AI make the solo experience, and to make the game re-playable for a long time the AI need to feel like fighting a real enemy. Also I want to be able to have more than one follower, honestly should be a setting for solo at least. It would enable me to siege AI Factions properly! I also believe the factions should not all be friendly with eachother by default, and alliances/enemies should be an option for them.
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Given the response and reaction to movement and dodge I wonder the team is even motivated to overhaul anything versus just bugfixing in the future.
It seens on the current pc patch they didnt roll back the implementation but adjusted it to be as close to the previous state, its barely any different. It mighty as well be a ruse just to keep people quiet for the holidays and free weekend.
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Either you havenât watched the same dev stream I have or we have drastically different interpretations of it. From what Alex said, to me it seems the team is as motivated as ever, but they realized that the communication has to be better.
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The challenges and counter-challenges of followers are one of the most fascinating stacks of interlinked dependencies to me!
Obviously itâs a problem that followers are tougher, more damaging, and way dumber than players. You feel like a squire for your bodyguard.
Followers donât know how to dodge, so they need huge hit points in order to survive. We also canât give useful orders or tactics due to both controls and AI, so they need even more HP to survive when they are standing in the fire.
Followers also make more of the game accessible to offline, solo, or casual players. If taking down a boss, player + followers has to have a shot at matching a team of a few players vs the boss. With the limit of 1 follower, that followerâs damage has to be huge until the AI can handle cooperation and coordination of multiple followers.
Thereâs more linkages, but itâs a really interesting nest of problems.
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Intentional misspelling of âAmericanâ, often used to make fun of certain groups of Americans, whether in a self-deprecating manner or not.
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Bear in mind that, like I said, itâs often used in a self-deprecating manner. Letâs just say that American attitude towards America can be very complicated at times 
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For now they are, but notice hoe every patch that overhauls something is met with failed update, roll back or we riot atitude. People will surelly have the same crybaby response to AI overhaul, they will have to tone down to the same situatiob as before, and that with every big update will undermine the team.
From the ammount of people asking for mounta you woukd think the update would have gotten some poaitive feedback, yet all we see on here and reddit is fail update, blablabla.
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as I said in other threads I took a year+ away from the game,
and I can see the AI has improved from what it was, we just need to be patient.
When the frozen north biom released I could make a new character and run right up there, because I knew the AI would get tripped up by the terrain.
I couldnât do that now because the AI is getting better and better.
we just need to give it time.
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I would like more interaction with followers. Theyâre our slâs, so let us order them around.
Let us, dare I say, have s-x with our thralls. Yes, I know there are mods that do that, but theyâre all X-rated and kindâa buggy. I mean something more PG, like show the protagonist and his/her thrall in bed together with just their heads showing and making motions under the covers. Many games depict s-x between characters, some X rated and some not so much: Leisure Suit Larry, Mass Effect, The Sims, even Minecraft!
For another, let us put any thrall at any station. Granted, you shouldnât get much of a perk if you put an archer at a blacksmith station, for example, or make a cook stand guard outside your base with a sword and shield, but if theyâre truly our thralls we should have The Power!
With that in mind, Iâd also like to be able to access ANY thrallâs inventory and change up their clothes, even ones assigned to work stations.
For NPCs in general, Iâd like to see their dialog more context specific. Iâve lost count of the times Iâve wandered through Set City to see some NPCs fighting a rhino that wandered up to the city gates and overheard this âconversationâ:
GUARD1: âIn the name of Set, identify yourself!â
RHINO: âGrunt!â
GUARD2: âI will rip your heart outâ
RHINO: âGrunt!â
This is hilarious, but it kindâa spoils the immersion.
Or this scenario, Iâd be walking along an obvious stone path minding my own business when some NPCs would take offense at the sight of me and chase me back to my base.
EXILE: âIn the name of Set, invaders!â
ME: âUhm, whose base are you attacking?!?! Whoâs invading who here?!?!â
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I was just driven to log on to this Forum out of continuing frustration with how dumb my Archer follower is.
The NPC Archers will have no problem pulling out their sword and attacking at close range.
Just Checking their inventory, or giving them Food to increase their growth rate, will cause an Archer to glitch. A simple Spotted Hyena can dispatch said archer, as it will not defend itself.
