Would anyone like to see “Escort / Bodyguard” events?

Morvak

Maybe a certain king or queen has to travel to someplace and your job is to tag a long and fight off enemies.

Could be a solo thing or for multiple people, like a roaming Dolmen event.

Wish there were more random, organic type of events instead of everything being so static and stationary…

Ippokrates

Well, I have play many different games and one I know for sure: There is no worst type of quest than an escort mission ^^

tripp

Only if the escortee is invincible and travels at the speed of light.

Sylvermynx

Yeah, escort stuff is the pits. The only way it would work (for me personally) is if the damned escortee MUST follow the character - which is unlikely to be something that would happen. My choice with something like that is always to sneak around and NOT aggro everything in the zone - but of course that's never what happens....

stewhead2ub17_ESO

Hard pass.

Hurbster

Just imagine I posted the 'no' .gif from the Office.

AcadianPaladin

There certainly are some interesting possibilities. We have loads and loads of 'kill this' missions. And my healer and tank happily do them. But I'd love to see some 'support' role missions as well. Few things frustrate me more than when my healer gets asked to go fetch ingredients so some alchemist can make 'poultices' to help the injured. How about giving me the option of directly healing those injured since my occupation is healer. How about support missions where you are asked to escort a glass cannon wannabe adventurer - where either a healer or tank can protect them while they do the damage? Who knows, such missions and tweaks might even get more folks interested in the lesser-chosen roles of tank and healer.

tomofhyrule

DarcyMardin

No thanks. The escort quests in other games drove me crazy (why do they always walk so slowly??).

AcadianPaladin

I guess I envision them a little closer to the existing in quest escort tasks. They follow you, they take their pacing from you. The big difference I'd like to see is that when combat comes, they put out reasonable damage but are squishy and can die if you don't pull foes away from them or heal them.

phaneub17_ESO

Only if the Escort lets me dictate the speed and direction otherwise its just a major pain having to follow the npc around, they get out of range, or constantly resets back to their starting point after each fight. There's a couple in ESO like the Queen in Auridon, gladly its a short delve area. I don't know anyone who enjoys these kind of quests as they can be huge wastes of time if they bug out.

Kiralyn2000

This week on "Worst RPG Feature Deathmatch":

Escort quests vs. Under-water zones


Fight!

VaranisArano

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I guess I envision them a little closer to the existing in quest escort tasks. They follow you, they take their pacing from you. The big difference I'd like to see is that when combat comes, they put out reasonable damage but are squishy and can die if you don't pull foes away from them or heal them.

So, basically, if you don't equip a taunt or have skills that provide group healing, you're screwed?

Hmm, I main a tank in groupfinder, but I don't use a taunt in Overland content and my DK doean't usually equip group heals either. I'd have to pull a resto staff out of the bank if I wanted to heal on some of my characters. Consider my Stam Sorc, who's a dungeon DD and has a bunch of self-heals. Do I need to remorph Vigor just for this type of escort mission content?

Sorry, this doesn't sound like my cup of tea.



Also, I'm likewise reminded of the quest in Morrowind: "Viatrix, the Annoying Pilgrim" in which you have two days to escort a Pilgrim to the Ghostgate Shrine for a very meager reward.

While all of the quest journal entries are gold, one of the ending options seems to best sum up my feelings on escort missions:

"Unfortunately, Viatrix Petilia has come to a bad end, and will never make it to Ghostgate. I wish I could feel worse about her death, but I really don't."

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Viatrix,_The_Annoying_Pilgrim

whitecrow

No, I hated these types of assignments in other games.

bmnoble

So long as they are invincible and follow the player like any NPC ally we usually get in quests and move at a decent pace then maybe if not hard pass.

I really hate escort quests they are second only to forced stealth missions where if your seen you fail.

redspecter23

Escort quests are the worst quest types in nearly every game I've ever seen them in. I'm extremely happy that ESO has essentially ignored them completely.

Hapexamendios

Worst Missions Ever

Ratzkifal

It definitely depends on how it's handled. If it's a payload escort mode for Battlegrounds or something, sure. If it's a difficult PvE challenge but the thing that needs to be escorted won't stray from the path or try to fight enemies on their own (especially when they clearly shouldn't), then that would be fine too.

What I don't want to see is some noble NPC attack every hostile on the way, stray off the path and dying as soon as they get hit by a light breeze.

Escort missions can be fun. They just need to be properly made. Too many people have already been traumatized by badly made ones.

Sephyr

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

This week on "Worst RPG Feature Deathmatch":

Escort quests vs. Under-water zones


Fight!

Guild Wars 2 has both at the same time and it's a nightmare.

What_In_Tarnation

sharquez

while i would hate an actual escort quest I woudn't mind a payload style gamemode for bgs or more attack defend oriented modes with rounds or something.

