Companion AI: Could they please NOT kill each other?

[ArminW]

Seriously, they way some enemies keep spamming confused, charmed and dominated effects on the party, it's more than enough that the affected companions act Bloody F***ing Stupid^TM for the duration (like, switching weapons to the silliest available choice ).

But the unaffected party members dropping 50 points in IQ as well? Hello? Could we please have a setting where the party AI does NOT automatically attack (and possibly kill) the charmed companions? Like "never attack a party member, even IF there's a damn red circle under his/her feet"?

 

That just turns the entire party into bumbling fools, kills immersion and makes companion AI annoying and frustrating and basically unusable.

 

 

[qwert_44643]

yeah i sorta agree

[Zherot]

Seriously, they way some enemies keep spamming confused, charmed and dominated effects on the party, it's more than enough that the affected companions act Bloody F***ing Stupid^TM for the duration (like, switching weapons to the silliest available choice ).

But the unaffected party members dropping 50 points in IQ as well? Hello? Could we please have a setting where the party AI does NOT automatically attack (and possibly kill) the charmed companions? Like "never attack a party member, even IF there's a damn red circle under his/her feet"?

 

That just turns the entire party into bumbling fools, kills immersion and makes companion AI annoying and frustrating and basically unusable.

 

This sounds terrible.

[globalCooldown]

This is why I just turn AI off and micro everything. ._.

[Adam Brennecke]

Thanks for the feedback. I agree with ya, and I'll bring it up with the team. 

[Doppelschwert]

If you're still reading this, adam, is there any news regarding the next patch?

 

There are a lot of complaints about balance on the forums.

Edited September 14, 2015 by Doppelschwert

[Adam Brennecke]

If you're still reading this, adam, is there any news regarding the next patch?

 

There are a lot of complaints about balance on the forums.

 

Heya. We are finalizing the 2.02 patch this week, and the beta patch will be up soon after. I don't know what balance changes are going in (I don't work on balance changes), but we should have patch notes up at the time of the beta.

[Zaret Voruta]

Well characters being confused, charmed or dominated by spells and party infighting is ok, this is what those spells suppose to do. If I cast those spells on enemy that's the result i hope for.

 

Only problem is that after characters are released from those states. They are still attacking each other.

[ArminW]

Thanks for the quick reply

When you bring this up, you might mention that the behaviour actually gets worse, the better the party gets, and the higher the resistances/defenses are.

When more than half the party (or all of 'em ) are charmed or dominated, you can just wait it out, lose some endurance, and have a cup while the counter goes down. If only a single character is affected and the rest of the party are set to "defensive" and immediately gang up - I've seen Durance, Aloth or Kana drop faster from (un)friendly fire than I could pause...

[pi2repsion]

Well characters being confused, charmed or dominated by spells and party infighting is ok, this is what those spells suppose to do. If I cast those spells on enemy that's the result i hope for.

 

Only problem is that after characters are released from those states. They are still attacking each other.

The problem is not that the confused, charmed, or dominated party members or enemies attack their friends. That's what the affliction is supposed to do.

 

The problem is that other party members, who are NOT charmed, dominated, or confused, and who live in a world where they understand the concept of such spells (and may even use them themselves), happily and sometimes immediately attack party members who are so afflicted, saying, "damn, somebody charmed my friend! I'd better stop killing our enemies and kill him instead before the spell's duration runs out; I do this utterly idiotic action because I am under AI control".

 

And yes, I completely accept that if party AI starts acting sensibly in that regard, so should enemy AI.

 

A spell causing one enemy to change sides temporarily should never cause those unaffected by it to concentrate on killing their compatriot over their enemies.

 

The current functionality has been an annoyance since the game's 1.0 release, as it is

 

a) Bloody hard to justify, and

b) An annoyance during play where you enable AI functionality, which is of increased importance in 2.0.

 

so it would be really nice if it was changed. It is the sort of thing I was expecting not to see changed until the sequel to Pillars of Eternity, but if there's a chance to get it changed before White March part 2, I'm all for it.

Edited September 15, 2015 by pi2repsion

[Zherot]

This is why I just turn AI off and micro everything. ._.

 

No AI was the thing that turned me away from the game ._.

[Zherot]

Thanks for the feedback. I agree with ya, and I'll bring it up with the team. 

 

But this is what i like, this dudes actually listen to feedback and now we have our AI even if ts crappy, thats a start.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Zherot

[globalCooldown]

 

This is why I just turn AI off and micro everything. ._.

 

No AI was the thing that turned me away from the game ._.

 

To each their own! A bug's a bug, and that's why this thread exists.

Would be nice to know I don't have to micro to such a great extent without my party falling all over each other, though.

[KDubya]

Fixing it for the enemies as well would be good.

 

If I charm or dominate one enemy, they should attack my enemies but the enemies should not focus fire and kill their friend.

 

That would tone down CC some and add a lot of realism.

 

The threat from domination type effects should be my dominated character attacking my team, not my team changing targets to kill the dominated guy.

[drunetovich]

If i remember correctly in BG confused party member would turn yellow, not red, and were not valid AI targets for my own party.

Here we get red circle and full blown enemy side switch, with enemy buffs starting to affect and my harmful auras start to press down on poor confused guy.

[iLurk]

Do party members turn hostile similar to charmed when confused?

 

Confused units in BG get stars above their heads. They might stand still, walk around confused about life, attack the enemy or attack friends.

 

If the AI was enabled your party member will only attack or run if they get attacked depending on the script used, rest of the party will continue doing whatever.

[Teioh_White]

The AI seems target the closest red circle too it. When hit by any of the mind control thins (confuse, charm, dominate), it turns the circle red, and the AI makes that its next target to munch on. They'll often keep attacking it even after the circle's gone back to green. It is rather annoying, having to constantly spam 'attack that' while someone's charmed.

 

I think the yellow circle, for allies and enemies under mind control, is a good idea. Makes it take one target out of the fight, who does a little damage to their friends, but doesn't make everyone around them try to eat them.

[Rathlord]

The AI is really confusing/confused, too. I swear that when my party members get charmed/dominated, my casters will actually interrupt their spell actions to instead auto-attack their party member. My tanks will break engagement to go fight them. Not only is it illogical, it's almost spitefully, intentionally anti-logical.

[FacesOfMu]

It'd be nice if it used the character stats to determine this somehow (like characters with <10 int/perc will attack charmed allies), but we'd just micro manage this away. It'd only be a tasteful development for foe AI.

[abaris]

The AI is really confusing/confused, too. I swear that when my party members get charmed/dominated, my casters will actually interrupt their spell actions to instead auto-attack their party member. My tanks will break engagement to go fight them. Not only is it illogical, it's almost spitefully, intentionally anti-logical.

 

That's the real problem. They go out of their way to attack their party member(s) instead of keeping up the real fight.

 

That's but one of the reasons why I'm largely back to micromanaging.