Is it possible to fix escort missions?

[Doomguide2005]

On 5/22/2024 at 2:28 PM, kelika2 said:

Villains can get Forced Hand

We, my friends and I on Live, always wanted a "Burlap Sack" power.  Knock them out throw them in the sack and leave.

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

On 5/22/2024 at 12:28 PM, kelika2 said:

Villains can get Forced Hand

We, my friends and I on Live, always wanted a "Burlap Sack" power.  Knock them out throw them in the sack and leave.

I always wished my MMs could assign pets to escort NPCs. Both to shield them from ambushes and to make them keep moving to the exit without me having to worry about the NPC getting stuck on a corner, some stairs, or a flat, open, empty hallway.

[Herotu]

On 5/21/2024 at 11:16 AM, Triumphant said:

I agree.  A character with superspeed (superman, flash, whatever), would just pick the person up and zip them to the entrance, for example. 

That certainly sounds super-heroic.

[gameboy1234]

On 5/22/2024 at 11:28 AM, kelika2 said:

Villains can get Forced Hand

 

I'd like to clock them in the head and then drag their floppy rag-doll bodies to the door, no "following" at all, they just stick right to me.

 

 

On 5/22/2024 at 10:34 AM, ThatGuyCDude said:

I think this is a great idea.  A few extra buffs would help it a lot.

Held Hand: While within 10 (20?) feet of the Hero/Villain rescuing/kidnapping, this NPC has

 

For blue side, I wouldn't mind seeing something like either a "princess carry" for all non-combat npcs, or a hand-hold where it's literally the NPC attached to your avatar so they just go where you go, like you're playing ICO.  As a trade off/game mechanic, maybe you can't use attack powers while holding hands?  And the "hold hands" option is a right click menu anyone can pick, as long as the NPC isn't holding someone else's hand.

 

 

[ThatGuyCDude]

1 hour ago, gameboy1234 said:

For blue side, I wouldn't mind seeing something like either a "princess carry" for all non-combat npcs, or a hand-hold where it's literally the NPC attached to your avatar so they just go where you go, like you're playing ICO.  As a trade off/game mechanic, maybe you can't use attack powers while holding hands?  And the "hold hands" option is a right click menu anyone can pick, as long as the NPC isn't holding someone else's hand.

Yeah, that's what I was going for with the +Speed and +Hover; I basically want the NPC glued to the player as if they were carrying them in their arms.  The speed bonus in that range would need to be high enough to keep them stacked on the player even if they're using their own travel powers to sprint out of the instance.  Unfortunately, I fear that combat-viable NPCs would use the speed bonus to fling themselves into the walls every time they 'see' something to attack... I'm not sure how much inertia is programmed into the game and if the small radius would be enough to stop them.

And to clarify, I don't think it needs to be a blueside-only mechanism: villains carry off their victims too.

Edited May 25, 2024 by ThatGuyCDude

[AmbiguousOmen]

On 5/22/2024 at 2:19 AM, RikOz said:

Mr. Yin. That guy is fast, and sticks with you. Figure out what makes him work, and apply it to all the others!

 

And yet, he's unable to see you if you're running any stealth powers. Did the arc yesterday and had to turn off Steamy Mist.

[AmbiguousOmen]

edit: double post, sorry

Edited May 26, 2024 by AmbiguousOmen
double post

[Greycat]

3 minutes ago, AmbiguousOmen said:

 

And yet, he's unable to see you if you're running any stealth powers. Did the arc yesterday and had to turn off Steamy Mist.

 

This post was running steamy mist, I think. 😉

[Seed22]

On 5/22/2024 at 3:01 PM, Greycat said:

You assume there were people in the zones...

 

You must have not played on Freedom

[OverkillEngine]

Hell if a perception boost isn't workable, I'd even take a temp power that's only good for the escort mission that forcibly teleports the mission npc to within 5 ft of my current loc. Give it a cooldown and/or limited number of charges or something.

