Henchmen controls [consolidated]

Like many players, I think henchmen are good. They are actually better than the average human player, at least for PvE. They're reliable and trustworthy, and you can easily complete all missions and most quests with henchmen only, provided that you are familiar with their AI.

However, they are not perfect and their AI is good but not able to cope with complex situations. Improving the AI to keep it 100% independent is unlikely because you can't mimic the playstyle of a smart player in a tough and complex fight.

The only way to improve henchmen is thus to provide basic controls to ensure human players can give better orders to henchmen like one would in an obedient human team.

Many ideas and many controls have been proposed in past threads. Some of them may be complex to implement and/or to test, and I don't expect these features to be release until chapter 2.

The purpose of this thread is to provide a consolidated list of potential henchmen controls. However, it is not a thread to share your love/hate for henchmen. You are encouraged to disagree or to propose other improvements, as long as you provide helpful and constructive material or criticism. Off topic posts and spam will be deleted.




BASICS

When one or more henchmen are in the group, a new window is available with a few buttons that can be used to give 'orders'. To give an order to one or more henchmen, you must select him/her and click on a button. If you click on a button and if you haven't selected any henchman, the order is given to *all* henchmen.

When an order is given, it overrides their standard AI, then it forces them to obey the order. If it is a permanent order (stay here), the AI must be switched on manually, if it is a one-shot order (like rez player x), it is switched back automatically once the order has been executed.

By default, only the group leader can control henchmen (to avoid confusion, chaos and stupid orders). However, the control window could contain a toggle to allow all group members to control them.


LIST OF GENERAL CONTROLS

- STANDARD AI

Quite self explanatory. Switches on the standard AI. If someone messes with henchmen orders, a single click on this button resets the henchmen behaviour to default mode.

- AGGRESSIVE/DEFENSIVE/FULL DEFENSE/LIFELESS TOGGLE

Sometimes you would like warriors to rush ahead and to tank offensively while your spellcasters stays safely behind. Sometimes, you want spellcasters to play defensively instead of attacking through hexes such as spirit shackles. Sometimes, you want to stop attacking entirely (typically against a mark of protection/healing hands).

This toggle orders the henchmen you've selected to switch their AI to four modes: aggressive (attack nearby targets even if no human player does), defensive (attack only when a human player attacks, or when someone is attacked/hexed by an enemy), full defense (never attack, use only defensive/healing skills), and lifeless (don't do anything, and don't move).

- STAY CLOSE TO ME

Henchmen try to follow whoever is currently moving, and as soon as a fight begins, they have an aggro management system wich is similar to the monsters' (upgraded with fire focus). There are typically 2 situations where this is annoying: when you want to split the group (to pull enemies, crystals in Aurora Glade...), and when you want henchmen to disengage and to follow you (incoming patrol during a fight, half the group is dead...).

This button orders the henchmen you've selected to follow you. As long as it is active, they'll be forced to stay very close to you. They will not follow other allies, and they will ignore their standard AI (especially their aggro/focus system) if they have to move away from you.

- FLEE (IN GROUP)

Typical situation: you made a mistake and you underestimated the strength of a enemy group, or you missed an incoming patrol, all human players are dead, and the henchmen are dying one by one against an enemy they cannot beat. If you're lucky, a human player will be resurrected and he'll be able to flee with the remaining henchmen. If you're unlucky, you go back to the outpost.

This button orders the henchmen you've selected to flee and to stay together. They will try and run away towards a safe place (read: not randomly towards more red dots). They will use whatever running skill they can (stances, shouts, spells...). As soon as they are safe and without any red dots in their aggro range, they stop running away and wait for the next order. If an incoming patrol comes near their aggro circle, they'll move away and flee again until the "flee mode" is switched off.

- FLEE AND SCATTER

Same as above but henchmen flee in different directions. This purpose would prove useful against mobs who'll chase them through an entire map (griffons come to mind). If they split/scatter, you can hope that at least one of them will stay alive to resurrect the group.

- HOLD GROUND & SACRIFICE

When you want to run away, you are sometimes forced to sacrifice someone while the rest of the group flees and then you come back to resurrect the dead allies.

This button orders the henchmen you've selected to hold their ground and to keep attacking the group of enemy you've engaged. They'll stay there until they die or until they kill the enemy.

