I gotta say, this was shaping up to be one of my favorite games until you got an ally.

They use abilities unnecessarily, they don't attack who you want them to, provided they even ARE attacking, they have trouble following you and I don't even want to rely on allies.

I'm really interested in what happens but it's becoming a chore to play and I only have one ally, I dread what could happen when I get 4.

Okay, is there a way to make them easier to manage, maybe stop them from using certain abilities, make them want to attack certain guys?

I heard somewhere that they have allies all run in to melee, while they stand back and use a bow. I remember playing a Star Ocean game (4?) and I ended up doing the same thing because otherwise combat becomes cluttered and disorganized and I frankly don't know what to do.

Also I wanted to play in multiplayer mode as a solo character, but I've found that they're REALLY pushing having a coterie, I went in solo and got slaughtered by the first two guys I found. It was a shame because had there been only one, I could have drained him.

So second question, is there a way to play solo successfully?

There's quite a few options to manage to your party. Those square button on the left of UI, toggle Defensive, Neutral, and Offensive stances; you can press one normally to set everyone to a stance, or switch to a party member and shift click to individually set stances.

You can shift click on the Regroup button (big circle with four arrows) to deactivate party members and move them freely without the others following.

As for getting your party members to attack the same target, just Ctrl + Left click on the target to focus attacks.

What do stances do? I've toggled it once or twice, but I have no idea what it actually affects.

-Shift+Clicking on regroup deactivates party members, cool.
-Ctrl+Clicking enemy causes party to mass-attack, also useful.

That will help for that, is there a way to keep them from using disciplines that I don't want them to?

Is there a way to succeed solo in multiplayer? I'm considering downloading the Age of Redemption 2011 thing, I've heard it allows you to play the campaign in multiplayer which would allow me to make a stronger character, lest I'm mistaken. But other than that, it seems totally impossible to beat the 2 enemy vamps I come across in both multiplayer modes.

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Okay, this is becoming unplayable. Wilhem is out of control, he attacks any humans that get too close and randomly started sucking my blood out of nowhere. He also has 0 frenzy, meaning that it isn't the reason.

I want them to stop using abilities, blood heal and feed is okay, but they just bust out celerity and whatever else, using massive amounts of blood when it's totally unnecessary!

It sucks because I really wanna play this and I really enjoyed it before Wilhem joined my group, but now it's a pain...

your party sux, Do Not rely on them.

minimum stats to get them to equip items (take hits.) and do slightly more dmg (they will not fully benefit offensively... as you have already seen.)

in short, screw your part, worry about yourself :)

Use quick disciplines only does nothing, I've selected that and they use whatever discipline they please at the slightest provocation.

Just to clarify, the square being red means it is selected, correct?

Though after hearing ^ I'm getting that AoR mod NOW. :D Ouch, it really is a shame they didn't put a bit more time to fixing up party combat. Personally I would have added a pause feature so you could make decisions for your party, or some kind of if-then feature where you could define their reactions to certain situations. Though I guess that's a bit newer than this game.

Well if AoR solves my problems then I believe I will not have further problems!

Neutral, is just that, neutral. Your party will follow you at an average distance, and use disciplines sparingly. They'll attack if enemies get close or if you attack first.
Defensive is used if you want a party member to relax. They will hang back and barely use disciplines, and only attack if you attack.
Offensive is basically leaving it up to your party members to do what they want. They will run off and attack anything around them, in a pretty large radius, without you telling them to (THEY WILL ATTACK CIVILIANS AND GUARDS IF YOU HAVE THIS SELECTED WHILE OUTSIDE). They will also constantly use disciplines while in this stance.

Party members will only use the disciplines you have put into their quick bar, so you can control their use that way. I believe you can leave slots empty if you really don't want them using anything.

ya, well you can always use cheats/mods/createitem etc to give urself a boost so you wont need your coterie. id leave them dead. or stick on a +1000 celerity ring and pass em up lol

I have attached my settings. With neutral stance the party is acting relatively sane :).

Once Chris becomes an unstoppable killing machine you can use your coterie just to carry items (that will take some time however - until you get (or should I say - find) Theft of Vitae and Prison of Ice).

The mod seems to have solved my problems concerning lack of control of my party and ability to use multiplayer, thanks all.

Neutral didn't save me any blood, but it's one of the few items you HAVE to buy (or coterie will die). I just stocked up on blood (pearls and stones were my fave for coterie). I'm not sure you're right about coterie only using quick slotted abilities (they heal from the beginning, or is it feed- they do both, but only 1 is quick slotted), They each seemed to have a spell they were partial to, and that was it regardless.

If I didn't want them wasting blood I kept it in MY inventory. Get everybody the best armor you can, get your favorite weapons and stick with them- i mostly hated the modern weapons, make sure you play in admin. mode and save often. Each board seems to have a pattern of attacks, so if you save regularly you can re-equip for each combat style.

I did notice the coterie doesn't equip a new weapon just because they ran out of ammo... so I mostly let them keep it up close and personal.