An Attack Button: I Want Control Of My Companion

goee

After many tiresome fights with my useless Panther, yes he seems to sit there mewing all day (and it sounds awful), I would love to have some control over my companions. If the companion is a tank, then I want to be able to tell it to fight. If the companion is a healer, then I want to be able to tell it to heal. Why do we not have the ability to at least get the companion to do what it is meant to do, to have a stance (the Panther should be aggressive, not a playful kitten.)
What use is a tanking companion if it can't tank? I want a tank when I am healing, I need a tank. If I am a Wizard I want a tank or a healer to do their job, not stand there watching me get macerated.

The Panther has been useless from day one, don't you think it's about time you fixed the AI of all the companions to be more responsive? Don't you think we should be able to tell a companion what to do? I had more control over my companions in Neverwinter Nights, how many years ago was that? There is no excuse as to not improving how they work. I spent $200 to support this game, I feel..no, I know I deserve more than this.

A simple set of keys is all that's needed, please put the time in to do this, not just for me but, for every person out there who has the same concerns (I think that's most players).

chaoscourtesan

I don't think we should be able to control them directly, but I do wish we had a mode select... Stay/Follow, Guard, Attack, Support/Heal, etc.

I never relied on my companions at all, just considered them an extra convenience. I like that they 'have a mind of their own,' but they do represent henchmen, squires, and that sort of thing, so they should at least take basic instruction.

I use my companions only for foundry dailies and the like, and their main purpose is to give me combat advantage. Anything else is gravy. In teamed missions, it's all about the augments.

tang56

Something like the party member behaviour menu from the dragon age series would be amazing.

artanisen

yea it would be cool if companions had
control options like, attack, defend or standby.

mconosrep

artanisen wrote: »

yea it would be cool if companions had
control options like, attack, defend or standby.

Something like this where defend means a companion only ever attacks if it is attacked first or passive where it never attacks would be great for reducing accidental aggro issues.

bioshrike

City of Villains had a pet class - The Mastermind - and they had some excellent tools to control your minions. While you couldn't specify the exact attack to use, you could change their behavior, (attack, move, don't attack, etc).

My gut tells me the companions were left fully automated to both simplify the play experience, and to somewhat lessen the usefulness of companions - they still want people to team after all...

sethtirus

cool im new

melodywhr

this is from a Q&A on raptr, lead designer zeke sparkes answers this question:

We actually tried a few different ways to give Companions commands during development and felt it made combat a little too chaotic. There's already enough going on that we didn't want to add an extra layer of things for players to keep track of. So our goal is to have them be self-sufficient, where they'll do what the are supposed to do without overhead from you. We do keep working on their behavior to make better though. We have talked about giving players the ability to set the style of behavior for their pets, from ultra aggressive to defensive to just healing etc. So that might be the sort of thing we add in a future update.

enjoy!

rortie

goee wrote: »

The Panther has been useless from day one,

Is it really that bad? HotN is a pretty expensive pack....

bioshrike

melodywhr wrote: »

this is from a Q&A on raptr, lead designer zeke sparkes answers this question:



enjoy!

That's great news, and I hope they sincerely follow through on what you quoted. Personally, I'd like to see the below options added:

1. General behavior - aggressive, defensive, passive
2. Positioning - stay in front of me, stay behind me, stay with me
3. Targeting - ONLY attack my target, attack strongest target, attack weakest target

chaoscourtesan

bioshrike wrote: »

That's great news, and I hope they sincerely follow through on what you quoted. Personally, I'd like to see the below options added:

1. General behavior - aggressive, defensive, passive
2. Positioning - stay in front of me, stay behind me, stay with me
3. Targeting - ONLY attack my target, attack strongest target, attack weakest target

Yep, that right there would be perfect! 3 parameters, 3 values.

I would not have much problem if they disabled these features in partied dungeons, though. The wrong setting could easily ruin the experience for all. But for solo stuff this would be awesome.

bioshrike

chaoscourtesan wrote: »

Yep, that right there would be perfect! 3 parameters, 3 values.

I would not have much problem if they disabled these features in partied dungeons, though. The wrong setting could easily ruin the experience for all. But for solo stuff this would be awesome.

I'd say just disable "aggressive" behavior in dungeons, and possibly only allow your companion to stay behind you or with you. Also, putting your companion in defensive mode would by necessity *not* have them attack unless they themselves were attacked first.

chaoscourtesan

The problem I have with this is trusting the unknown player to make the right decision, or even to remember there is one to be made. haha. So a forced non-aggro mode seems less obnoxious to me.

eldarth

I'd be happy if they were left as-is with a single "attack target" command. Simple, easy, everything works the way it is if not pressed, but it'd be nice to be able to "pull" or initiate an attack so we can simultaneously attack instead of waiting to be actually hit by mob.

If not an attack button, then at least attack the target I attack - don't sit around waiting for me to get damaged before defending me. Take my lead -- if I attacked it, my companion ought to as well.