Poll: What's worse? Forced stealth or escort missions?

[Cid Silverwing]

Both.

The enemy AI will always find ways to fuck up your forced stealth even when you KNOW you're undetectable. As for escort missions, the pursuers will always Game Over your ass a billion times before the escort victim either gets lucky or gets smart.

 

[The Maddest March Hare]

Escort missions as they rely on the AI.

Forced stealth can be annoying but at least failure is your fault and you can learn how to pass it relatively easily.

If the designers fuck up the AI then escort missions become a lesson in anger management as your follower without fail runs headlong into and around walls, charges straight through the large group of enemies that you carefully skirted, and then glitches, spazzes out and ends up wedged halfway up a tree having his ankles gnawed by something snarling and dangerous.

And that is why escort missions should be a criminal offence.

 

[Livi70590]

Forced Stealth.

I play flight games.

 

[AngryMongoose]

Forced stealh. Escort missions have be done well (though, admittedly, no examples come to mind), forced stealth missions crobarred into action games have never been done well, and don't belong even if they are.

 

[rescuer86]

Escort missions. (Which is the entire game of RE5!) I am big on plots making some sense. I know I don't belong in the gaming world for this view, but even when I am a space marine, the plot has to hold together. So, the escort mission that puts me into a blind rage are when I am just some schmuk who has never picked up a gun escorting a military trained commander of some sort, while he carries an assault rifle and cries like a ***** every time a monster or a group of commandos show up. I am looking at you, Dead Space. "Isaac, go in there and kill six pod mutants with your plasma cutter. I am gonna lay here like a ***** and cuddle my massive assault rifle." RE4 I get. You are a specially trained operative, and she is just a little girl. Despite the "Leon! Leon! Leon! Leon!" ad infinitum.

So, yeah, I dislike escort missions.

P.S. I did like Dead Space, but come on. I am an engineer armed with a TOOL! WTF is your problem, stereotypical (token black) gruff military dude?

 

[A random person]

Forced escort, definitely; while I had to get my brother to beat the Windwaker stealth section for me as a kid, I now oddly enjoy them as a change of pace. Escort missions, on the other hand, are just annoying.

 

[Beardon65]

L

Wow, someone actually said they killed kittens. Whoever did it. Prepare for the scolding of your life.

Now, did they mean 'killing kittens' or murdering small cats?

Says right there on the poll "...and kill kittens". So she/he means baby cats. You know, those cute, furry little critters that chase leaves. So yeah. Kttens.

 

[klakkat]

I would say "it depends on how [badly] it's executed" but in general Escort missions are much worse. See, stealth can actually be a fun mechanic, though only if its an actually important part of gameplay or if the reason you're stealthing is well-explained (as it is in Call of Cthulu; the forced-stealth only occurs when you don't happen to have a weapon). There also needs to be a reasonable chance of getting through it in one attempt rather than Trial and Error stealthing.

Escort missions.... I don't think there's a way to make them enjoyable. Left 4 Dead is the closest to an Escort style that's actually fun, and that's only loosely escorting (you have to keep your teammates alive and watch their backs, but they shoot things too and help you out).

 

[oktalist]

It all depends how well they are implemented. If the AI is a moron then escort is going to be painful. If the stealth mechanic was only put in as an afterthought then it could be similarly painful.

The stealth sections in Beyond Good & Evil totally broke the immersion for me. They each had exactly one way in which it was possible to sneak past the guards. As if each guard had planned their patrol route precisely so there would be one and only one way to get past them unnoticed, and then kept to that route exactly.

 

[WakeTheDead1]

I freaking hate escort missions because its always protecting something or someone really useless and incompetent, at least stealth missions youre only looking out for number 1

 

[SirDerick]

When you have forced stealth and you lose, you say "OK, I did that wrong, lemme do it again."

Whenever I play a forced escort mission, the person i'm escorting is usually a lobotomized douche bag who moves at a snails pace and won't take cover when under attack.

 

[oppp7]

As someone who plays Guild Wars, I can say that NPCs you need to protect who die at the slightest provocation because they have no defense skills are some of the worst things ever.

 

[C.G.B.S]

Escort missions hands down

 

[Dexiro]

Escort. I haven't seen much forced stealth really but i always dread escort missions.
I just hate having the mission depend on some unlikeable character with terrible ai. And when they walk slowly and take the longest route through enemies *rage*

 

[Uncompetative]

Why do people dislike Escort Missions so much?

That was the entire gameplay of Ico.

 

[Flamespeak]

Timed, underwater, escort missions.

Also, the reason why most people don't like escort missions is that they are often handled really poorly. Why can't the person I am escorting show the slightest bit of common sense and try to find some cover in the middle of a fight? Why can't they pick up a weapon and try to give me a hand with the enemy? Above all else, why are they always total retards?

 

[The Night Shade]

Escort missions by far just look at GTA

 

[MasterWhatever]

Escort missons: RE4 did them right, Dead Rising did them wrong. (I love DR don't get me wrong.)

 

[Geamo]

Escort, since it's mainly out of your hands. Forced stealth can be endurable, but having the NPC you're trying to protect run out into the middle of a bunch of enemies you were trying to skirt past is damn infuriating.

 

[Mammon]

Escort missions: They rely solely on the NPC's AI, which in most cases suck balls. Sure, you have to be weary of danger yourself, but it won't help you when you're taking cover from hostile fire and your damned NPC runs in the middle of the room yelling "AAAHHHH! GUNS!".