Missions ending in failure?

[Ultimo]

Tonight, for the third time, a mission ended suddenly in failure.

 

The first time it happened was one of the radio Bank missions (Safeguard?).  I zoned in, located the bank on my map, highlighted it and flew there.  Landed with the message that the bank was being robbed, and clicked the door to go inside.  I took one step, and the mission ended in failure.

 

The second time was another Safeguard mission.  I went in, beat up the first group of guards, then went to the vault and defeated the villain.  I went back up and left the bank, and it ended in failure.

 

Tonight, it was a mission for some guy in Talos, to defuse 5 bombs and not let Officer somebodyorother escape.  I went in (Stalker), scouted the first level without engaging, noted where the bombs were, and saw no sign of Officer whoever.  I went to the elevator, and the mission ended in failure.  I hadn't even clicked on the elevator yet.

 

As with the other two missions, there was no time to do anything.  The first one lasted about 10-20 seconds.  The second was a bit longer, but failed for no discenrable reason.  This third time was about 2 minutes.  How was I to do anything?  I didn't even take the time to fight anything, disable bombs or do anything of that sort.

 

I suspect some kind of bug, but I don't know how to define it.

[ScrewlooseCohh]

I don't think it is a bug, but it is poor programming.

 

The Safeguard missions can fail if one of the robbers gets past you and gets to their exit point.  It shouldn't happen as soon as you enter the Bank, but at high levels the Villains will break the Bank Vault very quickly.

 

There are a few missions which require you to make sure someone doesn't escape.  At some point you will trigger them to try to get away and they should make some sort of exclamation which you should be able to see as NPC text.  What can happen then is that if there is more than one way to get to the exit from where they start and you go one way and they go the other then you can just miss them.

 

There aren't a lot of failable missions, but the ones that are can be annoyingly difficult to succeed in.  

 

I don't think there are any circumstances where "fail"ing a mission has any impact on progression, except that it can end a mission quickly so you don't get to beat up more bad guys, but it can be annoying.

 

regards, Screwloose.

"I am not young enough to know everything."

 

[Coyotedancer]

Once in awhile, on those "don't let X escape" missions, the goon in question will actually spawn behind you... On the second floor, say, while you're on the third. In that case it's really, really easy for them to get out without you realizing it. 

[siolfir]

And I don't know if the bug is still happening or not, but sometimes the "don't let <x> escape" missions has them try to flee immediately when you come into the map instead of when you get close. If you're expecting this, you can try to catch them on the way through the map by blocking choke points, but if you aren't expecting it they can get around you while you're occupied with other mobs.