Shattered Kingdoms

So the centaur leagionnaires in shinlaken throw you in the back row when you order them to rescue, when you are mounted on them Kinda lame and to be honest screws up Pking. We had a total fail last night because of it.

If my law NPCs jack up formation during pvp, just eject them while they are fighting and reinvite once done.

As I recall, rescue behavior changes based on whether the rescuer is offensive or defensive. Since you can't change their stance any longer, be sure you are using appropriate NPCs in advance, or else request the possibility of a change from the tribunal patron admin.

I would have thought that regardless of stance, rescuing someone who was mounted on you should not change the formation. Or am I mistaken?

Yeah it makes no sense that a mount rescue would scew up formation regardless of stance.

Well.
[Combat help] stance

Syntax: stance <aggressive|neutral|defensive>

Your stance determines how you react to combat. Aggressive combatants
are more likely to hit and will dish out more damage but are also more
likely to be hit themselves and expend more energy when attacking.

Defensive combatants are less likely to be hit and can concentrate on using
their shield for increased effectiveness and leg defense but have a reduced
rate of attack with both weapons and spells.

Neutral combatants have neither benefits nor penalties.
Stance also affects rescue.

See also: rescue

and then

[Skills help] rescue

Syntax: rescue <character>

Rescue allows the warrior to interpose in combat, protecting wounded
characters from further harm. If the two characters are in formation together,
their positions in formation will change depending on the rescuer's combat
stance setting. Aggressive rescuers leap into the path of danger, while
defensive rescuers will pull the character out of harm's way behind them.

pretty much aggressive rescuers bash you out of the way and start taking hits, thus if you are mounted on a centaur it just shifts you behind his torso. Defensive ones gently pick you up and put you behind him.

Still doesn't make sense to me. Also what if that mount is a horse? How do you end up behind it?

The question is, how does something you mount rescue you? You are fighting as one unit, and it somehow starts to take the hits for you? The logical thing is that it will buck you and get in the way of the attacker and yourself and jack up the formation.

This is a bug with all mounts. I noticed it quite a bit when playing my most recent character, and it was a severe annoyance... oftentimes, when being mounted by a first row character, I would rescue and the both of us would find ourselves behind something else.

After a bit of analysis, I think what happens is that when a mount rescues, the code "imagines" that they are in the first available group position, and then winds up attempting to reposition both the mount and its rider to that position.

Consider the following formation (mount is under PC):
In this case, a rescue would place the PC in F2, leaving the grey wolf open for attack, and the back-rank character by a reaching weapon.

This one, however, is far more egregious:

In this case, the system attempts to place the mount in B3. Suddenly, not only is M1 under attack, but also PC and the mount have been completely removed from melee combat, and everything literally falls apart.

I appreciate the "law NPC" aspect and stance related question, but am I the only one who sees that that rescue as a whole seems to struggle with mounted characters?