Healer Hires not doing their jobs + Arti Dog still Broken!

[FranOhmsford]

I got caught in a spellward and my hire removed the poison/stat damage on me but didn't cast HEAL! By the time I was able to order it to heal me I was dead!

And this isn't a one-off - Hires are refusing to actually HEAL! Their main Job!

Even when you're unconscious they still take a good 3 seconds to actually remember the spell!

-

As for the Arti Dog - Far too often he just sits there doing nothing! Calling him to you and swapping between active and guard doesn't work to get him moving either - He just stands in place while you move on!

-

Can we PLEASE get a Hireling Pass to fix these Bugs Devs?

[originalbod]

I tend to think of them as raisers rather than healers, this being a more frequent and reliable outcome.

[Seph1roth5]

And lever pullers don't forget that.

[FranOhmsford]

I tend to think of them as raisers rather than healers, this being a more frequent and reliable outcome.

They're pretty slow on Raise Dead too - I'm starting to have to ORDER them to Raise me again.

And God forbid they're in the midst of the mob that just killed you as you try to stop them healing themselves so they can Raise you only for them then to Die too!

-

P.S. It is nice that Caraneth and Antonio are back to absolutely destroying everything on Elite

[Enoach]

Oh, I thought the healing hirelings joined the Kobold Union.

[Valerianus]

yeah sometimes paying the contract 100% upfront is a bad deal and it causes issues meh.


about pets, maybe you already know, the only workaround is don't train active abilities, don't hotbar don't let em use active abilities, and don't make them climb ladders. it helps.


btw yes i agree, it's sad AI is still broken, at this point there's no hope.

broken pets are a special kind of bad, they are class features after all.

[kamimitsu]

Can we PLEASE get a Hireling Pass to fix these Bugs Devs?

I wish I could find the post, but many moons ago a Dev mentioned that every time they try to tweak the hireling AI it borked up something else (i.e. not related not hireling AI, and often important) and they've essentially decided it's not worth the risk. It's kind of a shame, but that's the last official word that I can recall.

I will say that one of the problems I've noticed is that the AI seems to "remember" if the last cast spell landed or not, and if it didn't then they won't cast it again until they reset somehow. So, if the hireling tried to throw a heal and you were blocked, it won't attempt again until you cycle passive/active, telelport it to you, etc. This is particularly annoying when they try to throw you a rez when you're on timer and then they just stand around waiting to be discovered by a host of angry monsters.

[FranOhmsford]

I wish I could find the post, but many moons ago a Dev mentioned that every time they try to tweak the hireling AI it borked up something else (i.e. not related not hireling AI, and often important) and they've essentially decided it's not worth the risk. It's kind of a shame, but that's the last official word that I can recall.

That was about EIGHT years ago!

And Hirelings have been up and down since - They're not always bad.

The Devs also did the pathetic hireling bar change that added the ability to switch off certain abilities SINCE they said that so they haven't stopped working on Hirelings completely.

And yes that hireling bar change was PATHETIC because switching off those abilities didn't just stop the hirelings from using them without your say so....They stopped you being able to TELL THE HIRELINGS TO USE THOSE ABILITIES AT ALL unless you switched it back on!

It was clearly supposed to be a change to stop Arcane Hirelings and the likes of Nimeth, Larafay and Caraneth from wasting their entire spell bars casting their rotation of spells in every quest and at every mob no matter whether those spells would work on those mobs or not!

But instead it just became an ability no player would ever use more than once due to not being able to TELL the hirelings to do those things.

-

In my opinion rather than looking at the big picture and trying to fix hireling AI as a whole, the Devs would be better off going through each hireling one by one and updating them.

They could start with hirelings that are rarely used and make them worth using.

They could add new hirelings with better AI and slowly phase out the old.

The Rogue hirelings btw are on the whole GREAT - It would be nice to get one at Lvl 27 that can do EE Traps so we don't have to be reliant on getting an actual PLAYER to get full xp from those quests!

I will say that one of the problems I've noticed is that the AI seems to "remember" if the last cast spell landed or not, and if it didn't then they won't cast it again until they reset somehow. So, if the hireling tried to throw a heal and you were blocked, it won't attempt again until you cycle passive/active, telelport it to you, etc. This is particularly annoying when they try to throw you a rez when you're on timer and then they just stand around waiting to be discovered by a host of angry monsters.

They have no such problem when they're going through their rota so I'd assume this is only when they're actively TOLD to cast a spell - They cast it ONCE whether it works or not!

The real problem in my view is that if they're already in the middle of casting something you have to wait for them to stop before telling them to HEAL or RAISE you...Otherwise they get confused and don't do ANYTHING!

There's been many a time when I've had to literally spam Albus to Raise me because he's being hit and interrupted every time he tries - Giving every Cleric and FvS hireling above Lvl 8 QUICKEN would make such a MASSIVE difference!

Especially for Albus because he INSISTS on casting Heal Mass as his go to spell rather than a single target! And of course that takes a good five seconds to actually cast!

[Seph1roth5]

I don't get why they can't just use monster AI for hirelings. Like...give healers archer/thrower AI so they stay AWAY from the enemy and not run up and melee them like dumbasses. Or give rogue bat/scorpion AI so they're always maneuvering around them and annoying the enemy for a change.