- FIRE FOCUS TOGGLE

Most of the time, you want henchmen to focus fire, that is to say to pick only one target, and to focus on this target. However various support character with hexes and/or interrupts could be used more efficiently if we were able to make them focus on their own specific target. The typical example is a mesmer with interrupts or necromancers with anti-warrior curses.

This button orders the henchmen you've selected to focus on their own target, based on their standard AI. They should pick a target that fits their skillset instead of using poor skills and normal attacks on the foe attacked by the group. Another click on this toggle re-enable fire focus if it had been disabled.

- PICK UP/DROP QUEST ITEM

Quite self explanatory. With only one human player you are forced to pick up all quest items. This can be annoying in various situations. This button orders the henchmen you've selected to pick up or to drop the nearest quest item.

- RESURRECT ASAP

Sometimes, it is more important to resurrect fallen allies than to kill the enemy. Sometimes, you don't want to sacrifice a resurrection signet or energy needlessly, nor to stop healing someone for 8s, and you don't want to resurrect someone if he can be killed again instantly.

Generally speaking it is hard to program this behaviour because it can be complex: it depends on the profession of the dead ally, and on the opponents, and on the situation.

This button orders the henchmen you've selected to resurrect dead allies now.

- REMOVE HEX/CONDITION/ENCHANTMENT

The current skillset of henchmen doesn't include these precious features. It shows when you have to fight a monk boss, or a group of hex/condition spammers. If you're playing a class without enchantment removal or interrupt, you may need a lot of time to get through Mark of Protection or Aura of Faith. However an automated AI may be unable to pick the right target for hex/enchantment removal.

These 3 buttons order all henchmen to use their cleaning/removal skills on the target you've selected.

LIST OF CTRL+ORDERS

Using their control key is generally natural for experienced players who don't use voice software like Ventrilo or Team Speak. By using the control key you can communicate a lot of information to your party. Granted, it's not really easy to keep up if all 8 allies spam messages their control key. However this shortcut could provide outstanding controls for henchmen.

- CTRL+HEX: use (on you) whatever hex removal skill they have

- CTRL+CONDITION: use (on you) whatever condition removal skill they have

- CTRL+HP BAR: use (on you) whatever healing/protection/defense/shout skill they have

- CTRL+MANA BAR: use (on you) whatever mana buff skill they have (mostly the necromancer's blood rituals)

- CTRL+DEAD ALLY: resurrect this ally now

- CTRL+LIVING ALLY (including NPCs): follow this ally only (don't try to follow whoever is moving), and try to heal/defend him as a primary target

- CTRL+ENEMY: target this enemy at all costs, even if the group attacks another target (typically to force support characters to disable a foe while the group kills the rest of his group). This would be *particularly* useful when all human players are dead. When this target is dead, the standard AI and fire focus are switched back.

- CTRL+RADAR PING: run to this place, and don't do anything else but full defense until you reach this spot


Other threads of interest with suggestions for henchmen:

* Dead human players taking control of henchmen
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=58622
* Interaction & discussion between henchmen
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=22624

Feel free to provide more materials and more reference threads, and I'll update the first post of this thread.

this is not entirely true. Dunham carries Drain Enchantment. But he is crap as hell.
I kind of miss the 'stay behind' command so one can pull enemies, or I have read over it. aside from that, this is signed

greetings,
Makk.

Nice consolidated list you have there. Only thing id like to add right now of which I don't see mentioned is the addition of 'formations'. It would be a help if you could get them to line up in a 'V' with you at the point or stay in a ':::' formation.... I think this would be helpfull sometimes.

The part I bolded, is what I have a concern about, because one hench might be out of AI range, and stop, and would start running again as soon as the enemy aggroes again. This sounds very much like a "pulling" command, because once out of aggro range, they may stop, but the enemies may not. This could lead to a very long race.

Some of the commands are good, but I would prefer seeing some simply offensive/defensive scripts such as,

"Default." - The hench would behave as they do now, attack when they get in aggro range.

"Defend until attacked." - Even if a hench aggroes, they won't start attacking themselves, until the enemy attacks first. This would then trigger the other hench to attack.

