Long post incoming: Tl;dr: Love the mod, the game's built in AI has various issues though. Trial and error are necessary to get what you want out of things.
Recently completed a ~100hr play through of the game using this mod, party limit, and the ancient series of loot (random drops). It was a lot of fun, so once again a big thank you to InfernalSkys (along with other modders)
Some observations:
Started the game initially with all of my teammates using the Default Archtype to see what they'd do. For the most part this was "fine" but as the game went on, unoptimal behavior started showing up more and more. So I started moving teammates to the provided archtypes
The fighter archtypes seem to be the most 'successful' in doing their job, since it's very straight forward (go punch an enemy), I had Laezel, Karlach, Minsc (after respec), and Minthara as Melee, and Gale as Ranged.
Astarion worked both in Default, and Trickster, quite well in my experience.
Shart with Healer Melee worked great too. But, like mentioned below, ignored things like summons, or spirit guardians (this was super sad)
The only way for me to get Minthara to attack enemies was to use the Fighter archtypes. Default, General, etc she would largely only do buffs and some healing. With Fighter she would hit enemies, buff self or buff a teammate, and sometimes heal. Much preferred imo
The game doesn't know what to do with Shapeshifters and Summons. I even went through every single AI text file I could both from the downloads here and from another source. There's almost zero mention of Summons outside of target preferences. And afaict, no mention of Wildshape at all. Not a clue what controls if a character uses either. There is however stuff for Necromancers (so I'll be playing that next!)
Related to above, I ended up respeccing Halsin to a Bard to make him useful. If I left him on Default, he'd change into a Wolf and do just about nothing. If I used General, he'd ignore Wildshape altogether, and do buff/debuffs.
Jaheira, like Halsin, had struggles. No matter what archtype I chose, she would ignore Wildshape and Summons altogether. Still, kept her as a Druid and left her set on General. She seems to focus on debuffs, with some heals as needed.
Minsc/Ranger, somewhat like Druids, seems a little busted. He ignored summons, and seemed to largely focus on buffs/debuffs when set to Default or General. I ended up respeccing him to a Barbarian, since that's what he should have been anyways considering the text/story elements of the game. And like I said, that class works well with Fighter/melee
Wyll/Warlock is interesting. Early in the game, as Default, I thought he played really well, using a good mix of various things, but as he gained more spells, he 'settled' into like two spells every fight. Need to play around with him more, I ended up putting him on General, but I think I'd like to see how he does on Disruptor.
(Minor Spoilers) Generally speaking, the AI doesn't know how to handle non character targets. Ran into issues with both Raphael's fight (pillars being ignored) and the area around Gortash (various traps/weaponry/grenades). Also, obviously, didn't know what to do during the Iron Throne sequence. So for future play throughs, I might remove AI from a couple characters before certain fights/sequences.
The current version of the AI does a *great* job of avoiding hurting teammates and neutrals compared to earlier versions. Also does a better job of avoiding standing next to environmental threats (other than the above Gortash stuff). Big time kudos there.
Absolutely love the mod overall, even with the above findings, to be clear. Most everything that's "broken" is due to the game's AI. Enemies almost never do things like change shape or use summons either, even though their classes should have those abilities available. It'd be interesting if we had the ability to manually remove spells/abilities from characters to see if they would eventually try said shifts/summons, or if they'd still ignore the abilities and just stand there haha
I'm glad to hear you've enjoyed the mod! I really appreciate the feedback and insight.
The archetypes do seem to work best when you optimize their builds towards a specific role. It's unfortunate that summons and wildshapes are a bit hit or miss. Personally, I haven’t had a wildshape focused Druid in my playthrough, and the only summoner was a Necromancer (me), so I seem to have avoided those issues, haha. Oh, since you're going to be trying a Necromancer then I recommend you also install Animate Dead Plus Plus and Valkrana's Spellbook. I've had a blast playing as a necromancer with those.
A dynamic blacklist/whitelist of spells could indeed be pretty useful. Maybe a mod that makes all classes use preparation could serve the same purpose here.
Overall, even though Larian didn't design the AI with this mod’s features in mind, it still works pretty well even in unknown scenarios. Some accommodation is still needed in certain situations, as you mentioned.
Thanks for the recommendations, I'll check them out. I had a bunch of tabs open looking at options because the base Necromancy seemed a bit barren, so thats helpful!
