Good game, party AI is missing badly however...

[Vortaka]

Good game, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape style...  Love it!

 

However, for me, the thing missing is party AI...  Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2, had it (and I'm sure the others had too), and it was even moddable...  And, to say the truth, I loved it cause I could take the AI and make it my own...  like I wanted it to be...  (DA: Origins had a ok one, but not as moddable!).

 

Now, there's not even an AI...  And it's bad in my opinion...  It's like playing a D&D game and controlling all six characters at the same time... uurrgg...  Never tried it, and I hope I never will!  (and even with the pause, I find it bad)...

 

I mean, yeah, control one character at a time, great!  Give your comrades orders (like in D&D when you tell your friends to go here or there, and attack left or right) sure, it's great!  But, not each and every move...

 

Of couse, bugs are bad and all, but I find that having no AI for party member is atrocious...  I mean, hey, image a fight against 6 foes, a boss and 5 henchmen...  And the 5 henchmen had no AI...  atrocious, no?

 

And, people that don't want them?  Just don't use the AI (Baldur's Gate style!).  Win win!

 

Support your gamers...  

 

 

P.S.  Hey, here's something!  Reply or give a sign or whatever if you'd like "at least" an AI...  I know, it's not a petition or anything but, it might help, who knows?  For me, it would really keep the game alive!  (Baldur's Gate is still my reference here!).

Edited April 1, 2015 by Vortaka

[Mungri]

I heard they will add party AI in an expansion, not sure if 100% true though.

[Vortaka]

I heard they will add party AI in an expansion, not sure if 100% true though.

That would be cool actually (and I hope the expansion would be release far sooner!  Like, next week or so!!!  hihihi...    )

[TheUsernamelessOne]

I'm not sure any AI would be worth it. The game requires painstaking micromanagement in pretty much every encounter.

[lyin321]

I heard they will add party AI in an expansion, not sure if 100% true though.

 

 That will be great...or maybe someone can mod it in if you are thinking about the way you can set different party members to do different things (warriors to attack on sight/thiefs to detect traps at all times etc...).

 As for basic AI...it is already here. If your companions/party members are engaged by the enemy/you manually tell them to attack they will go and search (and auto attack) other enemies once the initial one is dead. It is very basic one mind you. They will just use the auto attack and no abilities (which can be good).

 I actually have the opposite problem - I want to turn off the AI. Because currently it is set that once an enemy engage your party member they turn and start fighting this enemy....and that can be deadly in the harder encounters. The game have killed me a few times because the tank don't want to take the free hit by passing an enemy and engaging the boss, but start a fight with the wrong mob and the boss (ofcourse) go and kill the rest of the poor party at leisure:)

[Cantousent]

I could have sworn I saw a setting turning off party members attacking on their own

Not home right now so I can't check, though.

[Vortaka]

I'm not sure any AI would be worth it. The game requires painstaking micromanagement in pretty much every encounter.

Well, BG also had a lot of micromanagement...  And, the pause is a great thing!

However, there was a modded AI I used (still used it with BGEE (BP series if I remember right...  There was a beta version for EE also).  I modded it myself, since some actions where not what I wanted...  The AI didn't control EVERY action of the companion, but it controlled the main ones...

 

And, now, because abilities are regenerating after each combat (well, most of them), you could even use the script to cast an ability once each 5 or 6 seconds or so...  Good thing!!!

[Vortaka]

 

I heard they will add party AI in an expansion, not sure if 100% true though.

 

 That will be great...or maybe someone can mod it in if you are thinking about the way you can set different party members to do different things (warriors to attack on sight/thiefs to detect traps at all times etc...).

 As for basic AI...it is already here. If your companions/party members are engaged by the enemy/you manually tell them to attack they will go and search (and auto attack) other enemies once the initial one is dead. It is very basic one mind you. They will just use the auto attack and no abilities (which can be good).

 I actually have the opposite problem - I want to turn off the AI. Because currently it is set that once an enemy engage your party member they turn and start fighting this enemy....and that can be deadly in the harder encounters. The game have killed me a few times because the tank don't want to take the free hit by passing an enemy and engaging the boss, but start a fight with the wrong mob and the boss (ofcourse) go and kill the rest of the poor party at leisure:)

 

I'm sure you could tell the script to ignore them and fight the person with the most HP!    Anyway, that's what most modded scripts did in Baldur's Gate!  

[Xionanx]

The "AI" is already there... dont believe me?  Drop some party members from your party, then find them in town or whatever, and then attack them.. watch and be amazed as they fight back, use spells, etc..

 

All we need is a "MOD" that toggles on/off computer control of party members on a "per member" basis.. for instance, party members who only have per encounter abilities are and ranged.. like a ranger.. I would have 0 problems letting the AI run them 24/7 in fights.

 

My biggest complaints with NOT having AI party management tho, is when my party members just stand there not attacking for whatever reason, or refuse to "path" to get to enemies.. nothing like clicking attack on a monster only to have your melee run into each other and do nothing when there is a CLEAR PATH AROUND TO THE FLANK/BACK of the monster..  yeah, I can "Manually" move them over there.. but IMO PATHING should be a no brainer inclusion in standard "click to attack" environments.

 

So yeah.. waiting for AI MOD and/or Obsidian to do it themselves.

[ChipMHazard]

I could have sworn I saw a setting turning off party members attacking on their own

Not home right now so I can't check, though.

 

There is indeed an option to disable auto-attack. The discription notes that party members should start attacking when idle, however I haven't seen that happen yet - Or it's inconsistent enough that I haven't noticed it. They will continue to attack targets if you have given them an attack order i.e. going from one enemy to the next. But they won't attack if they have gone idle and the enemy is ignoring them. 

