how do companions skills / AI actually work?

[Deleted]

I was just wondering if anyone can give some decent info, on how the ai of the companions works.

Is it like dragon age where you can put a set of 'if' conditions to do certain things, or do you give it a 'role' like tank healer etc where they perform in a set way, or can you toggle skills on and off?

Some info would be great, the more detail the better <3.

[Gxeternal]

You will get more then one compainion while leveling up, i can only speak for the first ones you get from the sith assassin and jedi guardian point of view,

They work alot like hunter pets in WOW(god i hate refrencing that game) as to you can put them on passive if you dont want them attacking. But unlike the pets, you get different types of companions, some can act as tanks , some are healer type and some are just dpsers for extra damage.
For the jedi my first one was the T7 droid, and he acted like a tank when we were out fighting, even had an ability that pulled the mob to him, did a decent amount of damage too.

The assassin had Khem Val, also tank type.
Now i did notice at the end of my play time in the last beta that my jedi had another companion to pick from, another droid(cant rem the name but it was the C 3PO looking one) and it had healing ablities listed for it.

[Nyctanessa]

Now i did notice at the end of my play time in the last beta that my jedi had another companion to pick from, another droid(cant rem the name but it was the C 3PO looking one) and it had healing ablities listed for it.

Your protocol droid is meant for crafting/gathering while you and your main companion are out being big damn heroes. If you gear up your protocol droid properly, he can be a very effective healing companion, only he will never stop chattering.

[Captain Marvel]

Just to elaborate -


As far as behavior, you have basically have passive and attack, which works great. For in combat behavior, all companions (I think) get TWO stances, so lets look at some smuggler companions and their stances

Bowdaar (melee) - Two stances, a tank stance which increases threat and a DPS stance which lowers the cool down on some abilities and increases damage

Risha (ranged) - Her stances are Single Target DPS, which decreases the activation of some skills prevents the use of AoE and an AoE stance, which allows the use of AoE abilities, but some single target abilities will take longer to activate

Companions have 10 abilities (including their stances) plus specific weapon and armor proficiencies.

[Valenhil]

They work alot like hunter pets in WOW(god i hate refrencing that game)

Why? Do you hate referencing LotR and Star Wars too?

Anyhoo. UNFORTUNATELY op, there is no Tactics screen for companions like in bioware's other games. I do think it would be awesome, but Tactics are somewhat strictly singleplayer tools, since in MMOs you already have a lot to manage. Companions should be simple, but they also said that you CAN micromanage your companion if need be for a better performance.

[Deleted]

thanks for replies, I was hoping it would be a bit like dragon age so you could tailor them to fit you playstyle a bit better.

[Chrysia]

thanks for replies, I was hoping it would be a bit like dragon age so you could tailor them to fit you playstyle a bit better.

You can still activate or deactivate specific abilities if you don't want them using them, and the stances do make them use the abilities moderately intelligently. You can also take full control of the companion and use ctrl+(default) modifiers to activate all their abilities if you want.