Henchman AI Problem

I'm not sure if it was the update that caused this but today I was trying to capture the elite skill Grenth's Balance for my tank from Naphui Quarter.
I thought it would be a peace of cake, just go kill the turtle with henchies and cap. How i was WRONG.

First as soon as i get near the turtle, the henchies start acting up weird, running away from me and such. Then when I'm about to engage the turtle, this starts to happen:



Vhang, Eve and Kai Ying's little adventure continued:



Finally they made it to what seemed to be their destination, a single Star Blade underneath a bridge we passed by, after attacking him they continued on to be killed...




I've never seen the AI this sensative before. As soon as anything comes into the aggro circle they run to attack it no matter how far away it is.. Anyone else experiencing this problem?

I can't control them properly either. If I want to run away because of a bad aggro, they won't follow me like they used to. So most of them die.

I was doing some luxon quests in Silent Surf, when henchies accidently aggro the mobs they tend to stay and fight, even if I keep running and seeing them slaughtered from far away.

It seems i cant get them to retreat anymore, especially the fighter henchies just leeroy into groups and end up dead. Something is definitely wrong with them, they act more stupid than usual.

I've had the entire group of henchies just flat run away from me before. No mobs around or anything, and they just run off.
Still, my favorite thing of all is watching the henchies sit in an AoE and die while they hug each other in bewilderment... yet the mobs flee from zero damage AoEs. Long standing bug, so I don't ever see it being fixed; though I agree, they are worse these days.

I noticed this in the update notes:

• Updated the artificial intelligence of all henchmen

Hmm... How many times have we seen that before? Has the AI ever become any better?

play with humans thats the upgrade

Updated AI my ASS. The only 'update' that's worth it was the dancing... WTF has it done to the normal AI?

Heheh it may well be that they're making henchies dumber so you'll have to play with humans more.

I actually thought they did recieve a notable upgrade when henchies learned to rez with sigs mid battle instead of leaving the monks to both start casting Ressurect in the middle of a big battle, resulting in complete slaughter.

As a side note, I do remember my favorite situation with bizarre henchie AI. I was standing outside a zone once somewhere in the Maguuma area with no enemies nearby, when a pig started attacking us seemingly randomly, until I noticed that it was Dunham who had aggroed the pig by casting Empathy on him. Ever since then Distortion Man has been my favorite hench.

Sounds like a downgrade to me.

update...not upgrade or improvement XD

Well this isn't the only hench problem even tho mine kept running a good distance away well before being attacked to stand in lava yesterday.....

Mine is more along the lines of henchies getting STUCK! I was capping on Perdition when both my tanks got stuck and wouldn't come out of their rock.... However this taught me that you don't need tank henchies and are actually quite better off without them >_> (Nearly cleared the place with 6/8 no tanks and fewer deaths!)
But when the guild theif gets stuck at the gate release of your OWN gate... well then that can cause some issues in gvg.... >_<

Why are the henchies running around like chickens with their heads cut off?

in fact it not a problem with the ai, its theyr way of act, and it wasnt placed on the update, henchman suck each time more, everytime they change or nerf something the hench got worse, cuz the ai dont get any better, i had the same problem in several other places, since i cant stand people i hench everything, if you try to reach temple from senji there is a corner they all go nuts and run in the middle of a crowd as big as lakers fans, theyre plain uselless thats the point here lol

Ditto

Ok I thought the dancing update was great, but it doesn't make up for this... fiasco. Please Anet don't make me play with humans for all of Nightfall on all of my characters!

Lots of problems here, they just seem unable to retreat, I can walk a whole compass away and they become out of sight and still stay and fight, not receiving helaing in battle, no good ressing, worse then the first days of prophecies imo.....

For once I have to agree. The henches are completely uncontrollable
now.

Last night I was happily capping the remainder of the Factions elites
with them and doing fine. This morning I went to pick up where I left
off, and it's like they went insane.

I'll begin to approach a group with my finger over the "x" button so I
can reverse direction and pull them back a little. Before my aggro
bubble even touches them the henches will all break into a headlong
run. Not just the warriors any more... all of them. If I go ahead and hit
x and run back to try and break off the attack, the henches totally
ignore me now. I can be so far away that they're off my radar screen
and they still won't disengage. I have no idea what the casters are
rushing in like that for. The only thing I can think is maybe they're
going to poke the enemy warriors in the eye with they're wands to try
and blind them.