I might try testing the AI/summons thing sometime with Gale and unpreparing everything that isn't a summon, to see if he'll do anything. But I kind of have a feeling he'll go "oops all cantrips"
I tried a fight with 4 monks, interestingly almost every attack they used was a 'Flurry of Blows', even if they were far they used dash+flurry of blows, maybe you were just unlucky? I tested with everyone on the Fighter archetype.
Is there a consolidated list or file for all possible archetype modifiers? I'm wanting to find what ai archetype modifier influences:
summoning (flaming sphere, animate dead, elementals etc, these seem to work well when full ai control is turned on) spirit guardians (I want them to prioritize this 1st round of combat, I haven't seen this used but only recently started trying) Spiritual Weapon (even with full ai control turned on, I don't see them use this spell)
I'm wanting to make one of the my_archetypes prioritize using these spells. I just recently started looking into it but wanted to ask incase there is already information out there that could save me some time.
+ 1, any AI mod ive tried hasn't once used summoning or conjuring spells which would elevate the game better especially with unlimited party mod, now a different AI mod i used to use actually summoned Halsins minions before the patch broke the mod so idk whether it was because he was a druid or because he hardly had any other spells in hand so AI prioritised them more Or maybe AI doesn't recognise these spells if it was enabled before the party member learnt summoning spell so maybe resetting AI control somehow might start prioritising them more
Yes in the addon zip there is a file called 'base.txt', it's in the references folder. it has everything you can add to your archetype with their default values.
I'm not actually sure what are 'Summon' spells classified as, I haven't found anything that encourages using them so far.
I recently noticed that this mod has option called Enable/Disable Summon AI in archetypes menu but i don't see any mention of it in Description so i assume it has something to do with summoning spells but i can't tell when its active or not because after casting i see no signs of change, correct me if im wrong
Also it would probably would be a lot easier if mod devs could view game files or search through enemy AI's and check what code is used for their summoning spells (
Thanks for clarifying Although im not sure if its a mistake or intentional but ordering allies what to do or who to target during battle takes action points and by doing so i can't contribute to battles with my own character after making orders and it doesn't seem to work very well either, after ordering them to target a certain enemy, they still seem to have a mind of their own targeting whom ever they want
Another thing worth noting is that AI seems to use multiple concentration spells in one turn canceling the other out, makes them waste resources and action points without dealing damage, i've only noticed this after your recent mod update so im not sure if its an old problem or new ( currently all my AI are set to default archetypes)
Costing a bonus action point is on purpose, these orders seemed very useful to me while testing and I wanted them to feel more meaningful, it also makes your allies get an attack roll bonus on the target (or malus if ignored). While playing they would always target anyone I marked, I've increased the default values for targeting priority targets for AI on all archetypes except the Default archetype, it should still work on Default archetypes although less reliably. Did this happen with the Default archetype?
I prefer it costing a bonus action, but since this isn't the first time it's been asked then I will make an optional version. I'll make the main mod's orders all free but remove any buffs or maluses your allies or enemies get.
I'll adjust the concentration values for all archetypes (except default archetype), let me know if it works better.
I think i figured how to make summons work but AI will rarely cast it, i noticed they usually tend to cast summoning spells when they seem to be out of reach from the enemy, like an obstacle or something and maybe randomly cast a summon once in 5 battles (don't think animate dead still works)
In order for summoning spells to work you need all your AI companions to prepare them which means you have to manually add them to a limited casting slot, im not sure what its called but it has a book symbol on the left side of these slots, apparently all companions who use spell casting have limited amount of spells they can use (i just recently learned that myself so im not sure if the same implies with Tav since im using Warlock/ Sorcerer class types and still trying to figure out why some have more slots than the others) I currently added some elemental summons to Jaheira and Halsin and Shadowheart but I still haven't seen Shadowheart cast Spirit weapon or Guardian yet, while Halsin and Jaheira seem to use summons with General Archetype
As to other minions like Shovel, Raven, Us, Scratch , Mage hand and so on haven't been used by AI I also think that devs could have worked on Mage hand a little more like letting it pick up weapons and other objects, but currently i still see no use of it other than unlocking a gate if a lever is on the other side of a gate you can see through
My Halsan would rather keep using his stick to smash the eneries, than turn himself into a bear. I tried to load this mod at last, also i updated to the lastest version.I also blocked his casting and using default archetype.
I find out he can NOT turn to animal when the passive*AI Allies:Toggle NPC/non-NPC*is on. So I keep it off. Still don't work.
