escort-ees are idiots

[rayultine]

Hey all! Been playing since beta 43, and just donated last weekend. Brilliant game. I'm totally hooked.

One question:
It seems as if the escort missions have become much more difficult since RC2. Are these hapless adventurers purposely even more hapless than ever?

One frustrating new things I have noticed about their AI:
They will run in the opposite direction of a monster until they burrow themselves into a corner. This usually puts them into very unpleasant and unexplored portions of the map, way out of my FOV. If nothing impedes their progress they will run VERY far away from their initial location and usually get themselves died. This doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. Wouldn't it be better if they had some sort of reasonable leash distance from the backside of the player?

graphically,
X = monster
E = possible locations of escorted NPC
P = player

E
E
E P X
E
E

Something parabolic in nature, instead of the "flee in complete terror, then when a specific monster is dead, resume suicidal bee line towards portal" behavior they exhibit currently.

Another thing that irks me is that the NPCs flee from stationary monsters in the exact same manner. It would be cool if they had different behavior based on an immobile monster versus one that moves versus a monster with ranged attacks.

[rayultine]

sorry to double post, but obviously my little graphic didn't work. sorry!

[SageAcrin]

Escorts do indeed seem to have acquired an...interesting lack of target forgetfulness since the AI changes, and while a lot of the other AI behaviors that were introduced then have been improved, that hasn't.

It probably needs to be improved on-if nothing else, it makes no sense that they'd know that an enemy you killed 85 squares away is dead. But I'm not sure how.

[supermini]

It probably needs to be improved on-if nothing else, it makes no sense that they'd know that an enemy you killed 85 squares away is dead. But I'm not sure how.

If they can't see it, it shouldn't bother them.

[valby]

I kinda like that they are so helpless and do silly things. People who are scared just do dumb things. It forces you to think and keeps the game fresh.

It would be a shame if the escorts weren't idiots, and you could do the escort missions with little to no risk of actually getting them killed.

The only annoyance I personally have is the escorts mob-awareness. It really should be toned down, or give an indication if you ask the escort where the mob was last seen. At the present state it's accountable for most - if not all - of my escorts deaths.

I wouldnt mind a (one-time) timed leech called Come with me if you wanna live. It could be activated by talking to the escort like the wait command.

[overgoat]

I'm still just happy they don't charge into melee with every monster on screen anymore. I'll take some friendly fire over that any day!

[rayultine]

I kinda like that they are so helpless and do silly things. People who are scared just do dumb things. It forces you to think and keeps the game fresh.

I somewhat agree. These NPCs should not quit their day jobs. But people who are scared don't run a half mile in the opposite direction of someone who is powerful and has sworn to protect them! I think their behavior should be some compromise between running into suicide and running away from suicide (but into some other form of suicide)

I like that the "where is the portal" and "wait where you are" commands are instantaneous. Maybe strategic commands to the escorts like "stay behind me", "stay close" or "stop running away" could cost a turn in order to increase the tension of bossing the NPCs around?

[evouga]

NPC behavior is so much improved over previous betas that I don't feel too obligated to complain.

It's true, though, that once the NPC has run far away and out of LOS, he's usually toast. At a minimum it would be nice if the player knew where the NPC was at all times (from all the NPC's screaming, perhaps?)

[overtrix]

There's a few new problem scenarios but in comparison to the early betas, for quite a while they've been much less difficult to keep alive.

One of mine ran away from a big fight far enough that it seemed safe to activate molten skin - when the danger was past he made a beeline for me again, so I right-clicked molten skin to cancel it, as proposed by the tooltip - nope, it stayed active and my escort was fried. Is that a bug or a feature ?

[exarion]

Escort NPCs can spawn with items granting telepathy, which can lead to them fleeing from creatures on the other end of the map. I had a sun paladin flee from a lone giant that was on top of the portal until I had killed every monster on the level.

[Noel]

Just had another fun one. Escortee in Old Forest fled into the farthest southwest corner, and died dancing on the poison vine traps in the entry of a honey tree vault. Aargh...

[aiqtidar]

I agree, the AI on escort quests is horrendous. Though there's a way to fix it that would be even easier than improving their AI - just make them fully responsive to player commands. I.e. when you tell them to wait in a spot, then they should just wait there until you tell them otherwise.

[laru]

I agree, the AI on escort quests is horrendous. Though there's a way to fix it that would be even easier than improving their AI - just make them fully responsive to player commands. I.e. when you tell them to wait in a spot, then they should just wait there until you tell them otherwise.

Makes it too easy. You could just have the relevant skills taught by townsfolk for a nominal fee.

As pointed out in this thread already, you are not supposed to be able to save all the escorts. They're basically just a bonus to make the somewhat-repetitive early game a little bit more interesting.

[aiqtidar]

I agree, the AI on escort quests is horrendous. Though there's a way to fix it that would be even easier than improving their AI - just make them fully responsive to player commands. I.e. when you tell them to wait in a spot, then they should just wait there until you tell them otherwise.

Makes it too easy. You could just have the relevant skills taught by townsfolk for a nominal fee.

As pointed out in this thread already, you are not supposed to be able to save all the escorts. They're basically just a bonus to make the somewhat-repetitive early game a little bit more interesting.

"Too easy" doesn't really excuse poor AI. If the feeling is that escort quests are too easy, then the way to fix it would be to make the missions harder in sensible ways (e.g. enemies that spawn once you accept the quest with the sole purpose of killing the person you're escorting). Using computer magic to effectively turn those NPCs into retards just to artificially raise the difficulty of those segments would be pretty lazy and silly way of going about it.

All of this aside though, the game is already designed in a way that you won't be able to save all of them (even if their AI was perfect). Every once in a while, especially in higher level areas, you'll have situations where there's a mob of enemies with AOE attacks sitting right next to the entrance who won't be easy (or perhaps even mathematically possible) for you to kill fast enough to save the escort. It's already happened to me once.

[Omega Blue]

Using computer magic to effectively turn those NPCs into retards just to artificially raise the difficulty of those segments would be pretty lazy and silly way of going about it.

Yeah, they are retards, but they are *predictable* retards. If you see they stop moving, or even moving away, you can tell there's a baddie lurking about. Just move ahead and off that thing, and they should resume normal movement. And you don't have to worry about how they move, either, since it's quite useless. What you need to do is to interpose yourself between them and the baddies, preferably killing them off way before the NPCs get there...