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daninthemix

Member
Nov 2, 2017
5,031
For some reason I just recently played Crackdown 2 for the first time, and was baffled as to why they'd taken a perfectly mindless (but brilliant) game about jumping, shooting and blowing things up, and made all the missions about protecting stuff instead.

And I realised I just always hate this - having to protect any character or object (be it a car, Mcguffin or whatever) that isn't the player character. It's a bit of a vicious circle actually - because I hate these mission types more, I'm more likely to fail at them, and therefore be stuck in a re-attempt loop of a type of gameplay I despise.

I get the general sense that escort missions are widely reviled, but what about when the person/object you're protecting is stationary?

How do you feel about protection missions in general, and do you have any noteworthy examples that are either especially bad or good?
 

Deleted member 54320

User requested account closure
Banned
Feb 28, 2019
617
London
Honestly it depends. If its a character or thing that I actually care about then, I'm kinda okay with it?

Most of the time though, it's annoying.
 

Deleted member 32374

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 10, 2017
8,460
Fighting off enemies trying to kill you and a helpless, defenseless and unarmored escort is F.U.N.

Fucking
Unbelievable
Non sense

RE4 is famous for how awful these where.

Now, beyond escort missions, I'm not opposed to defending various stationary points. Many games are specifically designed for this and do it well.
 

TheBaldwin

Member
Feb 25, 2018
8,316
Fighting off enemies trying to kill you and a helpless, defenseless and unarmored escort is F.U.N.

Fucking
Unbelievable
Non sense

RE4 is famous for how awful these where.

Now, beyond escort missions, I'm not opposed to defending various stationary points. Many games are specifically designed for this and do it well.

I can't link the video, but Ashley is probably the best example of an escort mission done well. You just tell her what to do and she fucking does it.

But destiny's whole game design off 'wait in this area to kill enemies in a circle until done' is tedious
 
Oct 31, 2017
12,170
God of War 2 had one where you had to protect the translator.

On Titan Mode, it took off a few years of my life.

Fighting off enemies trying to kill you and a helpless, defenseless and unarmored escort is F.U.N.

Fucking
Unbelievable
Non sense

RE4 is famous for how awful these where.

Now, beyond escort missions, I'm not opposed to defending various stationary points. Many games are specifically designed for this and do it well.

I thought the U was for uranium bomb.
 

Billfisto

Member
Oct 30, 2017
15,175
Canada
Oh, I absolutely loathe protecting things. Especially if it's a longer mission and they do something absolutely BS like having a bunch of rocket launcher guys come out all at once at the end of the mission or something.

If I absolutely need to defend something (for storyline purposes or whatever), at least make it like Destiny 1, where it's more of a "hold this point" mechanic, rather than giving the item its own health pool.
 

DJ_Lae

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,910
Edmonton
They're pretty much always bad, as you introduce an element of (poor) AI into your gameplay and all the frustration that comes with it.

My most memorable escort mission is probably still from WoW - Marshall Windsor, who would charge forward, seemingly at random, and aggro every enemy before you could.
 

StarPhlox

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,429
Wisconsin
I generally think that, but then one of my favorite games this year is A Plague Tale: Innocence where most of what you do is protect your little brother. The game is a long escort mission (with some variety peppered in, to be sure) and it is more powerful because of it.
 

Albatross

Member
Nov 11, 2017
197
The worst, stationary or not.
I recently played Just Cause 3 and it felt like 70% of the story missions involved defending someone or something.
 

Oneself

#TeamThierry
Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,802
Montréal, Québec, Canada
It's generally atrocious and I hate it too. Especially the cheap, time filling parts where "you shoot at them while I fix some shit as slowly as possible". This is, 99% of the time, just plain bad game design, worse than escort missions IMO.
Just when that asshole NPC starts fixing something or unlocking a door for 5 minutes, waves and waves of enemies obviously arrive... Thank God there were ammo crates in that room for no reason too!
 

BeaconofTruth

Member
Dec 30, 2017
3,465
Nah, I love Resident Evil 4. When done right it's a satisfying gameplay challenge. A lot of times they are done poorly. Like most things it's about execution, not the concept itself.
 

Billfisto

Member
Oct 30, 2017
15,175
Canada
It's generally atrocious and I hate it too. Especially the cheap, time filling parts where "you shoot at them while I fix some shit as slowly as possible". This is, 99% of the time, just plain bad game design, worse than escort missions IMO.
Just when that asshole NPC starts fixing something or unlocking a door for 5 minutes, waves and waves of enemies obviously arrive... Thank God there were ammo crates in that room for no reason too!

I love it when the "hacking" or whatever is clearly tied to the number of enemies you've killed and not the actual time that's elapsed, too.

You shoot that last guy and coincidentally they're all "And... we're in!"
 

Deleted member 5148

User requested account closure
Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,108
To be honest I'm tired of killing stuff in games. Now that I think of it, it's somewhat disturbing


I should try this for a year...what games are you looking forward to play?

and now back on topic, I generally don't mind unless is a game where the a.i is really random and I have to restart the mission, over and over. First game that comes to mind is any rockstar game, red dead redemption or gta.
 
Oct 27, 2017
13,464
I should try this for a year...what games are you looking forward to play?

and now back on topic, I generally don't mind unless is a game where the a.i is really random and I have to restart the mission, over and over. First game that comes to mind is any rockstar game, red dead redemption or gta.
Cyberpunk 2077, Judgment, FF VII Remake, Super Mario Maker 2, Control and Death Stranding. And maybe Modern Warfare. At least some of them don't rely on realistic killing
 

justiceiro

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
6,664
I recently played through the section of Zelda to where you have to protect the chariot and man, did I wished to stop playing in the spot.

Blast corps was hard, but fun though.