Escort Missions

[JJ Styles]

As says in the label, escort missions are gameplay sections where you have to defend an NPC from harm against enemies until said NPC reaches the safe point. Obviously if the NPC dies during said mission, you lose and have to restart.

Escort missions are typically found in certain First Person Shooters, Third Person action games, flight simulators such as Ace Combat and Colony Wars (oh dear god, Colony Wars and their escort missions...), Real Time Strategy games, and even some RPGs.

How do you feel about escort missions? Do you like them for that purpose of feeling heroic or hate them because you don't like worrying about some braindead NPC from killing itself while you're busy navigating through the map while rippin-n-tearin your enemies.

Discuss ladies and grunts.

 

[pkmin3033]

I'm going to put this as delicately as I can:

Fuck escort missions.

I have never played a game where having an AI that you need to keep alive for the duration of the missions is a good thing. NEVER. In SRPGs at least, you can box the idiots in so that they don't move and get themselves killed - provided they're not on the opposite side of the map, which they usually are - but these things are always more of a hindrance than a help. They're always substantially weaker than you are, have no concept of strategy and tactics, and enemies are drawn to them. It's like the game is conspiring to get you to stop playing it. It's worked sometimes.

Escort missions usually stop me in my tracks in games for a while. The idol escort mission in Resonance of Fate was sheer hell, and that game was difficult enough to begin with the first time around. Resident Evil 4 was one giant crappy escort mission. The Warriors games have a fondness for making you defend useless random generals and not telling you where on the map they are.

So, yeah. To reiterate: fuck escort missions.

 

[JJ Styles]

I'm going to put this as delicately as I can:

**** escort missions.
Escort missions usually stop me in my tracks in games for a while. The idol escort mission in Resonance of Fate was sheer hell, and that game was difficult enough to begin with the first time around. Resident Evil 4 was one giant crappy escort mission. The Warriors games have a fondness for making you defend useless random generals and not telling you where on the map they are.

So, yeah. To reiterate: **** escort missions.

Ahh the good ol times from the older Warriors games where you could just play the Kingdom or Faction leader and just screw with the defeat conditions. All of the plot related ploys failed? Morale reduced to zero? But I'm the main commander so **** you defeat conditions!

I also beckon you were never fond of those "escort the carriages" either, which i share my humble opinion with = **** carriage missions. I still remember rage inducing moments from DW4 and Guan Yu's escape... (Xiahou Dun with commander stats comes forth, you reduce him to red HP, he uses his true musou, destroys the carriage. Defeat. True story)

 

[Judge Mandolore Shepard]

I have never liked escort missions in video games. It is really annoying when the one being escorted walks into enemy fire and it causes you to fail.

 

[machomuu]

I'd say I don't like 'em, but Ico was the best escort mission I ever played.

 

[El Héroe Oscuro]

In the first Dead Rising it was such a pain to get people to follow you especially when there were so many zombies around to kill them at any moment.

As Meloetta so delicately put it, fuck escort missions.

 

[JJ Styles]

And I almost thought that we hated escort missions because it interrupted our bloodbaths. I always had that theory but yeah, most of the time, Escort Missions are rarely executed well to be enjoyable unless its escorting an ally NPC who is 5x more powerful than you are.

At least in some RTS games, escort missions are a little better like those in Warcraft 3 where you have a variety of units, also thank god for War3's amazing AI pathing. You almost never fail a microfest unless you misplay or misclick yourself and the escort missions there are at least fun.

I remember having nightmares of Daikatana when i first played it on PC....

 

[Killua]

Some multiplayer missions are cool but yeah in single player, fuck escort missions.

 

[Necrum]

I know quite a few people who hate escort missions, but I personally never felt that way. For me it seems like it's sometimes a good way to break up the gameplay with something new to worry about besides just your own health bar. Yeah, if the AI is remarkably bad then it can become tedious, and a dev certainly should never rely too heavily on the mission type, but I think escorts get a bad rep mostly because of that handful of really annoying games that do escort poorly.

 

[EC]

There are some excellent escort missions in Far Cry Primal. Have to escort fellow tribesmen to another location, and along the way you get ambushed by rival tribes, and sometimes even wild animals.

 

[Prairie]

I absolutely hate escort missions. Missions dependent on protecting some AI-controlled NPC are just so annoying, especially when the AI is stupid enough to jump into enemy fire or get stuck running into a wall. Don't even get me started when they stand close to something explosive...

I just want to get through the stage, not babysit some toddler. .-.

 

[Khawill]

Can we just remember that The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite are both escort mission games that were pretty amazing?