"Defend spellcasters." - Hench would focus fire on the enemy that is attacking a monk/mesmer/elementalist/necromancer.

"Attack only when directed." - The leader would use this command, to direct hench focus fire. It is different than the Default AI script, as the henchmen would wait until directed to attack, and not run in when they aggro.

That's only an example, nothing too deep.

The specific commands, would be nice, but I would prefer to see some standard hench AI management.

Also, if all those commands are implemented, you are getting very close to controlling your hench, similarly to how you play your character now. Just automated.

do you think we could also get the pets to have a 'Sit!' and 'Stay!' command?

(since they generaly act like the henchies...)

im sure you guys know a better way to phrase it/explain it....

I like the idea but it would be hard to remember all the different controls

The CTRL shortcuts would be enough to make me a happy boy.

/triple signed to all - henchmen are too dumb.

i have found that Healer henchmen (Alesia, Lina, Mhenlo)
like to attack things untill they think they need to heal.
they tend to agro things to them and then spend a lot of time healing themselves
and, sometimes i find the tank (either me or another henchman) to be dying, while the healers are busy attacking something.

i think they need a little AI tweaking.

also, a totally unrelated note, henchman really really lag behind when following. just today i tried to move out of agro range of a mursaat patrol. i got out of agro range fine, but because my henchman didn't even start moving untill they were at the edge of my agro circle, they agroed the mursaats and we all died.

/signed - all the above suggestions are good

Good idea. One other recommendation while discussing henchies is:

Scattering when an AoE is cast on them (come on Anet...you update the AI for mobs to scatter when an AOE hits, yet the henchies stand under a meteor shower or stand in lava/poison swamp until dead??). I noticed this while helping some friends with the abaddon (sp) mission. We went the back way, where the lava and the imps are. The henchies kept chilling in the middle of the meteor storm using their wands to attack. And they bathed in the lava, even while we moved all PCs to the side of one of those "islands" in the hopes they would stay out of it. We ended up just waiting to see whether or not they would eventually move or not, and sure enough, they just died. Dumb...

(thanks Frog for the link to this thread

Acolyte Devathi

Honestly I think this is too complicated.

I was thinking of a simple "REGROUP" feature. It would be kinda the opposite of target call. Maybe a little button appears in the party window if henches are present, or maybe just a shortcut.

Regroup would tell the henchies to stop attacking and run back to you, presumably, to protect you.

When they are not under attack this would in fact trigger them in "passive mode" where they would not attack the next mob unless specifically asked for (target call), or until they receive damage.

So if you wanted to sneak, you'd do a REGROUP, then sneak around, with them standing closer to you and not rushing in to attack anything.

If things went bad, hit REGROUP and then start running, and they drop their targets.

REGROUP would also help for pulling (luring monsters), since the henchies would follow you but wouldnt attack. This may not be as optimal as them standing at some spot waiting for you, but this keeps things simple.

Am I missing something ?

They're doing pretty good as they are at the moment, imho.

Having a "Sit! Stay!" command would be very good, too. Then you wouldn't have Menhlo aggroing every monster on the map when you are trying to set up traps.

An idea that I have been mulling with goes with the ideas listed with the OP.

To go along with these ideas I wish to add the following:

1. Defense/Offense setup
When selecting your henchman, you can choose to select them to play offensively or defensively.
Example: By selecting a defensive warrior, he may use more shouts or condition applying attacks to slow down an enemy and boost the teams abilitys.
A defensive monk, outside of Lina, would be healing and protecting. Choosing offensive would have Lina or ALesia use healing and smiting skills.
In relation to the OP's ideas, this would dictate whether they hang in the back and try to avoid fighting or focus on being in front and trying to deal damage.

2. Profession attribute selection.
With the latest update changing how AOE spells affect enemies, this gave me a new idea in relation to Orion. How about selecting whether you want him to use Fire, Water, or earth skills. You cant choose the skills outright, but when selecting him as a henchman, you can choose Orion to use (for example) Water skills and he automatically uses water based skills when you are questing.
This can also work for Claude and Dunham. Wouldnt it be better if Claude was a minion master? I know they would have to limit how many he would use lest one gets a lag fest of too many charachters at once or facing balancing issues. For dunham, why not choose for him to focus on either illusion skills or domination skills.
Yes variety is good for balance, but in regards to the henchman, if they focused on one primary skill set, the usefullness could go up.

