History ArtificialStupidity / MMORPG

** A relatively recent update to the game reworked the AI so much now that many people that once used drones in missions are [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks complaining that their drones die too easily]] since the AI will almost immediately target drones once they're launched. AI are also programmed now to favor ships of comparable size, so NPC frigates will prefer to attack other frigates over battleships, while NPC battleships will favor the largest target they can see, rather than wasting their shots on a small, fast ship that they can barely hit.

* In ''VideoGame/EveOnline'', for most of the game's history, [=NPCs=] would lock onto one target and then absolutely refuse to engage any other targets, regardless of where the damage was coming from. This allowed a single player with a heavy tank and pathetic offense to enter a mission first, get all the [=NPCs=] shooting him, and then have his [[GlassCannon glass cannon]] friends come in and mop them up. This did occasionally require some forethought, since missions would often spawn new waves, which would randomly select a new player to engage, so the glass cannons occasionally had to leave and come back. This AI also meant that ships that relied upon drones to inflict damage could use all of their powergrid and CPU to fit heavy tank and forego any weapons, since drones don't use a ship's fitting resources.
** A relatively recent update to the game reworked the AI so much now that many people that once used drones in missions are [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks complaining that their drones die too easily]] since the AI will almost immediately target drones once they're launched. AI are also programmed now to favor ships of comparable size, so NPC frigates will prefer to attack other frigates over battleships, while NPC battleships will favor the largest target they can see, rather than wasting their shots on a small, fast ship that they can barely hit.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'', the enemies will attempt to follow a straight line to their target (i.e. you), so it is often possible to stop them in their tracks simply by hiding behind something, even a torch. This may be deliberate, as the only practical method for archers to level up is to get a target on the other side of a table, fence, or similar obstacle, and proceed to turn the target into a pincushion.
** Mages can use the same strategy. Also, your character can also get stuck behind stuff, since you walk by clicking on where you want to go. In other words, you can also get this problem, though the player can guide their character.
** Both of these things have been improved. The player character's pathfinding code has been improved so that it is much better at going around obstacles and will only get stuck if you tell it to go to an unreachable area. Most enemies in the game still do not go around obstacles but many of them will try to retreat if they cannot reach the player. Many bosses in the game also counter this by having a special attack that they using if the player hides from them for too long.
** Familiars in the game also used to be very stupid as they would take a long time to start attacking enemies and would get stuck frequently before their A.I. was updated to make them smarter and more responsive.
* In ''VideoGame/GuildWars'', one of the quests involves a 1 on 1 fight against an EvilTwin who is modestly stronger than you, and has the exact same skills on his skill bar that you do. The primary (and intended) way to beat him is to ''invoke'' his Artificial Stupidity by taking skills useless for a duel, and/or by taking good skills that he will not actually use. For example, it's entirely possible to get the EvilTwin to sacrifice enough of its health that you need only give him a [[CherryTapping cherry tap]] to win.
** The Artificial Stupidity of henchmen in Guild Wars is acknowledged in the endgame area of Prophecies, where Reyna reminisces how she often would use her single-use resurrection, not on a player, but instead on another henchman who would ultimately die trying to resurrect other henchmen.
** It's actually an established tactic as SquishyWizard to go for cover, because spells from skills can bypass objects but weapon damage cannot. While the pure melee {{Non Player Character}}s indeed have a working pathfinding, all others will nuke the wall ad infinitum and can be picked off one by one. Of course, the same goes for your henchmen and minions--with the latter ones being especially frustrating because you cannot order them to stop.

