Please fix the broken henchmen AI

More specifically - fix the monk henchmen AI.

I've spent about 8 hours today trying to complete Thunderhead Keep for the 1,000th time. If you've recently spent more than 15 minutes playing this mission, you know of the pure frustration that can result from it and people who play it. So, let's just say, I'm frustrated.

Within those 8 hours, I tried to complete it twice with henchmen. Both of those times I lost at the very end due to some extremely unlucky and extremely frustrating circumstances. In both cases, the mission failure could have easily been avoided without a few key problems with henchmen AI.

The first obvious problem is the "run away from AOE damage" behavior, which was added a few months ago. While it didn't affect me so much in this mission, there have been many times where henchmen would run so far out of the AOE that they would aggro additional groups, quickly getting everyone killed. The opposite is also true. Henchmen will blindly follow enemies retreating from AOE damage - many times directly into additional enemy patrols. It's a stupid way to lose, and it happens more than it should.

The second issue and the one that I've noticed almost always brings down a group, is the monk resurrection priority. Both heal and prot monks suffer from this problem, and it's indescribably infuriating. Taking the time to use a signet in the middle of a battle is one thing, but spending 8 seconds ressing, and another 5 before it getting situated, is not ideal in any hostile situation. I can't even begin to express how annoying it is when there is one elementalist killing the King, and instead of healing him, both monks decide to fumble around with the hard res on the one and only dead teammate. I’ll let you guess what happened to the King.

Even the worst of monks can discern when the right time to heal is and when the right time to resurrect is. But this is an observational skill that the AI lacks, and in my opinion, it's a huge problem. If I didn't need to get this character past THK to cap elites so that I could use her in PvP, I wouldn't have even bothered going through this in the first place. That said, with each time I go through the PvE game I can see the henchmen behavior getting worse and worse. It's obvious that this isn't ArenaNet's intention, so hopefully these issues could be addressed before Factions' release. I may actually try to get back into PvE again they are.

Guild groups FTW

maybe u shouldnt be afraid of human confrontation and get a group together instead of taking them idiot henchmen...

just a thought.

Well the sad part is, even with the defunct AI, the henchmen, for the most part, have gotten me farther than the 6 or so pugs I've played with today. But that's not the point of this thread.

While I opened the topic with my sour experience in THK, its real purpose is to point out these significant problems with the henchmen AI, just in case ANet wasn't already aware of them. I would have sent this information to them directly, but I've heard that they prefer this kind of stuff to be posted on fan forums - so, here it is.

ah... i understand...

and i agree... i think out of all the henchies... alesia and mhenlo r the dumbest

I'll be glad to fix the Henchmen AI for you. /sarcasm.

Henchies > PUGs.

Tekish, if you can't pass Thunderhead Keep with henchies then you're not using the right strategy. To pass it with henchies you need to camp the steps near the king. If you're guarding the doors, you need to be in a PuG or guild group instead.

one time w/ henchies i died and the 2 healer henchies ran in circles trying to decide who was going to res me then they agrod a patrol and died.

Greater command over the henchies would be an inprovement.... say with hotkeys.

However, when it comes to THK, humans are usually your best option. I attempted it myself with my War/Mo teaming up with henchies, and had little difficulty, until we met up with the blue mursaat boss at the end. Since then I have reluctantly opted to try out humans. Lots of PUGs are really crappy, especially with that mission, but I completed it a few days ago with my mesmer on the first try.

Did it yesterday on my necro with henchmen.The key is never take the mage henchmen now due to the aoe update.Its much faster killing without.And you should carry a res sig and as soon as healer or prot dies res them.The only problem can be the monk boss but ive never had a chance to fight him with henchmen.

An old guildmate of mine was having difficulty completing this mission so I helped him along with henchies to round out the group. Camp the top of the steps in front of the king and kill the bosses last after all others have been taken care of.

Anyway, back on topic, I totally agree with what you have said about henchy AI as it does appear to be getting worse. I usually find that clicking an area on the ground to kind of create a rally point often brings the henchies back when the decide to be heroes and go off chasing fleeing enemies.
As for the ressing thing......this is a major AI fux up. When ingame with my W/N I have died first and the monk henchies just run in a line criss-crossing each other. The rest of the henchies finally defeated the enemy whilst I went off to make a cuppa. When I came back after five minutes or so I was still dead with the monks still doing their running workout.
Next step = F12 and off to take my frustration out on others with extreme violence in some FPS fun.

