Alternatives to escorts

[Bananadine]

I have been playing on Insane a lot lately and I can usually get my escorts where they're going... I mean they definitely die sometimes, and it does often feel unfair then, but I don't find this risk to be an overly strong handicap to a character that uses that difficulty level. I still find escort quests fun, except when I momentarily peek into a high-level area for some silly reason and unexpectedly find myself escorting a fool when I'm not even able to get through that place by myself. THAT I find pretty annoying, and I would like to see it smoothed over somehow... but it's a minor problem since you can always avoid it just by refraining from peeking.

If escorts would become smarter, then I think it could make escort quests more fun. That would be my argument for changing them: not that they're broken or generally unfun, but just that they could stand to be more fun. Although I like them, I don't find them greatly interesting; usually it feels like luck more than anything else, when it ought to be a more even mixture of luck and skill. You can manipulate the companions, but not very well; crucially, you usually cannot use any "escape powers" to rescue them, and you usually cannot heal them. I would like fighting with a partner to feel a little more like fighting by yourself: If you get into big trouble, you can rescue yourself with a movement infusion or a shield or a teleportation power or whatever else; and likewise if they got into big trouble, you could rescue them with something similar.

Obviously adding rescue powers doesn't make the player character immortal. If the player had one or two ways to rescue an escorted partner, things like inscriptions or teleportation spells or whatever else, then the partner could still have a high chance of dying. It'd just make the task of escorting them more interesting.

I don't know how you could be given such talents though, without breaking the fiction. I feel like the easiest way to implement rescue powers would be to add them as one or two new orders you could give your companions: Instead of just "Wait here a moment" and "Where is the portal?" you could also say "Run and hide for a little while", for instance. Of course this could potentially be designed as a targeted action; you could tell the person where to run to, or what creature to run from, or maybe choose a cardinal direction from a text menu or some such. But it's hard to think of how to prevent that from giving you too much control, since almost the only thing that endangers companions is that you can't make them sit on the entrance stairway indefinitely. If you could send them there at will, then maybe they would never die anymore. So maybe the fleeing would have to be kept somewhat random and fairly short in duration. That would still feel clumsy and unfair at times, but I think it would be a step in the right direction. It sucks that you often have no choice at all for how to handle the situation where three powerful named monsters simultaneously attack you and your companion. It'd be nice to be able to at least weakly attempt to make the companion flee while you briefly hold off the strong monsters (before fleeing yourself). They can be a little bit more controllable without losing their near-suicidal stupidity, and I think they should be.

Another opportunity for polish: With both this hypothetical fleeing order and the existing "Wait here" order, some kind of cooldown or something seems to be needed, since if you can use these things whenever you want, you might be able to keep your buddy out of danger too consistently, making the quests boringly easy. And indeed there seems to be such a cooldown on the "wait" order already. But it's too easily manipulated: If you just block the companion in a narrow passage and wait a while, you'll become able to use it again. This goes against the fiction: The person is in such a hurry that they refuse to wait, yet forcing them to delay even more makes them feel less hurried? No that makes no sense. And it's boring and artificial-feeling to try to exploit this, too. I think maybe that instead of the turn-based cooldown that I'm assuming exists, there should be a tile-based buildup of trust points: The companion starts out being willing to wait (or flee?) once and only once, regardless of how many turns you wait, but then every time they make 22 steps or whatever, their trust counter increases from 0 to 1 again (or from 1 to 2, etc.), and you'll be able to give them one more order. I think this makes more sense: The progress makes them feel closer to their goal, so they're satisfied that you're doing your job and they're more willing to take orders from you... but only if you don't give too many per step.

[Bananadine]

Ah, and in that system, "Follow me for a little while" would be another good order to add. That way you don't have full control over the companion's movements, but you do still have some ability to lead them to a safe path.

On the other hand, just making them follow you always (as others have suggested) might be good enough. I'd have to try it to get a sense of how it would feel.

Regardless, there is definitely room to improve this system, and not only that, but to do so cheaply and simply.

[Number43]

Doing dreadfell on insane recently, I entered a floor and had an escort. There were a few open tiles around the stairs, and 4 pathways away visible. Two of the hallways, including the one the escort needed to take, had rares in line of sight. A third had a boss ranked enemy, plus a few normal rank enemies in view. I surprised myself very much when I managed to save the escort. Summoners are so OP.