* In ''VideoGame/LaTale'' enemies will follow and attack the first player character they see, regardless of threat level or feasibility of actually doing damage. They will ignore anyone else unless they don't get a chance to attack for at least a minute or the character moves out of range. This can be abused while in a party to kill vastly more powerful monsters than you would normally stand a chance against by having one character act as bait, run like hell, and climb a ladder ''just'' out of range. The rest of the party can attack the monster with impunity until it finally gets bored and goes after someone else. Rinse and repeat and you can defeat even mobs of high-threat enemies with little risk.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has two types of situations where your character is 'used' by the computer: either when fighting/aiding a doppleganger, or when mindcontrolled by certain bosses. Dopplegangers will sometimes use abilities with no cast time, but will almost always fight in melee range and spend most of the time just hitting with their melee weapon. Still a little threatening if the copied player is a Rogue, not so effective if they're a Mage whacking away with their staff. For the latter situation, while mindcontrolled your character uses abilities almost constantly and somewhat randomly, and often makes interesting choices (for instance an AI controlled Paladin using nothing but 'Exorcism' - a mediocre damage spell that usually only works on demons and undead - over and over on a fellow player). One particularly weird case showed the mind-controlled character apparently deciding ScrewThisImOuttaHere, and using a spell to teleport themselves to a ''different dimension''. One constant is that they tend to use all cooldown abilities. Which due to their other actions is not necessarily dangerous, but does deprive you of them.
** Particularly amusing is when the boss makes the player's character use an ability that breaks the mind control. The same ability that the player would use in that situation if they had control of their character.
** At least some enemies capable of mind control seem to have a keen interest in Archaeology (or else are very curious about what all the buttons do), as they will often make the mind-controlled character use the "Survey" ability. Not only does survey have a cast time, but is also not a combat ability in any way, shape or form.
** Pet battles in WOW fall heavily into this. If a boss-level pet has a very powerful move (that either hits all your pets, heals itself for a large amount, damages you for a large amount, stuns you, or whatever) that has a cooldown, it WILL use the move as soon as it is available, even if right beforehand you use something that makes you immune to it. You can cheese a lot of the pet battles this way.

* Puppetmasters in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI Online'' will often run afoul of this trope. Their automatons can be configured for various roles, two of which are the Soulsoother and the Spiritreaver.
** Soulsoother will cure status afflictions and heal, in that specific order, which means that it will always remove that weak Poison or Silence (which has no effect on a non-casting job) instead of a 900 HP cure when the player is near death. This same automaton also has an ability to deal damage based on the amount of damage it received, yet any damage worth mentioning is almost always healed by it prior to using said ability with an overkill heal... (unless its cast timer is down at that moment)
** Spiritreaver will mainly cast highly damaging spells, and it attempts to do so intelligently: it can determine up front if a spell will land, and choose a more effective spell if not.. 'effective' being the ability to land a spell unresisted, not the amount of damage dealt. That the target cuts magic damage by 90%, or even absorbs magic damage and gets healed by it, is ignored. When this automaton gets below 75% of maximum MP (due to casting those damage spells), it will replace said spells with MP draining spells if the target has MP, even if these are so ineffective as to COST more MP than they gain. And it will do this until it either gets above 75% MP or it runs out of MP. If it gets damaged in the process, it will alternate HP draining spells with MP draining spells, which are equally ineffective as they share the same resistance mechanism.

* ''VideoGame/DreamOfMirrorOnline'' had the Easy Oak mission; you had to escort the injured Easy Oak back to his wife. Sounds mildly difficult, right? Well, you had to escort him back through a cave full of monsters, all stronger than Easy Oak. Despite saying he's injured, Easy Oak literally attacked [[SuicidalOverconfidence every enemy he came across]], making this extremely frustrating. He would even ''go back'' to go and try to kill a monster.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has the Arcanist class and its two jobs, Summoner and Scholar, which rely on summoned pets to deal damage (for Summoner) or heal (for Scholars). By default, they will automatically attack the first target the summoner attacked or, for scholar, heal anyone who falls below 90% of their max HP and use all of their cooldown abilities as soon as they're available. You can take manual control of them, though.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has the Arcanist class and its two jobs, Summoner and Scholar, which rely on summoned pets to deal damage (for Summoner) or heal (for Scholars). They are all, universally, stupid as hell. You can take manual control of them, though.

** Spiritreaver will mainly cast highly damaging spells, and it attempts to do so intelligently: it can determine up front if a spell will land, and choose a more effective spell if not.. 'effective' being the ability to land a spell unresisted, not the amount of damage dealt. That the target cuts magic damage by 90%, or even absorbs magic damage and gets healed by it, is ignored. When this automaton gets below 75% of maximum MP (due to casting those damage spells), it will replace said spells with MP draining spells if the target has MP, even if these are so ineffective as to COST more MP then they gain. And it will do this until it either gets above 75% MP or it runs out of MP. If it gets damaged in the process, it will alternate HP draining spells with MP draining spells, which are equally ineffective as they share the same resistance mechanism.

