With today’s patch I am starting to lose Archer’s.
When they see an enemy, they jump off of whatever perch they are on. It’s bad when I have to keep putting them back, it’s even worse when they teleport under the world.
I tried setting them to “Stand and Defend” and that works a little better. But they still can’t seem to stay still. They’re still falling off.
Before patch, archers would try to chase things down too. But if they couldn’t find a path, they were stuck where they were placed. Now, they’ll jump off balconies, teleport through walls, and warp under the world.
Warping under the world is a serious pain. I can use the Rescue option from the Follower Management window to get them back… But that takes 1 hour per follower, and they lose all of their equipment.
I’m replying to second the OP’s observations, and to add that, when Archer thralls do attempt to return to their home location, they often teleport way above their original spot. I am frequently finding my lost Archers on cliffs, ledges, tree branches etc. if I build directly under such natural structures. While this is greatly preferable to losing them to the undermesh, it still makes them useless as defenders after one fight.
I propose that we have a “Sentry” setting for Archer AI that simply permits no movement whatsoever from its coordinates. This is suitable for putting Archers in strategic elevated positions, which is how most of us use them. This will leave them vulnerable to bad angles and firing ineffectively into their own structures, but that’s a much more predictable problem for the player to work around than the mysteries of NPC pathing. A guarding Archer thrall which jumps to the ground is completely inferior to simply putting a Fighter on the ground in the same spot, other than in a small number of uncommon scenarios.