What say you?

oh

my

god

this is exactly what we need!!

/signed

but they also need to improve the independent AI some, i.e. make them flee from AoE attacks

/signed
im tired of henches running in and pulling every mob out

/signed i would love some basic controlles so i could use henchmen for things

I was thinking of the same thing as in regroup or fallback a military command.I often say this to PuGs I am in missions with.Great Idea
/signed.

If they just did the "Rez char now" thing it would be 80-90 percent of what I would like (should be easy - already can see the ctrl-click and if I am dead. Can already prioritise rezes - just make the one ctrl-clicked the most important and deserving of a rez sig). The next thing is if I brodcast my energy have everyone else do so - it would be nice to see if Alesia or Mehnlo had full energy before I engaged another group (I would guess easy, though thier mileage may vary). That gets at least half of the rest of my wants. The last priority is don't stand in lava or the poison swamp stuff unless I am doing so also or I've called a target in it (I don't know how hard this should be, could be hard or not). (Normally I'm not one to say if something is easy or not - when you get large software projects you really need to know the code, I've been on the development end where users say such stuff. But for at least one of these the functionality is already there it just needs to be linked, if it isn't easy that would pretty much require such incompetant programming standards I don't think Anet could produce this game. For the rest Anet should know how hard if it is a popular want. I really have never understood why the rex thing is not there - I assume there is a requirement reason as to why it's not - maybe they feel it makes henchies too good or would break something in PvP?)

The rest would be nice and really fine tune Henchies, but with the above quite a few missions would be *so* much easier and less frustrating.

The only one I'm not sure on is the AOE run stuff. I think things like Blessed griffons that spam AOE would become *very* hard to kill (I've found it better to usually stand and take it). If you haven't taken advantage of the AI running from AOE damage you ought to think about it - I beat thirsty by mainly doing just that (the healers can't heal if they are running from your no damage 0 attribute AOE spell). I think it's just going to take too much smarts for the dev team to get it good - it will just shift the bad to other spots and be pretty much equal. Just imagine them fleeing a blessed griffon doing 35 damage/sec with Symbol of Wrath aggroing everything around it - not good and *really* hard to put that smarts to not do that. given the number of times and the places I'm hit with AOE and want to stand I suspect this wouldn't work so well in production.

Though, if I were to really and truly get my total wish I would like Anet to have the henchies AI user modifiable through opening thier scripts (along with their build as far as skills and attributes - all contained in thier AI scripts). This would allow community AI changes and the ability to load out for specific missions. Of course I have no idea how hard this would be and there is a distinct possibility of killing PUGs with this, though no AI will ever better a good human team (which would usually be formed from your guild). I don't expect to see this ever, though it would be nice.

/signed to infinity! We need expaned AND CLARIFIED henchmen commands, so we can figure out how to better use them.

Interesting and well-detailed idea! It may be a little on the complex side, but there's ideas in here that could potentially be used to provide a little more player control over henchmen (and pets as well, I expect).

There's a lot of thought gone into this post, thanks for taking the time to present it as well as you have.

its so perfect

/signed

I'm a bit worried about henchmen/monsters getting SMARTER then some players. (i.e a W/Mo once just stood inside a meteor shower adn didn't know what was going on and died)

Don't see atleast on a quick glance if anyone mentioned 'Suicide', which causes the henchie to kill themselves way or another. Maybe restrict it so that the corpse it leaves will not be exploitable, and maybe usable only when no human players is left.

For the annoying situations that might occure, henchie stuck in a tree at the starting point, while rest of the team is dead. No other option to map to outpost and try again.. When questing, that is.

Nice lay out. Kinda reminds me of Battlefield 1942/Vietnam/2

Holy-controls-overload, Batman! :O

Seriously folks, I mean, come on! While a full, feature-rich control of the henchies might seem nice, all you really need are:

Guard (i.e. a 'stay' command)
Follow (also makes henchies come to you if you are away from them, taking the same path you took to get where you are)
Attack (attack the target I told you and don't change just because I did)

No need to over-engineer this thing!

