Bad Hench AI becasue...

I bet they made the AI on the Henchmens bad on purpouse because if they were good, people would prefer them instead of real players. Allready happening. Anyway, if people would use computer based players more and more, then the whole MMO concept would go kablukeb. So they encourage players to use real players in their parties. Then henchies are only there as a last resort.

I GREATLY prefer henchmen over PUGs. PUGs are my last resort.

Ditto, they follow the same target, interrupt anything and everything, go when I go, don't complains, don't go AFK, let me go AFK, and ultimately will always get the job done.

And it takes all of 10 seconds to fill a group with them. Small price to pay monk hench's that try to tank every so often.

They do complain now if you just stand around. But I much prefer them over the average PUG.

Friends/guildies > henchies > PuGs

Yeah I used to be able to walk up to a mob, die and the hench would win, guess they got toned down a bit because I cant always do that. But even though they arent as strong I prefer losing half the time with hench than putting up with the average human pug, and thats pretty sad.

The Domination and Interupt henchmen have some... godly reflexes to interrupt foes. I still can finish a Chapter with only henchies (did Gayla Hatchery with only henchies. It was really difficult but I did it).

well AI for the mesmer henchies or let's say the unholy ability to interupt is superb
I find myself wasting too much time with pugs lol
like forming a group, doing mission,and redoing mission because someone screwed up

Henchmen is actually better than real players, in case you haven't notice...each henchmen have all their attribute set to 21 instead of normal value...

Making a better AI is always hard, the easiest way through it is to simply make them stronger.

At least Anet had buffed about "how to use" with the rez signet with AI.

The Canthan Henchs believe in a res sig and use it as soon as one falls. A PUG is too busy thinking about themselves and thinks a Res(be it hard res or sig) a burden on their bar. I like hench because I can take a phone call, get a drink, or study a map without having everyone rushing around.

PuGs arent so bad, I generally try to get them over henchies. I usually use henchies as last resort. Even though henchies do focus fire, and pugs usually dont, henchies dont seem to be as good as normal people are. After all, I only see them around 4 skills. And besides, pugs talk and such, makes it a lot more interesting than the scipted blabber of the henchies.

just an excuse for sloppy AI... IMO it would be stupid to make AI bad just to make players look better...

players should always be better than AI because they can react and strategize... all people are asking the AI do here is to do what they are directed to do... attack when they are told to attack res when they should be ressing staying with the group...

i choose Henchies because pugs arent always easy to throw together everywhere... and a lot of pugs arent interested in farming the sae boss over and over so I can get the staff i want...

there arent always monks or specific players you need...

by limiting the ability of the henchies on purpose its basically not allowing players to enjoy playing the game...

when i have time to play may not be when anyone else has time to play and maybe i only have 15 minutes to play and i want to get from point a to point b... a pug isn't going to do me... i cant do it solo with the particular class im using and when henchies do stupid shit like run into a mob to res someone bah blah blah...

basically telling me i cant play when i want to or when i have time to... and if that is the attitude they intend to protray then umm that kinda lowers the number of boxes they sell from expansions...

gotta keep people interested gotta keep people playing and by forcing certain ways and times to play that is not opening the game up to all markets...

if you like pugs thats your choice... i like them fro Missions but not for the quests i like to take my time in most quests and complete multiople quests before claiming the rewards pugs typically like to rush and skip a lot of crap and if the henchies cant cut it what point is there in playing the game???

im nto saying henchies cant cut it nor am i saying all pugs are the same... im just saying that bad AI being intentional is a porr excuse of crappy AI...

there may be aspects of henchies that are limited because players should be better however stupid stuff like... once again henchies running into a mob to res agroing everything and either dieing or herding the mob back to the group to get slaughtered should not be one of those things...

i consider not being able to choose henchies skills one of those disadvantages of henchies which i would consider as intentional (could be wrong though the AI team could just be lazy for not having this feature) or that their are only certain types of henchies in certain areas being a limitation where there are always only a max of 2 healers avaialble usually a prot and a healer whereas a pug could be 4 healers and 4 tanks or whatever you want because you arent limited to the types of henchies available...

henchie AI being good will not replace the real player only replace the bad ones... eveyrone else will get on with their fun and enjoy the game... people will still form pugs for custom builds and skill choices that arent available on the henchies

PUG is a last resort for me as well. Even the most frustrating event I've had with hench hardly compares to the frustrations of the average PUG. With hench you can always expect roughly the same from them. But in a pug either its really good, or its really bad. Most of mine have been bad.