As it is, if I know a mission is going to be an escort mission, I tend to do literally any other content possible or just autocomplete the mission.

 

For the people whose experience would be ruined by not having to suffer through these, I'm sure we can get a GoFundMe together to ship them some bamboo splinters to shove under their nails as substitute "content".

[Luminara]

[Calculator]

This is probably a one-off fluke with missing trial data, but...

 

I was in a radio rescue mish with a MM using 'Steamy Mist' and ran into the 'hostage running off through walls' issue. (- before I learned about the stealth issue...)

 

I spent a good 20 minutes trying to 'capture' the npc as he would run off as soon as he spawned off of the elevator.

 

I was about to give up..but, decided to give it one more try - going back to the original hostage location.

 

When coming down, I decided to click the elevator with the exit waypoint rather than the one I had been using.

 

Sure enough, the hostage spawned and followed me..at least until I got too far ahead again...

 

EDIT: I haven't run into this issue again just yet..but, I'll definitely try to capture some more data then next time I do.

Edited May 28, 2024 by Calculator

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, Calculator said:

This is probably a one-off fluke with missing trial data, but...

 

I was in a radio rescue mish with a MM using 'Steamy Mist' and ran into the 'hostage running off through walls' issue. (- before I learned about the stealth issue...)

 

I spent a good 20 minutes trying to 'capture' the npc as he would run off as soon as he spawned off of the elevator.

 

I was about to give up..but, decided to give it one more try - going back to the original hostage location.

 

When coming down, I decided to click the elevator with the exit waypoint rather than the one I had been using.

 

Sure enough, the hostage spawned and followed me..at least until I got too far ahead again...

 

EDIT: I haven't run into this issue again just yet..but, I'll definitely try to capture some more data then next time I do.

Choice of elevator shouldn't matter. It never has in my experience.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

On 5/21/2024 at 12:13 PM, Arcanum said:

Same.

 

Actually this used to be possible.

TP friend now renamed TP target used to work on NPC's  

we were able to TP hostages to the designated location as long as we kept them targeted so,

This is totally possible.

It would require an unerf, a denerf, antinerf (shrug)

I dunno the exact term.

[lemming]

8 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

Actually this used to be possible.

TP friend now renamed TP target used to work on NPC's  

we were able to TP hostages to the designated location as long as we kept them targeted so,

This is totally possible.

It would require an unerf, a denerf, antinerf (shrug)

I dunno the exact term.

Nope. Works exactly the same as before.  Some hostages were able to be teleported, and some were not.

Some work with ATT, some do not.

 

Dr Todd is one of the more popular ones that ATT works with.   

 

Generally, if they engage in combat, they can be teleported, but it's not an always.

[Zombra]

Y'all, every PC has a Walk power.  Just take a stroll with your rescue to the exit.  They'll appreciate it and they won't get lost.

Edited January 5 by Zombra

[Rudra]

14 minutes ago, Zombra said:

Y'all, every PC has a Walk power.  Just take a stroll with your rescue to the exit.  They'll appreciate it.

And even using Walk, NPCs can get lost following the PCs. Especially at stairs and ramps. I've even lost Akarist while using Walk over open terrain (in the Shadow Shard instance mission map) while standing within his normal follow range waiting for him to move past whatever non-existent obstacle was holding him up. (After a while, he just stopped trying and said he lost me.)

[Snarky]

On 5/20/2024 at 10:38 PM, FreakazoidRobot said:

I'm getting to the later levels of the Ghost Widow questline as a Villain, and the frequent kidnap missions are just cancer. If you aren't far enough ahead, the NPC doesn't move. If you go to far, they stop moving. It's just a snail's pace of pointless annoyance. To make it worse, I'm a mastermind and my minions block and hide them so I can't see where they are in all the tunnels. And then  the NPC just ran away through a wall, apparently because there's a hidden rule that I have to kill everything before I guide him out. Beyond infuriating. I don't know if the people working on this game are able and willing to change this, but it is THE thing I dislike the most about this game. I don't care if it breaks immersion or whatever, it's not fun and I want the NPC's to have longer tethers and move faster. The way it is now is incredibly unfun. Thanks for listening to my rant.

i too believe the Rogue Isles should improve escort services and provide this to Blue and Gold areas as well.