Well, sometimes Id want them to stay attacking, but they dont, they always attack what youre attacking(Thom and Stephan, anyway). Something like, "Attack until killed"(them or enemy) maybe.

"Signet of Massive Approval"

I love this idea, sometimes I want to be alone, not dealing with people, or as is more often the case, need healer hench (no monks around). This would be wonderful in terms of control, especially the disengagement and combat stances.

The best idea is calling something with ctrl and the henchman do something.

Like calling a hex with make a henchman remove it.

Kind of Annoying with some ppl.

Me: I GOT SPIPEFUL SPIRT PLZ REMOVE QUICK!

Monk:.....

Me: HELLO MONK plz come on this hex really needs to go

Monk: O sry it might break my concentration

Me: .....I'M MONK NEXT ROUND!

Monk: but I can't do anything else

Me: >.<

It would be great when you die to be able to take control of live hench and play game with his/ her skills.

I posted this in another part of the forum which I think might have been the wrong one, so I'm gonna post it here as well.

My suggestion relevates to teaming up with henchman. I personally don't team up with them that often, but when I do it can be frustrating.

If possible, I would like to see an update where once you leave an outpost, you can select a henchman, and give him a set order, such as;

1. Heal me only
2. Stay behind me
3. Resurrect me immediately when I die

Stuff like that.

I can't see this being difficult to add into the game. I've played a couple game demos where you can tell your AI partners where to go, what to do, and simple commands such as the previously stated ones. I think this could add a lot of diversity to the PvE world, while also relieving a lot of tension that follows when exploring with the henchman.

The henchman are an important part of the game, especially for new players. This could help bridge the gap between someone starting a character for the first time and seeing what it's like to work as a team member.

It could also add some variety to missions and quests, maybe adding certain bonuses like, "Keep Stefan Alive", thus ordering Mhenlo or Alesia to "Heal Stefan Only". This, to me, would be really fun and an exciting part of the game that I would enjoy.

Also, for the seasoned veterans of the game, I think this could add some challenges that they're not facing as of now. What do you guys think?

I constantly flip flop back and forth between loving henchmen and hating them. Sometimes they do things great, healer keeps up with everyone, other times thier actions are so rediculous I want to punch a monitor. Like when the healer or caster is just standing near the warriors at the front getting pummeled and not doing anything, eventually dies and is soon after resurected by alesia in the middle of the mob to be dead again after one hit. Or in the desert, everyone but me and the healer dies, and im trying to run away to come back and res but no, she wants to res now with her 50 HP left...which eventually leads to her dying and the poor fool she just rezed. Another, forget pulling with henchmen, might work once in a blue moon but other than that....CHARGE!!!!!!!!!!!!...die. Obviously they are not perfect, and Im sure the programmers gave them routines which seemed logical at the time. would be nice to have a "mode" to set the party in, like agressive, defensive(only attack if attacked), passive(run away if threatened), wait.

Henchies need all the help they can get.
/signed.

so many times i try to sneak by a group of enemies after getting hammered and the hench would either go on sucide mission to rez or keep fighting.

/signed.

yeah it would be nice to make the henchies more user friendly. along wth the ideas you gave i got some others. Like if your playing your monk stefan would be the target caller. Henchie caster actually stay back where they are suppose to be. Aleisa healing from the rear vs standing right beside the warrior that is beng attack taking massive dmg as well

/signed, though i doubt all, or even most, of those ideas could be implemented. it just seems like too much complication.

i'd be happy just to have the healers concentrate on healing. that would be a tremendous starting point on fixing henchmen AI.

Anything would be better than nothing. I don't know how many times I've been rezzed in the middle of a group and get killed again. Some sort of control would certainly be nice.... And as said earlier, whatever creature you target, henchies autoamtically go for, so you have to kill one at a time... unless you're using lots of degen like my necro

/signed

can there also be a formation control feature that allow you to arrange henchmen position? like how they will follow and stay around you. something like the various party formation styles we get in CRPGs like "baldurs gate" and "temple of elemental evil".

more tactics = more realistic gameplay

/signed

very well thought!

/signed

just making the hench a lil bit smarter would be enough. if we could just get sister tai to stop tanking id be happy with the hench.

Kill, Sister Tai, Kill!!! Rip his nadsack off!