ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I stumbled across ToME a few days ago and I absolutely love it. It's a really great game. The only thing that frustrates me (and is almost gamebreaking for me since I'm a completionist and it pains me to see failed quests in my quest log) is the headache that is escort quests. I know that this has been mentioned before, but it would really be nice if the people you're escorting weren't so.... suicidal.

It would be really nice to see them avoid battle rather than charging straight in. I know you can tell them to wait, but from what I've seen, that is iffy at best.

So... please work on fixing this aspect of the game. It's a bad blemish on an otherwise stellar game.

First off the escort quest are supposed to be something extra and not something you are supposed to get every time but I agree about the A.I. They should be a challenge to save but not because the game has poor A.I. They should avoid traps seen by players. They should size up monster based on how tough they are and how many there are and run away accordingly (which probably means they will run into more monsters adding to the difficulty). I think they should still be pompous and not always stay near the player or listen to the player.

The escort quests have REALLY good rewards. I mean extremely so. It would be bad if they weren't difficult to finish. The suicidal AI is actually good in that way. Basically, it's part of the game and you have to learn to live with it.

And yeah, you're going to fail many of not most of those. It's expected.

I'm fine with the escort missions being difficult but it shouldn't be difficult because the A.I. is stupid. I want to win those mission because I thoughtfully had a plan, and did everything right. Today I win those missions by block all door ways so I have time to heal and hoping the next room isn't too hard and that the portal isn't surround by traps.

I'm not trying to say that escort quests should be a cakewalk by any means and I completely understand that you shouldn't complete all of them. That said, shwqa is absolutely right: the challenge should be something other than trying to keep the braindead AI npc from committing suicide. There's a line between challenging and downright frustrating. As it stands now, escort quests fall into the latter category.

Perhaps the following screenshot will cheer people up.

Jabby McStab: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the EscortJabby McStab is rather paranoid. Whenever he's nervous or is startled, he just starts stabbing things. In fact, he thinks all the problems in Eyal can be solved by jabbing and stabbing. If he kills a few escorts, heralds, townsmen, and lumberjacks along the way, then, well, they probably deserved it anyway.

The escort quests are not broken. They are working as designed. There is nothing to fix.

I'm serious. DarkGod wants them to work this way. He said so.

The rewards are only OK. I just learned not to obsess over it. Disarm and Providence are two I do regret missing.

greycat wrote:The escort quests are not broken. They are working as designed. There is nothing to fix.

I'm serious. DarkGod wants them to work this way. He said so.

Sounds like he might want to explore a new approach to their design then... Deliberately using crappy AI is a terrible way of adding challenge to a game. Say what you want, it just sounds pretty lazy to me.