Ability to Teleport Escorts

[Tailcoat]

I think the ideal solution would be to speed up those many, many excruciatingly slow escorts that force you to go no faster than to shuffle ahead a few feet every few seconds (I hate them so, so much!! If this is done to ensure the player runs into ambushes, why not make more and/or faster ambushes?), but since that hasn't been done, I assume there may be a technical problem preventing such an irritating thing from being fixed?

 

If that's the case, would it be possible to at least enable Teleport Other to work on such NPCs like it does on enemies and teammates? Then a player with teleport could run ahead and periodically beam the snail-like escort to their side so it isn't so horribly aggravating and un-fun. 

[Psyonico]

I believe the reason is actually so you can't just farm them by stealthing to the end, rescuing the hostage, stealthing to the exit, and TPing them.  I know there are times when NPCs have been made to not be able to be teleported to prevent this exact scenario from happening (I'm looking at you Amy in the KHTF)

[Replacement]

You know how players have the option to decline teleports?

 

What if NPCs had a similar mechanism, where they only accept TPs from any source they are aware of, i.e., the player they are currently following?

 

That would let you drag them forward about 30 yards at a time, but get too far ahead and they say "no thank you."

Edited July 15, 2021 by Replacement

[SwitchFade]

Sorry, no vote.

[srmalloy]

How many people have taken advantage of Assemble The Team to short-circuit the escort part of the 'Rescue Dr. Todd' mission in the Moonfire TF? Being able to teleport an escorted hostage is already supported for one teleport power; extending the ability to Teleport Other would just make things consistent.

[Psyonico]

31 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

How many people have taken advantage of Assemble The Team to short-circuit the escort part of the 'Rescue Dr. Todd' mission in the Moonfire TF? Being able to teleport an escorted hostage is already supported for one teleport power; extending the ability to Teleport Other would just make things consistent.

Dr. Todd is different because she's an Ally, not just an NPC.  If you try to Assemble the Team in a random hostage mission, you'll get your team with no hostage.

 

If you could keep her selected, you could use Teleport Target on Dr. Todd.

[Coyotedancer]

I say we allow it... On any map with stairs.

Especially the newer, Praetorian-style lab maps.

NPCs just do NOT handle those things well. 

 

 

 

Edited July 15, 2021 by Coyotedancer

[lemming]

35 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

How many people have taken advantage of Assemble The Team to short-circuit the escort part of the 'Rescue Dr. Todd' mission in the Moonfire TF? Being able to teleport an escorted hostage is already supported for one teleport power; extending the ability to Teleport Other would just make things consistent.

Using this as an example:

Dr. Todd is crazy aggressive and tries to kill herself and the rest of the team.

Amy ignores everyone, so no danger in failing the mission.

Desdemona, TP might screw the entire trial.

 

I think consistency might be a better fix.  Maybe limiting range on TP so you can still get them out of stuck areas, but not from one end of the mission to another.

Having the ones that fight be more controllable perhaps.

At least knowing which is before time might be nice.

[Uun]

20 hours ago, srmalloy said:

How many people have taken advantage of Assemble The Team to short-circuit the escort part of the 'Rescue Dr. Todd' mission in the Moonfire TF? Being able to teleport an escorted hostage is already supported for one teleport power; extending the ability to Teleport Other would just make things consistent.

Dr. Todd is suicidal and attacks anything in sight. It's very easy to fail that mission if you have to fight through all the ambushes back to the door. There are a number of other hostage missions with similar designs where the hostage has a death wish (C'Kelkah in Bodyguard badge mission, Lady Grey in Gassian's arc, General Aarons in Serpent Drummer's arc). You really need to jump through hoops to keep the hostage out of combat or you're going to fail. 

[Greycat]

I wouldn't argue with the idea, but it would still have to be selective on which NPCs allow it.

 

Yes, I'm thinking in part of ambushes, but also thinking of one specific scenario involving "rescues" that this would basically break - namely, Warburg. Now, granted, there's not a *lot* of PVP there, or any other zone, these days for the most part, but they're both part of the goal and "reward" of fighting - steal them, lead them to the goal, get code fragment.  Being able to save them, run off and just TP them would cheese this horribly.

 

*That* said, I don't think the suggestion higher up of the sight range, teleport 30 yards or so, would hurt that. It'd help overall (and if you think stairs on normal rescues are bad... hoo boy. Stairs, ramp, PVP zone, staring at an NPC that's supposedly a highly trained scientist unable to figure out "up the ramp" is just an adventure in *fun.*) That, I think, would be a good compromise to help fix bad NPC pathfinding.

[srmalloy]

21 hours ago, Uun said:

are a number of other hostage missions with similar designs where the hostage has a death wish...

Lady Jane in the "Gather intelligence" mission from Montague Castaneda; my SOP for that mission is to craft a Grant Invisibility buff in my base, skate past the spawn where she's being held captive, and clear the map to the glowie, then go back and rescue her, so she won't decide to suicide on the way there. I haven't had to rescue General Aarons on a melee character yet on HC; the ranged characters just stay stealthed, go around him, and rescue him after the other goals are completed.