This game revolves around having companions, so why are they so bad? Half the time they don’t listen to no attack commands, they’ll stop following to attack enemies and won’t listen to "move here* commands. How about fixing bugs that majority of people complain about instead of more dlc
This game has never revolved around having companions.
But how do we get our companions?
If you make someone your drug slave, or best them to the point of conditioning, it tends to adversely impacting cognition.
Joking aside, it would be nice if the AI could get a little TLC.
This one wonders how much of it is the stutter between what’s on server and what’s on screen.
Obviously not the inability to hit the broadside of a sedentary barn from a dozen meters… but response speed.
Because the more they try, they don’t seem to be capable of giving companions a decent AI.
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How are you setting up your thrall? Scroll down to thrall management.
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You’re probably new to the game, so let me tell you that the ability to give commands to companions is recent. It used to be much worse before this change. Being able to level up companions is also recent. These were some of the best improvements they implemented in the game.
Still, it was the best thing that was introduced in the game.
That’s right. Along with the annoying and never-ending nerfs and buffs to thralls.
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Everything else than the player is trash in this game 
Uhhhm… That’s Pokemon my friend, not Conan Exiles 
Sure knocking out thralls is a huge part of the game, mostly because artisan thralls improve your working stations and give you extra recipes… But Fighter/Archer Thralls have never been mandatory, same with Animal Pets, and before they removed them, Necromancy Pets as well.
Having companions is optional, and they have plenty of uses:
• Main Fighter Thrall, if you go full Authority with the Well-Trained perk you let your Thrall do the job and you’re the support/sidekick. There are many ways to make it work, whether Friendly Fire is active or not (I play with full Friendly Fire damage, not the baseline 0.1 multiplier 
); You cango Authority + Agility and play with a Bow, you can also sneak in with daggers to help switch aggro, as well as healing your Thrall for a part of the damage you deal with the Commanding Presence perk. You can also go full Grit and pick Shield Master and just stand before your thrall with a shield to block most attacks while they do the damage XD. A Main Fighter however only works with Thralls as currently Pets and even Greater Pets have terrible stats
→ Mind that you can give Elixir and Food buffs to your followers the same way you can buff yourself as a player! The armor buffs for Thralls also count for a lot, just know if you’re giving them a Strength or Agility weapon that’s all.
• Secondary Fighter Thrall, without any Authority. It’s a bit clunky and risky with Friendly Fire, but it works totally fine once you get used to it. You’re the main fighter, and your follower is here to deal extra damage and kill things faster.
→ You can order your follower to move in a direction so it will take the aggro, and then you rush towards another enemy to split the work, you killing some enemies while your thrall deals with some others.
→ This requires getting used to managing your follower mid-fight, but you use them as a meat-shield and switch aggro regularly. Making your follower move away from a fight while they have aggro will make their attackers follow very predictably, and in that case you can interrupt them and take the aggro, then move behind your thrall until it takes the aggro again, etc. etc. There are many variations and ways to use your thrall besides simply letting him fight and get hit while you stay passive.
→ You can also use Golems, and personally the best use I have found for them is with the Lotus Burner Torso, but I will let you figure things out
• Archer Thrall, which is self-explanatory, you just have to be aware of your surroundings to see when enemies aggro your archer so you can catch them before they reach your thrall. I don’t recommend this at the moment because they aim like a blind person with a 20 layered blindfold on top
• Carry Pet, because your inventory is large but your encumbrance is limited (unless you pick Beast of Burden with 20 Expertise). So yeah, you can have a follower with a moderate to large inventory, and just give them the Stop Command when you fight things, then place whatever is too heavy for you in their inventory. You can have a decent fighter and still put the heaviest things in their inventory of course, but you can also take a terrible figher (basic pet for instance) and only use them as an extension of inventory 
And with all those things, you can use multiple companions around your base to defend it against the Purge. They can also be used as living chests if you like 
So yeah, they aren’t the most clever, they are as dumb as NPCs, but as they level up they gain much better stats than NPCs, you can give them Broken Armor + Broken Weapon + Command them to move so they avoid some damage. On top of that the food in their inventory heals them up, and you can buff them with elixirs! They are usable!
