Useless Archers thralls

[roro4066]

I’ve been doing several testing sessions with thralls and AI behaviour/efficiency, and for some reason my archers thralls seem to not engage combat evrytime it’s needed (i’ve managed to get some in "fighting mode in some cases) and as will proof these screenshots the AI is kinda off sometimes apparently. Maybe i’m missing something though…

The fights will trigger at the exact location where my character is standing. (so all my thralls should be in aggro range)

As you can see all my melee thralls have engaged the combat (note i have to get hit first to make them fight by the way) but my archer is still standing on the ceilling doing nothing but dreaming.

in order to make everything clear, you can see on this screen that my archer is indeed well fited for battle so to say…

NB: all of this was done in single player mode.

[roro4066]

Finally, please also note that my archers were just rocking last summer, and all my bases were really efficiently defended. This problem with archers and thralls AI was the reason why i made a break with this game…so only hope you devs will be considering these issues and overall able to make it enjoyable again.

[BTRR]

All slaves in terms of protection and in terms of partners are useless. They are stupid, and they have not added to their minds for a year, I think it will remain so.

[roro4066]

it is true that fighters are kinda bugged too, but in some other way…
Sometimes i see my fighter followers keep on swinging the air although the ennemy has been slain a long time ago, take a look, i’ve taken a screen last time i witnessed it:

they also have huge difficulties to use their weapon against big opponents like elephants, rhinos, etc…so they end up standing there, doing nothing but taking hits. Sorry guys i have no screen for this one…lol

[Calimus]

The defensive thrall AI is soo borked, it’s laughable. You implement a game mechanic such as the purge and then have the second most important defensive capability (defensive thralls) broken. For larger clans it will not be that big of a deal, but for those us us going it alone or in a small clan… Defensive thralls are a necessity.
Please fix ASAP.

[thFrgttn]

I was able to get fighters to use melee weapons by filling there inventories with rock and then putting the sword in there main hand slot, otherwise they just kept puuting the weapons away.
maybe do the same with the archers bow, not sure where the arrows need to go.

[roro4066]

Thanks but i don’t think the problem is lying here.
Look, try to take away all the stone from the inventory slots of your fighters, ok…leave the weapon as it was set by default in one of the 5 slots…then let yourself get hit by an ennemy while standing near your fighters, and i’m sure they will take their weapon and equip it for the fight.
It is how it seems to be designed by the devs and it can work…
the problem here is more situantional and specific and has to do with aggro triggerring (archers) and thralls hitboxes on big ennemies (fighters).
There is also some weird stuff happening with thralls swinging the air indefinitely in some cases too, but it’s less annoying and can be worked around easiliy.

[PapaVinny]

Appreciate the post, this is needed bad!

[Prebata]

I got my Archer thralls to actually shoot, when removing everything from their inventory, except 1 bow and 1 hand weapon which i dragged to their main hand.

My archers have no arrows in their inventory, but still shoots.

[ExNihiloish]

Thralls have infinite arrows. You can set them to fire any type of arrow you want by equipping their bow with it.
Thralls bug out and won’t fight in their inventories are full and they can’t put their weapon away.

[droch-aon]

take 1 high damage arrow, poison it.
drag this arrow to npc archers bow, do this with all your archers,
all your archers now shoot infinite high damage poison arrows.

you’re welcome.

[roro4066]

if they were able to shoot in the first place…
But thanks for the tipp droch aon.

[TwoJay]

Have the same issues with our archers. They don’t shoot. Therefore they are running to the gate to engage in melee

[roro4066]

Thanks for posting.
Maybe if we keep on reporting the issue, they will finally acknowledge it and talk about it…

[droch-aon]

I noticed thralls have an agro radius now, and work together.
are your archers placed high up, like we placed them before the AI changes?

try putting them lower to the ground, give them stairs, place fighters near them.
they won’t equip weapons out of combat, just give them extra weapons.

then the fighters will attack, and the archers will back the fighters.

this is what works for me.

if this doesn’t work for you, continue to report it as a bug.

[roro4066]

look at the pictures above.
My archers are high up but i took care to place them not too high since i had already encountered this issue before.
Fighters are right bellow and do engage the ennemies, archers however don’t.
Take note these pict were taken about 10 days ago, so i’ll report again if i find the same issue happening on my current private server too, but i bet 99% it hasn’t been fixed yet.
And i did some further testing 3 days ago, right before official release, same thing was happening too, but in a different base (in the frozen north).

[krbhi]

posted to wrong category

[roro4066]

what do you mean?
It can’t be intented to work this way.
So if not intended i consider it to be a bug/issue.

[hurby4ever]

I have 4 archers on my roof. One of them consistently goes all out and attacks wandering hostiles. The other 3 stand there with their fingers up their nose. Everyone has the same gear. Bows with arrows, etc… I really hope this is fixed. There are so many huge bugs still in this game, it’s pretty scary.

[roro4066]

Will check the issue “online” today or tomorrow. I have a big squad of nordheimers chicks archers in a box. Can’t wait to see if they are still as useless as in solo, but i’m pretty sure of what i’ll find out: archers in this game are as smart as oysters…