Dear Bethesda,

Please stop giving companions that have no equipment and no combat ability the AI of a berserker. Escort missions are tedious and annoying as it is. Contrary to popular belief, having to reload the same two-minute or less segment thirty-plus times does not count as an additional hour of gameplay, nor is it "replayability", save in the absolute broadest and most cynical sense. Nor do I consider having to repeatedly try again because it is virtually impossible to reach my objective without the village idiot accompanying me forgetting that charging a large group of armed men in heavy armour with his bare hands while in his pyjamas is not a situation where the odds are in his favour to be deep and challenging gameplay. If you could, perhaps, program companions to either behave in a manner consistent with their level of equipment and training, or at the very least to recognize that their leader sneaking and hanging back is a signal to not rush in and draw attention to themselves, it might mitigate the urge I have to strangle members of your dev teams on sight.

Sincerely,
A Fan

Good luck with that one mate, the games that have companions recognizing any of those things without player input are few and far between.

Still, I'm in agreement overall. A companion wheel like in NV that allows us to set their aggression levels and what range they fight in would do wonders for things overall...and actually caring about the companions. How and why bland ol' Lydia became as memetic as she did aside from being the first housecarl is beyond me.