Henchman AI Problem

The henchies are now a complete disaster in Factions, I haven't tried Prophecies. I just feel sick. If this is temporary, the patch notes should have said so, but they said nothing about it being temporary.

I just took the henchies out into Maishang Hills to test them there. Took down the remains of SSaresh Rattler's group without any problems after they fought the Island Guardians, unfortunately leaving both guardians alive. So, I've done this a lot before, but after careful study of the situation, it looked like an attempt to pull was still the best idea. Charging both guardians with my warrior was suicide, and sending in the hench would just get them exterminated.

So, I made sure a very long retreat path was ready, loosed an arrow from my longbow at Seacrash and ran a very long way back. The spirit hench died as did the healer, but the rest of the hench came back with me. Going back I discovered that Seacrash was now pulled enough for an attack. There was no way to wait for the hench to rez, so I went in and killed Seacrash. Couple more hench down but healer was back up.

Then the disaster. I saw it happen. The other Island Guardian had been standing quietly and was at least a full aggro diameter beyond any of my hench. The archer hench ran towards them, and fired on the Island Guardian who headed over. With half my hench down, I decided to take it down. But its first act was to rez Seacrash, who quickly killed the rest of my hench and then me in spite of my best efforts to escape.

Hench intentionally aggroed. ANet, you have to fix the henchies. This is just terrible. The game is now unplayable.

Ha... i came on today to work on my new mesemer on shing jea, Jaya and the lagoon areas to get to Zen daijun, and honestly, it was one of my worst henchie experences.

before i could snag a masters on zen with henchies, now im afraid to try.

Trying to clear and map Whitman's Folly, south of Droknar's Forge. Henchmen are extremely aggressive and will charge at anything that moves. They also are very reluctant to disengage, and Little Thom would not disengage AT ALL. He is currently dead, and I'm not sure I want to res his sorry rear end.

This is unacceptable and I hope Anet fixes it soon.

Now Stefan is dying and being a complete moron. I've never had this problem in this area before.

Having recreated my PvE Assassin and going around Shing Jea, I thought everything was business as usual. Until I got to Zen Daijun. Panaku disappeared from the radar going after a mob that was running away, and died off-screen for it.

Hey ANet we did want Henches to become more like real players, but not like that!!!

Attempted to use the henchies in the Abaddon's mouth mission. It was laughable.

I can normally buzz through this mission and bonus with them and have no porblems. I was setting out to get the mesmer caps on my warrior today, and the henchemen make it literally impossible. Killed the first two jade bows no problem, then the HEALER henchies both started attacking the ether seal, didn't stop to heal, just kept wanding it until they were both dead. I tried to run away, of course, managed to get about two full aggro circles away but not a single one of the henchies came with me.

Took a second attempt thinking that maybe I had imagined the first one. This time Cynn ran in and started attacking the ether seal. The other ones started to go in, but I managed to run in time to take them back with me. All except for Cynn, of course, who merrily cast away at the ether seal for an additional ten seconds or so, right up until her death --at which point both of the healers ran from well out of range and held hands while they both got killed trying to rez her.

Attempt number three was every bit as bad. This time the first two jade went down fairly quickly and the henchies came back when I pulled out. But when a mesmer got near the archers on the top, they all ran to the wall and started attacking. That would have been fine, but... They were just attacking. The mesmer, necro and elementalist were not using magic, they were uselessly firing their wands into the wall without ever using a skill. The monks were doing the same thing. The only skill that either of the monks cast the entire time they stood by and watched the entire group die was reversal of fortune. The heal monk never cast a spell, the damage dealers never cast a spell, and yet they still wouldn't run away. Eventually I got them all rezzed (monks last, of course) and took down the ether seal. Then one warrior ran in and left, one ran in and right -each going after a different caster enemy- and the casters all ran directly into the group of three jade armor in the middle. Party annihilation was complete in under 10 seconds.

Yeah, I am not all that happy about the modifications of the A.I.

Same thing happen to me at Abaddon mission, its downright impossible to hench now. Pulling doesn't work at all, and the hench will nvr retreat. There was once where Mhenlo start attacking some jade bow on the wall and wouldn't retreat even after i ran all the way back to where the Vizier appear. He just keep attacking till he died. Even Denova became more suicidal like Thom.

I was thinking of finish prophecies before i start Nightfall, but with way the hench are behaving it's gonna be a problem cause getting a group for the last mission is quite hard, not much players around.

