Curse

ducktape · Sep 07, 2005, 10:57 PM // 22:57

It would be really helpful if you get more information to work with when doing Bonus Missions, especially when there are NPCs involved.

When a bonus involves an NPC staying alive, it's not too fun because they aren't very bright, and it's hard to keep track of them. As an example, I'll use the most annoying NPC-related bonus: the Divinity Coast bonus. It has three problems, which reoccur in other bonus missions. The bonus has you collect 5 chosen and then take them with you to the end of the mission, but you have to sprint around herds of tengus and ettins to save each chosen, while not getting your existing chosen guys killed. Not horrible, unless you consider:
1) Do that while not knowing where they are, and not knowing what their health is unless you click on them.
2) And not knowing how many there are to get in the first place, because the guy who gives you the quest just says "some people might be chosen, so you should save them" and the quest log doesn't specify just how many chosen you should have either.
3) Not being informed that you lost the bonus if one of the chosen dies before you get to them.
It sucks. In other NPC-related bonuses, you run into the same problem, even if it's only one brainless minion you have to escort somewhere.

I have yet to see an NPC in the party window if their status of being alive is a condition of the bonus. However, if an NPC must stay alive for a primary mission objective, (Rurik, Confessor Dorian, King Ironhammer) you get to see their health bar in the party window. It doesn't make much sense that the bonus NPCs aren't treated the same way. When you don't get the NPC's health bar in the party window, it's hard to see if they're dying - especially if you're the only player in an all-hench party and you're in a pitched battle. If an NPC dies right away and it takes a while to kill all the enemies that are attacking your party, there might not even be a corpse of the NPC laying around when you're done to let you know you blew the bonus. You hope the NPC wandered off somewhere, but you can't be sure. Not cool.

Here's my ideas:
1) If you need to keep an NPC alive to complete a bonus, put their health bar in the party window so you can keep an eye on whether they are alive, dying, or dead.
2) If you blow the mission, put an update on the screen that says Bonus Mission Unsuccessful and/or flag the bonus mission as failed in your quest log. That way you can reload right away if that's your priority.
3) If you need to kill or collect more than one thing (kill the 10 archer towers, rescue the 5 chosen, find the 3 priests at elona) always make a notice pop up with how many items are remaining, and update the quest log also. I know this is on most bonuses, but not all of them. The ones without it really annoy.

Comments/suggestions appreciated, especially any more ideas for improvements

chaos dragoon · Sep 07, 2005, 11:06 PM // 23:06

i think that is a good idea.it would be easier for monks to heal the npcs and its really dissapointing to get to the end looking for the bonus and find out that u missed it.

VV lol true

Ultimate_Gaara · Sep 07, 2005, 11:11 PM // 23:11

I hate doing bonuses invloving NPCs... Players are bad.. henchmen don't listen, but NPCs are clearly at the bottom of the barrel for people i like to have with me during a mission..

Putting them in the window will definetly bost my willingness to do bonuses.. perhaps making them listen will help as well.. oh look an angry mob, i guess ill just slowly walk into my doom... i think not

ducktape · Sep 11, 2005, 06:36 PM // 18:36

I think a lot of people don't do the bonus missions because they are a pain in the ass, for all the reasons that I pointed out, and as Ultimate Gaara said, the part with the NPCs is the worst. If they just change a few things to work better, hopefully bonus missions would be less frustrating.