I’ve been trying to make my own custom follower mod, and I’ve got the voice lines and basic behavior down, but I’m hitting a wall with the companion’s combat style. No matter what I tweak, they just stand there like a mannequin when a fight starts. Has anyone else dealt with this kind of AI package weirdness?
Man that AI package thing can turn a follower into a statue right at the first punch; feels like a bug you notice but can’t pinpoint.
Could be a state machine issue: when combat starts the code slips into an idle branch, so the companion just stares until something else nudges it.
The AI package might be waiting for a signal you aren’t emitting in combat, so it never commits to an attack even though you hear the clash in game.
I’d throw some logs at the enterCombat and see which branch actually runs; sometimes a high priority interrupt blocks the attack cue.
Maybe your follower’s stance or weapon logic clashes with the boss’s taunt pattern; you might need to tweak attack priority rather than rewrite the whole thing.
Reframe it: maybe the issue isn’t damage timing but target selection and spacing; a lot of fights hinge on where they stand.
This reminds me of agency in NPCs in general; the line between scripted response and genuine choice is fuzzy, and tiny timing changes can flip the result.