AcadianPaladin

@VaranisArano , heh, I'm just trying to throw a bone out there for healers and tanks that gives them a chance to flex their talents for a change since we play in such a dps-centric world. For the type of missions I proposed, a dd is not screwed. They can simply explode anything and everything that gets near their charge - like they always do.

Gythral

Fastest way too lose me - more snail paced quests...

fizl101

Do you want to escort Eugene?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug-DZM2bhmo

VaranisArano

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

@VaranisArano , heh, I'm just trying to throw a bone out there for healers and tanks that gives them a chance to flex their talents for a change since we play in such a dps-centric world. For the type of missions I proposed, a dd is not screwed. They can simply explode anything and everything that gets near their charge - like they always do.

Unfortunately, in practice, it means there's only one type of mission where that benefits tank/healer players, while running counter to how you normally play overland content. I find it frustrating when the parameters of combat suddenly change to different goals. If I want to keep an ally alive, I'll play my healer in group content. It feels rotten to be like "99% of overland content you can do on whatever build you like, but for this escort mission you need a taunt, group heals, or the DPS to kill mobs really fast."

New players won't do amazing DPS, probably won't have a taunt, and may not have much in the way of heals to share with an NPC. For that matter, lots of players don't have this - consider players who don't run group content with DPS checks where you have to kill certain mobs. ZOS has content like that...but it's mostly content designed for groups like the Anka-ra spawns in Craglorn or the Harrowstorms.

(I have a similar frusttration with throwing a sudden stealth-based no-kill mission at my decidedly non-stealthy MagDK who doesn't like to kill innocents. ZOS does this in Morrowind and Murkmire, and it's really frustrating.)


The only "escort mission" I enjoy in ESO is Scroll Captures in Cyrodiil. Its an extremely fast paced, usually lengthy dash across much of Cyrodiil, running and fighting our way through enemy flankers. Technically, we're escorting the scroll runner, but they aren't slow and helpless - quite the opposite, usually - and we have plenty of allies around to make it an engaging battle. Finally, it's optional. If someone doesn't want to escort the scroll, they don't miss out on the rewards if we're successful.

whitecrow

redspecter23 wrote: »

Escort quests are the worst quest types in nearly every game I've ever seen them in. I'm extremely happy that ESO has essentially ignored them completely.

Well, there are those times when you have to hold off attackers while an NPC completes a task, but I don't believe they are actually in any danger, it's more for atmosphere.

KovalskyNestor

Only if it involves khajiit that has moon sugar inside its belly

Fikkan

Escorts?

The game is gonna start offering escorts?

Huh. I need to get to grinding gold.

Danikat

We do have some quests like that. Rites of the Queen in Audidon for example has you protecting Ayrenn (who will fight of course) as she goes through a tomb. Then there's various quests where you have an NPC following you because they need to get somewhere, but often they don't fight and they stay behind you.

As other people have said it's usually ok as long as they're either invulnerable or stay out of combat (or both). But when your success depends on a companion's AI it can be extremely frustrating.

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

There certainly are some interesting possibilities. We have loads and loads of 'kill this' missions. And my healer and tank happily do them. But I'd love to see some 'support' role missions as well. Few things frustrate me more than when my healer gets asked to go fetch ingredients so some alchemist can make 'poultices' to help the injured. How about giving me the option of directly healing those injured since my occupation is healer. How about support missions where you are asked to escort a glass cannon wannabe adventurer - where either a healer or tank can protect them while they do the damage? Who knows, such missions and tweaks might even get more folks interested in the lesser-chosen roles of tank and healer.

That annoys me as well, when they make a big fuss about needing specific things to treat an injury and I'm thinking "I have 4 or 5 spells already equipped which could do it in seconds". Sometimes they justify it by saying it's an unusual magical wound or posion or something, but not always. I suppose there's only so many times you can have a very unusual magical injury whose cure is nearby before it starts to seem absurd.

It's the same with other things, like my dragon knight being told to go and find a torch to start a fire when she can breathe fire on demand. Or all the people who assume that in spite of being both a master antiquarian and the arch-mage of the Mages Guild my character's only interest in ancient artefacts and locations is what they can sell for gold.

They've recently made some small steps towards the game recognising who your character is and what they've done - some NPCs have different dialogue if you've met them before and very occasionally one will change based on your race or if you're a vampire or something. It would be nice to see that expanded to recognising their abilities when they're relevant.

moo_2021

tripp wrote: »

Only if the escortee is invincible and travels at the speed of light.

Or if he can be healed

Elvenheart

No no no…my favorite game of all time City of Heroes had these awful escort missions through twisty caves. Those were the ones I learned to always avoid when I had a choice. I still have flashbacks <shudders>