Henchmen idiots

I had a long rant with valid points but instead.

Why are Henchman NPCs, not as smart as Monster NPCs?

I know the smart ass answer is to make you group with real people. I want to know other reasons.

Simply put it seems a henchman NPC even higher level than you, fights about 5 levels weaker than you. Or in other words, a lvl 20 elementalist sees 8 players or monsters charging him he's dead. Meanwhile I'd bet any Dev of the game that same elementalist could solo a group of 8 charging henchmen.


Oh well /vent off, just erks me when I see a game made by actual developers with worse AI than the henchman scripts I made for NWN.

I do agree henchmen need some major changes, I think adding "commands" would be a nice feature.

"Wait here"
"Flee"
"Attack My Target"
"Hold Position"
"Protect <character>"
"Suicide" < oh wait, Henchmen are already good enough at this


Also Henchmen are stupid when it comes to canceling a Spell.

For example: Healer starts to cast Ressurect, the character being revived is now alive thanks to me. Healer is still continuing to revive a living player... 6 seconds later we have a canceled spell.

Yea, I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but it seems as if the mentally challenged nature of the henchmen is a way of "encourgaging" players to group with other players. The reasons many PvE players have for not grouping with other players are legion. Even if they needed to amp up the enemy A.I. to keep things balanced, that would be ok as long as I could keep my hench-warrior from running hell bent into that pack of Charr that are twice his level.

nice idea those commands

Believe it or not, they are not as bad as some of the human players I have had the misfortune of teaming with.

"Hey, there are 5 monsters here and 4 up ahead who have not spotted us yet..I had better tell them we are here and call all 9 over here at once!"

[dead]

"Hey..my monk and necromancer team-mates seem to be having trouble with that monster..I think I'll just walk over here and pick up this item whilst they are both dying.."

[dead]

Unfortunately both of those are true stories, therefore I believe that the henchman were built in order to simulate the true wonders of 90% of the party play.

How about having your monk henchman run into the middle of a melee fight even though she's a spellcaster and can attack while staying far back from the fight? I've even had a monk henchman run past me(Tank) into an open spot surrounded by Charr enemies, and immediately get stomped.

Well I personally have had pretty good luch with henchmen. Yes most of the things you say are true but at least mine always seem so come out on top. Maybe it's my name. I usually get a healer and a mage then whatever else depending on what i have to do and my mood. Like earlier I had myself (a warrior/ranger), a healer, a mage, a brawler, a fighter, a cultist, and my pet. Worked out great. Just my 2 cents.

lol i've had mixed luck with both henchies AND real players. Just dont get a henchie with 1337 tank as his name lol. Nah seriously the commands would be great. If i take a healer I want them to concentrate on healing the party instead of killing things; thats what the players are there for.

I'd just like a healer henchman that doesn't run to the target and stand right next to it while we are fighting it.

The one thing i hate is when you are on the Gates of Kryta Mission near the end there is a swamp. When in the swamp you are poisoned so obviously the monk henchman has to stand right in the water until she dies 40 or 50 times.
"No thats ok Hench i didnt want to fight anymore people today, all i wanted to do was to ressurect your sorry ass."

I was somewhere near Riverside last night (this morning) and I watched a hench monk attack the crowd attacking my friend while she stood over my dead body, for at least 2 min. It was bad enough that she wasn't healing, but then when I died she did nothing even though she was not in harms way.


After my friend died, she managed to get herself stuck in a glitch and would not die, res, or kill the monsters. We had to abandon the mission and that was very frusterating.

How about some help with the glitches and rezzing aspects here?

i only agree with a command for flee / wait here....

Other then that ive never had one problem with the way they battle, concidering they go after your target, it actually makes them better then stupid humans that don't go after the target... it's rather annoying playing with someone who wont just hit the target... and run off trying to kill the warrior's rather then the healers. Not to mention the cultist who will normaly cast his blood spell to give you mana regen when you're out of mana... i personaly havent had any bad experiences with my healer die'n because i guard the healer, just like people should do in guild vs guild... takes pressure of them. then they Can heal you.

I get pissed when they run into the poisonous swamp waters and such, but other then that i havent had many problems with them, unless they don't flee from a obvious losing battle... but that's why i agree with /flee, and /wait here.

It's hard to do that when they run into the heart of battle...

The henchmen in the early game are not very good. But I think the ones in Yaks Bend put some players to shame. I have not had one problem with those hancies, but I did have alot with the earlier ones.

Ihate the healer npc's bah.

I've had better work coming from my pet than any henchmen I've had. At least my pet attacks what I am attacking. The henchmen pick different targets and die one by one. The last thought usually on my PC is "where'd everybody go?" when I notice most of the NPC names are all gray.

Ditto. I crossed over into Old Ascalon for the first time, as a level nine mesmer/ranger, and accidentally hit "join mission" while viewing some other player. I ended up on a siege type run with 4 NPC robots, fighting 3-4 or more charr every bend I rounded. I got 2k xp in total, and nearly breahed the north wall remains before finally biting off more than me and my NPC automatons could chew, and got pasted to the sand. All in all though, the robots are much easier to rely on that people with differing opinions, and I get all the items :P

I think the NPC allies could use some serious spell variety, but other than that, they kept me goin all night last night, day 3 of my GW experience. No real gripes from me

I'll take a Henchie group over an unknown group any time. I didn't group once until I was 16 or 17 so I was amazed when I got groups of real people who were dumber than the henchies during the first BWE I played.

Have you tried setting your hemchmen down for a meeting before you go out on an adventure? Set out some mead and wine and cheese and grapefruit and while they are eating, explain to them that if things don't change, you are gonna fire them and get different henchmen.

Actually, you don't. If you're adventuring with three others, each person has a 1 in 4 chance of getting any drop. If the three others are henchmen, it still rolls that random assignment same as it would if it was three people, it just doesn't actually drop the item on the ground if one of the henchmen wins the roll. In effect, they get their drops, you just don't see it happening.