I am sorry if this is a redundant topic. 

I'm fairly sure that I already know the answer to this question however I had wanted to bring up some other points that have to do with combat and party member AI.

Josh Sawyer mentioned during the PAX East video that party members will not have AI routines when the game launches. That is fine, I was one to issue commands out to the entire party in the IE games mostly. Most of the more in-depth scripts felt too "all or nothing" in the IE games. For instance, setting up a Wizard to auto spell cast often lead to that character using up important spells on lesser battles and often leaving you with nothing for tougher fights. I usually just stuck to scripts that had the characters auto attack or stay at range. These basic scripts were nice because you wanted your Melee fighters to start the action up and then focus your attention to the spell casters to micromanage them during combat. 

Since PoE is launching without any kinds of scripts, does that mean that even rudimentary behaviors like attacking nearest target or attacking at Range are all going to have to be micromanaged? I am completely OK with issuing skill and magic commands myself, but trying to make sure my Ranger is at Range attacking, and keeping all my Melee characters occupied seems a bit cumbersome.

I think this is my first post (at least, as far as I can remember). I haven't looked at Beta boards or anything else; I am just starting to prepare for launch now ... I like this question. Much like the poster, I am fine with it, whatever the answer, but it would be good to know ...

I am sorry if this is a redundant topic. 

I'm fairly sure that I already know the answer to this question however I had wanted to bring up some other points that have to do with combat and party member AI.

Josh Sawyer mentioned during the PAX East video that party members will not have AI routines when the game launches. That is fine, I was one to issue commands out to the entire party in the IE games mostly. Most of the more in-depth scripts felt too "all or nothing" in the IE games. For instance, setting up a Wizard to auto spell cast often lead to that character using up important spells on lesser battles and often leaving you with nothing for tougher fights. I usually just stuck to scripts that had the characters auto attack or stay at range. These basic scripts were nice because you wanted your Melee fighters to start the action up and then focus your attention to the spell casters to micromanage them during combat. 

Since PoE is launching without any kinds of scripts, does that mean that even rudimentary behaviors like attacking nearest target or attacking at Range are all going to have to be micromanaged? I am completely OK with issuing skill and magic commands myself, but trying to make sure my Ranger is at Range attacking, and keeping all my Melee characters occupied seems a bit cumbersome.

 

I'd really like to know that too. I'm fine with resource-burning abilities requiring activation, but if we have to micro absolutely everything, well I guess I'll definitely be playing on Hard because at least it'll be less tedious that way!

from what I've seen on some videos, Auto-Attack is implemented. They will walk to the target and engage on their own. The rest of your questions, I'm not sure.

Josh Sawyer mentioned during the PAX East video that party members will not have AI routines when the game launches

Oh, did he suggest that this might be added later? Cause that would be awesome. If they could do it with the IE, why not 15 years later?

By default, there is some sort of an 'auto-attack closest hostile with equipped weapon' AI behavior. This is not triggered at start of combat, (which is good, mind you)  but only if current target dies or otherwise becomes untargetable

 

When you start running into encounters where enemies keep using confusion/charm etc... this really becomes a pain. "AI" controlled companions can just pile on poor charmed fellow companion instead of picking a proper enemy.