Everyone seems to have a problem with Lydia and her disregard for safety in combat. I can understand her walking in front of me while aiming. I like her when she attacks mercilessly with the war hammer I gave her. What really ticked me off was when I first used my new shout to make animals fight for me. I thought I would see what a wolf would do. It glowed real nicely and then in less than 2 seconds, Lydia puts an arrow in it. I guess if I want to try this again, I will have to go solo. At least I found some armor that I was looking for in the grotto's chest. Everyone has a story about her I'm sure. Let's hear them.

Not my video, but this shows the excellence of companions AI http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MTMwjYgJsFQ Seen that many, many times :rofl:

Was swinging my axe at someone who was on the ground begging for mercy, out of nowhere my heavy armor level increased.
Thanks Lydia.

Yeah I wish Beth improved companions a little from earlier games, they have always been frustrating. Would be nice if they didn't go into mindless MUST KILL mode as soon as they see an enemy, some aggressiveness settings would be nice. For example in the Riften ratways, I come across a poor woman who's obviously a skooma junkie and threatens to attack me if I come any closer, I think ahh I don't want to kill this woman so I'll leave her be. What does Lydia do? Shoves her sword through the helpless lady's gut! Good one Lydia. You really had my back there. I know you're my housecarl and all but slaughtering innocent people is a tad far don't you think?

Also the pathfinding is just atrocious and they really need to address this. The amount of times I've had companions get stuck behind rocks/logs/blerp. Irritating to say the least.

Something that puzzles me is...

In Fallout 3, having a companion "prevented" you from jumping off of anything because your companion couldn't follow. They'd end up running off in the opposite direction, looking for the road down.
In Fallout New Vegas, this was fixed. I yelled "PRAISE JEBUS!!" when I realized that Boone knew how to jump off that rock instead of running around all willy-nilly looking for a proper path.
In Skyrim....they forgot how to jump again. Why?

The worst is her blocking a doorway. And after I'm sprinting against her for a few seconds she says "watch out". She just can't take a hint.

Then there are those times where she spawns on the other side of the dungeon and I meet her in the middle where she's fighting the whole dungeon on her own. Then there are the times where she doesn't engage the enemy and just stands there looking stupid. Also, the times where she goes all the way around a mountain to avoid jumping down 1 meter. The setting off of traps, the screwing of any stealth attempts, the times where it looks like she's trying to catch my fireballs.

Get her if you enjoy babysitting...

When they hang around behind me and don't keep up, I like to role-play and think that they are just taking a whizz. When you gotta go, you gotta go.

Once the mod tools get released we will hopefully get some mods to deal with these problems, if Beth doesn't themselves. As it stands with companions it seems like they are a buggy mod themselves, when they are a part of the core game. Shouldn't be like that. I love Skyrim and it's a beautifully crafted game but this is easily my main gripe with it!

Would have also been nice to have more depth to companions, more personality, character related quests etc. Companions really seem just tacked on. And they also render horses useless - how hard would it be to have the option to buy a second horse for your companion, or even have the option for your companion to ride on your horse behind you with some kind of special saddle upgrade?




Hah! I'll have to remember that next time.