Escort Missions Suck

[KSarty]

Escort missions were even worse back in the days that space sims were popular. You would always be escorting a huge, slow and weak transport by yourself against entire squadrons of enemies. The problem with space sims is that its more difficult to just stay with the ship your escorting because of the speed difference, so you end up doing circles around it. Inevitably the enemies would always appear on the far side of the transport from you.

For example Starlancer had a mission where you were supposed to escort your torpedo bombers to an enemy installation so that they could take it out. You jump in first and boost ahead to take out anti-air turrets and any fighters, then you can call in the bombers. The problem is that they jump in back where you originally jumped in, and they are immediately followed by an enemy gunship jumping in behind them, already in weapons range. So you have to haul ass back to them to take out the gunship as fast as possible, and you might even have to fly in front of the gunships weapons to save the bombers.

 

[Magus44]

I think the problem I experience most with escorts is when they charge straight into enemies, no matter what happens.
ICO and RE4, like people have said, were good escorts. But WOW escorts, etc. Has anyone played Spartan:Total war? Now THAT game had some seriously stupid escort quests.
Awesome premise, massive battle and Greek mythology, but it was one long escort quest.

 

[Aardvark]

The earliest escort quest memory I have is the Pete the Puppy level in Earthworm Jim. Now that was an awesome escort mission. You start shooting, he stops moving and ducks, he jumps obstacles when you whip him and he doesn't die, just turns into a slavering, evil monstrosity and proceeds to brutalise you, then return to his previous cutsey form and skip merrily about his way.

Though I never did have the cojones to take the advanced route.

 

[Chickenlittle]

CoD 4 actually had some really impressive team AI. The whole game was basically an extended "follow" variation of the escort mission, but it worked extremely well.

I still wish someone would invent team AI that understands fucking field of fire, though. I'm shooting at someone. If you walk in front of my gun, that someone will be you. Don't so it. Just don't do it.

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

Escorting does suck. That's why your bosses always make you do it.

 

[corporate_gamer]

i enjoyed the mission in san andreas where you had to escort that blind Yakuza guy, it had all the normal flaws of an escort mission, but these were handily explain away as the guy was blind. That with the GTA humour made for an enjoyable escort mission. All others i have encountered suck.

 

[Brokkr]

I hated it in Oblivion when I recieved help from an NPC in a Dungeon. All they did was die too fast and get in the way of my sword. I always ended up hitting them as often as the bad guys.

This isn't an escort mission, but in Fallout 3, I found Dogmeat. However, I always leave him at my house becuase he is so frail that he usually dies in a fight before I even get a chance to do anything. I stopped playing with him ater about 20 minutes when I had to constantly reload the game just to save his life.

 

[The Youth Counselor]

COD4 actually had an interesting escort and stealth mission in a lone wolf action game.

Solider of Fortune and Half-Life: Blue Shift also did escort parts pretty well.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

Escort missions can work well as long as the character you're excorting has some ability of itself to aid you or defend itself. Banon in Final Fantasy VI for example had the ability to heal himself and your whole party for example. Your partners in the Earth and Wind temples of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker could be annoying at times, but had a lot of usefull abilities and allowed for interesting puzzles, although it's debatable wheter you can call those escort missions.

One example that really sucked was escorting the parts of Shadow in Tales of Symphonia (overall a fantastic game, by the way). Even though they couldn't get hurt one of them would always stay behind and lose you and get stuck somewhere. Quite a shame, since this problem could easily be solved with a simple pathfinding alogrithm and by making them a little faster.

 

[TheBarefootBandit]

There a nuisance.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Some good, but mostly bad. The common denominator in Escort Missions seems to be poor AI with no instinct for self-preservation. When you just rework the AI for the enemy NPCs into something that doesn't shoot at you, frustration ensues. I remember Natalya well, and Rafa from Final Fantasy Tactics made the Riovanes Rooftop mission almost as hard as the one before it. If they can't make an escortee's AI more flexible, then at least consider the context and have them behave accordingly.

Of the few good ones I've seen, Dr. Carol in Perfect Dark comes to mind. Since he had strong shields and stayed a good distance behind you, it hardly felt like an Escort at all. The only way he could die is if you shot him by accident. Furthermore, once you'd cleared the way and gotten to the end the game automatically considered the mission completed without waiting for him to catch up. Elvis was more vulnerable but still held his own, only ever dying to melee or explosions.

As demonstrated in any number of vehicular combat games such as Rogue Squadron, stationary targets are easier to protect, and it feels like less of an escort that way. If you're protecting a building, it's not going to jump in the way of your guns or attack something it can't handle. I would say any Escort mission would be manageable if the escortee was slowed down to a snail's pace, but sped up to meet you at the exit once all threats were eliminated.

EDIT: Oh, and Banon in FFVI was okay until Ultros, given that the squid had a hidden timer after which he would ONE-SHOT him (it's after he says 'You frighten me!').

 

[nondescript]

I like the remark about emotional investment in the NPC to improve escort quests. One of the best examples I know is the Escape from Durnholde quest/instance in WoW. No matter how much fail you have, I've never seen anyone blame Thrall. Why? Because it's THRALL!!! No NPC in WoW has more support (though Jaina is close).

There was, way back, a game called "Beyond Zork." There was no escort quest (this was a text-based game), but there was an NPC-type animal Minx that you picked up to complete the game. At one time playing the game, I tried a stunt that killed the animal, and discovered I was actually sad this imaginary, text-based animal was dead. Somehow the little furball had become endearing, even lovable.

That's what makes good NPC's, and would make NPC escorts more likable. If they could move escort NPC's from "aw man, not one of these" into "don't die on me, Jimmy!"

 

[duchaked]

*sees title...nods head*

would it still be an escort mission of the escortee would defend him/herself to some extent? not nearly as powerful as the main character thus needing escorting but...ya nvm I'm tired of just thinking about these missions haha

(not a great example, but my thoughts went to Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2...or 3...idk Rebel Strike where all I heard was DEFEND THE MEDICAL FRIGATE!)