(I've even try to keep him no weapon in hand, but he still trying on his fist....... Its driving me mad.) (ps. I've once used version 4.19 and his hotbar did disapeared. But i read the docs and think that you have already fixed it in 4.20? idk.)
-- ps2. I tested again and he somehow turned to a bear in AI Allies:Toogle on mode. But his hotbar still gone empty after his changing. And when the mode is on I cannot make him turn to animal manually.
They are disallowed to wildshape while the NPC passive is turned on in order to stop the hotbar from disappearing, so keep it disabled. Other than that, I would try the 'General' archetype if the default one didn't help, I believe it has a higher chance of using wildshape, if that doesn't work then manually wildshaping before battle is also an option.
Edit: I just tested and they seem to be reliably transforming 3 out of 4 times at the start of combat on the 'General' archetype. I've respecced 4 characters as druids and at the start of combat 3 of them transformed either immediately or after attacking. I'll try to get them to pick better forms in 1.4.23.
It works! I turn him into 'General' archetype, and he sucuessfully turned into wolf! Thanks yo so much! Really, really thanks for your help and this mod helps me a LOT!!
For my party, Halsin would only use Wolf Shape, and not do anything else, I eventually respecced him into a big boi bard lol. And for Jaheira, she basically never uses Wild Shape at all, no matter what settings I use for her. Shape changers are kind of broken with this imo, but that's kind of the fault of the built in AI of the game. Even enemies don't really creatively use Wild Shape at all.
That's what I encountered too. The AI doesn't want to use summons almost at all and wild shape is heavily avoided randomly, but so far I haven't got any wild shape transformation on any of the druids in the last run (just entered act 3 now and level 12) by the way. I thought this was intended so far since it bugs the game, but if it is possible, then I don't know anymore. Not sure anything can be done about it, since I have no idea how you tweak chances of something happening, but hope it can. It is quite annoying to have 7 summon spells or a lot of wild shape forms and not get a single one while using the AI for at least 2 acts.
Also, just a bit curious, if you have classes/subclasses that have been custom created with special spells, can the AI be changed specially for that class/subclass so that it will use them? For example, spellblade. I have seen that in general it prefers to just use the couple spells it can use from range, but it has way more spells that enhances the weapon and also a custom special spell that allows for double enhancing via spells (have 2 spells on the weapon at the same time, cast one after the other). Never seen the AI use any of those so far. Do you have any idea if anything can be done here? And if something can be added, would you mind sharing how to approach this? I can learn to tweak it myself, if it is ok with you, so that I don't bother anyone in the future with this.
Those are limitations with the AI in the game, AFAIK, the only thing modders have access to are Archetypes and they don't allow such fine control.
For modded classes, if they're complicated in a way that requires setup or using some spells in advance then it wouldn't work well. They also can't use toggleable passives (like the Sorcerer's metamagic).
This is such a must have mod. Can't play without it for sure. I am wondering if there is a way to make the AI controlled characters resume being AI controlled after being downed and then healed while in combat? Instead of removing the AI control once they stand back up, it would be nice if they would just resume the combat by themselves.
Do you mean completely killed off and then resurrected during combat? Because the status doesn't get removed if the character only gets downed. if it does then you might have a mod that cleanses your character from statuses when they get downed.
Sweet! If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but I appreciate you taking a look at it regardless :)
Edit: I was also wondering about the AI and spells, like flaming sphere and spiritual weapons. Can they be made to by default be AI controlled via a toggle setting or some such, perhaps? Or at least an option to set them to use one when I first summon them, and not having to re-set the AI every time I summon? Unless I have missed an option and there is in fact a way to do it. In which case, I am just dumb :P
I would second this request, if only on that grounds that the AI passive toggle "resets" when they get revived. Despite being toggled on, it will not actually take effect until you toggle it off and back on if a character fully dies and gets revived. And since you'd have to actually remove their AI in combat to access their passives, you have to remove ALL AIs.. and reset them... etc. I wouldn't mind too much if the toggle didn't break, but it's Kinda a pain in the booty at times.
@djbeast this is actually a feature of my other mod Summon Utility, you get a few optional passives you can toggle and one of them will immediately put summons under AI control as soon as they are summoned.
@shadowwake30 Yes that is a bit of an issue, when you toggle the NPC passive on you get applied with a permanent status that lasts through resting but if you die then the game wipes all your statuses.
