Game mode: [Online PvE Official #3731]
Problem: [Bug | Performance]
Region: [North America]
I just recently captured my first & only named bearer thrall, Ulrik the Mountaineer, after learning that such thralls have an enormous 9900 hp for damage. After breaking Ulrik I headed off to the Unnamed City to harvest some more Fragments of Power & then onto the Black Galleon for more thralls.
… well, that didn’t go so well with Ulrik who seemed to be suffering some brain injury from his heavy tumpline - once I engaged in active combat with an NPC, Ulrik would suddenly start running around BACKWARDS, keeping his butt consistently aimed at the enemy. Even worse, he would NEVER make a single strike against any of these enemies, leaving me to kill the damn Red Dragon solo. He would also switch back & forth between whatever weapons he was carrying, including some much lower quality ones I had him carry for the dismantling bench, which is a problem I’m seen with some other thralls, so I usually just leave them only one weapon. He still would not attack once.
Once I realized this issue seemed consistent I took Ulrik in the Den with the same lack of effort/effect, then around my base where ALL my other thralls & pets would attack the big snake that now spawns by my main gate, but not Ulrik. So I went back and tagged my favorite badass babe, Dalinsia Snowhunter, who followed me around faithfully & beat the snot out of every monster or other NPC in the Den & Unnamed City. And of course, I logged off & back on.
Strangely enough, I logged on a few hours later the same day & Ulrik seemed to have recovered & began pounding every NPC enemy quite efficiently. We’ll see tonight if he’s cured.
My question is this: have other players noticed this issue with their thralls, especially a named bearer like Ulrik? I have never before seen the running backwards glitch with absolutely NO engagement with my enemies (we’ve all been frustrated at times by thrall’s intermittently lackadaisical attitude to fighting). Is this something I’m likely to see more of?
@Narelle - thanks but I did try various weapons combinations (including highlighting & placing each in his main hand) & he just kept doing his vertical reggaeton butt moves.
Never seen a thrall run Butt first. Has the server restarted? That might be the fix. To piggy back off what @Narelle said giving them multiple weapons will break them. You can fix this by giving them the weapon they are looking for in their inventory but it’s not an exact science. Best to not give them multiples and especially don’t do it in mid combat they will break almost 100% of the time. I have had luck telling them to stop following then swapping weapons and telling them to follow again.
Eina the Light did this the first time I took her out. Now she works just fine.
I usually take Luba the Luscious through the unnamed city for corruption purposes, occasionally she will break after getting pounded by a dragon. She doesn’t like being buried in the mesh.
Most thralls seem to break if you use every slot in their inventory.
I can confirm this. Thralls always starts acting weird as soon as the inventory is completely full. Equiping several Weapons is also always ending in the thrall refusing to fight. I also often see them moving backwards with weapon in the hand. Even though the enemies are long gone.
@Catspaw I had this issue where the thrall I was using wouldn’t fight also. In fact it happened to a few thralls.
Lian, Cimmerian berserker, Cimmerian fighter III…
What I did to solve this issue was:
First out the affected thrall into guard mode. Manually change their weapon, placing it in their offhand/main ( I did both, you may need to) and had them follow me and it should be fixed.
I also did this near hostile enemies and put them in guard, and manually switched like before and they auto engaged and that fixed the issue. And then put them on follow again.
that seems way better than my fix.
Remove Armor.
Remove Weapon.
Give 1 Roasted haunch.
Put it on follow.
Run around base to see every other thrall and pet.
Invite for a long term “vacation” in the Volcano.
Thanks to all of you for the helpful hints; I was aware of some but there are other hints I will definitely try.
To follow up, last night (Thur May 30) I took Ulrik back into the Unnamed City for some harvesting and he was working fine during the Red Dragon & Set Serpent boss fights but then started doing his weirdo bum rush with NO attacks with the Bat Demon & some others. Naturally I ran far away until he caught up with me. I checked to make sure he was equipping only one weapon and noted his inventory was not full. I also had him un-follow & re-follow me, none of which seemed to be an immediate fix.
By the time I headed back to base & stopped to fight the N edge Scorpion Boss, his behavior was definitely erratic: he’d be whacking the scorpion while I cowardly plopped in some arrows or ran in for some cheap shots with my new favorites, Havoc & Malice (FIND THEM - double axes, lots of bleed and the defense is a backflip no matter what heavy armor you’re wearing). Then suddenly, he’d start doing his bum rush routine. I’d run around & pull him away, then he’d seem to get back to being his usual helpful self but so far I cannot determine what triggers either his apparently random butt first pacifism or sudden (re)embrace of his inner thug.
When my thralls start getting stupid like that @Catspaw I position the boss monsters to hit the thrall, “knocking some sense” into them so to speak. That also usually fixes the “I’m a pretty princess, look at me” circles they tend to do. At least for me.
to expand on this even further, giving a thrall only one weapon and allowing them to carry your harvesting tools for you (bearer) will result in them trying to pickaxe, hammer, chain bind, and set knife everything they encounter
Yup, @Ranson, been there, seen that… shook head in bewilderment, "How is that sickle working for you, dumbkopf, over the Predatory Blade you already had?
And after the major update that eliminated the need to feed thralls & pets, I made the mistake of dropping several choice prepared full stacks of food into my thrall, before I realized they now have a bottomless abyss for a stomach.
Removing feeding requirement does reduce much of the domestic grinding we were doing but not sure why that had to turn into eat everything immediately - seems that could be tweaked.
until he caught up with me. I checked to make sure he was equipping only one weapon and noted his inventory was not full. I also had him un-follow & re-follow me, none of which seemed to be an immediate fix.