I prefer henchies to PuG's, yet I run PuG's anyway. Because henchies are so boring. Players tend to make stupid mistakes that make the mission more interesting(and bloody ). They also don't listen to your calls, rush blindly and suicide into a large group, tend to take really random skills, not have max armor, etc, etc. This all, imo, makes missions more interesting, as doing them with henchies is so boringly easy, I have fallen asleep on some.

Maybe if you increase hechmen AI, people who want to play with real people, have to become better ( they're so lazy they take real people to do the hard work for them ) , because otherwise, they can't get in pugs anymore....everyone that's good enough will use henchmen!

In all honesty, it is possible to program AI so that it is the Uber Player, the one that is better than... you! It is possible to make it heal faster than any player, res more accurately, fight more intelligently, and not have "human error" like mashing the wrong key or forgetting to swap weapons.

But yes, as suggested in this thread, it's not in the best interests of the game to make it AI Wars. The AI is created to assist and to provide a viable companion, but not to supplant players who are real humans. (Pauses to consider: Are there "unreal" humans? )

Guild Wars is a social game, and it encourages playing with others while making it entirely viable to play solo, if you wish. You have choices and those choices are pretty well balanced! The last thing we want to do is to make it the best choice of all to have a guild that consists solely of Alecia, Professor Gai, Cynn, and that Thom guy.

Heh, I did Raisu Palace eight times with my monk in PUGs, failed every single time. Take Henchies just once, got Masters. The AI is already better then humans, trust me ^_^

i can accept that... minus the other variables that anet possibly isnt considereing...

and i dont want uber henchies... NO ONE has asked for that...

i want the henchies at the least to follow the same comon sence that a 10 year old has and to mechanically be limited to the same rules every player has to 200 att points 16 att max with sup runes casting times etc...

not allowing players to take henchies that arent avaialble in the area is good
not allowing players to modify the henchies atts or skills is good
not allowing players to choose what armor and items the henchies have is good...

now what is left to make henchies more like they should be is at the least to keep them from wandering away from the group...

now in a pug i can kick that player and nevre group with him/her again... whereas if there are no monks on at 3 am eastern when i have a half hour to play my only choice is the healer henchie and i can choose a dif healer henchie because there isnt one i constantly have to put up with the stupid AI makeing her run out of the groups range to agro a huge mob whilst trying to res a single downed ally while we all are trying to regroup with less than 50% health and a seperate mob on our tails...

that im sorry is an excuse...

the henchies should NOT be leaving the agro/group range to do its own stupid crap and to cripple the team...

is this not what most people are complaining about...

what the henchies do is way beyond human error.... seriousely what player is stupid enough to run the oposite direction of a retreiting party to go back into the mob that just wooped the crap out of the group attempting to res someone while the rest of the living party members are taking dmg not getting any healing???

at the least i can choose to never have that human player in my party again or the more civil is that i can suggest to the player better tactics and 9/10 that player can change...

but again forcing us to rely on other players to have a stable group limits when and where people can play the game...

in otherwords either i dont get to play when i have time to do the missions i need to get done because i have to settle going somewhere i already was just so the healer doesn't comit suicide and lead the badies to the rest of the group

In my view playing Guild Wars solo with Henchmen is often not viable. Especially in difficult zones with multiple mobs with dozens of enemies all congregating in the same place. Ie: Southern Shiverpeaks.

A few reasons why henchmen are often not viable:

- Henchmen can never retreat until it's too late, resulting in their guaranteed deaths if they get themselves into a losing fight.

- Henchmen often cause multiple mobs to get aggroed that real players would never have aggroed, which just compounds the first problem.

- Monk henchmen will always solo aggro into a mob to res any other dead party member and ensure their guaranteed instant re-death.

- It is not possible to pull mobs while playing with henchmen because the henchmen will always aggro ahead of you 100% of the time.

- Henchmen are very weak overall. Their power is limited, their skills are limited, and their AI is very, very, very limited.

I can understand not making henchmen become overpowered, however as it stands henchmen are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy the heck on the other side of the spectrum from overpowered. Henchmen should be on par with regular players. Yet they are not, not by a longshot.