Also, you don't need to remove ALL AI during combat, if you want to access someone on their next turn, casting the same archetype on a character will cancel it. So if you cast 'Healer Melee' archetype on someone that already has 'Healer Melee' archetype active during combat then it will immediately remove their AI control. The archetype spells work like toggles too.
I have another question! XD I have noticed that whenever I place a monk under AI control, they will run up to an enemy, do their punchy punch, then for some strange reason, always takes a few steps away, provoking an attack of opportunity. Just wanted to mention it in case you wanted to have a look at it :) Thanks as always for a fantastic mod!
I love this mod. It makes managing my army of companions so much less annoying (as long as they don't blow up the Nautiloid, lol). In fact my only real complaint is how silly the AI in general can be lol. But that's not this mod's fault.
I think you might have to re-upload 1.4.22. When I go to download it, all I get is "This file is currently being uploaded to our CDN servers. If this is taking longer than expected, please contact a moderator or email us."
I have emailed them, but I got a canned response saying they'd get back to me.
the AI keeps repeating <Dash/misty step - Melee weapon Attack> on every archytype i gave them.. probably because of the compatibility issues because i play with a lot of modded class and spell (dimension traveler, blackguard, vanguard, and some cheat spell like Ultimate cheat collection etc), and some AI changes like combat extender etc..
but maybe.. if anyone encounter the exact problem and already solved it and found the culprit, please share it.. Thanks!
1393 comments
Recently completed a ~100hr play through of the game using this mod, party limit, and the ancient series of loot (random drops). It was a lot of fun, so once again a big thank you to InfernalSkys (along with other modders)
Some observations:
Absolutely love the mod overall, even with the above findings, to be clear. Most everything that's "broken" is due to the game's AI. Enemies almost never do things like change shape or use summons either, even though their classes should have those abilities available. It'd be interesting if we had the ability to manually remove spells/abilities from characters to see if they would eventually try said shifts/summons, or if they'd still ignore the abilities and just stand there haha
The archetypes do seem to work best when you optimize their builds towards a specific role. It's unfortunate that summons and wildshapes are a bit hit or miss. Personally, I haven’t had a wildshape focused Druid in my playthrough, and the only summoner was a Necromancer (me), so I seem to have avoided those issues, haha. Oh, since you're going to be trying a Necromancer then I recommend you also install Animate Dead Plus Plus and Valkrana's Spellbook. I've had a blast playing as a necromancer with those.
A dynamic blacklist/whitelist of spells could indeed be pretty useful. Maybe a mod that makes all classes use preparation could serve the same purpose here.
Overall, even though Larian didn't design the AI with this mod’s features in mind, it still works pretty well even in unknown scenarios. Some accommodation is still needed in certain situations, as you mentioned.
I might try testing the AI/summons thing sometime with Gale and unpreparing everything that isn't a summon, to see if he'll do anything. But I kind of have a feeling he'll go "oops all cantrips"
and every fight she never uses flurry attacks or anything and only use unarmed basic attacks.
how can i Fix this so she can use Ki points during fight?
summoning (flaming sphere, animate dead, elementals etc, these seem to work well when full ai control is turned on)
spirit guardians (I want them to prioritize this 1st round of combat, I haven't seen this used but only recently started trying)
Spiritual Weapon (even with full ai control turned on, I don't see them use this spell)
I'm wanting to make one of the my_archetypes prioritize using these spells. I just recently started looking into it but wanted to ask incase there is already information out there that could save me some time.
Or maybe AI doesn't recognise these spells if it was enabled before the party member learnt summoning spell so maybe resetting AI control somehow might start prioritising them more
I'm not actually sure what are 'Summon' spells classified as, I haven't found anything that encourages using them so far.
Also it would probably would be a lot easier if mod devs could view game files or search through enemy AI's and check what code is used for their summoning spells (
Official modding tools should be releasing soon, if they'll be better than current tools then maybe they can help.
Although im not sure if its a mistake or intentional but ordering allies what to do or who to target during battle takes action points and by doing so i can't contribute to battles with my own character after making orders and it doesn't seem to work very well either, after ordering them to target a certain enemy, they still seem to have a mind of their own targeting whom ever they want
Another thing worth noting is that AI seems to use multiple concentration spells in one turn canceling the other out, makes them waste resources and action points without dealing damage, i've only noticed this after your recent mod update so im not sure if its an old problem or new ( currently all my AI are set to default archetypes)
I prefer it costing a bonus action, but since this isn't the first time it's been asked then I will make an optional version. I'll make the main mod's orders all free but remove any buffs or maluses your allies or enemies get.
