Escort-Steal: What It Is, How To Fix It

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Escort missions are exclusive in that only one team (single player or party) can participate in them at a time. An escort-steal is when two or more teams are trying to complete an escort mission but only the first one to finish the dialog progresses their quest and can complete it. Most players encounter this in the tutorial area with the Student Buddies mission. This gets worse when the target is surrounded by enemies, as your team can be busy fighting while another team swoops in and "steals" your escort.

Contrast this will kill missions, where any player that contributes to defeating the target gets credit for completing the mission. A good example of this is Built Ferd Tough in the Desert Crisis area. This makes all players who are fighting the target into an ad-hoc team, working together without having to formally organize a group first.

Fixing this would involve taking the same logic as applied to kill missions and use them for escort missions. Namely, once any player talks with the escort target, all players within the mission zone who are at that stage in the quest move on to escorting the target. This makes nearby players a helpful addition instead of an unwelcome pest.

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This is a good idea. I've seen this happen so many times, and it's a really annoying issue.

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Within X range of the mission zone surely? I mean I don't want to be doing a mission halfway across the map and suddenly have it mission complete on me.

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Sorry, when I said zone I meant the green area that shows up on the map marking the mission area. This could also be clamped to a hard distance so you have to be near the escort target to count. The idea being that if you have the mission active and are nearby, you probably want to tag along with everyone else doing the escort.

[Archived Post]

Sorry, when I said zone I meant the green area that shows up on the map marking the mission area. This could also be clamped to a hard distance so you have to be near the escort target to count. The idea being that if you have the mission active and are nearby, you probably want to tag along with everyone else doing the escort.

How do you take the mission? Once one person takes it, she starts walking and it becomes unavailable to anyone else. The "green circle" only applies for missions in progress where you have to perform a task in a specific area. This mission has none.

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I think that anyone in the group should be able to get the escort quest when one person in the group does. For example, in another popular MMO, when you are in a group and someone starts an escort quest, a dialog box pops up on your screen. It states, basically, that "So and so" is starting "quest name", do you wish to start it? And a yes or no button is in the box.

This would not only make it easier for teams to get escort quests done, plus I think it would encourage more grouping.

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It's easy for that to happen unintentionally too. I stole an escort today... I saw a new contact and clicked the mission without reading it.

Turns out the team fighting to one side were fighting the guards and she was an escort. They were understandably upset, but you can't unaccept an escort mission.

They either need to give everyone in the rescue range credit, or lock to the team defeating the guards for a short while.

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/signed

I had a player sitting nearby waiting for me to clear the npc and then jump right between me and the npc as the last mob was going down and actually push me aside...

The other thing that happens a lot is people waiting for someone to attack the bomb strapped irradiates in desert crisis, so that a bomb appears, and then while the player who caused it to spawn in busy fighting quickly disarm the bomb. (not an escort thing, but it is a part of the game which encourages the same kind of behaviour)

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you guys have heard of grouping and sharing the mission, yes?

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Makes sense that the only person/team who can talk to the NPC to initiate the quest is the one who did the most damage to those mobs "guarding" the NPC. If you did not damage any mob, the quest is not for you :)

While this will make for some competition in damaging the mobs guarding it, it will alleviate the outright "theft" in my opinion.

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you guys have heard of grouping and sharing the mission, yes?

If the other players wish to, yes.

If the other players don't arrive in the middle of your fight and just take the escort, yes.

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you guys have heard of grouping and sharing the mission, yes?

You know the people who ignore the group request and take the mission and run leaving you feeling twice the idiot? An idiot for clearing the mobs around the npc to make the mission appear and an idiot for wasting time trying to be nice and share.

Belittling people does not make you look smart by the way

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You know the people who ignore the group request and take the mission and run leaving you feeling twice the idiot? An idiot for clearing the mobs around the npc to make the mission appear and an idiot for wasting time trying to be nice and share.

Belittling people does not make you look smart by the way

it seems you have some anger issues to work out...this is a minor issue at worst. Just ask em to share the mission with you.

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Did you even read my post?

Which part of the
"While you are busy trying to ask them wether they want to team up for the mission so you both can complete it they take the mission and run off totaly ignoring you" leads you to uggest the solution is asking them to share?

[Archived Post]

Makes sense that the only person/team who can talk to the NPC...

I think that this is important, because it should be the person or team that first talked to that NPC should be the only ones to get the credit.


/signed
The other thing that happens a lot is people waiting for someone to attack the bomb strapped irradiates in desert crisis, so that a bomb appears, and then while the player who caused it to spawn in busy fighting quickly disarm the bomb. (not an escort thing, but it is a part of the game which encourages the same kind of behaviour)

Yeah I started a new guy yesterday, and two different people actually tried "stealing" the bombs from me! I had to keep hitting E, and killing the mob so they couldn't disarm it. They both left, presumably, because they thought the bomb was bugged and couldn't disarm it.

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@peon47

You're right. The Student Buddies quest doesn't have a mission marker since talking to the escort target is what starts the mission. Here, I think the hard cap on distance would be a worthwhile improvement. If you are near the NPC when another player starts the quest, you would also get a prompt asking if you want to join in (along the lines of Kaphik's suggestion).

@Gavriel

Basing it off of damage is always tricky. It would be hard to define who exactly is guarding the escort target. Once of the escort missions in the West Side of MC has the escort target surrounded by a few groups that patrol around the area. If one of those patrols wandered into the area, whoever fought them off would end up getting no credit. Worse, characters who help out but don't directly attack the guards (status effects and friendly heals) would also get no damage credit. Players who can dish out a large amount of damage in a short period of time could still "steal" escorts, intentionally or not.

Going with a range limit is something that all players could attain equally. And if you end up not getting credit for being close enough, its something that's easy enough for a player to correct next time the NPC spawns. In addition, its something players are already familiar with as its the same mechanic that Public Missions utilize.

@Reaper11188

The difficulty with grouping is that it requires some level of organization on everyone involved. And as melkathi mentioned, requires everyone's cooperation. Forming an implicit ad-hoc group based on who's around means the players involved get the advantages of cooperative groups without having to go through the hoops of setting it up ahead of time.

[Archived Post]

Better idea: no more escort missions, in any game, ever.