Controlling NPC (eg Jalis and Evenia )

Is there a way to explicitly tell an NPC not to engange the enemy ? I found it rather inane that Evennia fight every hostile group on the way to the ship when she has clearly said at the beginning "Whatever you do dont stop running". If I continue running toward the ship, Evennia will get killed by the Mursaat cos (or get killed by the group she attacked). I think I failed the mission twice before I realize its better to keep Evennia happy by killing every group in the way.

Ditto with Jalis in Thunderhead Keep mission, for some reason if Jalis dies the mission fails, why we are not given a chance to ress him is beyond me (human monks' ress magic only work on other human maybe ?), but anyway since you have to protect Jalis, its absolutely unacceptable that Jalis AI rushes to the enemy group all the time and get himself killed. In fact he probably should stay at the backrow, level 24 warrior or not. I failed the mission twice because when I entered the aggro range of two groups guarding the first Forst boss, Jalis immediately rushed in and got killed by the groups. Why Jalis would rush but henchmen wont even when I press space / ctrl-space repeatedly is beyond me as well.

This erratic AI behaviour is making the mission very ..very ..very frustrating (especially for one who generally do mission with all henchmen group). When I failed Thunderhead Keep because I couldnt kill the Jade Boss fast enough before the other Jade Bow groups swoop in and kill Jalis, I didnt feel so frustrated because I know what to do the next time I face the Boss. But failing a mission, wasted 30 minutes of time and energy because of a flawed AI is unacceptable. I stopped playing guild wars a couple of days after the last failed attempt, failed again this morning due to Jalis super rush technique, followed by morose henchmen NOT willing to rush.

I hope the excellent Anet team could remedy this situation.

Eg in thunderhead mission :
- If Jalis dies you could just ress him
- Giving player the ability to tell henchie and group npc to WAIT somewhere or MOVE somewhere (okay, great many people have asked this feature)
- make Jalis invincible :-)
- henchmen monks should give Jalis / Evennia / <key NPC> a priority
- an option to do the mission WITHOUT key NPC because they are more of a liability than an asset

Whoever did the scripting for certain npc's in the game just copied and pasted a generic "if enter agro zone go berserk till enemy is dead - no life preservation" type script, small thought went into the scripting and considering the quality of the rest of the game this is a big let down (hench + npc behavioural scripting).

Evennia, Elsa Alston, Footman Tate, Jalis (and other npc's) all behave in exactly the same way - usually detrimental to the mission / quest. It is very frustrating especially when they inform you to "run away!" or "protect me!" whilst running toward the nearest group of bad guys to commit suicide.

They really need to implement updated individual behavioural scripting to suit the mission or quest that is not out of character for the NPC.

No. It's not perfect. But it's usable.

For Evenia, just stay in the tunnel until the Mursaat squad passes... take a break, go afk and pee or get something to drink or whatever... if she sees enemies in her aggro circle, she's gonna engage. Just follow them till the ship catapults make Mursaat Puree.

Same for the Suicide King. The trick to Thunderhead is keep him out of melee... anyone that's done it more than a couple times knows only a healing monk should grab the king. A healing monk never targets enemies nor attacks, so the king will stand in the back looking bored... bored but alive. Only when the Ws get too far ahead and the monk needs to re-seed or heal them will 'Ol Kingie get into the battle.

With good teams it's not an issue, you might never notice or you can get around and defend these crazy NPCs easily, but if you're just hopping on a random PUG... give these tactics a try.

now re: hench, they all work the same way. If you didn't target an enemy and attack, they won't do a damn thing until they get hit. And no trying to "trick" them, they'll just get killed... if you target and attack, but then target a friendly and side-step to break combat, they'll stop fighting too.

Again, it's not perfect, its usable. But you need to study how it works and use it to your advantage. The best thing is it's predictable behavior.

Quote: