There I said it.  
 
I realize a lot of folks like that this game is hard, but when that hardness comes from AI so dumb that they chase enemies into flame, and then just stand there drinking health potions in the flame, that's not "hard", that's bad AI.  
 
And of course, I could go on, like characters with bows standing toe to toe with enemies, but really, the fight against the zombies in red cliff, where they gave you the option to set a fire with lamp oil, apparently so that your party would have some fire to run into, was really the point at which I realized the AI in this game is just bad. 

Yeah, when you don't take control of your party they tend to run amok. Best thing to do is just pause and set each character to do exactly what you want, and make sure you turn off any of their tactics that you don't want them doing when you leave them to their own devices. Unfortunately they're still going to do some dumb stuff which I guess you just have to live with.

To be fair, it's a cRPG(or a cRPG-like, if we want to split hairs). Micromanaging your party every phase is a big part of this sort of game.

" @Binman88: It's just frustrating to me because Bioware clearly knows how to do this.  The AI in Mass Effect was SO much smarter, and controlling them was easier.  Hell, the AI in KOTOR was better.   I'm not even really talking about standing right next to a melee attacker firing a bow, that's bad, but walking into a fire and then standing there to drink potions? Really?  "

" To be fair, it's a cRPG(or a cRPG-like, if we want to split hairs). Micromanaging your party every phase is a big part of this sort of game. "

I wouldn't say the AI in Mass Effect is any better. My little group of idiots got themselves all killed, stuck on a box, admiring the floor or whatever and I had to blast the Geth to kingdom come myself, in most fights.

" I wouldn't say the AI in Mass Effect is any better. My little group of idiots got themselves all killed, stuck on a box, admiring the floor or whatever and I had to blast the Geth to kingdom come myself, in most fights. "

Micromanaging is the combat. If you don't wanna do that, don't play the game. Should have gotten the real version though. As for the AI in Mass Effect being smarter, eh, I doubt it, there weren't (m?)any such area of effect damage triggers. Combat was two groups shooting each other, no tactics.

I never had any of those problems, and I didn't micromanage much until the later fights either. Sticking with the games prebuilt tactics worked, and still works well for me.

From my experience the AI in DAO isn't so bad but I never had the experience where they would just stand in fire, for the most part you could just change their tactics if they were doing something you didn't want them to do or simply micromanage them. I think the issue comes up because this is such a tactical game and you hand afford to have anyone doing anything stupid or you might die. Personally I think since you can directly control each party member, a little more control would be nice. Like I hate that in order to get someone to move where you want them you have to take direct control of them and move them until they are where you want them to be instead of, say, setting a waypoint for them. So many times my party was stuck on some invisible barrier or standing in the wrong places and I had to manually move them one at a time. I also wish that you could queue up actions in the console version.

Um, AI the way you are thinking and this type of game do not go hand in hand. Whatsoever.

I think the AI in this game is much better than Mass Effect.  My team was really stupid in that game.

Uhm, last I checked that's still up to YOUR input on their tactics. Unless that fire is not considered a AOE effect, then it's just a bug.
 You can set it to aggressive, but don't complain about the fact they go through fire then since that behaviour states it will not get out of the way from AOE effects.

What did you put their behaviour on I wonder?

I agree that sometimes the AI does some exceptionally stupid things. The only thing you can do to counteract this is to give them a specific set of tactics, customize your own set of tactics or completely deactivate tactics and take control of them at every step. Which is a painstakingly slow process.

"

Uhm, last I checked that's still up to YOUR input on their tactics. Unless that fire is not considered a AOE effect, then it's just a bug.
 You can set it to aggressive, but don't complain about the fact they go through fire then since that behaviour states it will not get out of the way from AOE effects.

What did you put their behaviour on I wonder?

"

I think this is why under the difficulty settings it says to use Easy mode if you're the type of person who doesn't like to pause and just let the AI do its thing. The game is pretty much meant to be played giving direct orders to everyone. If that isn't the style of game you like, then you're going to have to deal with the AI.
 
I do agree, though. Especially in the case of NPC characters charging in to area-effect spells, the AI is downright dumb. Too bad the enemy doesn't seem to do it nearly as much.
 
Edit: I noticed the mention of changing AI behavior, which I didn't really think of, but that doesn't account for other characters that you don't have direct control over.
 
One particular example:

I've had the exact opposite experience. I just made sure each character's behavior was setup in such a way that they avoid harmful AoE spells. Every once in a while I've had them do something dumb, like walking into a trap even though my rogue spotted it, but most of the times I have no problem with the AI.

I thought the same thing about this game.. the clunky AI in this game makes it a lot harder to play, in a bad way. BUT, after having played a lot more.. I eventually figured out how to use the combat tactics to my advantage. Now my whole team (Rogue main, Allistar, Morrigan, and Wynne) kicks ass and does it nearly as well as if I was controlling them. I've even got Wynne set up in such a way that she hardly ever wastes mana, which she will do from the start a lot.
 
So, if you work with the combat tactics, you can eventually tune your team to work decently well without your help. Then from there its just a matter of mastering all the little things you can do in battle.. such as knowing when to tell your team to hold position or when to charge forward.. or knowing how to place your mages correctly, so they can use their spells more effectively.
 
Also, this game sucks without a healer.. if you haven't already, go get Wynne on your team from the Circle of Magi quests starting at Redcliffe Village/Castle. I'm sure people get by without Wynne though, so more power to ya..

Someone should write up an FAQ for optimal combat tactics for all characters. I haven't really seen one of those yet.

" @atejas said:

" To be fair, it's a cRPG(or a cRPG-like, if we want to split hairs). Micromanaging your party every phase is a big part of this sort of game. "

So were Mass Effect and KOTOR, and the AI in both games controlled 100% better.   Really, being a CRPG is no reason for it to control badly.  "

@Siris

" I thought the same thing about this game.. the clunky AI in this game makes it a lot harder to play, in a bad way. BUT, after having played a lot more.. I eventually figured out how to use the combat tactics to my advantage. Now my whole team (Rogue main, Allistar, Morrigan, and Wynne) kicks ass and does it nearly as well as if I was controlling them. I've even got Wynne set up in such a way that she hardly ever wastes mana, which she will do from the start a lot. So, if you work with the combat tactics, you can eventually tune your team to work decently well without your help. Then from there its just a matter of mastering all the little things you can do in battle.. such as knowing when to tell your team to hold position or when to charge forward.. or knowing how to place your mages correctly, so they can use their spells more effectively. Also, this game sucks without a healer.. if you haven't already, go get Wynne on your team from the Circle of Magi quests starting at Redcliffe Village/Castle. I'm sure people get by without Wynne though, so more power to ya.. "

yeah and is it just me or do the mages in my party kinda just sit around when they are out of mana and therefore become useless? why wont they just drink mana potions!!

This game and AI play exactly like what it is; and imperfect port of a computer RPG. Unlike most console AIs, the FRIENDLY  AI in this game is designed to be micro-managed--often on the fly--with RTS elements and resource managment.  You can't just hack-and-slash your way through this game, 'cause the ENEMY AI is one sneaky SOB. Save often, 'cause sudden death can lurk just around the corner.

I am enjoying the game quite a bit for the record. 
 
I think one of my problems might have been that I had Alistair in my party, when my main character was a sword and board fighter, so I had half my party filling a single niche.  
 
When I swapped out Alistair for Shale, I seemed to have a much easier time doing damage. 
 
I'm also micromanaging a *little* more. I still don't want to pause every round, but I have found Morrigan needs the most babysitting. If I swap to her every few rounds, my other three (shale, sword and board main, Leilani) are much easier to run on autopilot. 

I don't understand where you're coming from. You don't want to pause, and I assume you don't want the game to play itself? As people said in this thread already, micromanaging your party is part of the gameplay in this game. Its not a typical action RPG where you're just hammering on buttons.
 
Also, you can set the AI to not chase enemies and stick close to you. Its one of the drop down menus in the Tactics window.

