So I’ve noticed that reach weapons, while seemingly an excellent force multiplier, are a terrible liability when used with NPC’s especially. The ability to friendly fire with reach weapons even if an ally is sort of kind of in between the wielder and the target means my friendly NPC’s with halberds are constantly hacking chunks out of me even when told to avoid friendly fire.
It’s so bad that I take more damage from my teammates than I do from zombies even when I am constantly on guard, tiptoeing around my allies to make sure I don’t accidentally come between them and a zombie. It’s so bad that I almost died from it one time, when I tried to Swap Places with a teammate in a 1x wide hallway, and they made multiple attacks at a zombie on the other side that hit me instead by the time the swapping had occurred.
backing up against somebody with a spear generally isn’t a good idea
spearholders are vanguard soldiers for a reason
sarcastic comments aside, its generally a good idea not to give NPCs you go into the field with powerful weapon unless you hold back and let them do their thing
I don’t like to use my followers as fodder. I want the mutual support of working as a team. Hard to do when a surprise manhack coming from an odd direction can persuade my “ally” to hack my head off by “accident”.
While you are correct that the obvious solution is to not give them a reach weapon, or if you do to simply let them “yolo” with it and get themselves killed, these are band-aid fixes for a symptom of a problem that should not exist.
Wait… followers with reach weapons can hit you now? When was this?
About three weeks ago (experimental) I had a surprise fight with a skeletal juggernaut in a cathedral hallway. I had 1 follower with reach1 and 2 followers with reach2. I was unarmed (martial arts). I didn’t notice them stabbing me. On the other hand they are well skilled with the types of weapons I gave them (at least skill 4 plus decent melee of 3+).
The fight went surprisingly well… the skeletal juggernaut never got a damaging attack off - magiclysm blinded to negate it’s reach attack plus my martial arts periodically stunning or pushing it back. The follower’s medieval armor (best I had) deflected what few attacks it pulled off.
Dunno. I’m on the latest experimentals as of this writing and the person isn’t incompetent with the weapon but not great (2-3). It seems basically guaranteed I’ll get hit if I’m between them and the enemy or even at an angle but slightly in front. I just noticed many reach weapons have a sweep attack function; wonder if that’s going awry somehow. I’ll give them a pointy stick and report back.
I get stabbed all the time by my follower. It’s especially bad when I’m out on a bike with him sitting behind. When I’m standing I am careful with my positioning but in drive by stabbings I get impaled a fair bit.
I hope this isn’t an intended feature, because I can’t find a good reason why it would be. I guess decreased hit chance due to having to maneuver your weapon around an ally would be logical, or if skill has any part to play with them friendly firing an ally with a reach attack, but a 100% friendly fire yet can not be more than an oversight.
Just wondering though, could you friendly fire NPCs using reach weapons as well?
EDIT: Now that I think about it, it probably has something with reach attacks being treated like your instead launching a projectile, a fix could probably be a decreased chance to hit the closer you are to the ally you intend to shoot through.