I don't know if I should put off capping until the "event" is over or just
start learning to adapt to another of Anets bungled attempts to "fix"
something.

Alas, the henchies are indeed broken. I just tested them out in Mourning Veil Falls. Pulling of any kind no longer works. Backing up doesn't work. Longbow doesn't work. In either case, the henchies immediately attack, and if further aggro threatens you have to run very far away before they will follow you, like two or three aggro circle diameters.

The henchies are broken. This is sad. I hope they can fix this, but there is a possibility that A.Net cannot; worst case scenario. This may be how the hench work in Nightfall, which may work there; but will leave Factions and Prophecies unplayable.

Well, in Nightfall they say you can give commands to your Heroes (henchman too maybe?) so perhaps in this update, they gave us the "new AI" without actually giving us the controls to command them :P

I'm getting my monk up the missions and I must say that yesterday i was getting slaughtered by the am fah at each group but today i totally OWNED them (full hench team). to be honest i see them better, no idea what's got into them but i manage them almost perfectly.

>> sometimes they DO like to sit about and fight rather than retreat, but as I take extra care to aggro and that they kill mobs so fast it isn't much of a prob.

I'm sorry for you guys but that's my view.

I have seen some weird things with henchies, but the best was last weekend was the weirdest. My henchies and minions ran to the enemy instead of staggering the appropriate distances. Rangers, healers, casters, and bone fiends ran to the target then attacked. The AOE spells killed them of rather quickly. I see your screen shots you are on bridges. I only had the problems on the bridges though.

As I would normally do when I see a thread stating problems with henchmen AI, I would praise them saying that they are far better than pugs. But after last night's experience, and I'm not sure if it has to do with the sept 20th updating the hench AI, I finally have to agree the henchmen are freaking stupid now. I've never had problems with them before. All of a sudden last night, they were doing the dumbest things and making life quite miserable for me.

First problem, the healers don't seem to be healing properly anymore. Normally I take all ranged attackers healers either Jamei and Tai, or if one of them isn't available, Professor Gai. Professor Gai DIES first every time. And it's not just because he's a healer, it's as though NOBODY is healing him. And god forbid I died a few times too where normally the area would be deathless with henchies. Now I've traversed those areas before with little to no deaths, but last night was just a healing dissaster.....

Secondly, some of them henchmen just don't know when to retreat. I see things going poorly.... so I run away to pull the henchmen out of the fight and retreat. Some of the henchmen decide to stay and duke it out. What the hell. The repeat offenders include Aiden, the other ranger hench, and sometimes even the mesmer henches. I haven't tested them all out, but I can run almost out of radar range and they're still back there duking it out while getting their butts handed to them.

Thirdly, unnecessary aggro. Now for some history, I once took the henches out to defog the crystal desert. I decided to kill Kephet while I was there and was amazed at how intelligently the hench AI responded. They actually moved to a position that kept the target between them and the next group of enemies, keeing the furthest distance away from other enemies and thereby guaranteeing that they would not accidentally aggro them. Last night I watched as I ctrl commanded my henches to attack a lone jade knight, and suddenly the green illusionist hench (lo sha?) decides to run about 20 meters past the jade knight, and plant himself exactly halfway between the jade knight we're targetting, and the next squad of enemies...... and yes he aggrod them. Was that really necessary? Couldn't he have done the same thing keeping his distance.... BUT BEHIND ME AND THE REST OF THE TEAM!!!!!1111!!! Sigh.....

So I dunno. Maybe they've always acted like this and I've been lucky up until yesterday evening because yesterday evening was a complete dissaster with henchies. On the other hand, if last night's patch had anything to do with this, oh god please ANET change it back. If your intention was was to "improve" the hench AI by making them act more human, well you have undoubtedly succeeded... in that they now play like your typical slow reacting leeroy wammo pug.........

