Fix Hirelings!!

[Mancerot]

This is really taking the **** now!
I tabbed out to check out a quest i was doing a little fast, and when i tabbed back into the game, i noticed my hireling have ran away to pull enemies.
So now i say it for the last time:
Fix the hirelings already!!

In the latest patch, you said they should be smarter.
They are freaking ******** now compared to pre-patch!!

Healing hirelings should focus on Healing, not on attacking enemies.

Here are the problems i have encountered with hirelings since the latest patch:
1. They dont always follow you.
2. They randomly attack enemies even when put as Defensive, and even when you havent attacked, nor been attacked.
3. You have to spam the buttons on the hireling-bar all the time in order to get them to do what they should be doing.
4. They are slower than before. (Atleast in my opinion)

[somenewnoob]

Every "improvement" makes them a little bit worse.

Can we PLEASE.....FOR THE LOVE OF GOD..........GET A HEAL ONLY MODE FOR HIRELINGS!!

PLEASE!!!

[Bonulino]

I have also noticed that it is harder to prevent the hirelings from running off and getting aggro from mobs. This is especially irritating for healer hirelings, since they tend to be a little squishy and die on you if you can't keep the mobs off them. I have also had to punch the buttons repeatedly at times to get them to act, but that could be lag, since I am now having frequent moments of keystrokes producing no effects.

[madmaxhunter]

A little squishy? I think the hireling union is the largest pac against showing HP. At least they're set on Mneum pots.

The only plus side to how bad the hirelings are now is I'm learning to run without them. Helps that I'm a light monk. Even my assassin guildie is running without one.

[Sheep_Stealer]

To be honest I'm surprised it's taken this long for the hireling issue to come up. Must be due to the forums being down just as the patch was released. Anyway, the new hireling AI (and pet AI to some extent) is horrid (at least for healers, probably 90% of the hirelings used).

My hireling would consistently not heal me without explicit command (in guard mode). Many times I would be below 10% hitpoints and the hireling would just stand there beside me doing nothing.

The release notes also state:


Hirelings and pets in defensive stance will no longer aggro monsters without orders to do so, but will still aggro in order to defend their masters or guarded targets if their master or guarded target takes damage.

This is patently untrue. My hirelings try to zerg quests faster than me. I ran a Purge the Fallen Shrine the other day where my hireling, despite being told to stay near the front door in defend mode, out ran me through half the quest. He would run ahead and aggro everything and I would have run up to save him. While I was finishing off the mobs he would run ahead again. We got halfway through the quest doing this before he suddenly realized he was supposed to be back at the beginning and turned around to run back. In another quest my hireling ran up a hallway, entered a room, openned a side door, then ran up another ramp to engage an enemy I didn't even know about, never mind having engaged with (nor was I engaged with any other enemies at the time). Another example had my hireling jump off a bridge to engage an enemy below us that wasn't even active (again I was neither attacking or being attacked by anything). And they don't listen to commands. I'll tell a hireling to come back when they try zerging off only to have them take a few steps towards me then turn around again to continue their zergfest.

Furthermore, I think they're slightly suicidal now (even more so than before). Maybe they don't like the quest changes like all the other healers. In a slayer zone my hireling was down to 8 hitpoints (out of roughly 180) but instead of taking advantage of a momentary break and healing himself he decided to run off and activate a few other stationary mobs for fun.

In short, the hireling AI is more broken then ever.

[protokon]

I concur. Before the patch, at least cleric/fvs hirelings were bearable in which you could manipulate them to pike and come spot heal you as necessary. Now they don't follow any directions correctly and will literally walk away from the group, sometimes back towards the entrance just to step into a trap, get "stuck" then *ding*.

We used a hireling last night in "The enemy within". We were halfway through the quest, someone joined, when they stepped into the quest the hireling started running back towards the entrance...walked away from the barb who was controlling him, the barb died, then the hireling died wandering around by falling into a trap. frustrating indeed.

If they are going to be THIS horrible to manage, at least remove the 5% penalty when they die. It's only fair.

[Beethoven]

To be honest I'm surprised it's taken this long for the hireling issue to come up. Must be due to the forums being down just as the patch was released. Anyway, the new hireling AI (and pet AI to some extent) is horrid (at least for healers, probably 90% of the hirelings used).

I'm a little surprised too it took so long to hit the forums. At least now I know it's not just me. Horrid is probably the best word to describe the new AI. They are only smarter in regards of being more effective in getting themselves and everyone else killed.

