No escort missions, please!

[Ken Hagler]

In a recent Youtube video I learned that the game has escort missions. Please, while there's still time, take them out! Escort missions are quite possibly the worst idea in the history of game design. There's absolutely nothing fun about them, and deliberately making players miserable hardly seems like a good idea. There's a fairly famous article on the subject that I can't link to because I'm too new a user, but if you google "escort missions suck" it will be the top result (along with many other examples of why you should never have escort missions in your game).

[Rebel Yell]

There are a finite number of mission types other than destroy the enemy, so escort type missions will almost always be a part of the campaign in this type of game.

We can only hope the targets, err, convoy, or whatever is being escorted, won't behave in a brain dead fashion so the challenge will be the enemy, not winning the mission in spite of stupidity.

[fisher2000]

There are a finite number of mission types other than destroy the enemy, so escort type missions will almost always be a part of the campaign in this type of game.

We can only hope the targets, err, convoy, or whatever is being escorted, won't behave in a brain dead fashion so the challenge will be the enemy, not winning the mission in spite of stupidity.

I believe that we can control the convoys (move them about)

[Shanewallis123]

ive never minded escort missions, most tend to be fun for me but then i do tend to like defending things in games

[Swusn83]

While I agree that escort missions traditionally suck it is not because escorting things can't be challenging or rewarding, it is because AI is typically stupid as hell and does not do what you would expect or want them to do on occasions. If you remove AI control over the things being escorted (which would be very easy in this turn based scenario) and give the player direct control over the units being escorted then the problem goes away and escort missions can be great.

[Kambrius]

The problem with the escort mission I have seen on EnterElysium's BATTLESTAR GALACTICA DEADLOCK #10 IMPOSSIBLE Preview - BSG Let's Play (cannot link but the mission briefing around 14:10) is that if one of the civillian transports dies, the mission fails. Such missions should not be an all-or-none and should have contingencies in place. For example, in that mission there were multiple transports that were escaping the Cylons. Should not the outcome (if it is to be looked at in binary terms of victory or failure) be determined by a minimal amount of transports that successfully jump out?

Personally, I do not mind no-win situations (if it's an ambush) but the way this particular mission played out makes for a badly constructed no-win situation if this mission was meant to be one.

[blacklab]

Remember that EnterElysium is playing a beta which may contains bugs and balance issues. We are working hard right now on fixing any known bugs and adjusting the balance so the game is fair