Recently I was in a video game store and I picked up a box of Chapter 1's "game of the year" edition or something like that. It said something like "Play with your friends or ours. You may band with other players or skillful AI henchmen". I was shocked when I read that on the box, because the henchmen in Guild Wars are nowhere near being "skillful".

The henchmen need attention and buffing from the devs. Not to the point of being overpowered, just to the point of not being absymally bad.

I have to chime in with my own perspective. Personally, I've never looked at henchies as anything other than tools. If you succeed with henchies, that means you are skilled at using the tools at your disposal. If you fail, you need to understand how the tools function better.

I'm not saying the tools are perfect; I'm saying you have to understand their limitations if you choose to use them. Everyone knows that henchies aggro anything you attack, or anything you call out as a target. But I bet most of the people who say "henchies suck" haven't noticed that casting an offensive spell without calling it out doesn't make henchies attack. If you retreat right after casting such a spell, the henchies follow you without aggroing, and you can effectively pull the enemy along and even separate merged mobs.

Henchies are only "smart" or "dumb" by comparison to human players, and because the "human player" is not a homogenous pool of equally gifted individuals but rather a random, luck-of-the-draw experience each time, the "smart v. dumb" quotient varies greatly based on each person's experience. On their own, however, henchies are neither "smart" nor "dumb," the same way a knife isn't dangerous until someone's around to use it.

So I use henchies for things I know I can't get human players, or things I know they will perform as I request. I hate all the "need 2 monks" spamming that goes on in missions, so I call out for "1 human healer" instead and fill the second slot with a hench. Heck, I've done missions with 2 healing henchies just fine before. And when I'm out looking to complete the Canthan Grandmaster Cartographer title to go with my Tyrian one, I can't exactly rely on finding players interested in hugging the edges of whatever zone I'm going into, so I take henchies - tools that were designed to let me explore the zone solo.

I can't say I mind that the tools talk back now, but since I see so much of them I'd really like to get some of the repeated inconsistencies in their speech fixed

Another thing to think about is that PuGs seem to rely on web posted cookie cutter builds. Anyone not running the the FoTM build is going to have a hard time finding a PuG. So it's henchie time.

Henchies also:

don't try to sell to you in a group
don't run off randomly to unlock a section of the map and aggro half the zone then leave cause they got what they were after
don't rapidly ping the radar to get the groups attention and then go the wrong way
don't play like a complete fool and then spam "I'm dead" "I'm dead" "I'm dead"
don't blame the monk for not healing a 600dmg ele boss hit
don't suffer the code 7s

So, even though henchies are dumb as rocks, I still prefer them to PuGs.

Now if henchies could be semi controlled via a command bar, we could have a winner.

Forget something in your list: Dont ragequit

I scrimmaged with my guild, me with 4 henchies against 5 of them, I lost, was the first time I did a "gvg"

Anyway, after the battle they said that the henchies were allmost invincible in a fight, but after they died and respawned at the guild, they just stood there like they were looking for rocks, not comming to the fight just outside the gate, but when I died and respawned they followed me

But when I pve with them, i stood there with 10 hp for 15 seconds, and alesia was busy casting word of healing, or the elite healing spell on thom, which hadn't even lost 1% of his hp. then after casting that, she stood there waiting to cast it again on her "love"

Of course, in some cases the henchies ARE smarter than humans out there, that plays GW

I really don't see what's the problem with henchies. I managed to complete every mission on both sides (15 hench team @ Square + Waters) and even got a mastery on Shiro -- as a Warrior !!!

Pull small groups, target call -- you won't get Mastery or even Expert on the majority of missions (good PuG's are still indispensable) but they do a decent job all the same.

As far as GvG Hall henchies -- your just asking for trouble bringing those into a fight =p

Well, I saw a team with henchies in observation in a GvG battle.... the team with hench won the match.

I know that PUGs are 40% n00b-filled-death, but players can outperform henchmen. If you get a leaver or someone who has nfc what they're doing, then you'll lose. But I try to keep faith in my fellow man, and stand by PUGs.

Plus I hate NPC monks, ever since the whole "try to res sig the NPC who died at the start of Gyala" incident. I watched as Eli ran into the hills, res'd the monk and then came back too late to save the turtles.