" @Binman88: It's just frustrating to me because Bioware clearly knows how to do this.  The AI in Mass Effect was SO much smarter, and controlling them was easier.  Hell, the AI in KOTOR was better.   I'm not even really talking about standing right next to a melee attacker firing a bow, that's bad, but walking into a fire and then standing there to drink potions? Really?  "

What? Mass Effect had some of the worst AI of this generation, not counting shovelware games.

" There I said it.   I realize a lot of folks like that this game is hard, but when that hardness comes from AI so dumb that they chase enemies into flame, and then just stand there drinking health potions in the flame, that's not "hard", that's bad AI.   And of course, I could go on, like characters with bows standing toe to toe with enemies, but really, the fight against the zombies in red cliff, where they gave you the option to set a fire with lamp oil, apparently so that your party would have some fire to run into, was really the point at which I realized the AI in this game is just bad.  "

I have to say though, if you take the time you setup your tactics properly the game can very nearly do what your asking for.  I have tried both methods and the AI seems very capable if you take the time to set it up, which to be honest is exactly what you should want from a crpg.

" @Rio said:

I have to say though, if you take the time you setup your tactics properly the game can very nearly do what your asking for.  I have tried both methods and the AI seems very capable if you take the time to set it up, which to be honest is exactly what you should want from a crpg.

 Now, here's a ginger thought. And as a disclaimer, I haven't played Dragon Age: Origins yet. But uh... just throwing this out there... just wanna get your experienced outlook on this... here's my question. Why aren't the game's AI tactics set up properly by default? Why does the player have to take time to fidget around and set them up? Couldn't a lot of complaining and griping have been wholly avoided if BioWare had delivered their RPG with the AI set up already? Then the OP would be able to play the game in a satisfactory manner from the outset, and this thread never would've been created. Everybody's happy. Why didn't BioWare take this route I've just laid out? Why did they inflict needless torment on our dear chap Vigilance? Couldn't they have foreseen that not having any sort of AI set up by default would prove problematic?  This I pose to you. "

" @Delta_Ass said:

" @Rio said:

I have to say though, if you take the time you setup your tactics properly the game can very nearly do what your asking for.  I have tried both methods and the AI seems very capable if you take the time to set it up, which to be honest is exactly what you should want from a crpg.

 Now, here's a ginger thought. And as a disclaimer, I haven't played Dragon Age: Origins yet. But uh... just throwing this out there... just wanna get your experienced outlook on this... here's my question. Why aren't the game's AI tactics set up properly by default? Why does the player have to take time to fidget around and set them up? Couldn't a lot of complaining and griping have been wholly avoided if BioWare had delivered their RPG with the AI set up already? Then the OP would be able to play the game in a satisfactory manner from the outset, and this thread never would've been created. Everybody's happy. Why didn't BioWare take this route I've just laid out? Why did they inflict needless torment on our dear chap Vigilance? Couldn't they have foreseen that not having any sort of AI set up by default would prove problematic?  This I pose to you. "

Because then it would be nothing but equipment swapping and conversation. Christ "

Yeah they're garbage. Still a candidate for GotY in my book though.

" @Khann: Personally (playing on nightmare) I always give orders on all my melee on who to attack and when to use stuns, while directly controlling Morrigan who I heal and crowd control with. "

" This game and AI play exactly like what it is; and imperfect port of a computer RPG. Unlike most console AIs, the FRIENDLY  AI in this game is designed to be micro-managed--often on the fly--with RTS elements and resource managment.  You can't just hack-and-slash your way through this game, 'cause the ENEMY AI is one sneaky SOB. Save often, 'cause sudden death can lurk just around the corner. "

" There I said it.   I realize a lot of folks like that this game is hard, but when that hardness comes from AI so dumb that they chase enemies into flame, and then just stand there drinking health potions in the flame, that's not "hard", that's bad AI.   And of course, I could go on, like characters with bows standing toe to toe with enemies, but really, the fight against the zombies in red cliff, where they gave you the option to set a fire with lamp oil, apparently so that your party would have some fire to run into, was really the point at which I realized the AI in this game is just bad.  "