  Maybe even make it configurable when you talk to the contact.  Hostages could be set to fade-on-contact, teleportable, and/or defeatable.

 

3) Make no changes to the hostage's perception because they're "normals" anyway.