Wouldn't it be funny if Anet allowed the servers to create their own super-strong henchteam and it was IWAY :P

I can understand Anet wanting to encourage human teams over hench, I mean GW is a "multiplayer" game after all... but why must hench play at the level of a 3rd grader? I'm glad they're starting to understand the concept of resurrection, but why oh why do they sometimes get stuck in this never-ending run back and forth between me and a dead teammate -- they won't go all the way over to res the guy, even though we're standing within aggro distance of him, so I have to move closer to him.. even if I was trying to res another of the hench that got themselves killed.

Apparently I've had rather good luck with PUGs... asside from the occassional ragequiter or the completely clueless, I still prefer them to hench. Although Canthan hench do seem markedly better than their Tyrian counterparts -- especially evident now that finding real people in Tyria is so hit or miss (the new greens not included).

To me:
guildies > PUGs > almost anything = hench (depending on area of the game)

My only problem with the henchmen at this point is the pathfinding (which is a global game problem) and that their builds are crippled - they have no runes and their skill/attribute selection mostly ranges between questionable and downright awful. That's possibly intentional, but if so I think it's a bad idea - if you don't want people to play with bots, don't add bots. If you do, do it right.

That's not to say the henchmen aren't stupid in other areas, but for the most part they're consistently stupid, so after a while you learn how to manage those things without them affecting the outcome too much.

Stop making the Monk Henchies run into the front of battle!

It's pissing me RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing off!

Not to mention real players are judgmental and picky. If you don't fit the current popular skill and team set, you don't get a team.

Sometimes I think Guild Wars devs who come up with these ideas don't play the game.

Exploiting computer-controled monsters sure is dull, any way you look at it. With PUGs, I can meet new people and recruit good players. With henchmen, I can walk away from the computer or do whatever I want.

Neither one is a last resort. I'm talented enough to not need to rely on one or the other.

It would be nice if there were a few simple comands for henches. "Follow", "Guard", and "Attack" could let them either attack nothing, attack only when the party is being attacked, or attack anything they get close to.

There's a lot of areas where henching or going solo are you only options. Try forming a full group in the jungle when there's only 4 other people in the whole town.

I don't mind PUGs, but a lot of times they seem hell-bent on getting where they want to go and don't seem to mind if the party is spread out over half the map. I REALLY love when the warrior leader, who's not even on my radar any more, gets mad when my healer lets him die.

Just one real request-Orion needs to stop with the firestorm. He's not just useless to bring, he's dangerous. He hits firestorm, monsters fall back into the next mob, war. henchies follow them, party gets swarmed.

Once, I attempted "To Tannhakai Temple" 3 times on my Ranger. First time, wipe before we reach Mhenlo. Second time, Mhenlo runs off and dies, quest failed. Third time, henchies don't attack my target, and a small group of AM FAH wipes us out. After the third failure, I proceeded to ragequit.

The problems I've had with henchies FAR outweigh the problems I've had with PUGs. If you take the time to organized a balanced PUG that suits the mission at least classwise, you'll probably make it. Also, nothing beats human interaction, even if your only interaction is adding some obnoxious 14-year old to your ignore list.

I strongly disagree with most of this and anyone who says henchmen are bad. In most instances I find them stronger than many PUGs in PVE. Most of their skillbars are fairly well focused (despite not having 8 skills). I cannot say this about many of the ppl I meet in pve. I have seen people running skills in 4-5 different attributes and I'm not talking about stuff like Rebirth with no Prot Prayers. I mean stuff that requires attribute points to be useful. Most people seem to have trouble with henchment aggro management. I did at first, but with a little bit of attention, and target calling, controlling henchmen aggro is not really that hard. I have henched everything in Tyria and Cantha on my monk, and almost everything between my ranger and my war (Fire Islands excluded, as I'm just too lazy to finish them. I know it can be done). In fact, the more difficult the mission, the more I prefer henchmen. The simple reason being that as long as you know what you are doing and are able to direct them, henchmen will hardly ever truly RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO you over, whereas, I find that often happens in a human PUG. I am sorry, but I cannot say much for the general intelligence level of human players online. People claim missions like Thunderhead Keep are genuinely difficult. Not really. Thunderhead is quite easy (well after they fixed the fact that henchmen aren't infused here).

