So funny the little children:

Mami ... they killed the dog... they are so mean they are doing this only for the dramatic effect, give me a dog and when I get attached to it, it dies. I hate it.

OR

Papi... its such a bad game not even the dog can die. They don't care at all about Fallout. I hate it.

After hearing the Interview which the information is based on, it looks a lot like the Skyrim system for followers. Which would imply that followers can die while not following and fall in a coma when nearly killed in a fight as followers.

So... I think there is a big storm in a waterglass going on.

What is so wrong with the Skyrim model of companions? Some companions died, others did not. If I remember right, Lydia died on me (poor girl got killed by a troll). The Stray Dog also died. While none of the Companions died (they just dropped to one knee).

Plus, I'm assuming each NPC or companion has an essential flag. I'm sure someone will release a mod changing the flags. And I suspect there will be a hardcoe setting anyway.

So what's the problem?

I've yet to have one person tell me why this shouldn't be an option like it was in New Vegas. Anybody?

Because we don't know yet if FO4 has a hardcoe mode?

doesnt have to be a hardcoe mode toggle. just give us a checkbox in the options menu to toggle immortal npcs. god, its so stupid they are further going this direction with fallout.

Wow! You know that already. Great can I see the confirmation?

Obviously they will faint or something.

what the [censored] are you going on about dude

And why shouldn't it? Again, can anyone tell me why these things shouldn't be options? Or even if hardcoe mode isn't an option, why can't killable companions on their own be an option? I honestly can't think of any valid reason for this.

When a companion dies for me in Fallout it's not "an automatic re-load". It's part of my story (and the poor companion's story, be it Dogmeat, Sulik or whoever).

The immortal companions of Fallout 4 will quickly be modded mortal, I hope.

Edit: Or hardcoe mode yes, please!

By this reasoning though, anything that causes a player to reload should be gutted. At this point, I think they should too. They're trying to keep the guise of it being an RPG, but it's clear they have no intentions of consequences or even choices in their games (their idea of choice being do it or not).

They really might as well make the PC immortal because it requires a reload. Dialogue should just be linear because it will tell a better story, and sometimes people reload because of a wrong choice in dialogue (coming back to this later). Remove any checks like speech, science, etc. in dialogue because someone somewhere might have an issue with it. See where I'm going here?

On the topic of not wanting people to have to reload.. WHAT!? They literally added a voiced protagonist and extremely vague dialogue options which are known to force continual reloading. I'm calling bull right now, because that's obviously not the case. Todd Howard has pretty much outright called his consumers idiots before, and I think this is simply an extension of that (I'm not calling anyone idiots).

One possibility is that companions may have a specific role within the story of the major questlines. These may not be apparent right away. Having them die too early could break the narrative. That being said, maybe having them lose their immortality after all of their roles in the story narrative have played out would be a good compromise...

Should be an option for toggle essential characters with a warning that turning this off could break the main quest. This absolutely needs to be a thing, let me Roleplay. There are times where I want to kill someone like Shrapnel because I want his loot but nope I can't. Which means if I do try, I can't kill him which means he's an enemy who's immortal.

It's terrible gameplay design, New Vegas did this right, they even had essential characters outside of hardcoe mode but you could kill the companion when they weren't a companion. With Fallout 4's mindset in place, I wouldn't be able to kill Cassidy in the NCR Mojave Outpost because we don't want to risk people losing out on content. In an Open World RPG, you aren't suppose to do all the content, it's called choices and we should have them.

What I am going on is that we have only seen a tiny bit of the game and have not much information at all. But allready is acted as every tiny detail is known. For example this immortal thread that spawneg from a not very well formulated tweet. Hearing the whole inteview gives a complete different picture as the imortals everywhere with which this thread started.

We simply don't know enough to judge. But yes I know the internet and everyone knows already anything and will defend it with teeths and claws to support the opinion and assumption regardless how wrong it is.

Why not just make it an option?

I personally would leave it on, I don't like to babysit my doggy or robot but I still want him out.

In this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqQqeEgWb7Q, todd says "When they're your follower, they can't be killed in that state." Which, I think he means... if they aren't your follower... they can be killed. Also, when they're your follower they go into a downed state when hurt enough, and you revive them using a stimpak.

all i said was that there was no need for companion death/immortality to be tied to hardcoe mode.

its [censored] that dogmeat cant die anyway. it implies that bethesda is sticking with their old immortal npc trick, which is lame as hell. who gives a [censored] if a particular npc tied to narrative? obsidian managed to make their narrative work while still be able to kill all but one npc.

nope:

If it's the skyrim follower system he can die (admitted not while active as follower).

Because they would have to do the same for the gamebreaking bugs and Crash to desktop (if lucky). My first cause of reload during my Fo3 playthrough.

And then, people will complain that turning off the crashes doesn't work. So better not leave one option than risk not being able to make another one.

right. its stupid theyre taking fallout in the direction of immortal npcs, like in skyrim, when obsidian has shown with fnv that its possible to have completely mortal npc, and still have the story work. based on the comment made by todd howard, the implication is that npc immortality is gonna be in fo4.

relax dude. i get the feeling you are way worked up over this and thats just lol

Love it.

Dogs have always been essential in my games. Given how easy it is to change whether or not a character is essential via either the PC console or a mod, and that mods are coming to the consoles (Sony willing!), I think it's a case where most will be able to play with the settings they prefer.

GECK ain't released until 2016, so it's not like we will have those options immediately. Then if we're playing on console we have to either buy two copies of the game or hope to (whatever you believe in) that someone uploaded the mod for console players.

I highly doubt mods on console will be as good as people are thinking. I can pretty much guarantee the top PC mods won't be on console because 1.) A lot more work 2.) Getting them to work on console 3.) They may not support it

When I would lose Dogmeat I would feel horrible. Didn't like that feeling but I never reloaded but just suffered the consequence like I do when I lose my own pets. It svcks but life goes on.

That said, I don't usually play much with any companions. Just like the feeling of my character being a loner and most especially in Fallout. Feels right that the PC should be a loner to me personally.

So, I'm not real happy about Dogmeat being an essential character. I guess I will have to find a safe place to leave him all the time and just go back and check on him now and again. That or find a mod that removes him completely.

In the interview linked in the OP, Howard mentions that one of the focuses(when asked if he could reveal anything about Fallout 4's story that we know zero about) of Fallout 4, was player choices, and how they affect the world. And how companions play a role... and how Codsworth is interchangeable with Dogmeat(ED-E interchangeable with Rex) all point out to me, that Bethesda has in-fact, taken some notes from Fallout New Vegas. Pretty much everything I have seen so far(the supposed focusing on story narrative as to the decision of the PC being voiced, the plethora of crafting and customization potential, more fluid combat, and fleshed-out companions) all come not from Fallout 3, or any of the TES games... They seem very largely inspired by Fallout New Vegas.