Re: Game mechanics do you like?

On Mon, 17 Feb 2025 20:10:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 15:15 this Thursday (GMT):

On Wed, 15 Jan 2025 11:54:30 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>

On Mon, 13 Jan 2025 16:14:39 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>

Escort quests can be fun.

>
No. NO! Bad Spalls, BAD! (*reaches for rolled up newspaper*)

>
I know, I know. We've all had bad experiences. But that's just because
those escort quests are badly done.
>
But if they're done well, they're fun!
>
I mean, "The Last of Us" and "Enslaved: Odyssey to the West" are
basically both extended escort quests. The 2008 "Prince of Persia"
(which is a lot better than most people remember) is another.
>
The key is to not make the escortee so fucking useless and vulnerable
as to squeeze all the fun out of the experience. If they are
vulnerable, don't have them rush into combat. Give them good
pathfinding so you aren't backtracking to get them unstuck. Make it so
the player, not the escortee, is determining the pace and direction of
the adventure. Give the escortee something to do other than simply
whine at the player.
>
All this takes effort and creativity. But if done well, it works
great. The NPC feels like a real companion, and not just a load that
must be moved from point A to point B.

>
>
Hm.. the only game where I kinda? liked escort missions was PMD, since
you had the safety net of a billion get-out-of-jail-free revive seeds.

PMD? Pokemon Mystery Dungeon? Purple Monkey Dishwasher?

In general, they're pretty terrible though. /ESPECIALLY/ if the
checkpoints are sparse.

Whenever I think of bad escort missions, "Daikatana" always comes to
mind; that was some bad AI. Worse, technically your AI partners are
supposed to be escorting YOU, but you had to babysit them because if
they died it was automatic mission failure. Most players just parked
them at the start of the map, ran the gauntlets without them, and then
whistled them home once you reached the exit door. The idiots were
worthless in a firefight but relatively clever when it came to
pathfinding.

After that, the various Bethesda open-world RPGs spring to mind. They
AI wasn't nearly as worthless (if only because the developers usually
turned on the 'immortal' flag for the escortee to keep them from an
untimely --and usually totally avoidable-- death) but the missions
were just TEDIOUS. The AI struggled with pathfinding, and never moved
at a reasonable pace; they'd usually walk slower than the player,
insisted on a very langorous pace. And then the reward for your effort
was usually incredibly paltry; you'd escort them across half the world
and they'd reward you with a magic sword that was less powerful than
what you already had.

Rule number one of an escort quest: don't be a burden to a player. And
if you are a burden, reward the player appropriately.