It is true that henchmen do not run, but you CAN pull with them. It just requires you do to a little bit of work and REQUIRES you to have a long or a flatbow. You can't pull with a wand. The extra few meters makes a difference. A flat bow is best. It also requires you to pull the closest group, and not necessarily the group you want to pull most. Pulling with henchmen is a learned thing, but it can be done. A good place to learn is Gyala Hatchery. Do it the back way with 7 henchies and you are forced to pull. It'll take a while, but you will get masters if you do it corretly. I dunno if they fixed this in the last patch though. Haven't done Gyala since that patch. The not running thing only presents an issue if 2 things happen: 1) You overaggro, and 2) you start dying. Both rarely happen to me when I play with henchmen, so GG. In fact, I see both those thigns happen more with human players than with henchmen.

They have also, due to recent AI patches, severely reduced the monk res AI problem due to use of res sigs. Although, I find that henchmen do not realize they have their res sigs back after a morale boost. ANET you might want to look into this.

I strongly disagree with henchmen being weak. They are limited by below par skillbars, but possess many benefits that you cannot get by playing with real players. The coordination that you can accomplish with henchmen on a consistent level is much greater simply because henchmen always listen to you and always do what you want them to do. This is the main reason why henchmen are often BETTER than players. Simply because if one person decides "I don't feel like doing that, I feel like going over there and picking up my gold drop" can often mean the end of the group. Henchmen stay put, and do what you tell them, when you tell them to do it. It requires a bit of management, but in my opinion, that complete control and good coordiation is far more valuable in the more difficult areas of the guild wars world.

Let me use monk henchmen as an example.

Mhenlo is normally my healer of choice for pve areas in Tyria where he exists. For the following reasons:

1) He uses Word of Healing correctly
2) I only use him to heal party damge, and while his lack of Heal Party is disturbing, his other skills will suffice 99% of the time.
3) He requires much less control than Alesia
4) Lina almost always resses faster than him, so if combat res happens, Mhenlo is not normal out for very long.
5) He is a stronger primary healer than many monks I meet, simply because he uses his heals in a proper manner.
6) He doesn't overheal that much when it matters

In general, if I put the Mhenlo AI with a properly construced healer skillbar, I am sure Mhenlo would be one of the best monks in the game. His judgement about who to heal, when to heal them, and what heal to use is generally spot on. That is more than I can say of many human players. In all areas where he exists, I will take mhenlo over ANY PUG monk, and I will usually take Alesia over pug monks also. This is simply because I know how they will react. Security is a valuable thing when you are trying to get something accomplished. If you realize how your group is going to react to a certain situation, you can plan for it, and get through it. This requires you to actually *gasp* think during pve, but almost always you can be successful.

The only thing that henchmen cannot handle as well as human players is AOE damage. That is the one thing that murders henchmen. They ball like there is no tomorrow, and do not move out of AOE. Stacked spells like Churning Earth ruin henchies. That is the only problem I have with henchies.

Seriously, Henchie control is something that all PvErs should learn. I believe that once you realize how to effectively utilize your henchmen, you will realize that they are stronger than human players, simply because they react in a predictable manner. And that, is by far the most valuable trait you can have in a group, predictability.

If I took henchies into Aspenood, we would so pwn the opposing PUG.

Yea, finally someone realized that henchies aren't uber for a reason.

AI can ALWAYS be tweaked to be Faster, Stronger, and Smarter than any human, with no error percentage due to human fault.

This already happens lol. Enemy monsters can hit an interupt RIGHT as you press the button to cast it, so they can catch skills that humans would never. This is because they have no reaction time. Enemy casters often times have seemingly endless energy pools. Enemies over lvl20 reflect that in their attributes.

6/17 Chatlog excerpt:



I hope Gaile and the devs at ANet realize that people aren't clamoring for Level 45 henchmen. They are strong enough (henchmen builds notwithstanding). The main complaints players have with henchmen overall stem from their aggro-happy nature, and the inability of the party PLAYERS to prevent them from doing so. All the players really need to basically quiet down about henchmen, maybe for good, is some sort of mechanism to keep them from aggroing nearby mobs/monsters the player either doesn't want to aggro (such as a mob on the back side that crept onto the radar), isn't ready for (waiting for regen, etc.), or wants to wait and PULL THE MOB APART (which, with the current henchmen AI is next to impossible, and it's a big part of the GW game mechanic). Just give the players that, and we'll be happy enough. Let us have the ability to tell the NPC's in our party (pets, minions, henchmen) to STAND STILL AND NOT AGGRO while we recharge/pull/etc.

