Any chance GW will have "commands" for henchmen in future updates?

So here is the issue that I believe should be taken into consideration: I cannot find a reasonable way to command my henchmen to do what I ask.

Case in point: Bloodstone Fen. I cannot run the bonus with anyone but a healer because my NPC's kill the guardians since they are deemed hostile mobs.

Second case: When I want to sneak around to watch mob patrols, or run away when badness happens (i.e. any encounter at The Wilds mission) I would like the NPC's to work as a team with me and any human players I have. Instead the NPC's continue the battle until I'm far enough away for them to go "oh, your leaving?" and follow me. By then they're usually dead or dying.

What I'd love to see is a simple number command system or something. That would be great. For instances:

1. Fight my targets: normal behavior I'd guess
2. Concentrated attack: NPC's fight my target and "stick" on it until its dead (rather then constantly switching to my target). Great for spell casters that want to spread the love of pain across a group of mob's w/o having the fighter henchies constantly moving between targets dealing 0 damage because they're walking so much.
3. Help me! : Switch to my target immediatley, or start healing me if that's your primary job.
4. Run Away: Concentrate on running, using defensive spells (haste, heal, etc.) to save yourself and get out as fast as possible.
5. Wait for it: Follow me, make no attacks (enchanting party/healing is an exception) and do not even attack if you are attacked.
6. Defensive: Keep the party alive, fighting is secondary.

Does that sound good? I've not seen anything like this in the current system. I have heard tons of my guild members complain that at high levels "npcs are not an option" and sometimes you just want to play alone w/o hoping you get a good group of people. Sometimes NPC's are better then humans because even in there current mode they listen better :-)

Sorry if this is a double post somewhere, I searched for the topic in a few forums before posting.

CodeMonkey

/signs

I don't know how many times the warrior henchmen aggro'd/attacked another mob when I wanted to hang back and heal up for a minute.

Sounds great and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this went in before the expansion, since it's such a huge issue on the forums and has been for a while. They may be taking their time to get it working right before releasing it.

I think it's in their interest to get this in-game since right now strictly solo players are at something of a disadvantage because of it, as you mentioned.

Iv always thought that henchmen commands would be great, even if its just something like stop and follow, it would make life alot easier.

I think it would make sense for them to have a popup menu on the party listing that would give you options for commands for the henchmen. (they might even allow those same options to exist for humans so that one person (maybe the target caller) could govern the battle with simple, preset commands. (they could just pop up the commands on screen)

(Also, the party list NEEDS energy readings)

If they added a small subset of icons to the members list that were present/enabled when one or more henchies were in the party that would work too (with optional key binds).

So you could have the names/health listed:

-----------------------------------

codemonkey: [ ] 100%
bob: [ ] 80%
Orion henchmen [ ] 80%
[stay] [attack] [run] [...] [...]
-----------------------------------

Where instead of "stay" and "run" were symbolic icons (perhaps a guy running away) with tool tips that stated what they do "Call party to run."

Clicking on the icons could also play an animation (if your not currently running yourself) with a text blob stating your command so that non-henchies could follow the direction as well.

NOTE: Only party leader should be able to do this given that everyone telling NPC's what to do would be worse then what currently exists ;-)

CodeMonkey

Agree w/ the henchmen commands. as a W/R, i switch to bow to pull an enemy from a big mob, but then the the henchmens are running to the enemy and only in few seconds, they are dead. I have to restart again.

I know some of ppl will say to me that I should play w/ other ppl, well i do that too but there are times that it's hard to get someone so Henchies will do.

Also, another cool update would be that when a henchmen finds themselves stuck for over 8 seconds they should be insta-telported back to the head party member. I cannot count the times I entered a battle and then found my NPC healer a quarter mile back stuck on a shurb or mountain curb.

Of course path finding for that may need to be tweaked, there should always be a "last resort" to get the NPC out of trouble. This was a bigger issue when I'd respawn from death and my healer would fly off into the water and refuse to die (leaving me stranded after the next time I died)

CodeMonkey
PS: Picked 8 seconds because statistically speaking people get restless if 8 seconds pass without they're desired request (ie. web-page load, process execution like M$ Word, etc.).

An, to be frank, many people lack the direction to listen. I've tried The Wilds with a group of players (and my wife) and we died every single time. My wife and I did it with henchmen and were successful (both bonus and primary).

Why? Because even though NPC fighters use haste and run up and fight...they stay back when you stay back (before you click an enemy). I can't say that for humans. Human warriors fight one battle, move to the next regardless of danger and monk's energy regeneration times.

I.e. "hold, need to let my energy raise..."
(3 warriors run down path after Centaur Maguum Warriors, Warlock, and three Protectors).
"nevermind... I'll just rez you when your dead"
(warriors all die, bringing centaurs at party and destory us all)
[end mission]

CodeMonkey

Good idea, CodeMonkey, I'd definitely be for this.

My qualifications as a GUI tester, a network software engineer, and a game programmer (for 2 failed game startups) is paying off ;-)

CodeMonkey

Yes, we definately need more control over henchmen. Totally agree with the OP.

I was thinking the exact same thing last night, after BOTH Thom AND Stefan were hung up on a teleporter switch... Their pathfinding AI is about as good as that of my blind and deaf gerbil...

I was also wondering about henchmen commands, I do hope that gets put in. Furthermore, they need to change Alesia's AI. Or take away her weapon. She is attacking when she SHOULD BE HEALING.

Three ettins will be left with her and Reyna, and instead of trying to ress someone, she'll fire with her idiot wand, doing 1 damage against a 400 hitpoint ettin. Or at the least, she SHOULD BE HEALING REYNA, who's taking 100dps.
AARRGGHH.

I do hope they fix this / change this soon.

Creston

Well the exception is that the AI should not rez when the battle is really not going to be won. I've had this occur:

1. I die battling 5 ettins, stone crusher, and sage.
2. 80% of the party is dead, all but healer really.
3. Healer rezes me, and I get 33% of my health.
4. I die in a single hit from an Ettin and they're warrior attack.
5. Healer dies.

Now i'm sitting pretty with two death penalties when really I just wanted the healer to commit suicide So -30% rather then a nice stock -15% for doing nothing but losing pulse.

CodeMonkey

Control over AI is good, but WHO controls it? Can anyone? I suspect you want the party leader in charge of it, really. Solo with henchmen makes sense to have some commands, even if it is as simple as a "wait" command and a "release" command, which can be the same button, just toggling their state. I'd really like the option to NOT have them follow my character's attacks - it's fine for the non-support classes, but as a mesmer/necromancer/ranger trying to shut down casters, weaken various groups or spread conditions it is just stupid to have the AI keep disengaging to try to run over to the guy I am powerleaking/weakening/poisoning. If I played El, Mo or W I'd probably be fine with the AI, but I don't.

Wouldn't it be nice if when you announce "I am using Well of Blood" the henchmen bothered to step into it? Or that Alesia wouldn't try to do her healing job from the comfortable numbness of a diseased swamp?

While it's possible that this will happen, you will not get a -30. DP that comes within xx amount of time from a res, won't stack. This happened to me last night, and I was still at -15.
In my example, I wanted her to keep ressing reyna. Reyna has pretty decent armor, and she was holding her own against the ettins. Had Alesia simply kept healing her, there would have been no problem.

This raises another problem, however, that of the skill that Alesia uses to Ress...

Creston

Well of Blood is an acquired skill to use with the henchies. It works well on keeping Thom and Stefan alive (have them tank 3 critters, they kill one, use well of blood, they will keep tanking the other two critters), but for your other party members it's useless. Sadly...

Alesia healing from a poisoned swamp just goes to show how totally braindead the AI is for her

Creston

My rant was long, I know. At the end I stated:

"NOTE: Only party leader should be able to do this given that everyone telling NPC's what to do would be worse then what currently exists ;-)"

Just to make sure the conflict stays sane

I've had this happen to me and I did receive -30%. Maybe it was fixed since. This was about a month ago that it occured.

CodeMonkey

Yeah, but given you cannot outfit them with they're skills (that would be really cool if you could pick a set of templates for things like "condition protection", "healing protection", "smiting") you have to deal with what that healer has. Which is a butt load of healing, so that's how she deals w/ poison.

CodeMonkey

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...070#post154070

Awe crap! I guess my search for "henchmen" should have been "NPC" while looking for the post.

Well, I guess that validates the concept pretty good And that its really a big request.

CodeMonkey

Yes. Yes indeed. At least you would be able to play the game instead of begging real people to help you out only for them to cut and run when the going gets tough.

absolutly YES. those stupid henchy... grrr =/

I totally agree with being able to give the henchmen commands. As both my necro and my mesmer I want the henchmen to keep attacking 1 target whilst I spread chaos and doom amongst secondary targets. My ele would find it useful as well, just in case the focussed target dies, thus aborting my area of effect spell. Anet apparently have a fix in the works for that, though.

The "run away" command would also be really useful, especially for breaking up some of those large groups.

I also agree with the idea of having party members' energy bar show beneath their health bar (possibly as a thinner blue line) - that might particularly help warriors et al to see how little energy the casters have and perhaps (good grief, I live in hope!) curb some of the frantic rushing that seems to take place.

If you ask for a very simple fix/change, it's more likely to happen.

I've done a majority of missions with henchmen and I find that generally they are as good as or better than the average PUG I've joined. The only situation in which I start to really curse them is when I want to pull back from a situation, either slightly (to re-group to try to avoid extra aggro) or greatly (after aggro. and trying to retreat).

In that instance a /regroup option would be great. Something that would make the AI merely switch into their 'follow main char in standard formation' for 5 seconds or so. At that point their AI could kick in again to decide a) no local aggro, get into formation or b) return to battle. At this point you could again ask them to /regroup or possibly select a new target and ctrl-space your way to victory.


Of course there are a few AI path/script options that could do with tweaking, but that's not what this thread is about.

I have to agree on this too. I'm trying to get an elite monk skill from a breeze keeper in the ring of fire. Since there are only two locations he spawns, and regular mission people attack the front door we only get past one spot.
After doing this mission about 15 times with people and not getting the monk breezer (and constantly having to finish the mission cause I don't want the be one of those assholes that leaves) I decided to screw that.

So I tried it with henchmen. I'm not even gonna complain about the fact that they have only 3 armor pieces infused and they constantly die after each battle, but the fact that those idiots just start fighting in the lava area, no matter how far I stay out of it PISSES ME THE **** OFF!!!!

Clearly these commands are not a request, they are a HUGE MUST in order to be able to get something done with these NPC's

Well the energy thing would be useful for more then henchmen, then I'd not have to tell my random mission party to hold up (I hope) because 2 points of energy isn't enough to support the spell casting portion of they're party.

Typical scenario:
1. "Guys, hold up, need to regroup energy."
<warriors rush on>
2. "Guys?"
<one or more warriors die>
3. "no healing?"
4. "What part of hold up did you not understand?"
5. "Rez?"
6. "NO ENERGY SCREWBALL"

CodeMonkey