I really hope this update is temporary and will be fix after the event is over

I hench nearly everything and I know how to effectively use them. The only thing that really bothered me was the healers wanting to stand next to the tank. If you called a target a few times they would switch to it. If you clicked the ground to run away after a second or so they would respond. They were pretty easy to control in most situations and you could do nearly everything with them so long as NPCs didn't need healing desperately.

Now I call a target and they don't give a crap! I actually have to hit something for them to stop running to attack whatever it is they have their eye on. And they are REALLY persistant in attacking whatever the hell they want to!!! I've seen them aggro things they are no where near.

Also while fighting the tanks are tending to run around aggro ring, mostly to the left and right. I think they are trying to avoid AOE but it makes aggro control impossible because they end up pulling more and more groups.

Please put them back the way they were and just make the monks stay with the casters.

It seems they updated them to react to the "Agreesive, Defensive, Passive" commands but havent actually added those commands so they are stuck in "Aggressive" - which means they attack anything that moves and never stop attacking no matter what you want.

lol

Funny :\

I gotta go test.

Doing the Masters of Corruption quest, everybody is dead but Talon, Zho and Sister Tai. Apparently none of them feel like doing any sort of res.

Sister Tai keeps yawning, Zho keeps doing a string of yawn-dance-yawn-clap-drum-stand around and Talon just stands around saying, "I despise wasted opportunity, we should get going." Well, buddy, I'd like to but...

I'm so glad I have to come all the way back out here and do this quest all over again. Really.

As bad as they are, they are still quite usable.. I just completed Abaddon's mission and bonus with a full hench party with relative ease. I still prefer these henchies over PuGs.

Now off to do Hell's..

Tried to cap some skills yesterday and found the Seaguard Eli wouldn't retreat, no matter what I did. Everyone else followed me (although Daeman did stand around looking confused) away from every group I encountered, but Eli ran in and died without any kind of healing.

I've also had separate guildies telling about Devona and Little Thom running off on their own, out of radar range, and getting killed.

What a disaster. I used to use the henchmen for everything. All my skill capping in the Southern Shiverpeaks and hard Factions areas, and I never had problems. And now I tried and they have turned the henchmen into idiots. They've nerfed the AI so that they are as stupid or more stupid than the monsters.

It doesn't matter how much I call a target, how much I run away, how much I do anything, the henchmen do whatever the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO they want. They all attack different targets, they run away and aggro other mobs, they never retreat. Whereas before I preferred henchmen to a PUG, I think that will change from now on...

If it isn't broken, don't fix it! I want the henchmen of 5 months ago before they "fixed" the resurrect code, which made all the henchmen race to res people with a res sig. There is no point in the monk henchmen bringing a res any more, because they never, ever get a chance to use it because all 6 other henchmen try to use their sig first. When they broke that it was mildly annoying, but now they've broken the AI as well.

Thank goodness this is an existing thread...it needs fixed badly IMO. This newly aggressive AI has rended playing with hench nearly worthless in remotely advanced explorable areas.

There absolutely NEEDS to be a way to make hench follow you when you decide to lure. It used to be challenging but ultimately achievable; now it is plain impossible. I can simply no longer split enemies up by luring a few away from a large group. Why make all henchmen this aggressive suddenly?

I play a crazy amount of GW per week and usually it's just me and 7 hench capping skills. Lets see...I died about 60 times in three months of play, and then last night in about four hours 25 times. That's crazy. I wasn't exploring anywhere I hadn't wiped clean before....just now I have no choice but to take on huge groups because the hench are spazzes. I hope to God this gets toned down or removed.

Please ANet, I implore you....consider reversing the hench AI update.

Thanks

After they wipe (and believe me they will) do the following:

1. Put your new rallying point flag down (a good distance) behind where you are.

2. Now go and rez your henchmen.

3. Then watch as they run back to the flag and out of harm's way. Even monk henchmen will resist the desire to res other memebers of the party.

This worked well for me after wiping on one of the ele bosses in factions. Of course you need to have Mo or Rit as one of your professions and carry a repeatable rez.

Still... it's better than nothing.

Hmm, I guess I have yet to see or try the new flags deal, but after reading about it I thought that was for Heroes only and not Henchmen?

I expected to have hench stay the same as they always were and have all of this extra (hopefully good) stuff for Heroes. Can anyone confirm that the flag system is for henchmen as well?

Henchies have been a little, let's say careless, of agro for a while now I've noticed. When I go to quest with them, I call a target and the warrior usually charges in to take agro. The casters would stay the appropriate distance away and attack from just at bubble range. For a few weeks now, even the casters, especially the stupid illusion hench, will run straight in with the warriors and completely screw up agro.