It's also incredibly frustrating when you want to flee a scene of inevitable disaster and your stupid henchmen can't be bothered to follow. They decide to stick around and fight a losing situation instead of fleeing with the player. It would be nice to be able to make the henchmen "give up the fight" as well. I end up having to revive more henchmen than I should because they aren't smart enough to get away from danger, and the player can't make them do it either. Let me have a 'summon here' button in addition to a 'don't aggro anything' command, and I'll be a happy camper, as will a lot of other players.

That's all. That's all we need. Overlapping mobs and drop-in mobs making what you thought was going to be a 5-monster fight into a 12-monster brawl are everywhere, and wipeout is inevitable if only one person in a one-person-plus-hench party can actually follow directions. Maybe someday ANet will understand how incredibly frustrating this makes parts of the game. This isn't a lack of player skill that is leading to wipeouts and frustration. I know what I need to pull apart and what I need to avoid and/or be cautious with. The stupid computer allies don't, and there's no way to teach them. I don't really want to hear the "not making henchmen better than players or else players won't use other players" argument. PUG's for some of the damn quests (lower Cantha fetch quests, and probably at this point many of the Tyrian quests) and obscure skillcaps (such as Feast of Corruption) are pretty hard to find. I'd take players in a second over henchmen if I could. But many of us are stuck having to deal with aggro-happy morons for the out of the way, unpopular stuff that needs to be done.




One other thing... I would also like the ability to choose multiple henchmen of the same type. Kind of lame that you can't, IMO.

Given trade spam, I would say GW discourages playing with others...

But I understand the intent.

AI characters do have their problems - the same tactic for every problem is never wise. But at least with AI characters I can do things that will reliably cause them to respond in certain ways. Just as I can aggro control AI opponants, I can call targets and get AI henchmen to obey, and essentially control their aggro as well. With a PUG, I have no ability to control a 'go-go-go' player - if a player plays like Prince Rurik, I can only chose to leave. If a player goes afk, I've lost them... if a player goes left when we all go right - they get to go left all they want. If a player hangs back in order to jump on grabbing on all the gold drops, all we can do is object. If a player pops an attitude, we just have to listen...

But, while you can 'cheat program' an AI to function better than my character, you can never make one that will outthink me. A human mind might make errors, but it is also capable of doing something it was not told to do.

I feel totally different than you on this point. You have a beautiful dream of a world of GW where you can have a party of fun and kind individuals who strive to succeed in fulfilling a mutual goal. Unfortunately, in reality, when we venture around with PUGs, we have ADHD-suffering 13-year-olds, people who refuse to take any kind of advice, people who cuss and swear to one another and people who are just plain jerks and morons who ruin the fun for everyone. Not to mention if you happen to play a non-appreciated class like Assassins (and sometimes Mesmers), who won't find quality PUGs as fast as say, Monks do.

And now you tell us, Gaile, that you're intentionally making Henchmen AI stupider to encourage us to play with these wonderful human players more. I've lost a lot of my faith in you today, thinking in the past that you would make decisions that would benefit your community. This is an obvious example of the opposite.

And yes, I'm not expecting a henchmen party that will do everything while I can take a nap. What I _am_ expecting is a henchmen party that doesn't have tanking ritualists, healers who try to use Rebirth in the middle of a battle or warriors, who refuse to break aggro by all means necessary.

My two cents. I hope you guys reconsider.

Though I know where Gaile's coming from, I must disagree with several of her statements.

We're not asking for uber one-shot kill henchies or anything overpowered like that. We're asking for more adjustments like the recent ressing behaviour update. There are plenty more similar problems like henchies standing in lava, refusal to withdraw from combat, bad henchie monk positioning, etc. Fixes such as these would make playing with henchies much less tedious, without making the henchies "better than human players."

As for people refusing to play with others if henchies were buffed, I don't think that would be the case. Those who enjoy the company of others would continue to do as they wish, as henchies aren't much fun to chat with. And there are plenty of things AI simply cannot do as well as humans can, e.g. splitting, or tailoring a build to a specific area. I simply can't see the day when everybody would run all-hench groups, no matter what improvements the henchies receive.