On my Necromancer; Archmage build the minion AI gets messed up a lot. It often runs around without attacking. I buff him with infernal shade so he gets some speed from “Manic Pyre”, but he gets so speedy he forgets how to stop. So when I stop to kill something, he just runs right past me and keeps running back and forth for a while before finally attacking, even tho there are tons of mobs around. I’m trying to control it with the minion attack command but its not doing anything, he just can’t control himself.
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Yeah, its better than it was a few versions ago but still has odd ball moments with AI - and its not restricted to Necro summons either. Manifest Armour has similar issues especially if you boost his movespeed - he can go flying past things, sometimes wildly without “listening” to the A command.
I figure there is something about movement speed that borks the AI.
Was hoping for a mention of it in changes in 0.9 but I figure they had a crapton of other things to deal with without trying to update the AI again. The devs tend to cycle their focus incrementally improving things as they go so I expect when AI gets its chance again, they will hopefully look into it.
If you are interested in the issues, there are plenty of separate threads about Minion AI and lots of feedback with suggestions - forum search is your friend.
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This is good feedback. We adjusted a lot of the melee minion AI but I can make a note to take a closer mages.
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That would be magic…
Yes please! I have a single skeletan mage buffed with dread and infernal and its too fast for himself - its exactly how the OP describes! Runs around like crazy and forgets to stop (looks like he is not able to) and attack - in addition, sometimes I order to attack and move on and then it stops attacking and follows me.
Would actually be a very nice build but for me its to clunky/akward - please tune the aggro of all minions a bit more - or give us some sort of settings to adjust for specific circumstances (think I read about this somewhere/sometime already). I have to quit this build unfortunately - not my way of playing right now. Thx
Edit: In general the minions are falling behind way to much when you walk through the maps - I think I have minions to have them brain dead following my orders no matter what and taking all the aggro from the enemy. Please have them be much more closer and have them start attacking way faster/earlier please
Was going to post exactly this title, but with more generalization. I’m playing a Necro with skeles, mages, and wraiths, and it’s like watching little league soccer. They all target and accelerate in this equally clunky and floaty way as a single unit that feels… bad.
Different kinds of minions should feel different and distinguished, but they very much don’t. I also think they should follow the player better, instead of the current feeling of being leashed with a rubber band. I like being able to direct them with a dedicated keybind, but they should do that a little better on their own also.
If possible, I’d like to not have to resummon everything to start every play session. Needing to wait for mana regen in the middle of it makes it that much worse. It would be nice to have whatever permanent minions were in play at logout already be there next time.
All your ranged minions are stupid, they constantly try to walk to the tile you were just on and wont take another action until they reach that tile, if any enemy blocks them from that destination they walk repeatedly into the object until they make it, if that object is 7-8 monsters they wont do anything but run into them until either the Skeleton dies, you die, or it makes it to the spot
This AI has been the same for 3 years, its never going to change, infact the AI was the same when you werent even an employee of EHG
Oh and the teleport your Skeletons Mages doesnt even work with Dreadshade as it counts as ‘resummoning’ so its actually useless if you want to teleport more than once every 18 seconds right as Dreadshade is coming off cooldown, doesnt seem was tested by a human
need to upgrade to GPT-4. Imagine the minions just taking over and playing for you.
Overheard in the minion huddle:
“damn players keep causing shit, wish they would just summon us and go get coffee so that we can play properly.”
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I’ve been seeing Golems do this a lot too.
This is not just ranged minions. I’m a minion player in all ARPGS (my favorite archtype) and in this game I’ve played phys golems / fire golems / ranged fire mages / archmage cryo wizard / rogue skeletons so far. Every archtype of minions has unfortunately really bad AI. Golems will randomly run around behind you, in front of you. Run away, the “a” attack does virtually nothing most of the time. Any ranged minions running into mods such as “takes less damage from enemies further away” or “blocked attacks from range” good luck getting your ranged minion to walk close to them, it takes about 22 “a” clicks. While fighting the t4 boss of the lightless arbor, I have died numerous times due to the fact my minions run around him in circles doing nothing, and I don’t mean for 2 or 3 seconds. They run around for 6+ seconds attacking nothing sometimes. All this being said, the game kicks butt and I know it takes a lot of work, thanks for a great game and I’m hoping it comes to the point where I can play minions and enjoy them!
From my experience with skele mages, once you run too far from it, the “leash” mechanic makes it run to you before attacking again, and it practically has to touch you to stop running and attack, if you run around in circles while the mage tries to catch you, it will never attack until it reaches you.
If I’m running far ahead I pretty much just body slam myself into the skele mage to make it start attacking again instead of trying to stop on its own.
This works fine for maps, but not for endgame bosses where your position also matters unfortunately. Good temp solution though I suppose lol
My minion issue is i’ll tell them to attack the boss in an echo, but if i need to take cover from a ranged attack suddenly my minion is kiting the boss to me! No, just stay where i commanded your minion butt to stay!
this is made worse if i tell it to attack a chunky target and then as soon as i try to clear a trash group it just brings that to me as well.
I feel like we could use some better minion controls over all. “Attack this” and “follow me” could be two separate things. maybe a setting to say “attack my target” which could be a default, if its target is dead. otherwise… please keep attacking your assigned target. 
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Ok, I know this topic is older but I didn’t want to start a new thread when one already existed for this topic. I’ve been playing my Neco a bit and I have a bit of feedback on Minion AI improvements needed.
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I agree with the above notes on the Minion AI so this in no way disagrees with those.
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The golem gets stuck behind the group of skeletons therefore has a hard time joining the battle sometimes.
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If I hover over a specific mob I want my minions to target they should stay on that target until either that mob is dead or I specify another mob as dictated by pressing A while hovering over it. The way it is currently working is that I can specify a mob but as soon as my mouse cursor hovers over a different mob the minions begin attacking it, without me pressing the A key to command them. This is what is causing some of the above issues.
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Often times (and I mean very often) the golem doesn’t respond to the A key command. I often times command my minions to gather around a shrine so they get the affect but my golem goes to attack a mob instead.
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If I or some of my minions engage in a combat, then all the minions should react and join in the battle. They currently do not if they are at the range where they would not be aggroed to the mob and just stand there so I have to force them into combat by pressing the A key.
Thank you.
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