I don't like the fact that henchies stick to the party leader now. I haven't played with much since the last update to vouche for their inability to retreat.

One way that I always learned to control henchies when when playing with friends, was to let them go in and pull while I did some short strafing back and forth to keep the henchies back. Careful planning of party leader is now important. You don't want to have your warriors, rangers or other melee class be party leaders anymore.

Ok I tried playing with the henchies again last night. This time defogging areas in the echovoid forest outside amatz basin and eternal grove explorable. It's as bad as I percieved it the first time when I noted the hench odd behavior after the sept 20th update. The healers don't heal effectively anymore. Even if you run away, at least 1-2 of the hench team will NOT break off and will fight to the death.... usually theirs. Hell I ran and ran and ran til those henchies were completely off the radar screen, they still didn't break off. Or if they did break off, they died after taking about 2 steps. Basically, instead of fighting my way through areas, it became more like a war of attrition. Throughout a fight, henchies would die, be battle rezzed, and at almost all times, there would be at least 2 henchies dead. And I died plenty of times. Several party wipes involving a lot of running back to finish a job, and then move on to the next mob..... The henchmen are just plain retarded now. And frankly I'm not sure if teaming up with pugs would be any better as running around with the henchies already feels like I'm teamed up with a pug..... a really bad one too.

Heh well tyria is pretty easy compared to cantha. Try using the henchies while running around in say.... nahpui quarter explorable. You'll be pulling your hair out at how stupid the henchies are now.

So we have flags now, is there any way to change their agressivness level in Tyria and Cantha?

Last night while capping in Abbadons with hench I definately noticed aggressive behavior and poor response. I finally decided it would be faster to form a group to to the bonus, cap the caps and finish the mission even though I only wanted the mesmer cap. The hench are totally worthless with this aggressive AI turned on. They should make defensive AI the default.

I would never use a full team of henchies in Abbondons Mouth why because of they get to close to the seals and if you don't play Monk who is going to res the Monks healers when dead.What would you do if you weren't /Mo the reason for so many War/Mo in the game hopefully we will be eable to chanhe thier skill bars for all campaigns when NF comes out.I don't like useing henches in missions regardless pugs anyday for me.

I never had problems with henchies before in tyria. In fact, I found the henches way more reliable than pugs. I regarded them as extensions of my own will. I call a target and they ALL attack the same target. Try getting a pug to do that consistently. And the hench healers were lightning quick and other than maybe the occasional hiccup with battle rezzing, they were better than most pug healers I've had the misfortune to be teamed up with.

The only thing I couldn't do in tyria with henchies was run from beacons to droks, or the thirsty river bonus. Yes that does mean I could complete thirsty river with henchies. I'm sure glad I worked and completed my tyria grand master cartography title last week because if I were to do it now with the hench ai update, I'd have a hellava time getting anywhere in the shiverpeaks.

They will restore the old hench after the weekend but after playing with the flag hench I have a feeling they might actually be the better of the two, even with agressive setting on.

There is a way to control normal henchies with the new flag system....

1) Hit the little flag button at the bottom of the compass.
2) Left click on compass to set flag and all of the henchies will run there. They tend to stay at flag, too.
3) Warriors will attack your called target, even if they hafta run away from flag. Monks will follow just enough to heal the warriors.
4) Dbl-click on the flag button to cancel flag orders. Henchies back to normal mode.

And, what I find helps alot: you can hotkey the flagging command.
1) Under Menu..Options..Control
2) Select "Action: Command Party"
3) Assign whichever hotkey you want.
4) Hit your hotkey to bring up the flag option.
5) You can place flag in compass or directly on-screen.
6) Dbl-click your hotkey to cancel flag.

The whole system seems to work better so far as I can tell. With the addition of setting the aggressive, passive, and defence buttons for your heroes (can't do that for normal henchies atm), it should work very well.

BTW, all this was tested in Tyria with my original character , so it's not just for the NF campaign.

Oh, I see now... I never noticed those little buttons up by the compass before. I thought I was just doomed with overly aggressive henchmen.

This henchman AI is awful...

I'm trying to lure... Dunkoro runs in head first (even before Koss). Although that was probably because i left him on Agressive.

I hide behind a statue (because Dunkoro is dead again) and Koss immediatly breaks agro... wtf happened to them, this AI is beyond shit.

Yes the new AI made things way too easy. It takes an hour or so to get used to it but so far it's been great.

