In these videos, you can see that party members react to being hit with attacks by enemies, and enemies using certain abilities to move next to them (like the Stone Beetle burrow) which causes them to auto-attack those units.

 

In this specific instance, you can see that when the BB Fighter was hit with a ranged attack, he automatically targeted the unit he was hit by, and then his targeting was overriden by the Stone Beetle burrowing next to him (but the Stone Beetle had not engaged him yet, so it was not auto-attack from being engaged).

I had not issued a single command to my party members, but here they are running across the screen to attack enemies without my permission.

I have also noticed my party members changing targets to auto attack enemies in the middle of combat, causing them to suffer needless disengagement attacks. This should NOT occur.

 

I request that these types of auto-attack clauses be removed from Party AI. My party members should only auto-attack enemies I target specifically with weapon-based attacks and weapon-based abilities.

The Infinity Engine games (when characters were not issued with a script) only had the following auto-attack clause:

• After the unit a party member is attacking has been killed, they would then target the nearest enemy of the same type

This would, however, need to be adjusted for Pillars of Eternity to the following:

• After the unit a party member is attacking has been killed, they would then target a unit they are being engaged by. If they are not currently engaged, they would target the nearest enemy of the same type

I made a previous bug/issue report about auto-attack interaction with being interrupted here - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69921-392-issue-with-spell-castingability-use-interrupts-and-engagement/

Edited February 7, 201510 yr by Sensuki

This is a pain in the arse and really needs to be fixed, otherwise you have to spend a fair amount of time baby sitting the party when they get hit by an AoE or ranged attack. Very annoying when the priest trys to run across the entire battlefield.

Agreed.

bump for visibility

Taking control away from the player - a truly obnoxious, cardinal sin of game development.

 

I don't want my characters to so much as fart without me ordering them to. This was never a problem in any of the IE or NWN games, all of which had a button on the main interface (and associated hotkey) to disable AI completely. I truly hope the lack of such an ability is considered a serious bug and not a low priority feature.

 

I certainly won't be playing the game until I can turn AI off, I don't care if I have to wait 10 years after release. It's a deal breaker.

This seems to be well covered but to add another example. I entered combat and clicked a potion I wanted to drink. My character never did... supposedly because he was engaged and started to autoattack. 

 

...I was wrong the potion was undrinkable.... Regardless character still started to autoattack. 

Edited February 9, 201510 yr by Bazy

+100! If I put Baby in the corner, she's supposed to stay there, and not go on some suicidal berserker rampage.

 

I just suffered from I don't know how many instances of this auto-attack madness. If I place my other party members far away, they shouldn't come running into the fray. Worst case: My BB B-B_B-Brave wizard with his little rod enters a tank role whenever he feels like it. Grr!

If I put Baby in the corner

Nobody puts baby in a corner

^I was sooo much baiting for that reply!