Please Spider, if you're gonna use companions this much, make them at least useful...

[Dregora]

I can't get over how horrible they are in combat. And yes i'm aware charisma boosts their overall stats, but not their AI, which is what i'm annoyed by. It's not that I can't beat anything, I can. But i've come to notice that, especially on bosses, they die wicked easy. I don't think I have all companions yet, but the ones that use melee just die. You can't do anything but spam potions to revive them.

It's extremely obnoxious. Why make companions a big deal in your game (fleshed out personalities, personal quests and so on) yet make them this horrendous in combat? Not even basic tactics you can give them like stay back, attack or defend.

It's by far my biggest gripe with the game, especially with how the game sometimes loves to throw out groups of 10 at you that are all fast.

[dustin1280]

Companions are passable in this game, but they are pretty much useless on most of the big "monster" fights (especially the ones that go underground)...

Admittedly as you level up and get stronger, companions do start to survive much better...

[joxertm22]

Get healing skills, never damage anything, equip stuff on your companions = profit.

[Dregora]

Originally posted by joxertm22:

Get healing skills, never damage anything, equip stuff on your companions = profit.

I'll rephrase. I shouldn't have to babysit them to make them acceptable. They don't have to be godly, just actually dodge or something.

[Ta'veren]

Companions are all about gear. Give them appropriate armor and weapons and they are a major benefit.
If you spec into the magic you even get to the point that you can heal them.
At higher levels (>20), Kurt can one shot some enemies if he has a good weapon. And I have Valco using a 695 pds pistol (upgraded of course), so he is very handy too.

Early levels they suck (a bit), but give them time. Sometimes I can just hang back and watch them demolish a mob

[Dregora]

Originally posted by Ta'veren:

Companions are all about gear. Give them appropriate armor and weapons and they are a major benefit.
If you spec into the magic you even get to the point that you can heal them.
At higher levels (>20), Kurt can one shot some enemies if he has a good weapon. And I have Valco using a 695 pds pistol (upgraded of course), so he is very handy too.

Early levels they suck (a bit), but give them time. Sometimes I can just hang back and watch them demolish a mob

But that doesn't change the core problem, that the AI is terrible. Giving them strong gear to quickly dispatch of enemies naturally makes them more useful, but it only hides the core problem.

You essentially make them OP to make them useful. I wouldn't say that's good design.

[Ta'veren]

That's pretty much a feature of all games though.
Name one similar game where the NPC companion AI was actually good (not counting modded games)

[Dupmeister]

personally I have had good luck with them, I play a mage so I hang back and let my two melee companions go at it and they do a decent job of harasses the enemies and keeping them distracted while I melt them with spells.

[joxertm22]

Originally posted by Dregora:

Originally posted by joxertm22:

Get healing skills, never damage anything, equip stuff on your companions = profit.

I'll rephrase. I shouldn't have to babysit them to make them acceptable. They don't have to be godly, just actually dodge or something.

So you want to sit back and watch some movie till companions do all the job and the game plays itself?
Nice logic.

[The Badman]

Yeah in their previous games you can tell companions to have certain behaviour, not in this game for some reason though:
Tthey could easily be useful if they just parry as much as a common bandit.

[Dregora]

Originally posted by Ta'veren:

That's pretty much a feature of all games though.
Name one similar game where the NPC companion AI was actually good (not counting modded games)

I mean, for me to answer that, i'd have to define what good means first, since we might be thinking of different ideas of ''good''. I'll say that i'll never expect them to act like humans, which is (as of now) pretty impossible, hence why it would be nice to have some kind of command/directions.

I do agree that a lot of games that utilize this, suffer from frustrating companions from time to time. I think the biggest one we'd both think of is Dragon Age Inquisition. I've been annoyed by the companions here too, although I mostly blame that due to the weird turn based + action combat and the somehow tried to mesh that together. And it didn't work super well, especially with the dragon bosses that jump around which companions don't respond well to. But to fix that a little, they had settings that somewhat allowed you to control how they behaved to a degree.

The tales of franchise does this too. Again, they're not perfect, they still do stupid things for sure, but at least you can counter it to a degree with said settings. It doesn't make 'em perfect, but it makes them good enough.

Originally posted by joxertm22:

Originally posted by Dregora:

I'll rephrase. I shouldn't have to babysit them to make them acceptable. They don't have to be godly, just actually dodge or something.

So you want to sit back and watch some movie till companions do all the job and the game plays itself?
Nice logic.

Could you stop putting words in my mouth? When i'm saying babysit, it means taking care of them 24/7 just to make sure they do an adequate job. I never once said I want them to take care of everything, i want them to take care of THEMSELVES. They do not need to destroy the enemy on their own at all. Just dodge or run away when you're targetted or he's after you or something.

There's a difference between letting them take care of everything vs letting them take care of themselves. The latter is what i'd like more. Either that or just balance the game all together around 1 person, the player.

Originally posted by The Badman:

Yeah in their previous games you can tell companions to have certain behaviour, not in this game for some reason though:
Tthey could easily be useful if they just parry as much as a common bandit.

EXACTLY. They don't defend it seems, at all. Or if they do it's extremely rare.

[DukeoftheAges]

Originally posted by Ta'veren:

That's pretty much a feature of all games though.
Name one similar game where the NPC companion AI was actually good (not counting modded games)

it's not a feature of all games at all. any crpg. mass effect, dragon age.

[Ta'veren]

DotA, are you saying that Dragon Age had smart companions? Wow, which one? I played them all, and the best one was DA:O when using the mod "Advanced Tactics". Otherwise they all just ran right up to the closest enemy to smacked down (Morrigan, I'm looking at you)

[The Badman]

DA dont have smart comps but you can modify their behaviour and directly control them in combat. Even fallout 4 let you tell your companion to go there and shoot that.

[Hathur]

This complaint is tiresome. I have 3 CHA, gave my companions good to excellent gear, they can kill EVERYTHING except bosses on extreme difficulty, I can literally just run in circles and let them fight and they kill everything - on rare occasions 1 companion might go down in a fight, but the other one usually finishes it.

[Ta'veren]

Yup. Ditto