How do I make a mission do this?

[Chronos]

OK, what I want:  Player meets an NPC (preferably right near the entrance).  Player and NPC together go find a boss.  Beat the boss, and the mission is finished.  If the NPC dies before then, the mission fails.  All of this takes place on an outdoor map.  I know that I can't quite do exactly that, but I want as close an approximation as I can get.

 

I've gotten as far as that the NPC must be an "escort", not an "ally", to impose the fail condition.  But I keep running into problems after that.  First, outdoor maps don't have a "front", so the NPC isn't usually near the entrance.  OK, I can live with that.  Second, though, what do I use as the destination?  If I make the boss itself the destination, then there's the possibility (especially on an outdoor map) that the player will meet and defeat the boss before meeting the NPC.  I tried to fix that by making the boss only appear after the NPC was rescued, but then it gives me a circular dependency error (because the escort has to come after the boss exists, and the boss can't exist until after the escort).

 

So then I tried making an object to be the destination, and have the boss spawn after the player finishes escorting the NPC there.  But if the object is a collectible or destructible, then there's the possibility of the player finding and dealing with it before finding the NPC.  So I tried making it a defendable object with [Empty] attacking it.  But with nothing attacking it, it won't let me make the Defend an Object a required objective, and it won't let me use a non-required objective as a trigger for anything.

 

Plus, there are problems with spawning the boss.  If I make the objective "defeat a boss", then it can spawn anywhere on the map, making the part where I lead the NPC to the object a wild goose chase.  If I make it an ambush, then it spawns nearby, but apparently ambushes aren't ever required objectives, so the player doesn't have to fight.

 

I'm beginning to think I'm going to need to just re-write this part of the story entirely...  Any help?

[cranebump]

Feels like you’d have to make the boss an ally who betrays when the escort is complete. But that wouldn’t get the feel of teaming up to take on a boss. I feel like the problem though is the failed escort aspect. If you want the boss fight, you might just have to drop the escort and make the NPC a straight up ally. 

 

The only other option I can think of is the escort spawns an ambush that includes the boss. So, the boss comes after you instead of the other way around. As you said, though, ambushes are not reuired objectives, so...

 

My advice is to take the path of least resistance. Go with works. Use a different map, if need be.

Edited August 12, 2020 by cranebump

[Chronos]

...And, on thinking about it further, my requirements aren't quite what I thought they were.  The story doesn't actually need the map to be outside; what It needs is for it to be a natural setting.  Which means that I could put it in a cave instead, which means that I have front, middle, and back zones, which means that it's possible to put the escort in the front and the boss in the back after all.  So all I need now is to find a cave map with a small enough "front" zone that the NPC is impossible to miss, and then maybe have a bunch of patrols that spawn as soon as the escort is rescued, to disincentivize rescuing her and abandoning her.

[Ankylosaur]

One small tip that may help on an outdoor map - though it does not seem to work on all maps - is that if you fill all the slots for something it seems like it loads every encounter in the same load order and therefore position things in the same position. Therefore having an ally load in a certain point on a map can be possible but takes a large amount of trial and error. I first stumbled on this on Rularulian in mission 4 where LT Flynn is always in the same spot.  This let me use the mission start pop up to direct you to him. 

[Eva Destruction]

If you use one of the brown cave maps, rather than the blue or yellow caves, the escort will be very hard to miss.  Some of those maps are really linear, and they have a big open cave room in the back.  So you could lead the escort to a bilnky in the back, then chain the boss off that, and they'll spawn in the same room, so players can't really ditch the escort after completing the lead-to.