Why are escort mechanics hated?

[shihonage]

Is it because there's one player who has to fend off multiple attack vectors, thus making your protectee's survival too reliant on chance?

Is it because there's usually a linear path involved where protectee has to travel, thus making the whole quest linear?

It just seems both of those problems can be worked around. And plot-wise, "Terminator" was essentially "Escort Quest: The Movie", and it was not by any means dull.

 

[Infinitron]

If what you're implying is that the "Escort Quests Suck" conventional wisdom is secretly a casual/popamole complaint from people who aren't good enough to defend their escortees, then I agree to an extent.

However, there's something to be said about a game throwing in a mechanic that it's not really well-suited for. If 99% of your game is spent controlling just yourself and the game is designed for that, suddenly having to take into account an additional character with no way to control him effectively might not work very well. But since you're a fan of Fallout's paradigm of party management (or lack thereof), I can see why that rationale might be less convincing to you.

 

[Somberlain]

I think escort quests are hated because in most games bad AI and bad pathfinding force you to constantly wait for and babysit the character you are supposed to escort.

 

[tormund]

Because babysitting often suicidal AI is anything but fun... It would be more bearable if you were at least able to issue some basic commands to AI you're escorting, which is almost never the case with escort missions.
So, when you fail in escort mission, you often feel like that was the result of AIs failings and not your lack of skill... Difficulty that is created by something that is completely out of your control.

 

[Gord]

Depends a bit on the game (and its genre) for me.
But usually it's a combination of

• AI and/or pathing issues
  
• restricted gameplay/limited player freedom
  
• boredom, be it due to abysmally slow movement speed of the NPC unit you have to escort or simply uninteresting design of the quest/mission, which seems to happen more often in escort missions.

 

[Cyberarmy]

-Bad AI
-Bad pathfinding
-Mostly bugged

 

[Naveen]

Because almost all escort missions are a mockery of what a game is about: control and freedom. Everything that happens is out of your control, and every action you have to do is secondary to what a virtual character with a death wish is doing. There is no connection between failing and your skills, and you may fail an escort mission just because the npc is an idiot. Failing an escort mission feels like an arbitrary punishment, and it hardly ever teaches you anything about what you did wrong. It's simply not fun.

A well-done escort missions would be like the one in Styx: Master of Shadows. The npc stays quite and moves from cover to cover when you give him the order; if they see him and kill him, it's because you made a mistake.

 

[Mr. Pink]

I like escort missions in single player RTS scenarios. One that comes to mind is the level where you have to bring the body parts of Osiris in a wagon to the city in age of mythology.

Command and Conquer had some challenging escort missions as well

 

[bylam]

Escort quests have a shit reputation due to their incredibly shitty implementation in very popular MMOs - see WoW.

These things have been long since fixed but the memory causes angst still.

 

[V_K]

I'd also add that the dynamic just feels wrong: the bodyguard profession implies that you are expendable, while your protectee is not - while in a game it's the other way around.

 

[Major Malfunction]

Agree with all the mechanical reasons, but there are storyfag reasons also. Characters that are so damn important to the story that the game is over if they die are annoying whether or not you have to escort them or simply refrain from killing them yourself. Totally kills immersion, for one, but also puts the player character in a second tier position, from being a primary world-shaping agent to a cog in a machine. If the entire world hinges on some talking head delivering his line or pressing a button at a certain stage, due to lazy writing, time or budget constraints, whatever, then putting that actor in the line of fire is next level idiocy -- this goes for reoccurring bosses as well, you know, the ones you dominate for half an hour only to have them enter cut-scene mode and shrug off all the damage and flip you the bird.

So, basically, I don't feel frustrated about escort mechanics in Dead Rising for instance, even though the games suffer from the same mechanical flaws in that respect such as shoddy AI, because I'm not protecting John Connor and it's up to me whether to involve myself or not. I'm more frustrated about the African kids in Phantom Pain that are so goddamn precious that if one of them dies, ever, in any context outside of a scripted cutscene, you might as well dismantle Mother Base and kill yourself, even though I've never actually failed in this objective.

 

[Riskbreaker]

However, there's something to be said about a game throwing in a mechanic that it's not really well-suited for. If 99% of your game is spent controlling just yourself and the game is designed for that, suddenly having to take into account an additional character with no way to control him effectively might not work very well.

Aye, this is a thing too. They are almost comparable to forced stealth sections in fast-paced FPS/TPS games that are completely devoid of anything resembling properly developed stealth mechanics.

 

[Norfleet]

Escort missions are annoying as hell when the escortee displays uncontrollable, suicidal tendencies, rushing forwards into areas that are dangerous, often in the middle of a current, ongoing fight. This is pretty much the #1 example of the hated "escort mission". Missions in which you have to protect a unit that moves according to YOUR commands, regardless of whether the unit is otherwise defenseless, are not even considered to be in the category of "escort missions". The "escortee on rails" is what creates the hated escort mission.

It does not help at all when the escorte also moves at some kind of bizarre, unnatural pace, which is faster than your own character's "slow" movement rate, yet slower than your character's regular movement rate, meaning you are ALWAYS either too slow or too fast.

