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I can't stand tail missions in games!
- Thread starter Calmine
- Start date
The only redeeming quality the MGS4 tail mission has is that you are being pursued yourself by another soldier all the time; I doubt that Kojima did this as deconstruction of tail missions though :lol
Neuromancer
Member
What I find funny about these missions (from having done actual vehicle surveillance) is in reality nothing will burn you like driving erratically, running lights and staying strangely far behind. People don't get hinked up from having a car behind them; people get hinked up when they look in the rear view mirror and see someone driving like a jackass and never passing them or getting close.
The right way to do surveillance in these games would be to have you be part of a team since you're way more likely to be burned if it's just you out there instead of having others to switch in and out of being the 'follow' car.
As for the on foot sections, they're ridicoulous in these games because if they spot you you're usually burned. Why? Why would the bad guy even know you're following them (unless they know your face which they usually don't)? Again all the running around and trying to stay just out of sight and sneaking around corners would be way more suspicious than if you were simply walking 20 feet behind the guy.
The right way to do surveillance in these games would be to have you be part of a team since you're way more likely to be burned if it's just you out there instead of having others to switch in and out of being the 'follow' car.
As for the on foot sections, they're ridicoulous in these games because if they spot you you're usually burned. Why? Why would the bad guy even know you're following them (unless they know your face which they usually don't)? Again all the running around and trying to stay just out of sight and sneaking around corners would be way more suspicious than if you were simply walking 20 feet behind the guy.
VeryGooster
Banned
Yeah I couldn't do the on-foot part to save my life, and this is after years of AC tailing missions where I could at least chill on rooftops, and general frustration with WD I just gave up completely.
I wish they would have made this clearer. Doing that mission again in that way is actually fun.
Ultimadrago
Member
WARNING: Maintain Distance From The Target
Yep. Fuck Tailing Missions.
Spring-Loaded
Member
There have been more than one complaint thread about this. Seemingly neither cared about ways to make them better.
MAKE IT MULTIPLAYER
All the problems people have with tailing missions in open-world games are solved when it's another person. No "suspicion meter," no arbitrary "you lost the target" distance, have to actually look natural, the person you're following won't stop to turn around at consistent intervals unless they have reason to, and so forth.
Watch Dogs' invasion-tailing was a good concept. From what I've read ab out it, the final game just involves just looking at someone for a certain amount of time, which sounds lame. If it instead involved following someone to a specific location or sneaking up on them and hitting them, it'd be better.
MAKE IT MULTIPLAYER
All the problems people have with tailing missions in open-world games are solved when it's another person. No "suspicion meter," no arbitrary "you lost the target" distance, have to actually look natural, the person you're following won't stop to turn around at consistent intervals unless they have reason to, and so forth.
Watch Dogs' invasion-tailing was a good concept. From what I've read ab out it, the final game just involves just looking at someone for a certain amount of time, which sounds lame. If it instead involved following someone to a specific location or sneaking up on them and hitting them, it'd be better.
MaximusPayne
Member
OP, you do know once you get to "bedbug's" hideout you can hack the camera the whole time from camera to camera. It's very easy.
OmegaTreeFish
Banned
Strangely all I thought when doing those was "how the hell did they find a way to make tailing missions worse". Stealth boat is the dumbest shit ever. It made no sense and wasn't remotely fun. Not like your in some small little dingy.
But yes tail missions are the worst. They have never been fun and I doubt they ever will be.
LifEndz
Member
This....this fucking is so irritating. Why do developers think anyone wants this?
Yep, pretty much. Tried 5 times before going fuck this.
oh man I hate it so much in AA games, but I just beat watch dogs and they only did it a couple times besides the optional random crimes. and tailing bedbug was so annoying at first I failed so many times, then I got a nice groove and kicks ass killing every thug there and then you finish it off surfing cameras (which I didnt know before)
so not really digging the tail missions but sometimes they work. also love hacking in watch dogs so much now when I play other games I miss it. GTAV sucks now.... so bad.
Phreakuency
Banned
That's where this design fails in many games.
Sleeping Dogs is a recent one that comes to mind. A car chase that's part of the story for example... if you get too close, too soon, the guy you are tailing gets a (visually silly) speed boost. Same when you chase on foot. All because they have a plan of where the chase should finish for that end cut scene.
But then you do have those slow tail missions where you have to sit through every stop, every conversation etc and have no option to speed it up and no impact in dealing with it dynamically.
Just bad design.
J
JoJo UK
Unconfirmed Member
Surely this should just be called 'doing an ubisoft'?
yeah I must have had a brain fart or just been conditioned to tail people on foot like other games.
Spring-Loaded
Member
RE4 was really bad about this, wasn't it
They're basically just padding for the sake of padding.
We need to pad the game clock, so go follow this path slowly for a few minutes for no reason.
Never mind the fact that every other mission in the game let's you know where a person is and where they're going without you having to do this.
We need to pad the game clock, so go follow this path slowly for a few minutes for no reason.
Never mind the fact that every other mission in the game let's you know where a person is and where they're going without you having to do this.
Neuromancer
Member
If a game is going to make something basically impossible unless you do it their way, they should make that clear to the player. It's poor game design in my opinion.
MaximusPayne
Member
To the game's defense, they make you a "hacker" for a reason. I'm kind of glad they left out the dumb cues telling you to hack this camera and hack that camera.
I never had any issues in Watch Dogs with tailing. If its the one with with Bedbug, and you need to follow him in the "hood", all you need to do is jump the fences, and crouch behind objects, and pay attention to where the enemies are at. I'm also pretty sure you can kill them to stealthily, as long as you don't alert anyone. Near the start, in the vehicles, all you need to do is go around the red area.
Their are a lot worse games out their then Watch Dogs that do tailing incorrectly.
Their are a lot worse games out their then Watch Dogs that do tailing incorrectly.
Grok4Spock
Member
I was enjoying AC IV right up until the tail mission where you have to follow the British officer through buildings. Kept getting caught to the point where it ruined the game. Took it straight to GameStop and never looked back...
FaintDeftone
Junior Member
While I totally agree, I would rather deal with those than mandatory racing missions. GTA ALWAYS makes you do at least one and they drive me nuts (no pun intended).
You can hack cameras in that section, which makes the tailing pretty trivial.
I do agree about tailing missions in games though, I don't ever wanna see one again. Assassin's Creed games especially needs to learn this lesson. But I thought Watch Dogs was pretty good in this regard. There's barely any tailing, and the few times you do, they're very easy.
GTA racing missions are incredibly easy so that stuff doesn't bother me as much. It's like they know it's not a pure racing game so they make the AI incredibly easy to beat.
Tailing missions where glitches could happen to make you start over, or lame parts designed to get the player to fail so you have to "learn" the exact pattern of the tail, that shit is insufferable.
Tailing missions where glitches could happen to make you start over, or lame parts designed to get the player to fail so you have to "learn" the exact pattern of the tail, that shit is insufferable.
Yep. I hate this mechanic in most games but Watch Dogs actually does it ok'ish. Use cameras and you can do it very easily.
I'm playing wind waker. Oh heres an interesting sidequest involving a thief, I guess I have to wait a bit and use my camera to tak--WAIT A TAIL MISSION!?
Whats worse is that they ALWAYS arbitrarily look back every 5 fucking seconds. It's like they know they are being tailed and they still go ahead to where you want them to be anyways. Soooooo duuuuuummmb.
Whats worse is that they ALWAYS arbitrarily look back every 5 fucking seconds. It's like they know they are being tailed and they still go ahead to where you want them to be anyways. Soooooo duuuuuummmb.
Neuromancer
Member
Except they do do that for 90% of the game anyway.
No, they put them because other games that were commercially successful have them, and it would take effort to think of new things to have the player do.
AAA game design in a nutshell.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
That's the one in the Eastern European city (I forgot which), right? It's actually the only part of the game I enjoyed, and I don't even like tail missions usually. I think I mostly just appreciated that for once, the game actually let me play for a good 20 minutes in a row without a one-hour long cut scene interruption... I got pretty immersed into that mission, it was kinda neat I thought. Don't know why so many people hate it. I think I completed it in one try though, so maybe if you fail and have to start over it's frustrating, I dunno.
I liked the "tailing" esque levels in Rabbids Go Home where you try to chase down a cow truck. I think its mostly because that game is a weird platformy thing and the mission is more about navigating the level design in the alloted "time" (keeping up with the truck) than actual act of tailing itself.
Gameplay design, it's about doing the bare minimum.
Unbound By Death
Member
100% this
Gray Matter
Member
I will never buy another assassins creed game because of this. In AC3 it was bearable but in AC4 it was just too much. These missions are annoying as fuck!
I know you can hack the camera's but it was just so tedious to follow him, the overall feeling of meh about the game doesn't help.
I am looking forward to Assassins Creed Unity though so Ubisoft isn't dead to me just yet lol
Masquerader
Member
How about they make reverse tail missions while you are tailing someone (not escaping while being chased), and you have to ditch your stalker in a stealthy manner? As in, without drawing attention to yourself in a crowd, or similar. Has anyone ever tried this?