Yes, but they may contribute by merely drawing fire. And at the very least, it will make the contracting of them a less risky proposition (right now, it's risky, very).Deus Siddis wrote:I think profit sharing doesn't really address the issue. If you put together a team of escorts for a big bounty mission, but they fail to contribute to the battle and then show up to collect their cut of the bounty, that will be equally demoralizing. Players still will not use escorts.
But assume we fix it. Because you have to assume things will eventually work out. Then you have to remove their allegiance at some point, and you're back to square 1.Deus Siddis wrote:The way the game is currently balanced, combined with the way the escort AI is so terrible at everything, you could make escorts cost nothing and persist indefinitely and players would not bother with them.
Again, assume that's going to be fixed by a separate effort. The point here is about them disappearing.Deus Siddis wrote:Just the time spent traveling to the escort rendezvous point is not worth it when they contribute 1% as much to a fight as ambient factional NPCs, let alone the time spent cat-herding the escorts to the actual battle space.
Nope. It requires escorts to be an economically viable option. Profit-sharing is that. Adjust the share if you want to match their quality.Deus Siddis wrote:I believe getting players to use escorts at all requires that:
- Escorts cost almost nothing.
Good point and a doable point.Deus Siddis wrote:[*] Escorts appear in vicinity of player where they were hired, not at a distant rendezvous.
[/quote]Deus Siddis wrote:[*] Universe spawns far more of hostile NPCs and far fewer of helpful ones.[/list]
Well, it's not necessary. There's plenty of cases where escorts are necessary even with today's balance state. I agree, background NPC traffic usually works well enough as "free escorts", but that's a wholly different game balance aspect.
Trying to fix all at once will be trying to chew a whole jawbreaker at once, without any titanium molar reinforcement. Better to do small bites at a time.