Player allies on quest so weak?

[retiredair.3876]

Why are the player allies on quests so weak that they can not even stand up to a single risen 1 on 1.

[Linken.6345]

So they dont do the story for you.

[SunTzu.4513]

In the early story they are more for the imersion imo. Later on they don't fight much better but they will rez you up if you are in downstate. Or they give you partial usefull buffs like Kasmeer in the Caudecus fight where she is throwing time warp bubbles like candy on helloween towards you.

[aspirine.6852]

Probably to make the player feel like the big strong/smart hero....

[Danikat.8537]

I think it's mostly because they don't want them to complete battles for you, it would make it disappointing for those who are capable of doing it themselves and provide no oppertunity to learn what to do if you're struggling.

There are some points where the NPCs can actually win a fight just based on sheer numbers, or because they revive themselves after a while, but it takes them a long time. Occasionally I've had to go afk unexpectedly while loading into a story instance that starts with a battle (the ones I remember are the level 30 storylines where you're helping the Orders) and I come back to find the enemy are all dead, or there's maybe 1 left in a corner. But like I said it takes a while so I don't think it would be a sensible strategy.

I suspect it might also be to avoid some of the issues they had in GW1 where they tried to make NPCs fight as effectively as players and it had very mixed results. The henchmen you could hire to fill out parties weren't too bad as long as you didn't expect too much from them, but if you needed to protect or even follow an NPC who would try to fight enemies the mission suddenly became far more difficult simply because they were so utterly stupid and suicidal. Restricting them to hitting the nearest thing with a few basic skills in GW2 might make them less effective but it also makes them easier to manage.