I'll adjust the concentration values for all archetypes (except default archetype), let me know if it works better.
In order for summoning spells to work you need all your AI companions to prepare them which means you have to manually add them to a limited casting slot, im not sure what its called but it has a book symbol on the left side of these slots, apparently all companions who use spell casting have limited amount of spells they can use (i just recently learned that myself so im not sure if the same implies with Tav since im using Warlock/ Sorcerer class types and still trying to figure out why some have more slots than the others)
I currently added some elemental summons to Jaheira and Halsin and Shadowheart but I still haven't seen Shadowheart cast Spirit weapon or Guardian yet, while Halsin and Jaheira seem to use summons with General Archetype
As to other minions like Shovel, Raven, Us, Scratch , Mage hand and so on haven't been used by AI
I also think that devs could have worked on Mage hand a little more like letting it pick up weapons and other objects, but currently i still see no use of it other than unlocking a gate if a lever is on the other side of a gate you can see through
I tried to load this mod at last, also i updated to the lastest version.I also blocked his casting and using default archetype.
I find out he can NOT turn to animal when the passive*AI Allies:Toggle NPC/non-NPC*is on. So I keep it off.
Still don't work.
(I've even try to keep him no weapon in hand, but he still trying on his fist....... Its driving me mad.)
(ps. I've once used version 4.19 and his hotbar did disapeared. But i read the docs and think that you have already fixed it in 4.20? idk.)
--
ps2. I tested again and he somehow turned to a bear in AI Allies:Toogle on mode.
But his hotbar still gone empty after his changing. And when the mode is on I cannot make him turn to animal manually.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W2xjhYkus7IR4VGZTVbOW4mUbV8YgVBz/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15nKZmzfocymX6MWhuHDlpvNEPye9arrv/view?usp=sharing
Edit: I just tested and they seem to be reliably transforming 3 out of 4 times at the start of combat on the 'General' archetype. I've respecced 4 characters as druids and at the start of combat 3 of them transformed either immediately or after attacking. I'll try to get them to pick better forms in 1.4.23.
I turn him into 'General' archetype, and he sucuessfully turned into wolf!
Thanks yo so much! Really, really thanks for your help and this mod helps me a LOT!!
Also, just a bit curious, if you have classes/subclasses that have been custom created with special spells, can the AI be changed specially for that class/subclass so that it will use them? For example, spellblade. I have seen that in general it prefers to just use the couple spells it can use from range, but it has way more spells that enhances the weapon and also a custom special spell that allows for double enhancing via spells (have 2 spells on the weapon at the same time, cast one after the other). Never seen the AI use any of those so far. Do you have any idea if anything can be done here? And if something can be added, would you mind sharing how to approach this? I can learn to tweak it myself, if it is ok with you, so that I don't bother anyone in the future with this.
For modded classes, if they're complicated in a way that requires setup or using some spells in advance then it wouldn't work well. They also can't use toggleable passives (like the Sorcerer's metamagic).
I am wondering if there is a way to make the AI controlled characters resume being AI controlled after being downed and then healed while in combat? Instead of removing the AI control once they stand back up, it would be nice if they would just resume the combat by themselves.
Edit: I was also wondering about the AI and spells, like flaming sphere and spiritual weapons. Can they be made to by default be AI controlled via a toggle setting or some such, perhaps? Or at least an option to set them to use one when I first summon them, and not having to re-set the AI every time I summon? Unless I have missed an option and there is in fact a way to do it. In which case, I am just dumb :P
@shadowwake30 Yes that is a bit of an issue, when you toggle the NPC passive on you get applied with a permanent status that lasts through resting but if you die then the game wipes all your statuses.
Also, you don't need to remove ALL AI during combat, if you want to access someone on their next turn, casting the same archetype on a character will cancel it. So if you cast 'Healer Melee' archetype on someone that already has 'Healer Melee' archetype active during combat then it will immediately remove their AI control. The archetype spells work like toggles too.
I have noticed that whenever I place a monk under AI control, they will run up to an enemy, do their punchy punch, then for some strange reason, always takes a few steps away, provoking an attack of opportunity. Just wanted to mention it in case you wanted to have a look at it :) Thanks as always for a fantastic mod!
I have emailed them, but I got a canned response saying they'd get back to me.
but maybe.. if anyone encounter the exact problem and already solved it and found the culprit, please share it.. Thanks!