* DynastyWarriorsOnline. Hoo boy. For the standard mooks, it's no surprise the A.I. isn't all that good. For computer controlled player characters, it almost becomes insulting. Here's a quick laundry list of why they're no good as enemies or allies:

* In ''LaTale'' enemies will follow and attack the first player character they see, regardless of threat level or feasibility of actually doing damage. They will ignore anyone else unless they don't get a chance to attack for at least a minute or the character moves out of range. This can be abused while in a party to kill vastly more powerful monsters than you would normally stand a chance against by having one character act as bait, run like hell, and climb a ladder ''just'' out of range. The rest of the party can attack the monster with impunity until it finally gets bored and goes after someone else. Rinse and repeat and you can defeat even mobs of high-threat enemies with little risk.

* In ''GuildWars'', one of the quests involves a 1 on 1 fight against an EvilTwin who is modestly stronger than you, and has the exact same skills on his skill bar that you do. The primary (and intended) way to beat him is to ''invoke'' his Artificial Stupidity by taking skills useless for a duel, and/or by taking good skills that he will not actually use. For example, it's entirely possible to get the EvilTwin to sacrifice enough of its health that you need only give him a [[CherryTapping cherry tap]] to win.

* In ''EveOnline'', for most of the game's history, [=NPCs=] would lock onto one target and then absolutely refuse to engage any other targets, regardless of where the damage was coming from. This allowed a single player with a heavy tank and pathetic offense to enter a mission first, get all the [=NPCs=] shooting him, and then have his [[GlassCannon glass cannon]] friends come in and mop them up. This did occasionally require some forethought, since missions would often spawn new waves, which would randomly select a new player to engage, so the glass cannons occasionally had to leave and come back. This AI also meant that ships that relied upon drones to inflict damage could use all of their powergrid and CPU to fit heavy tank and forego any weapons, since drones don't use a ship's fitting resources.

* In ''{{Runescape}}'', the enemies will attempt to follow a straight line to their target (i.e. you), so it is often possible to stop them in their tracks simply by hiding behind something, even a torch. This may be deliberate, as the only practical method for archers to level up is to get a target on the other side of a table, fence, or similar obstacle, and proceed to turn the target into a pincushion.

* Hirelings in VideoGame/{{Diablo}} clearly fall into this trope. While the enemy AI is okay, the ally AI is definitely not. Hirelings don't seem to understand basic concepts like "I should use that door just a few steps from me instead of trying to walk through the wall", they have the annoying habit of exploring all the whole time in a world where just walking a few metres triggers a new wave of dozens of enemies... And monsters by the Necromancer are even worse, as getting too far from them (and they aren't good AT ALL at following you) makes them disappear. After numerous reports of necromancers getting stuck in a corner by their minions, Blizzard added an Unsummon skill to remove them when needed -- and that turned out to ''not be enough'', so now they let players noclip through their own minions.

* Hirelings in VideoGame/{{Diablo}} clearly fall into this trope. While the enemy AI is okay, the ally AI is definitely not. Hirelings don't seem to understand basic concepts like "I should use that door just a few steps from me instead of trying to walk through the wall", they have the annoying habit of exploring all the whole time in a world where just walking a few metres triggers a new wave of dozens of enemies... And monsters by the Necromancer are even worse, as getting too far from them (and they aren't good AT ALL at following you) makes them disappear. After numerous reports of necromancers getting stuck in a corner by their minions, Blizzard added an Unsummon skill to remove them when needed.

* ''CityOfHeroes''' enemy AI is usually pretty good, but some of the NPC allies you get on certain missions are appallingly dumb. Fusionette, a recurring NPC, does an unfortunately good imitation of a novice player with her tendency to attack too many enemies at once and get clobbered.
** And in ''CityOfVillains'', on the timed "Mayhem Missions", it's often possible to spring a NPC villain from jail for a little extra firepower against the hordes of police and heroes trying to stop you. Which is fine, except they often have an annoying glitch where they stand in front of some [[DieChairDie easily-destroyed object]] without attacking. No wonder they were arrested so easily...