I found setting them to defensive makes them unusable. They only heal the target they are supposed to defend in the midst of combat. You can have 3 HP left - if there are no mobs around they won't lift a finger. Their priorities are completely messed up.

For one they will zerg through half a (small) dungeon aggro'ing mobs all over the place. They insist on attacking mobs in range over passive protection (healing in case of clerics/fvs). To me the change pretty much boiled down where you could before simply have them stand their ground you now need to set them to passive and stand their ground (and use commands to tell them each action you want them to perform).

The only way I could manage have them perform half-way intelligently is set them to active (perform actions which they thing useful). It does not seem to make any difference as far as their combat behavior is concerned (attacking, taking aggro from mobs a distance away) but would make them act pro-actively again in regards to healing and curatives (ie: remove curse).

What I believe happened is that whatever was supposed to make them "smarter" actually only made them more eager to rush head first into trouble (which in case of hirelings makes them only more suicidal) and therefor neglect using their defensive capabilities (heals, remove curse, etc.) out of combat where they simply default to doing nothing (instead of making sure whatever they are supposed to protect is also in good health).

[Earthy104]

Here are the problems i have encountered with hirelings since the latest patch:
1. They dont always follow you.
2. They randomly attack enemies even when put as Defensive, and even when you havent attacked, nor been attacked.
3. You have to spam the buttons on the hireling-bar all the time in order to get them to do what they should be doing.
4. They are slower than before. (Atleast in my opinion)

All of the above, plus
5. The hirelings' skill buttons seem to sometimes randomly lock out (e.g. might not be able to order a heal or raise dead).
6. Prior to the update if you clicked the come here button while in the air the hireling would teleport immediately to your location as soon as you hit the button , as many times as you hit the button. Now there seems to be a 2-3 second timer on the come here command.

[BOgre]

It didn't take so long to hit. The first day the forums were up there were no less than 3 threads on the topic. It's that the forums are so frakked up now, that those topics are all marked as read and have fallen off the new posts page into obscurity.

Anyways, yes, they're much much worse than before. Eraserbot would dump a brick.

[Robai]

Can we PLEASE.....FOR THE LOVE OF GOD..........GET A HEAL ONLY MODE FOR HIRELINGS!!

Exactly!
Please give us Heal Only mode!

[AZgreentea]

Except for the following thing and the aggro range, I havent noticed a significant difference after the patch. It makes me suspect that what is really broken is defensive mode. I normally run my hirelings in aggro or passive. I only want them attacking everything and drawing aggro off my rogue, or not doing anything until I tell them. Defensive mode is kinda useless for my rogue, lol.

Even before U11 I noticed that they tend to not cast healz! or rez! very well from the hot bar, but I figured that was a low concentration score. Usually when I need to tell them to do it, its in the middle of combat. If they are being attacked, they tend to not be able to rez me until they are being left alone.

[DocBenway]

Not only do they run off and pick fights, they pick fights that don't have to be fought.

Mining for Ancient Secrets, if left in any mode but passive, insist on attacking the miners that don't aggro unless attacked.

It was also better when clicking one of their actions interrupted their stupidity and they did what you wanted, now it just adds the action to a queue (yellow rotating border) but the action never happens. Wait and wait and only when you click that action 2 more times, will they do it.

[BOgre]

ah, the yellow border. I took that to mean that particular spell was set to 'active'. kendra's resto spell for example. somehow i got the yellow border and it stuck around and she resto'd my barb as needed. But I have no idea how I got her into that mode...

[Justpixels]

Hirelings are useless atm, especially healing ones.

3 of my friends tried 3 different lvls of clr in a quest, they were on defencive mode and we stood at an door entrance doing nothing. The hirelings? Running arround as headless chikens trying to reach mobs that were in next room. Despite we just stood there and did nothing....

Healing from an clr hireling? It does not work either, If you have an pet up they tend to prioritize healing the pet than its master (you). Meaning they let you die rather than let the pet die.

[Pezz]

I agree with everything posted so far, with the addition that since the patch my Pet/iron defender is about as useless. If ordered to attack they run up and do......nothing. Or else the run off and attack when they shud not.

As far as healing hirelings..I agree I think they are pretty much useless right now.

[LOOON375]

In defensive stance, they act like total idiots. And yes it needs to be fixed.

But, I tried putting them in offensive stance, and they start acting like they are designed to if they were in defensive stance. Try it out.

Offensive stance, good. Defensive stance, bad.

[Galeria]

What drives me crazy is when you summon a hireling at an entrance where a mob is close by, like Mindsunder and since they are summoned in defensive stance, they immediately run off to aggro the mob!

