Guild Wars 2

In many storyline missions in game, the companions don’t attack until they be attacked directly, that’s ruin the gameplay and I can be very difficult or impossible to finish some mission like “Into the Labyrinth”.

I have made a video the see the problem, it occurs for every storyline missions, in this case it’s on the mission “Retribution” of the chapter “The Battle of Claw Island”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ktZkd7Jofg&t=142s

See:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Into-the-Labyrinth-NPCs-bugged

Especially:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Into-the-Labyrinth-NPCs-bugged/6468950

Myself and a friend have had the same issue on most story quests involving an npc character. I’ve never actually seen trahearne attack. The vigil norn warmaster guy attacked in one mission i think but not in any other(perhaps he wasnt on companion A.I. in that one). It’s not difficult at all for me to reproduce this bug apparently, if I hadn’t played the game before I would probably think NPC aren’t supposed to attack in missions.

Your links doesn’t really help to fix the issue(just bring up an exploit for completing 1 mission). They are not solutions just confirm that yes this is a widespread problem but it is far larger in scope than that one mission and embarrassingly for Anet has been on live for months now. My reproduction steps are literally play the story… you will hit several missions where they don’t attack, I’ve done absolutely nothing special to get them into the state. The non companion NPC still seem to attack and react fine.

I am a level 80 cleaning up quests with full gear so it’s not so bad for me but I could imagine it could make some quests terrible for lower players. Aside from difficulty increase it looks really stupid and certainly makes your experience less epic.

The links are about exactly what you are reporting: the NPCs aren’t doing what people expect. ANet is investigating specific reports. If you want them to fix something, use the in-game /bug reporting tool and/or file a support ticket.

I wasn’t suggesting that they fixed anything; only that there’s already a thread covering the topic.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 This bug have been reported for 6 month ago and no fix has be made.

I think is not difficult to correct this issue.

If I have companion and I attack then companions attack too. This is a simple algorithm !
Why it take so long to fix.

Dark Shadow.3291:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 This bug have been reported for 6 month ago and no fix has be made.

I think is not difficult to correct this issue.

If I have companion and I attack then companions attack too. This is a simple algorithm !
Why it take so long to fix.

That’s why I posted a link to the developer’s explanation of why it’s taking a long time to fix: there’s a different reason for each situation. Without a specific report, with details outlining what you did before the bug appeared, ANet won’t know what it is that you think is broken.

In programming, it’s hardly ever “this is a simple algorithm.” As the developer said, there are other considerations, including that they don’t want someone to be able to AFK and let the NPCs fight in their stead. It could be that they over-tweaked the NPC behavior for all situations. It could be that it only matters in certain stories with certain NPCs or professions. It could also be that we’re not used the new behavior and we’re expecting too much.

So if you want it fixed, make specific reports (in game, using /bug or via Support Ticket) and give ANet as much info as you can, so they can do what you do, see what you see.

I do key runs, so play the same instances over and over. I’ve found, at least in one, that where the (main story character) NPCs used to attack the foe when I did, now will only engage if I lead the foe within a very close proximity. It may be they only fight if close, or, more likely, attacked (by the foe).

You could try that in your situation(s), and see if it makes any difference. It might give the Devs more information (if reported, of course).

Good luck.

I’ve been playing alts in the downtime (1-80 + HoT 4x so far), and this happens all throughout the story, usually with the NPCs that are considered your party. It’s because they changed how they worked:

As for why NPC allies sometimes don’t fight until they are attacked, this is often done by design, because one of our design pillars is that NPC’s should not be allowed to complete content for the player. We think it’s a bad player experience if they can simply get up and go make a sandwich and let the NPC’s tank everything until they win. Having said that, we also believe that NPC’s should look and feel useful to you when you are actively playing the game, but sometimes getting that balance right can be tricky, and the AI or the scripting doesn’t always cooperate. In cases where the allied NPC’s are literally doing nothing, even if you are getting ganged up on and/or attacked, that’s a bug and should be reported, definitely.

… and because the NPCs are invulnerable in the Labyrinth, they can’t actually take damage so they’ll never engage.

The funny thing is, although the dev claims AFKing makes it a bad experience, that’s exactly what they’ve created for normal players. It simply looks bad to have the NPCs idly following you around. I’m guessing this is also the reason why you now need to hug escort NPCs, otherwise they’ll stop.

It’s surprising it’s gone on this long, because it makes the game look bad very early on. Oddly, the NPCs act properly in season 3, allowing you to AFK parts of it. If they can’t simply revert it, at the very least, NPCs should engage when you enter combat or attack something. It’d feel more realistic however if they could freely engage, which should be limited to within 1000 range of the player, otherwise they should return to you.