* In ''EveOnline'', for most of the game's history, [=NPCs=] would lock onto one target and then absolutely refuse to engage any other targets, regardless of where the damage was coming from. This allowed a single player with a heavy tank and pathetic offense to enter a mission first, get all the [=NPCs=] shooting him, and then have his [[GlassCannon]] friends come in and mop them up. This did occasionally require some forethought, since missions would often spawn new waves, which would randomly select a new player to engage, so the glass cannons occasionally had to leave and come back. This AI also meant that ships that relied upon drones to inflict damage could use all of their powergrid and CPU to fit heavy tank and forego any weapons, since drones don't use a ship's fitting resources.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has the Arcanist class and its two jobs, Summoner and Scholar, which rely on summoned pets to deal damage (for Summoner) or heal (for Scholars). They are all, universally, stupid as hell.

* ''VideoGame/Firefall'' has horrifyingly stupid AI. Enemies will desperately attempt to catch up and attack a player that is within optimal range of their weapons. In a game where the player characters have agility and jetpacks, this is a dumb idea, ESPECIALLY regarding the flamethrowers. Some enemies are forced to charge their attacks to deal massive damage, at the cost of making a high-pitched whine or a low rumble while charging. If the players can easily get to cover or dodge, the AI will not hold the charge in and the attacks will constantly miss, making the overpowered sniper and dreadnaught equivalent to big stupid damage sponges with decorative rocket launchers. Worst of all, the enemies don't work as a team, each AI-controlled unit trying to destroy the player that drew the most agro as a threat. With a small team, you can take down a horde of enemies that outnumber and overpower your squad, as long as you help each other fend off the spam attacks.

[[AC:VideoGame/NeverwinterNights]]
* In ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'', if the A.I. is turned on, your character will always, ''always'' start the combat by casting the Sanctuary spell. Even if he is a warrior/cleric.
** There is also Qara, who had a habit of aiming area-of-effect spells where they would hurt fellow party members and even herself. While she isn't portrayed as very bright, she shouldn't be ''that'' stupid.
** Let's not forget how your spellcasters would always sling about the various dispelling spells they had prepared at the beginning of a fight. Most of the time this led to you not having a way of getting rid of an enemies buff spells half way through a fight because they'd all already been used.
*** Even worse, they would often dispel any buff spells on the [=PCs=], making it easier for the enemies to kill you.
*** Thankfully, you have the option to customize what kinds of spells your party members use, how often they use AoE spells, and even turn off the option of spells affecting your own party.
* Linu back in the original VideoGame/NeverwinterNights had an unfortunate habit of casting Harm on hostile undead. Which HEALS them. Even worse, this was usually a few rounds into the battle, so it'd wipe out all the damage you'd painstakingly inflicted on it. Throw in her tendency towards burning through her whole day's supply of Turn Undead spells, even though the last ''three'' attempts did nothing... yeah, it's probably best to depend upon potions for your healing.
** The non-mages aren't a whole lot better. Fighter-types running headlong into encounter after encounter, thus forcing you to abandon what you were doing to join in, makes some amount of sense. However, Neeshka does exactly the same thing even though the sensible thing to do would be to wait until others engage and then sneak attack (where it works) at will (there is unfortunately no option to set up a character to only use sneak attacks. The best you can hope for is to tell her to remain in the shadows).
*** Of course when the fighters attack, they have a nasty tendency to run past perfectly viable targets, and get attack of opportunity-ed, just so they could get to that oh so dangerous ''[[AnnoyingArrows archer]]'' that shot them in the bum. "Oh you'll pay for that 4 damage bow boy! What? Oh that huge-assed guy that just power attacked me for 36? Nah he's no threat, I won't bother to change my priorities just because he can dish out ''nine times'' the damage, that's sissy thinking!"
** Anyone remember the very useless sorcerer Boddyknock? Casting See Invisibility (''repeatedly!'') on clearly ''visible'' enemies wasn't of any help at all, while you were in dire need of support.
*** He also has the annoying tenancy to cast invisibility spells on himself during combat and leave to to fend for yourself.
** Follower casters also routinely get caught behind corners and other obstacles where they can't see the opponent, cast a spell at the unseen enemy (which they only know is there because they can ''hear it''), then immediately lose the spell because they can't target someone they can't see properly. Then repeat over and over, wasting their spells and time while you have to deal with the enemies on your own.
** None of the [=NPCs=] seem to realize that traps are ''dangerous things'' to be ''avoided''. Neeskha will happily start disarming a trap, spot an enemy, and run straight over the trap to attack it.
** Due to game engine specs, buffs vanish when moving to a new area, even though you're ''leaving the tavern through the door'' and those buffs should last for minutes or even ''hours''. There's more than one scripted event where you get ambushed outside the tavern, too. The protagonist will also happily walk into scripted events and conversations that very obviously will or could turn hostile without any chance to buff, prepare or attack first.
* ''VideoGame/DreamOfMirrorOnline'' had the Easy Oak mission; you had to escort the injured Easy Oak back to his wife. Sounds mildly difficult, right? Well, you had to escort him back through a cave full of monsters, all stronger than Easy Oak. Despite saying he's injured, Easy Oak literally attacked [[SuicidalOverconfidence every enemy he came across]], making this extremely frustrating. He would even ''go back'' to go and try to kill a monster.