I've learned to buff and prepare before summoning my hire, but not everyone knows to do that and you suddenly find yourself fighting whether you were prepared or not.

[batiscan]

All of the above, plus
5. The hirelings' skill buttons seem to sometimes randomly lock out (e.g. might not be able to order a heal or raise dead).
6. Prior to the update if you clicked the come here button while in the air the hireling would teleport immediately to your location as soon as you hit the button , as many times as you hit the button. Now there seems to be a 2-3 second timer on the come here command.

They are, now, also very 'laggy' about their spells: can click on a Flame Strike, and they finally do it, if the monster is not dead by then, 4-5 seconds later. Sometimes their healing is fine, and, sometimes, they just forget to heal you, or themselves, just looking at you, doing nothing (not under a spell influence, not under attack, no, just starting at you). And maybe the worse, when in a trap like a lava pit or a moving spike from the floor, instead of just moving aside out of the trap, they stay there, taking hit again and again and, die. Well, something maybe even worse, it is when they decide to move away to attack who knows what, even in guard mode, while there is not a single visible monster around. In version 11, they are of the worse type ever (coupled with system lag), bring back those of version 10, they were somehow better (it is not a major feat to be better than those in version 11).

[EricSparks]

Its apparent after spending the last hour reading post after post about how pointless hirelings are, its obvious DEVS either CANT fix it or wont.

I mean threads going back YEARS and the complaints are ALWAYS the same. In a nutshell, theres absolutely no point in thier existance. Ive had to repeat the same quest 3 times as of this post. All because I have to all but handcuff myself to the hireling to keep him at my side. I still havent gotten through it. Thanks of course to the worthless hireling.

The Devs keep telling us "Click this, then click back to this and it will fix it." The point Devs, is we shouldnt have to click multiple icons to get the hireling to do 1 thing. Each icon is a separate action. YOU are the Devs. its YOUR job to fix things like this. Not get lazy and give everyone a half assed "fix" that isnt a fix.

[TheLallian]

Agreed, with the latest update hirelings are now far worse than before, specifically that they do not obey the 'stand ground' command and will run off and get agro, trip traps, etc.

Also have to have heal only setting for the healers (same function as a normal player with healer would do). They waste a lot of sp being meaningless attackers and then aren't ready to heal other players when its needed.

Combine the first issue with the second, and a healer running ahead and getting agro or falling in trap, can use up all their sp trying to stay alive in short order.

This not 'standing ground' is a bug and needs to be fixed. It worked fine before the last update so revert back to that.

[ChetwynUlose2]

I propose that no longer hires be purchased from merchants, but from "short ships" preferably yellow. That their helm is changed to a football helmet, perhaps this will assist in the obvious brain damage they receive from bashing their heads repeatedly on unopened doors. Perhaps a body harness command, it places a harness on the hire, and a retractable short lead so they can't get to far away.

[technosatyr]

I'm not sure I agree with most of the sentiment in here. My experience has been the exact opposite. When I get my pet out and a hireling summoned I find that they don't fight anything, regardless of what stance I put them in. At first they do okay, but after about 5 or 10 minutes they start just standing behind me, not attacking boxes, not attacking enemies, not using abilities.

Things I used to be able to solo with hirelings' help are now a lot more difficult because they don't seem to want to participate. When I put my puppy on aggressive I expect him to run up and bite stuff, not stand 20 yards behind me doing nothing.

[Xynot2]

Well, here's my take-

I've plunked down $300 and Im not getting my money's worth when the Dev team thinks it's more important to install crappy new content instead of making the old content work.

Let's start with the hirelings. All of those issues have been presented.

Now lets move on to existing content. Like 3 barrel cove, Ataraxia, just to name 2 that need revamped. All that the new content is serving to do is to allow old content to be forgotten, exploiters to ruin the economy (15k for a grtr sp pot? OMG!) and the quality of DDO to decline.

Let move to the renown decay and showing the HP and SP in the group player bars. What these 2 things have done is forced good guilds to become elitist power gaming guilds and it's ruining the community. You dont lose your character levels if you dont play them, you dont lose your epic items if you dont use them, so why the hell do you lose guild renown? All of these issues make the Dev team look like idiots who have never played an MMORPG ever.

I put real money down on this game and I would like what I paid for to work.

I'll sign this- a VERY disgruntled customer.


Edit: I also forgot to add that the NPCs that used to be hidden til they attacked you (IE Kobold Rogues in Garrison's Missing P{ack and others) Are clearly visible at all times- another thing broken that needs fixing