Follower AI, especially when they get bugged out, is a huge concern of mine. Please work on this in your current or next sprint, and do not pass on the importance of this problem.
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No offense, but of all the things devs could spend their time and effort on, this would rank the lowest on my list.
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How good can they be? If just âbetterâ, Iâd say focus on other things cuz they can waste a bunch of time on AI that still doesnât satisfy, or give new maps, decos, armor, clothing, etc. Game AI always disappoints in my experience (unless weâre talking chess).
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Iâll never forget WoWâs Burning crusade bosses, both from heroic dungeons and raids, the team coordination must be precise in order to overcome the A.I with its phases.
Also, GTA and Red Dead Online npcâs impress me all the time with unexpected behaviors and tactical moves, the three wolves, omg I clapped when they surrounded me and teared me to pieces.
I think an overhaul on CEs ai would be 100% beneficial.
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Thrall AI isnât actually all that terribleâŠ
Take an archer thrall out and watch what they do, then revisit this thought. Itâs absolutely clear to me that no developers or testers have actually done this. I can virtually guarantee any testing theyâve done has entirely been with archers in static positions, defending. Their combat AI âout in the worldâ is fantastically broken.
Edit: Two simple examples of this, just so you can understand what Iâm getting at. Both of these behaviors are easily reproducible, and happen frequently.
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An enemy attacks the archer. The archer turns their back on the enemy, stands still and repeatedly fires arrows in the opposite direction.
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An enemy is killed by the player. The archer continues to fire arrows at a non-existent target up in the sky, forever, until you move far enough away from them that it forces them to âresetâ and teleport to you.
These are unique to archers, but they also share many of the other broken behaviors with other thralls, such as constantly walking backwards (again, until theyâre forced to teleport to you), becoming confused and just standing still, etc.
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Alex did touch on it. He was talking about NPC AI in general, but i believe it was going to be a dev poi for year three, as they can;t really move forward in any plans world wise if the AI is not where they or the player want it.
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I may be wrong, but I donât really think you can compare WoWâs AI to that of Conan (or games with similar AI like skyrim, fallout, extâŠ)
WoWâs AI is incredibly simplistic:
You get to close, it attacks.
After that, everything anything does in WoW, boss or minion, is all entirely scripted. Its laid out code wise to not really be reactionary (save for doing things at certain health %s for example) and is pretty much on rails.
In this regard, WoWâs AI isnât really AI (well, neither is CEâs, but all the same, thats a endless discussion I donât mean to blow the lid off here) but what I mean is, WoW had some of the easiest enemy reaction code to program when it comes to gaming. Conanâs situation is far more complex and challenging then what Blizzard had to over come (at least in that specific area of development).
Sorry for the aside from the topic, however that sentence just sat odd with me as MMO enemy scripting often is about as dumbed down and as simple as you can get.
Yah the Sunwell had some very tight and challenging fights. But its because you had to play a very precise game of Simon says, not because the AI challenged playerâs abilities.
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I remember a time in Conan where I had to block my Archers in to their positions because if they had foot access to get in melee range of their enemy, doesnât matter that they have a bow and could reach, they would run up face to face with the enemy before starting to attack.
Had to actually wall them in to get them to work. I actually forgot if that thing was even still happening due to it becoming a habit of mine and I still wall archers into their positions.
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Must be a perception thing because Iâm under the impression AI is a priority for them.
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And letâs not forget one neat little âfeatureâ - all those wasted shots consume arrows. 
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Sadly there is nât the answer Im looking for
I donât use thralls much⊠maybe because they are too ret** to use
What I want is better AI overal⊠because now they get agro, run to you⊠wait⊠still waits while dying⊠start poking in you⊠moves to a location (while you poke in them) then they die a certain death
Ohh and they sometimes can attack through stagger (while a player canât)
For a follower the following should be improved:
- Better tracking your footsteps (not falling down a bridge or die instant by lava, or getting stuck behind things)
- They need to be able to jump and climb to follow you properly
- They need to be able to swim in order to follow you correctly
- Different stances, like stand ground (attack only from position), defensive (attack only when youâll be attacked), aggresive (attack all in XX radius)
- Be able to keep up⊠sometimes we have to wait like 1 min to see them popup next to you
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