** Due to game engine specs, buffs vanish when moving to a new area, even though you're ''leaving the tavern through the door'' and those buffs should last for minutes or even ''hours''. There's more than one scripted event where you get ambushed outside the tavern, too. The protagonist will also happily walk into scripted events and conversations that very obviously will or could turn hostile without any chance to buff, prepare or attack first.

* In ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'', your character will always, ''always'' start the combat by casting the Sanctuary spell. Even if he is a warrior/cleric.

** The non-mages aren't a whole lot better. Fighter-types running headlong into encounter after encounter, thus forcing you to abandon what you were doing to join in, makes some amount of sense. However, Neeshka does exactly the same thing even though the sensible thing to do would be to wait until others engage and then sneak attack (where it works) at will.

* Elanee has the frustrating habit of rushing into a battle, sickle a-waving, then once everybody is dead save one poor guy who's about to be mowed down, ''she casts all of her spells, especially the ones the would have been incredibly useful at the beginning of the fight''. And that she also seems hellbent on screwing up the cinematic camera angles by walking out of sight or being a huge freaking bear.

* Hirelings in VideoGame/{{Diablo}} clearly fall into this trope. While the enemy AI is okay, the ally AI is definitely not. Hireling don't seem to understand basic concepts like "I should use that door just a few steps from me instead of trying to walk through the wall", they have the annoying habit of exploring all the whole time in a world where just walking a few metres triggers a new attack of dozens of enemies... And monsters by the Necromancer are even worse, as getting too far from them (and they aren't good AT ALL at following you) makes them disappear. After numerous reports of necromancers getting stuck in a corner by their minions, Blizzard added an Unsummon skill to remove them when needed.

* DynastyWarriorsOnline. Hoo boy. for the standard mooks, it's no surprise the A.I. isn't all that good. For computer controlled player characters, it almost becomes insulting. Here's a quick laundry list of why they're no good as enemies or allies:

* Hirelings in {{Diablo}} clearly fall into this trope. While the enemy AI is okay, the ally AI is definitely not. Hireling don't seem to understand basic concepts like "I should use that door just a few steps from me instead of trying to walk through the wall", they have the annoying habit of exploring all the whole time in a world where just walking a few metres triggers a new attack of dozens of enemies... And monsters by the Necromancer are even worse, as getting too far from them (and they aren't good AT ALL at following you) makes them disappear. After numerous reports of necromancers getting stuck in a corner by their minions, Blizzard added an Unsummon skill to remove them when needed.

* Hirelings in {{Diablo}} clearly fall into this trope. While the enemy AI is okay, the ally AI is definitely not. Hireling don't seem to understand basic concepts like "I should use that door just a few steps from me instead of trying to walk through the wall", they have the annoying habit of exploring all the whole time in a world where just walking a few metres triggers a new attack of dozens of enemies... And monsters by the Necromancer are even worse, as getting too far from them (and they aren't good AT ALL at following you) makes them disappear.

** It's actually an established tactic as SquishyWizard to go for cover, because spells from skills can bypass objects but weapon damage cannot. While the pure melee [=NPCs=] indeed have a working pathfinding, all others will nuke the wall ad infinitum and can be picked off one by one. Of course, the same goes for your henchmen and minions--with the latter ones being especially frustrating because you cannot order them to stop.

** Mastermind pets are incredibly stupid as well. For example, if an enemy NPC tries to flee, your pets will chase after it. Once that mob is dead, they will come running back to you. All the while completely oblivious to half the map's enemy NPCs chasing and shooting at them.

** Mastermind pets are incredibly stupid as well.