That the followers taking all the enemies agro is a bit game breaking??

I am baffled sometimes by the notion I can take on 30 enemies because my barbas is invincible and all go after him.

Tis the biggest reason why I don't like having a follower......They get to have all the fun

I like it when playing as a mage or archer.

What....archers?

I hate followers even more when playing as an archer/sneaky archer. The second you land one shot your follower charges in giving away your position, forcing you to charge in as well or kite like there's no tomorrow On my own I know I would have been undetected and would have dropped everyone without once alerting them to my whereabouts. If I do use a follower it's mostly with higher level characters and mostly for Rp reasons. Outside of that I'm a lone wolf

The alternative is to have that dog die while you are doing the quest which leads to quest failure. They would have to do the same for any occasion where a follower, npc or whatever gets flagged as essential (invincible). If that happens how many people will continue on and how many people will reload from a previous save and try again and/or lower the game difficulty? What about the main story quests? like the dark brotherhood, companion, mage college quest chains? how many of those quests would end up getting broken if a main NPC were to be killed? What about children NPCs...what would the public think of Bethesda if they had a game that shipped with default killable children NPCs?

(yes i know there are mods that allow this, but i'm talking about the people who actually develop the game)

My first time playing i thought that Lydia was invincible. Until one this one time she knelt down after taking a lot of hits, and i accidentally hit her with a fireball. So i was there looking at a dead Lydia going uhhhhhhhhhhhh hmm **reload previous save**

EDIT: but if you insist on having no invincible NPCs in your game, check out the mod forum or nexus mods and ask if such a mod exists (probably under immersion mods).

the point being the companion has all the agro by default.

So far, other than my summoned minions, I have only had one follower, Illia (frost necromancer). I find that the summoned minions don't always take the aggro away from the enemies, at least not when I really want them too. But I did notice that Illia tends to grab all of the enemy attention, in fact, she's also a really good tank as well, it seems like she has three to four times my health, and I have 150 health with 250 Armor from Ebonyskin w/ the Alteration perks.

By default? dont you think you are exaggerating a bit? just now i was playing my mage character and i got chased around by a mob with a 2H while Lydia just shot arrows at him. I've had this happen a few times, in some cases i've scored some good hits in other cases i had not scored a hit yet. Escort mission may be the exception, because there i can understand a mob aggroing the the person (or dog) being escorted first.

that logic doesnt make sense. a follower using bow from afar not being a determined factor versus a follower who is within enemy range of combat attention. if lydia goes up to it. it would shift attention to her.

there is no exageration. followers are the prime target by enemy npc's 85% to 100% of the time determined.

The AI is a tad bit primitive in that it will attack the closest target. Though every once and awhile the AI will actually prioritize depending on their victim's level/creature type/etc.

It's an improvement from Oblivion that's for sure.

Terrible if you are an assassin. Your follower just loves showing your position.

^^ this....sooOOOOoo much this^^

But even as a warrior they get on my nerves, don't know bout the rest of ya but my warriors love to be directly in the middle when the crap hits the fan, they like the front line and all the hell fire it brings

granted I am very much a FPS gamer as well and I myself love holding/breaking the line, I'm the guy who causes as much damage as possible, weather or not I live is irrelevant just so long as the line is broken

That is exactly my point...it doesnt automatically go to her or 'by default' go to her. I've run right at wolves and they've engaged me and i've had them run past me to go to my follower who was behind me even if they had not shot an arrow yet. I've been in melee range of mobs while my follower was melee'ing them from behind yet they would still focus on me. I'm not going to throw out some made up percentage to counter your 85-100% claim. I've seen enough of a variation to know that mobs dont always come to me even when actions or conditions that me or my follower are in would normally dictate a mod come to me (ie a mob running right past me for instance).

EDIT: also forgot to mention that some of those mobs that have ran past me, had done so even after i had already tapped them with a spell

I downloaded a mod that allows me to prevent my followers from attacking enemies unless I say they can in stealth mode.

Let me give you the non-sneaking archer's perspective:

Let's say you play as an archer and you've got Lydia for example, as a follower. She tanks the angry Draugr zerg, you pick a side (left or right) and shoot at them.

I wish my followers wouldn't suddenly dash between me and my opponent just as I'm letting loose a might two-handed swing. Oops! Sorry Meeko, I did tell you to stay. Oh well, where did Stray Dog go.

its not even an argument about statistics newb, i have literally been able to decide if i want to bring a follower into a fight because i know he will take all the attention and allow me to be the wrecking force without dying.

plain and simple.