Curse

Undivine · May 09, 2006, 03:32 PM // 15:32

I have 2 problems concerning henchmen. The first has to do with a patch they put in a while ago. You know how the resurrection shrine begins its countdown when all PCs and henchies without a res die? That's fine and dandy, but what about those henchies who do not have a res?

What happens is my whole group (me and henchies) get wiped except for the ranger, who does not have res. The countdown begins and we are all resurrected... except for the ranger who then dies in the battle we just came from. This leaves us a man short. All living non-resing henchmen are left behind.

The second problem, which I think is more annoying, is that the healer and ritualist henchies go a little crazy with their res spells. When it is obvious the group is going to fall, they keep resing even to their deaths. The big problem with this is, you died and got -15% DP, but because that henchie resed you when it was hopeless, you suddenly have -30% DP after they kill you a second time. Whenever I get resed in this situation I try to die as quickly as possible so that I don't live long enough to get the extra DP. It's still annoying though, and they're doing it to the other henchies as well, reducing their DP unneccessarily. Those henchies try to live, which just prolongs their life long enough to gain extra DP.

My suggestion, in regards to the first issue, is to kill off any remaining henchmen and have them res with us when the countdown starts. For the second issue, I propose a tweak to the AI so that at some point henchies will "give up" the losing battle; still try to heal, but not try to res.

The Lich Ranger · May 09, 2006, 03:37 PM // 15:37

A good idea, might be kinda hard to do tho because what if all your partys dead except for a ranger and a heal monk, would it still be considereda losing battle?

Rayinzar · May 09, 2006, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Hoom.

Well I played for quite a while on Saturday (Porphecies) and Alesia did seem to be a lot more focused on the healing rather than scramming to res while everyone is falling to pieces around her.

Anyhoo, if my whole party dies, the ranger usually follows promptly before the timer ends

Undivine · May 09, 2006, 03:42 PM // 15:42

I'd say a losing battle is when you are clearly outnumbered by a good margine, at least half your group is dead, and the rest are dying at an alarming rate. If a ranger and heal monk is left, they will be overcome in these situations. It is just easier to die.

If this were a group of PCs, we would all let ourselves die or run away. Since running away is too hard to do for henchies, they just need to let themselves die.

Markaedw · May 09, 2006, 04:00 PM // 16:00

or even worse, the henchie is stuck away from the battle, we are dead he is jut stuck talking to a bunch of NPCs

Parn · May 09, 2006, 04:02 PM // 16:02

yesterday spent 45mins doing a quest. Mayhem in the Market, had the 8th point to do with all henchie team. Anyhow Talon aggros a group I run cause we ar about to bite it. All but 4 henchies die (1 being me) now AI is left/w no monk or rit. Talon all of a sudden Won't aggro anything and neither will anything else in the group. They just ran back and forth, aggroing nothing and NOT dying! So I had to start the quest over because of this stupid glitch. 45mins wasted cause henchies for once wouldn't die!

outferno · May 09, 2006, 04:36 PM // 16:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Parn

yesterday spent 45mins doing a quest. Mayhem in the Market, had the 8th point to do with all henchie team. Anyhow Talon aggros a group I run cause we ar about to bite it. All but 4 henchies die (1 being me) now AI is left/w no monk or rit. Talon all of a sudden Won't aggro anything and neither will anything else in the group. They just ran back and forth, aggroing nothing and NOT dying! So I had to start the quest over because of this stupid glitch. 45mins wasted cause henchies for once wouldn't die!

That has happened to me before as well, it's pretty frustrating. It happened to me once in Prophecies, when I was a super lowbie and getting to Piken Square. Then it h appened to me again in Factions when I was trying to get somewhere in The Undercity. It's really frustrating, I'm not even sure how they would go about trying to fix this.

Winterclaw · May 09, 2006, 05:04 PM // 17:04

I'd like both the problems to be fixed. If your party rezes, everyone should be there. And the henchies should be a little smarter with rezzing than they are. This is really fusterating as a monk player because I've got to choose between either focusing my energy on the non-rezzed players or divert energy to the guy aeson suddenly rezed to keep the guy from getting more death penalty.

If you aren't going to fix the henchies rez then how about after we are rezed, we have a 1-2 minute time frame where if we die, we don't get more DP?

felinette · May 09, 2006, 05:20 PM // 17:20

I was in a situation once where everyone but one henchie had died, and the henchie had an active rez signet. However, when she would run toward me, her aggro bubble would just barely touch a nearby mob, so she'd run away, then she'd run toward me, then run away. It was really frustrating, because after spending an hour at this mission, all we had was that last mob and we would have been done, and I'm an Mo secondary with rebirth on my skillbar. I could have rezzed everyone else if she'd only rezzed me. Doubly annoying because the henchies seem super-aware of their aggro bubble when it comes to rezzing you, but blunder around aggroing everything in sight when you're alive.

People have been asking for some simple henchie commands for ages. Let's hope they implement them--it wouldn't make running with henchies any easier than running with a PUG. It would just mean that stupid stuff like the above could be avoided, and you could control aggro a little better. You can discuss strategy when out with a PUG--why can't you "discuss" strategy when out with henchies?

MDeshame · May 09, 2006, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by outferno

That has happened to me before as well, it's pretty frustrating. It happened to me once in Prophecies, when I was a super lowbie and getting to Piken Square. Then it h appened to me again in Factions when I was trying to get somewhere in The Undercity. It's really frustrating, I'm not even sure how they would go about trying to fix this.

It's called Code Review.

Code Review Before
Code Review During
Code Review After
Code Review

It's done by some other people than the ones that wrote the code. The problem with 99% of all developers is this statement "I wrote it, there is nothing wrong with the 600 billion lines of code I wrote, the problem is the user..."

Anywho, I agree the hench AI is subpar. The healer hench rezes way too often, heals way to slow, uses skills that shouldn't be in the skill bar unless you are running a specialized PvP "freak build". The Warrior hench just goes on random strike and refuses to do anything, or decides to round up the entire map. etc.

Can we add the ability to control the henches somewhat? Like when we are all dead, except the monk half way around the map, just running 5 steps each direction. It would be nice to enter a command like /Getyour GDA$$OverHere

Undivine · May 09, 2006, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by MDeshame

It would be nice to enter a command like /Getyour GDA$$OverHere

lol

Actually, I think the henchies do an average job at healing / protecting. They're not that amazing monk player who seems to be able to keep the group alive in the worst of battles. Nor are they that aweful blundering monk player who seems to let people die because they don't get the concept of energy management. They're fairly good. But they really could make better decisions about ressurrecting, since death is where things can most go wrong.

Those stories you guys talked about where the henchie gets confused about what to do, well... another clear flaw. They need a better laid hierarchy of tasks.

Kai Nui · May 10, 2006, 02:35 AM // 02:35

Another problem I'd like to mention is that if a hench without a res is left and ends up killing the last of the enemies, they'll just stand there. You have to leave and start over. A pain in the royalty, especially if it took you a freaking long time to get to near the end of The Falls because that's all you need to get that last bit of unblurred! GGRRR!1

MCS · May 10, 2006, 02:44 AM // 02:44

Thats not even the worst part, henchmen seem to refuse to res unless it's in combat. I've had to wait 5 minutes before a henchmen would res standing on the corpse with no enemys around and everyone at full life, all she did was run back and forth.