I can now easily flawless THK with henchies, do split teams like no pug would ever be able to do. It's just amazing. (In THK, you can almost, -almost- go afk, the henchies will figure it out)

No I'm not being sarcastic. The AI is seriously BETTER than before.
The only problems I've had so far was when fighting a mob of Magho Hydras while 2 other mobs come in and beat up my party. The flesh golems just create a small army of minions and then my henchies get overwhelmed. Add to that the fact that the proph henchies can't interrupt 3-4 meteor showers and you see a lot of bright red bars go to dark red in a matter of seconds.

But that problem existed before the update too. In fact, with flags, I can just let the henchies stay where they are, run into the hydras, trigger the meteor showers and then charge in, mowing them down!

I see absolutely no use in playing with humans anymore. These humans either go out and get good equipment, learn how to play their profession and actually make a difference in a party, or they can stay where they are and complain about other people.

The henchmen are perfect now. Except maybe the prophecies ones where we don't have out heroes (will we get them in proph too?) and the standard hench don't include an interrupt hench.


The problems you people are describing sound as if you are using the henchmen the way you are used to. When something changes, try to figure out what the best way of using them is now.

Them running after a star blade that is in their aggro but not on their path is probably something that can be tweaked or messed with. But for the rest, the new hench are great.

(tip: try using the flags)

Oh and btw, I can't remove the flags once they are placed. People told me to doubleclick the radar flag thingy or the red X but those either don't do anything or are greyed out. So I have to manually send my henchies everywhere. What gives?

I have Koss on aggressive and half of the time he won't attack. I have Dunkoro on passive and he somehow manages to get attacked, then runs away, ALWAYS into the mobs. He aggroes 5 other mobs in the process of his "kiting". I would rather he stands still and gets hit than that.

The flags don't always work either. I wanted to retreat from battle so I put a flag somewhere safe. Me and Koss are running away, Koss going to his flag, then suddenly he turns round, and in his skills window I see he is using Resurrect. He is out of aggro range of the rest of the team, and we are running, and I set a waypoint for him. But once he decides to do something else, he'll do that instead of anything else. No way of stopping him. It's the same for if he decides to attack something (out of aggro range). You see a skill flashing to be used and him running off, and there's nothing you can do about it.

It's next to impossible to break aggro. Half the team will, but some of them (usually the warriors) sit there attacking and dying. It used to be possible to run past some enemies, not any more. It used to be possible to lure, not any more. It used to be possible to retreat, not any more. It used to be easy to hench from Droknar's Forge to Beacon's Perch, not any more.

i tried to do some capping at ring of fire yesterday night and this morning, and i was puzzled why the henchmen where being so friggin stupid. they were aggroing everything, and not following my orders. i set the flag so they would stand about 1 aggro radius away from a mursaat tower, then i would go pull the jade bows, but the warrior henches would charge the bows before i even got outside the range of the mursaat tower. i did this mission with henchies before, but now its completely impossible. even if i wanted to join a pug, i didn't see many people in rof anyway, and the few that were there were probably there for the mission, not to cap. if i can't use the henchies, and can't join a pug, then how am i supposed to cap?

anet, please give us our old henchies back!

I've just been using the cancel button up by the compass or placing the flag somewhere else. Still sort of working with it myself though.

One problem is that when you have a flag up and everyone dies the hench will rush to the flag from the res shrine, so you have to cancel the flag fast after being resurrected at a shrine.

Otherwise the flag system is working pretty decent even with aggressive hench, at least where I tried it, Kurzick side from House zu Heltzer to Unwaking waters.


Edit: And if you're 2 players + hench it's very good

I play together with my girlfriend, filling the rest of the group with henchmen, and before this update we could usually split them and have the melee henchmen follow her (she plays a Warrior) while I hold the caster ones together with me in the backline so they don't get shot.

After the update the henchmen will just stick together with whomever is the party leader. That's fine and all, if I make the party they all stay with me, but the problem is that when I send in the melee henchmen into battle, they'll run in, and then run back after they leave my aggro circle, bringing some of the enemies into our aggro circle and causing havok in the backline.

It's really great in Nightfall where she can control her heroes and I can control mine, individually, but in Factions and Prophecies, where you can only control the henchmen as a group, it can be pretty awful with some class combinations.

They need to fix Jamei's AI. Now she dies more often and quickly. Sometimes she'll just stand there and not heal at all.

Couldn't agree more the hench healers are a big problem. The find it much more interesting wanding something to death than actually healing people. The whole team seems sluggier.