The hated escort mission thus essentially falls the category of timed missions, many of which are also disliked, except that in this case, the timer isn't explicit or logical, making it even more annoying.

I like escort missions in single player RTS scenarios. One that comes to mind is the level where you have to bring the body parts of Osiris in a wagon to the city in age of mythology.

Command and Conquer had some challenging escort missions as well

Did you control the wagon, or was the wagon on rails, constantly driving itself into danger? If you controlled the wagon completely, it ceases to be an escort mission anymore.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Well, its like this -
Imagine trying to baby sit someone for about 10-20 minutes, and that someone keeps insisting in either stalling, throwing himself into danger, or being too stupid to protect himself, when he clearly has a gun.
That's why escort missions suck. They are basically turret sequences, but worse because you have to rely on shitty AI.

Also, your terminator example is flawed - it is not a game, there is no fail state that results in the section being repeated (thus resulting in more time wasted), and the protected character isn't a complete idiot.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I like escort missions in single player RTS scenarios. One that comes to mind is the level where you have to bring the body parts of Osiris in a wagon to the city in age of mythology.

Command and Conquer had some challenging escort missions as well

Those are ok. The ones where you can control the VIP is fine, as if you fuck up, its on you.
If the AI fucks up, you're screwed, as you have no control over it, meaning that you can't fix the problem.

 

[Major Malfunction]

Considering how the saga turned out, protecting or letting John Connor die was Bioware level of c&c anyway.

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

Did you control the wagon, or was the wagon on rails, constantly driving itself into danger? If you controlled the wagon completely, it ceases to be an escort mission anymore.

Then what the fuck do call it when you can command the helpless escort?

 

[Major Malfunction]

I guess if you fold up your Command Center in C&C you have an escort mission on your hands?

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Escort quests have a shit reputation due to their incredibly shitty implementation in very popular MMOs - see WoW.

These things have been long since fixed but the memory causes angst still.

I remember those quests, the escort would always get killed by some guy from the other side.

 

[Norfleet]

Then what the fuck do call it when you can command the helpless escort?

At that point, it's just a regular mission, that nobody talks about, and doesn't get labelled "The Escort Mission". Sure, there's escorting, but it's not The Escort Mission. I mean, do you call every mission in Homeworld an "Escort Mission" because the Mothership Must Survive? Is every mission in Total Annihilation an Escort Mission because the Commander Must Survive? At that point, when you're free to tackle the mission as you please, it ceases to be The Escort Mission and just becomes a regular mission where some pieces are deemed mission critical. It's a defense or escort objective in a larger mission not dominated by the escorting.

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

Sure, there's escorting, but it's not The Escort Mission. I mean, do you call every mission in Homeworld an "Escort Mission" because the Mothership Must Survive?

To be honest i've never played homeworld, so I can't say that it is or not but I do believe that RE4 is Escort Mission: The Game, however it does said escorting pretty well with a few parts being extremely frustrating. The part where you have to use a crank for the stairs in the castle comes to mind. However it does this by making your escort follow directly behind you, ducks and moves out the way when you aim your gun in her direction, has a wait/follow command, and there are safe places where you can just drop her in. Which accordings to your view does not count as a escort mission.

 

[tormund]

These things have been long since fixed but the memory causes angst still.

Would you then care to name some newer games with that kind of escort mission (with uncontrollable AI) that don't suffer from issues that were mentioned in this thread?

 

[markec]

Play Morrowind.

Get an escort mission.

NPC walks at a snails pace.

Anything larger then a fist size rock is unpassable obstacle around which you need to guide him.

Gets killed by a cliff racer in two hits.

Traveling without major problems last 15 minutes, near the end gets stuck in environment, need to reload.

After 40 minutes manage to finish the quest and my reward is 50 gold pieces.

Fuck escort quests.

 

[bylam]

Would you then care to name some newer games with that kind of escort mission (with uncontrollable AI) that don't suffer from issues that were mentioned in this thread?

Newer games with escort quests that I remember being decent.
- Witcher 3 has a couple
- Bioshock infinite is an escort quest
- Dragon's Dogma has a few main story escorts IIRC.

Keep in mind I am not saying people cannot be frustrated by quests where you are protecting something other than yourself. I find any arbitrary "protect the idol" quest irritating because those types of gameplay require a very precise balance to work well and in skill based games that can be pretty difficult.

But the rise of the "escort quests suck" stuff came from WoW and it doesn't happen in MMOs much anymore. Now you force the NPC to follow the player (in AoC (I should say the expansion cause AoC has some fucking awful escort quests in the vanilla content) we used the pet system actually) at their pace and when you reach the right trigger then quest over.

Escort quests were fine in bard's tale when people jumped into your party for a quick stroll, or even in TOEE where you could limit their exposure with careful placement in combat.

I dunno, just seems like a complaint that has been addressed to me.

 

[Scroo]

Escort quests, or: "Hello I am weak and in need of help I am wounded / a young girl / some peasant please help me get where I need safely" 5 minutes later "OH HELLO FORGET WHAT I SAID ABOUT BEING WEAK A GIANT OGRE 500 METRES AWAY FUCK I HATE THIS GUY I WILL CHARGE INTO HIM WITH BARE FISTS LOL"