Now some are good and some are bad, Funcom made a mess and the information isn’t intuitive in-game, so if you’re looking for the best Thralls just check this one out: AGE OF WAR - New Thrall Stats
TLDR: Just tame a Cannibal Brute, it’s super easy and they are crazy strong.
Edit: And with the addition of Elixir of Rebirth in the Age of Sorcery, you can reroll your Thrall’s perks to make them even better!
Just as an example, look at my idiot taking down this dude.
He isn’t fully leveled up yet, and his current perks are terrible XD
But he has massive armor and a legendary weapon, plus a bit of HP regen from gruel (which is far from the best regen).
He keeps getting hit like a total noob (see the 5 stacks of Sunder above reducing his armor massively btw) and yet he won that fight without any help from me. I have 0 Authority points btw.
Now against an enemy who deals much more damage, he would die 1v1.
But that’s where other factors come into play:
• Authority if your Thrall is the main fighter.
• Better Food for better HP regen.
• Follower management so they take less damage.
• Helping your follower a bit either with a Bow or even going into melee as mentioned in my prior answer.
So nah, things are manageable no problem 
That’s not what the community considers acceptable.
Thralls should be able to solo any monster, NPC, and avatars at without any need to armor or level them or even input from the player. They are useless otherwise and the game is too hard except for the top 1% of hardcore players.
I would like us to have much more options. That’s one of the reasons why all t4 fighters should be similar across the board.
My actual issue with followers is that they have hidden values that you don’t see in-game.
As far as balancing goes, I personally think that less damage but more health should be the standard; this is forgiving of bad follower management, it also doesn’t allow followers to solo bosses at lvl 2, and they don’t insta-die to stunlock.
That looks similar to some current Greater Pets, except those have negative damage, almost like they’re healing the enemy I swear
So all in all, give good health and moderate damage to followers so that the player has to engage in the fight for damage to be done, without having to be giga-careful about their thrall dying in under a second, but still having to manage them to some extent.
We don’t need OP glass canon that dies from bad management or stunlock, we need moderately strong but reliable. Take current Greater Pets, give them a bit more damage (but again not too much), and make that the standard.
Back to Greater Pets, for context, the ones I’ve looked at because I didn’t bother looking at more:
On the left is a lvl 0, starting HP of 1.5k
On the right a lvl 20, with 7k HP, and unoptimized perks.
See the perks:
I say that’s pretty decent HP, my lvl 20 also got pretty good Strength… But he hits like a wet noodle, so a little buff to Pet damage would make this instance a balanced pet who isn’t a broken glass canon but that can still hold his ground, tank some damage, and deal some damage.
Exactly. If the thrall gains the uper hand, he will vaporize enemies (lvl 20, legendary gear).
If he gets stunlocked, he dies too fast.
That’s why some people think thralls are fine while others complain. With this kind of AI, you can’t make glass cannons standard. Thralls become too unreliable. Either they are too strong or too weak, depending on circumstances that can be beyond the player’s control.
Also to be fair let’s compare with my lvl 20 Brute (leveled him up with Gruel for Strength to be even more of a Glass Canon)
The Thrall has 2576 HP and 2120 Armor, which is 80.9% damage reduction.
This gives an Effective Health of: 2576 ÷ (1-(2120÷(2120+500))) = 13498.24
Meanwhile the Pet has 7015 HP and 360 Armor, which is 41.9% damage reduction.
This gives an Effective Health of: 7015 ÷ (1-(360÷(360+500))) = 12065.8
The main reason those Glass Canon Brutes work is because you can give them such high armor values to mitigate damage, to such a point that their Effective Health will be higher than a Pet who has more than triple its base HP… This is why Thralls are much better than Pets (and I think it’s a shame) because what matters the most is their gear.
So not only does the Pet deal 0 damage, but even with all that HP it cannot tank more…
The only downside of relying on Armor rather than HP is against Armor Reduction effects, namely, Armor Penetration,Sunder, and any damage that bypasses armor altogether such as Bleed for instance.
Guess Pets also need an Armor buff 
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Uhhhhhh!
I’m so…
then!
Agreed. The issues raised by original poster seem to be more about understanding commands and setting up preferences. My thrall commands work just fine.
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