Playing with hench is really simple now if you follow certain rules:

1) Don't bow lure, the hench will run in and attack
2) Don't try to call targets, the hench will not care
3) Don't try to retreat, the hench will not follow you
4) Be a /Mo since you'll need to res hench after every fight

I'm still waiting on the henchie AI fix that makes Alesia/Menhlo/Lina run out of maelstorms before trying to heal people.

I created a PvE Assassin a few days ago, and even if I run/shadowstep away from danger like I'm supposed to I get killed because Sister Tai is casting Signet of Devotion on somebody else. Then the whole party dies because I can't call the target. Before you know it a group of 3 Jade Brotherhood can wipe us out and everybody has 60dp, which makes continuing the main quest impossible.

PvE assassin + henchies = ragequit

This game is getting harder and harder to play for people who aren't in big guilds. Pug groups aren't getting any smarter, and henchies are getting worse with each update (Remember when they didn't waste their Resurrection Signets like morons?) If this isn't fixed sometime after Nightfall is released I think I may give up on the new PvE content forever.

But I have faith. Hopefully it'll be fixed.

That Shadow of Haste update was a *huge* boon to PvE sins. Before the update, I found myself using Return to get out of bad situations. But a disturbing amount of the time, I'd hit return on Sis Tai, and move a whole two feet. Now with SoH+Dash, a PvE sin can safely get out of a mess (AoD isn't all that eairly in the game).

I love the ressig update on a whole, it is a huge help when they revive some guy mid-fight. My only problem is when they use ressigs after a fight, or with one monster left. In that situation a monk res would work, but no monk can beat the speed of ressig.

Apparently now the henchmen are controlled by the party leader?

I was doing a mission with 2 friends and 3 henchmen earlier and our party leader kept idling to eat. If my other friend and I advanced forward at all, the henchmen just stood around the party leader and wouldn't budge until he moved.

Has anybody else had this problem?

think how fast they fall to 4 shiroken elementalists using star burst/o flame....(I know...really really fast/tested) thank goodness the ai 'update' is for this weekend only....

^^^ I'll vouch for this. I followed these steps and my henchmen problems disappeared!

My favorite AI update yet!

This morning to my surprise Devona and Talon Silverwing spammed Charge! like mad. I practically sprinted everywhere I went with them in my party.

Overall, I haven't noticed much of a difference. I expect brain-dead behavior from henchies. However, it's typically an order of magnitude less than what I expect from PuGs.

so... ctrl+spacebar+spacebar doesn't work anymore?
i'll try the new henchies this night ¬¬

I imagine that the henchies are currently using the "aggressive" mode AI. When the other two options are introduced ("defensive" and "passive") this problem should go away.

"Under your Compass, you'll see a set of four flags. With the first flag, you can set a common destination for all of your Heroes and henchmen. To set a destination for them, click once on the first flag, and then click on the mini-map in the center of your Compass. All of your Heroes and henchmen will then walk to that destination. The same button can remove the destination flag from your compass. When you remove a destination flag for a Hero or henchman, that NPC no longer walks to that location; instead, the NPC returns to your location."



From the Nightfall Forum, On the Gw homepage

I didn't play all that much today but I did notice the henchies refusing to retreat from a fight, meaning I couldn't pull at all. On the positive side though, Stefan and Thom were chaining "Charge!" like pros

The update note didn't say lastnight but on Friday however I noticed a few strange things with Alesia as she started dancing and playing air guitar as well as Orion and Stefan did a little dance to.This is suppose to be with the NightFall beta.

To what Mr eX said I has the same thought useing thier res sigs most of the time and useing them.I was thinking maybe 10 min or a 30 recharge time applied despite a morale boost.That does need a fix and with no bosses around how do you get that?

Ummm...take henchies outside.... do /dance emote. they will start dancing with you and playing instruments....if no one noticed.... sry if it was mentioned already.

same problem, they're aggroing evrthing and NEVER retreat.....

So.... The henchmen AI is based on the 'intelligence' of a wammo. Lol... If only wammos had intelligence to begin with :P

It was mentioned in another thread. I tried it and noticed that Talon Silverwing doesn't dance. I guess Tengu/Avicarra are above it.

C'mon ANet! Talon needs to "Do The Funky Chicken."