Maybe Arena.net can add commands on the keyboard to control the henchmen, such as when you're playing a FPS game with a squad of A.I allies. The only trouble I see with this is that the keyboard won't have enough room for all the commands.

ok, I fixed it. Try again in about 30 mins.

There are a number of actions which are not assigned by default. Henchie commands could be like these, added in at your own discretion.

The good points

henchmans dont pee.
henchmans dont screen "heal me", "rez me", "i wielding the best and expensive weapows of game and you nothing".
henchmans skip cutscenes.
hench monks heal fast as a lighting.
if you call target in someone the henchman will atack who you target.
henchman are more smart that a lot of players i kown...
henchman have better skills bars that a lot of human players and kown how use that skills
henchman dont quit

The bad points

henchman monks agroo stupidly to rez someone dead
the twice henchman monks (new bug i start to see it a few months ago) try to rez the same dead person.

Yes, human players are better tham henchs... but not ever...

Tip: If you die or other hench die... try to select you in party window and click twice... sometimes the hench will rush very fast and rez you or the dead hench... look that not coincidence... the monk will rush to rez, but in some cases the monks will ignore the call for rez
Tip2: You can command henchs even though died, you can call target... again sometimes all henchs will atack the same target, but in others will ignore you...

/signed

Henchmen don't mind if you don't heal them.
Henchmen don't spam "My health is 1 out of 2"
Henchmen don't try to chit chat in the middle of a fight.
Hench men don't mind if you go afk for five minutes.

I always manage to call the hench men at a target, and they'll take it out with pinpoint presicion. All the henchmen need is a little more health, less noobish skills and better armour

The only AoE in THK is from Cynn. Anyone ever using a hench ele deserves to lose.

Actually, I'm beginning to think that with the AI glitches aside, my not bringing the mage hench is what's causing the inevitable loss as the boss just prior to the confessor. The henchies can't seem to do enough damage if that boss happens to be a monk or a warrior, and if you ignore them, your hench party will most likely die from warrior pressure or straight up attrition. And once one person in the party dies, you already know its all over, unless you have an unused res sig.

It obviously shouldn't be this way. I personally liked it better when henchmen didn't res until every enemy around them was dead. This placed resurrection duties squarely on your shoulders, and unless you yourself died, it was never a problem. In the event that you did die, most times the hench group would finish off the enemy and then res you. Now, with the broken AI, monks will quickly run over to res you at the cost of 2 or 3 of your teammates. If someone else did die during the res process, the monks will immediately run over to them and repeat the same behavior. All the while, people are dying left and right and there's not a heal to be seen. It's the kind of thing that causes you to do a double take and question whether or not that really just happened.

I've found Henchman are worse than PuGs. I know how bold a statement that is as well. I've been through the game many, many times and each time, playing with them gets worse. Alesia running into battle as if she had Thom's AI while the warriors stand next to me chatting about what they had for breakfast is horrible.

Healing touch should never be used on warriors. What idiot came up with that idea? On top of that, right as healing touch is used, the warriors run out of the way and use healing sig to top up their life. Alesia being the retard she is, tries to heal through the damage she's taking which inevidably fails.

If you happen to die during a battle, regardless of how many times you pinged your target or whatnot, the henchies suddenly switch targets to whatever suits each individual. No real damage is dealt to anything and there's a party wipe because your lovely monks have decided to res you as soon as you went down, leaving the rest to die. Alesia will fail in ressing as well, she'll die before she gets it off. On top of that, you probably died because for some retarded reason Alesia decided that Thom and Stefan need 100% Health on a constant basis and you're suffering from heavy degen which your self heal can't keep up with.

Basically henchman AI = You die, game over.

The worst part is that the monks have no energy management at all. If the battle last longer than a minute, people start dropping because the monks just fold. That is really goddamn horrible considering they are supposed to be fillers in the team. I'm surprised the OP has them move out of AoE and aggro other mobs, I just get them standing in things like malestrom, wasting their energy on interrupted spells and consequently die to minimal damage spells.

I've had a Mo/Me perform better than Alesia, and they had all their points in Illusion.

The Monk hench AI is by far the worst. They'll run right out of your aggro circle into a mob of creatures to rez someone. They don't stay near the player, since the player would almost always rather try to pull creatures and take the hits, but no. They're monks, so they're supposed to tank.

They have the single worst AI I've seen in this game.

