Follow up, why don’t escort NPC have a sort of reverse rubber banding, so when the NPC gets X distance ahead they become Y% slower and then match players speed when the player is close enough/in front of the NPC?

NPC Escort design has evolved since players had to escort the Defias Traitor to Sentinel Hill way back in 2004. We usually break it down based on the goal of the quest.

If the goal is to protect the escorted NPC, then no real changes are necessary - the player is supposed to stay with the NPC and deal with the threats that appear along the way. If the quest is a "walk and talk" where the NPC provides exposition along a path to show the player certain locations or the NPC follows the player to certain locations, we will often boost the NPC to match the player's speed if the player gets too far ahead. This can cause some strange animation/visual artifacting depending on how fast the player is moving (just how do we expect this NPC to catch up to the player realistically?), so games that place priority into maintaining visual fidelity (e.g. Red Dead Redemption) will have more difficulty with this than games that are ok with players seeing some animation silliness (e.g. World of Warcraft).

The difference between these types of quests is a bigger deal than most players think - the fundamental gameplay is different, so the considerations must also be different. Players tend to lump them together in the same "escort quest" category, but they're quite different at their core. Protecting an NPC from external threats is very different from having NPCs follow the player or get to certain locations and provide exposition along the way.

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