This irritates me immensely about team-based games where the rest of your team are computer controlled (and stupid)
I’m playing Fallout 3. When I encounter an enemy the FIRST THING MY NPC HELPER Paladin Steel (I think that’s her name) does, is move into my line of sight with the enemy. THEN she charges at the enemy and tries her very best to die.
Even if I strafe wildly to bring the enemy into view again, SHE STRAFES IN THE SAME DIRECTION to remain right in the effing way. Grrrr!
Edit: Though to be fair to Fallout III specifically - you can tell your NPC to change tactics, which I have just done (Switch from melee to ranged weapons)
Are cohorts something that you have to do in the game? I haven’t progressed far enough to know, but I would rather play as a lone wolf. I just want to be prepared if I’m going to be forced to partner up for plot purposes.
Ugh, I went to great lengths to keep the morons from the first one, even the damn dog, alive throughout the whole game. Until I realized that they weren’t doing much anymore and they wouldn’t be able to survive this level anyways… I took great glee in mowing them all down with gatling gun fire.
The completely opposite thing applies to allies in Medieval 2: Total War. There’s a limit of 20 player character units allowed on screen at a time, so if you have more than that in an attacking or defending army, you have to wait for some of them to be eliminated if you want to control them yourself. Or you could opt for “AI Reinforcements”, which means they all come on simultaneously but are controlled by the computer.
And they are at least as stupid and half as fast as the opponents reinforcements. They barely walk on at walking speed, let alone deign to run to actualize a union of forces.
That is, when they don’t run up as fast as possible when you are assaulting a city, before you have even broken the gates down, therefore standing below the gates uselessly and getting flaming-ballistaed to death.
I had this issue with the AI team members in the Rainbow 6 games. I can take out a whole building of enemies without a scratch. These bozos get mowed down in a doorway by 1 goober with an AK. Elite soldiers my ass.
To be fair, Fallout 2, before a set of patches, was horrible about that. I remember many times walking into a small room see there was nothing, then being trapped by one of the idiots standing right in the doorway. Nothing to do but reboot. I was so happy when they put added the “get the fuck out of my way you stupid asshole” command.
It took me hours to figure out this game makes use of holding keys rather than pressing them.
For instance you have to hold the tab key to turn the flashlight on.
I’ve been tempted to tell my NPC (who’s name is cross, not ‘steel’ by the way) that we must part company. She truly is more of a hindrance than a help. In this game they serve as extra item storage, but I really don’t need it at all.
Any NPC ally who decides to run in front of my line of sight when I’m under attack gets shot by me instantly, fatally and without remorse. Headshots preferred.
Mind you, that also happens if they talk too much, keep me waiting, or take some item that I wanted.
Going back a ways …Mechwarrior 2 the clans always used to piss me off when my starmates would burn all their ammo or pace their heat so gently that they might as well not be there, especially when they couldn’t hit the broad side of a dropship. I found a fabulous solution in turning all my help into Missle boats. Constant pummeling with LRM’s seemed to fit nicely into the AI’s style. Clusters of LRM-5’s/10’s and a liberal ammo load seemed to keep the hurt coming while I went zero ammo and blew out sections with Laser/PPC alphastrikes. The lancemates would ladle damage all over the holed enemy and promtly crit them repeatedly.
I just sent Dogmeat to the vault, because he was annoying the hell out of me. If my allies aren’t either a) other players or b) from Call of Duty 4, I’m not interested in having them. They’re always more trouble than they’re worth.
And in Fallout 1 they’d cheerfully shoot you in the back.
One of my more frustrating Fallout 2 moments was when I was getting my ass kicked by Frankie. I had completely forgotten what inventory my NPCs were carrying around…until Cassidy decided that he’d really rather attack Frankie with a spear than with a gauss rifle.
Yeah, that battle kinda sucked.
She was like a video game Clippy (“I see you’re attempting to retrieve a piece of the triforce!”)…
I’m trying to think of helper characters in games who haven’t gotten on my nerves and failing. It’s probably because the ones that haven’t are just about invisible while the ones that are annoying typically work to draw attention to themselves.
I liked Navi. It’s fun to make fun of her, but she really added a strange bit of personality. In Wind Waker I always felt a little lonely without my fairy companion.
It kinda sucks that I feel bad for being evil in video games, I can’t bring myself to choose the evil choices against triggered prewritten dialogue, so I can’t kill the stupid henchmen. I always have to reload and try not to kill them. Keep in mind I always start at the highest available difficulty, it’s like double hard mode.