Hi

I dunno, but it seems to me that henchies are there to stand in for human players, my theory is that anet never really wanted you to use ehnchies unless there was a need, yet now almost everyone goes around with henchies cos its so much easier. Might sound like a bit of a conspiracy, btu making the henchie ai worse would persuade more people to find rl teams, and play the game the way anet intended.

oljomo

Amen. This mission is incredibly frustrating. I tried it with henches three times anf failed due to the same reasons. I won't even go into PUGs let's just say 27 failures is too many for me.

did thk with henchies twice the past 2 days

I monk for THK all the time, barely ever fail it too. So does a few other guildmates, its the only fun mission anymore, because its actually a challange.

Learn how to use the henchies. You can easily flawless the mission with all or mostly henchies.

I did it with henchies on my warrior. Passed first try.

I love it when someone has a acual problem and people come up with the most genious answers. If there is a problem with the henchmen, someone always goes "find a good guild" and if the have a problem with the lack of good players, they say " just use henchmen" i love how 90% of all replys to topics here lack any thought. Keep up the good work.
And yes the henchmen blow. why on earth would they nerf aoe and yet the ele hench's main atack is firestorm. Too bad the hench are better than almost any player you will find in a pug.

if the enemy giants and herders can chain giant stomps like they do, the two monk henchmen should be able to know when the other one is ressing the same person.

It just baffles me why they decided to give the henchman restore life rather than one of the more ranged rez skills such as rebirth or resurect, the indecisive ressing thing irritates me as well when your not standing quite close enough and alesia is obviously thinking "Oh look a corpse I must res AGHHH CORPSE!!!! Im to far away from party AGHH IM GENA DIE Ill just run back and ill be safe... Oh look a corpse.........". And yes the henchman should be able to fight sucessfully after you die but for some reason the enemy AI can always defeat friendly AI .

I spoose their is also the problem of not makeing the henchman to good as people will always use henchman just because its easier to do the misson than with real people (sometimes its that way allready).

One thing that does get on my nerves, is that if both monk henchies are dead, the rest of the henchies alive wait for you to use your res, before they do -_-

I have another scenario for you. I just finished playing through Ring of Fire, which I have actually completed with henchmen numerous times in the past. All was going well right up until the part with the mursaat towers, which I usually have no problem with, as I pull all of the enemy patrols.

So, I'm killing the second tower inside the fort when one of the henchmen must have aggroed a group without me noticing. I quickly retreat, only to have maybe half the team follow me, and the other half die (which has always been the default henchmen behavior, so I wasn't very surprised). I was waiting for the patrol to go back when I realized that I already used my res sig, so I couldn't res the other monk.

So I back the team into a corner just out of the enemy patrol and towers' range to figure out how to proceed without losing. I'm standing there for a good 2 minutes when out of nowhere the prot monk decides to go res the healer. Now keep in mind, the healer is just barely within my aggro bubble, and he's deep within the towers range. She of course runs in, quickly has her energy drained, and kinda just stands there waiting to die, which of course, she eventually does. This just left me with no res signet, and the other 2 henchmen, who either didn't have sigs or were too stupid res anyway. The mission was clearly over.

Now, I tell you, if it wasn't so annoying, I would have almost been laughing at the sheer incompetence that was exhibited at that crucial part of the mission. I wish I had it Fraps'ed because we were literally standing there not moving at all when Lina just made a run for it, seemingly out of the blue. Like I said, it would have been funny if it wasn't so damn irritating.

The Tank henchies and the Ele Hench are fine to me but MAN THAT MONK hench Really P***** me off. One of the other hench dies while fighting she runs off into the crowd of enemies to res him/her and dies -_-. Then while I'M getting pummeled she's nowhere to heal me and then I die. I ALWAYS go looking for real people to play with and if I can't find any within the first 15 min THEN I get henchmen.

henchmen arent that bad. i was able to do all the southern shiverpeak missions with them. and i only failed once on THK w/ henchis. my favorite hench has gotta be the necro hench since i dont even have to call for blood ritual and before i know it i have BR on me. its handy to have a BR in the group since the healer henchis dont really have good energy management.

That used to work for me and now I get over run with White Mantel, Jade Bow and Murrsat all at once. It used to be more time between them for their attack runs but not now. So I think this mission is broke again since its not the way it was about 5 months ago plus I have not seen any reports anywhere saying that Anet changed something on this mission.

(Besides fixing the gates)