Edited April 1, 2015 by ChipMHazard

[FalloutBoy]

I never used the party AI from past RPG's because it would work great for easy encounters but would be totally wrong for hard ones. I don't need AI to help me with easy encounters and I'm going to micromanage the hard ones regardless.

[Emptiness]

If they add an AI there will be many huge threads of people complaining about how bad it is.  The best AI that can run on the average home PC (never mind that there would need to be five copies of it running plus the game itself) won't be able to answer tough questions that determine when and where to use advanced abilities.  Not in real time, anyway.  For example, does a fighter burn off his knockdowns early in the fight to try to set the rogue up for sneak attack or does he save them in case he needs to break engagement and reposition himself later in the battle.  Another example: the AI wouldn't be able to figure out when it is okay to drop an AoE on the tank, even one that is likely to knock her out, in order to save the rest of the party by ending the fight faster.

 

The best results will be obtained through micromanagement, but micromanagement isn't absolutely necessary unless you are playing at a high level of difficulty or you are facing an encounter that outlevels you.  I'm playing on Average and many fights I manage only my main character, or my main plus the party priest (on the tougher fights).  Everyone else pretty much just autoattacks.  Sometimes I will select the character and then select their target, but often I don't even bother with that.  (Unless party members are being Dominated; then I have to retarget them after Dominate wears off and everyone who isn't Dominated has to be managed to focus damage on the source of Domination.)  Anyway, the point is that I'm being a very sloppy player, but the difficulty is low enough that I can get away with it.  So my suggestion would be that if you are finding that you have to do too much micromanagement to enjoy the game, just lower the difficulty until that is no longer an issue.

 

Alternatively, you could only adventure with a party as large as your comfortable micromanagement limit.  In other words, if you aren't comfortable micromanaging more than two characters at once, then play with a party of two characters.  That will make the game tougher, of course, but if you don't like the idea of lowering the difficulty to avoid micromanagement then this is an option that decreases the amount of micromanagement without making the game too easy.

[Vortaka]

If they add an AI there will be many huge threads of people complaining about how bad it is.  The best AI that can run on the average home PC (never mind that there would need to be five copies of it running plus the game itself) won't be able to answer tough questions that determine when and where to use advanced abilities.  Not in real time, anyway.  For example, does a fighter burn off his knockdowns early in the fight to try to set the rogue up for sneak attack or does he save them in case he needs to break engagement and reposition himself later in the battle.  Another example: the AI wouldn't be able to figure out when it is okay to drop an AoE on the tank, even one that is likely to knock her out, in order to save the rest of the party by ending the fight faster.

 

The best results will be obtained through micromanagement, but micromanagement isn't absolutely necessary unless you are playing at a high level of difficulty or you are facing an encounter that outlevels you.  I'm playing on Average and many fights I manage only my main character, or my main plus the party priest (on the tougher fights).  Everyone else pretty much just autoattacks.  Sometimes I will select the character and then select their target, but often I don't even bother with that.  (Unless party members are being Dominated; then I have to retarget them after Dominate wears off and everyone who isn't Dominated has to be managed to focus damage on the source of Domination.)  Anyway, the point is that I'm being a very sloppy player, but the difficulty is low enough that I can get away with it.  So my suggestion would be that if you are finding that you have to do too much micromanagement to enjoy the game, just lower the difficulty until that is no longer an issue.

 

Alternatively, you could only adventure with a party as large as your comfortable micromanagement limit.  In other words, if you aren't comfortable micromanaging more than two characters at once, then play with a party of two characters.  That will make the game tougher, of course, but if you don't like the idea of lowering the difficulty to avoid micromanagement then this is an option that decreases the amount of micromanagement without making the game too easy.

Ok, main thing here is that since the AI can be turned off, you don't want it?  Then don't use it!  Simple!  I'm talking here for the people, like myself, who don't want to control all six characters like dead puppets (or simply puppets I guess...  Never saw a live one anyway!)!

 

Second thing...  As I stated before, yes, I do use the pause (and that, a lot) but having to micro manage everything and every move is a pain in the... you know!

 

Third: I wonder, with all the power it should need (referring to the start of your post), how my pentium 1ghz was able to run Baldur's Gate with 6 totally different scripts detailing exactly what to do for each skill/spell...  Every skill/spell/feat was detailed for each class I used (Monk, Ranger, Cleric, Sorcerer, Thief (Imoen) and Fighter)...  I even had to remove some since they were not doing what I wanted...  Again, you don't want it, disable it!  (Or simply take the none script like in Baldur's Gate).

 

If they DID attack (even if only normal attacks) every time, I would be less concerned but only after 3 maps (the three first ones), during battles, my characters just stopped fighting even if others where fighting...  For me, this is unacceptable!  Oh yes, I saw him not fighting after a couple of seconds, but those seconds/actions are now lost and wasted...

 

Now understand me that I'm not complaining or anything, I know that some would want it with AI and some without...  And, understand that people WILL complain about almost everything...  That's why I like mods!  I mod it the way I want to!  It's like an option!  And that's that!  

[aiqidar]

 

The best results will be obtained through micromanagement, but micromanagement isn't absolutely necessary unless you are playing at a high level of difficulty or you are facing an encounter that outlevels you.  I'm playing on Average and many fights I manage only my main character, or my main plus the party priest (on the tougher fights). 

 

I play on hard and I haven't had any difficulties per se (though I've since had to take a break from teh game because I ran into that defense stacking bug with Eder and I just cannot play until this stuff is dealt with). But I did notice a lot of very basic AI issues, like targets not being automatically assigned after a kill. So even on easy I don't think you could do without micronanaging, at least with the game in its current form. I suspect most of it will be dealt with after the first patch though.

Edited April 1, 2015 by aiqidar