[srmalloy]

6 hours ago, Rudra said:

And even using Walk, NPCs can get lost following the PCs. Especially at stairs and ramps. I've even lost Akarist while using Walk over open terrain

And this is one aspect that I still snicker about, one of the few things that SWTOR did better than CoH -- I've had rescue missions where I had to bring the rescued NPC back to a specific location, and I would be able to just hop on my speeder bike and zoom off; the game would always pump the NPC full of whatever the universe's equivalent of hypermeth was, because they'd be running along behind me, fully keeping up with me on my speeder bike. It was pretty humorous at times to see them running frantically to keep up.

[lemming]

And this thread needs to be updated after Mark & Recall was released.  Which so far has worked with every hostage I've tried it on

[srmalloy]

I had the "blindfolded escort" cancer just now -- the "Out of the Corner of your Eye" alignment tip mission, where I had to rescue two rogue PPD officers... and they would drop out of follow if I got more than 30 feet from them (I had them targeted, so I could see where it happened); at 30 feet away, they would 'lose sight' of me... in a twenty-foot wide corridor with a clear line of sight from them to me, and I have no movement or stealth powers active. A seemingly endless cycle of 'back up ten feet, wait for them to decide to move, then wait until they close to nine feet, rinse and repeat'. I don't care if it's handled in game by a graphic of your closing a collar around their necks and attaching a leash, losing sight of you at thirty feet is utterly broken.

[DoctorDitko]

On 5/21/2024 at 12:14 PM, tidge said:

it takes very little for a player to have a base movement increase that can completely outpace an NPC even with all travel toggles off.

This!

Even a modest set bonus to movement can make escorts a nightmare!

[Zombra]

Although I think Walk is a "good enough" fix to deal with this problem, I admit I would really love a "Human Speed" or "Jog" power that simply disables all speed bonuses, whether from +speed powers like Swift or set bonuses ... and that's it.  Doesn't disable any powers, doesn't slow movement speed way down like Walk does, doesn't change your animations like Walk does, just allows you to move at the normal running speed of a level 1 character back on live.

[golstat2003]

On 5/21/2024 at 9:45 AM, Shin Magmus said:

    The scientists will FAIL TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO WALK UP A RAMP AND ACROSS A BRIDGE, and proceed to fall off 5 times in a row no matter how you position yourself or how slowly you move.  It was insane, especially because that ramp/bridge combo is MANDATORY for completion of the quest.  I genuinely don't know how anyone did this on live while being attacked by other players simultaneously.

 

it's cause the pvp zones were empty on live most of the time. lol

 

that's the only reason why it was doable at all. After experiencing the herrendous AI on the scientists, I just stopped pretending that warburg nukes exist.

 

Once Judgement arrived, I assume so did many other folks as the need for them diminished.

[golstat2003]

On 5/21/2024 at 10:03 AM, Neogumbercules said:

I would assume it involves manually tweaking these rescue missions to count as complete as soon as the rescue is complete, or as soon as X number of ambush waves are defeated. In missions where you have to lead an NPC to another asset like a computer terminal, tweak these so the NPC teleports to you when you arrive at the location. 

 

I would be completely in support of this, even though it sounds like it would take a lot of effort, or just be a band-aid solution to some bigger problem like maybe the mission design process and toolset internally is just jacked to begin with, so even doing something like what we're suggesting in this thread would require a redesign to the internal tools. Beats me, but yeah, escort missions are trash.

 

Yeah just completing the mission as soon as you beat the mobs around them to me would be a good first step, if they can't fix the herrendous pathing AI.