I do wish this event would be over soon so that Anet can betatest their new hench AI without us. Imagine the old hench AI with the flag system

So, I'm one of those people who use henchmen in most situations (except when doing missions when guildmates are evailable, and even then parties are often completed by henchmen).

So far, the update to henchmen is a mixed bag, at best.

Between the update on the 20th and the start of the event is was an utter and complete failure; I wasted the better part of an evening failing missions because of the henchmen's stupidly aggressive behavior and inability to break away from combat (thus making it impossible to perform pulls by aggroing and retreating, which worked perfectly before).

After the event started, we got access to the "flag" option. This caused an immediate change in the way combat with henchs is performed and made the option to pull available again. Now, if you place the flag at an appropriate location, you can pull enemies (with a longbow, even, which was broken earlier!) and the henchmen will only engage when the enemies reach their position. This is GOOD. however, there are a few setbacks in the new system.

First thing; before the update, the monk healers would be around to protect and heal you while you did the aggro-pull, which allowed you to get out unscathed of most situations while pulling (except for multi-mind burn spikes by afflicted elementalists or mind freeze by ice imps). Now, you have to leave them at a greater distance, so you must pull all by yourself, so you better have some sort of protection buff before trying a pull against dangerous enemies (especially ranged attackers). This problem is partially mitigated by the fact that you can now pull using the longbow, which means you are exposed to their attacks by a shorter period.

Second; if you do manage to pull, but the battle goes bad for some reason (ie, if henchmen inadvertently aggro another group - which seems to happen more often, as their movement is more erratic after the update - or if you're waylayed by a patrol group), then you can almost certainly count on a party wipe, since the aggressiveness problem from the 9/20 update still remains. You can run, but the henchmen will most likely not follow you, even if you run a whole radar away. that's VERY BAD still.

Third; the monks seem a lot less skilled at their jobs now. Before, they would heal and protect you (and other henches) quick and easily; now, you are mostly left on your own to keep yourself alive. I don't know about other proffesions, but the drop in monk effectiveness is the most readily noticeable.

On the other hand, a few good things (other than being able to bow-pull) came with the update. For one, you can move around the battlefield a bit without the henchmen automatically breaking from their duties and following you. This is especially important for death-blossom-assassins, cyclone-axe warriors and dervishes, who always have to be on the look for the best position for unleashing their aoe attacks (still, if this makes them unable to disengage in a gone-bad situation, I'd much rather have it remain as it was before). Another plus is the fact that you can now command them to move away while you are dead. While this does not always work (see the problem on disengaging described above), it -could-, with some careful planning, allow a recovery from what would be a party wipe. In fact, I did this once using Koss, by making him passive, getting him away from combat, and carefully getting him to rebirth every party member while outside aggro range. Of course, You have a lot more control over him (a hero) than you do over henchmen, but with some luck you might be able to do this if a monk hench survives from battle.

So, what could be made to solve some of the problems we're having?
First are foremost: allow the option to set aggressive/defensive/passive behavior for henchmen (or, at very least, a fight/flight toggle). This would allow for better pulling and, perhaps more important, recovery from dire situations. Even if it was just a single setting for ALL henchmen, it'd still be a huge improvement on the current situation (as of now, it seems all henchs - or at least all warriors, given their extreme reluctance to disengage - are on "aggressive" mode)

Second: work out why the monks (and perhaps other henches) aren't using their skills as they should, and FIX IT.

Third: of course, there's the long outstanding issue of pathing. Henchmen (and every other NPC-friendly or moster) have a terrible tendency to get stuck in corners and/or in other characters, sometimes making movement a pain, and causing needless deaths. Teach them to go AROUND an obstacle, for christ's sake, not to fruitlessly stand between two obstacles while they get killed and take no action.

Lastly; from the wording in their announcements, it seems the henchment AI changes are definitive, while the "flag" functionality will be available during the preview only. If such is the case, henchmen will be basically nonfunctional for the whole month that separates the end of the event and the launch of Nightfall. My request is that either a) the AI changes are reverted until the flags are implemented for good; or b) the flags are implemented immediately and definitively (even if pending ulterior adjustments and fixes in future updates).

It is, of course, of great importance that this thread is read by anet and that appropriate action is taken, as henchmen are an important and integral part of the game, and making them non-working can thorougly destroy the enjoyment of the game for a large slice of the playerbase. I'll leave this post up for a while so it can be read by A-net staff, and if no response comes, I'll be pm-ing and otherwise calling the attention of Gaile Gray until we can get an assurance that they acknowledge the problems and will actively work on fixing them.

I do think they will return the old hench AI until Nightfall is released. From the official site.