I'm not the kind of player who generally enjoys companions, I pretty much played the entire Fallout New Vegas all by myself apart from when I had to have a companion for specific quests. But a thread posted a while ago made me think about summonable creatures that can actually serve you in some proper way.
Now i not saying companions that give you perks like in Fallout but companions that actually do stuff apart from attacking. Actually attacking is not even required, what i would really want is them to have special utilities like for example summoning a Will-o-the-Wisp to light your way as you venture into a dark cave. Or a Imp/Bird/Etc that would pick up objects that are hard to reach.. or a Wolf/Dog that would help you track other creatures.
I think they are ways to make companions more enjoyable that just simply them giving you static buffs and fight. What do you guys think?

I think that maybe for certain quests this could work, but personally if something is possible in the game I want to do it myself.
Need light? Use a torch, light spell, night eye spell, ect.
I don't think this is a bad idea I just mean I like my character to be the most useful and powerful.

Personally i'm the kind of player who likes to hold the torch and and sword myself but it gives more play styles to the game, also i don't think having these sort of companions will drive away any feeling of usefulness and power from your character, your the guy summoning them after all and i said most of does companions have short utilities which means they will be something you will summon for a short period of time and are there specifically for one purpose.

Not a popular topic i guess lol

Hey I am all for it so I can hire a torch bearer in town to take into the scary dungeon, hackmaster/knights of the dinner table style.

summoning companion spell?

Conjuration FTW. :thumbsup:

I completely agree. I would like Conjuration to become more useful and strategic.

i always thought it would be nice to have a companion to do things like light rooms and maybe heal me during combat... maybe instead of having companions to help fight there could be some companions that are used as buffer mages and the lot. or even debuff enemies. it would be so much more fun having someone actually help me in combat haha.

less meat shields and more intelligent companions, please =]

Yeah, i never felt like companions who would fight for you were really that helpful.. or if they were they would be to good at it like in fallout the Dino Tower guy would basically kill everything for you.

hahahah boone!! yeah he was just overkill. but i think games with predominately ranged combat are okay with combat focused companions. but melee oriented? its too hard. i mean with path-finding, targeting, attacking, and especially GETTING IN MY F#^&%$G WAY!, its hard. making companion mage debuffers and buffers is prolly just as difficult...

TES companions were never very useful... fallout made great strides, and hopefully the AI will be improved enough that they are useful this time around. I just hope for more flexibility out of the companions in Skyrim, especially since there are potenially endless followers due to radiant AI =]

I would like conjuration to become linked to soul gems and soul trapping.

You conjure the creature that you trapped in the soul gem using a generic summon creature spell (which also recaptures your creature), and the soul gem loses power while summoned creature is in the world. (you choose which gem by equipping it)

The more powerful the soul, the quicker it loses power, but this is slowed as you increase your conjuration skill.
You can use other (fully charged) soul gems to recharge the soul gem you have drained for conjuration, but this destroys the soul gem (similar to enchanting).
Theoretically, under this system at low level conjuration you can have a permanent lesser soul like a Skeleton Warrior, as long as you replenish its soul gem every once in a while (say 30 minutes), but if you managed to get hold of a Golden Saint soul gem it may only last 10 seconds before draining.
At 100 skill the Golden Saint soul gem would last for say 10 minutes

Less powerful soul gems should be easy to find, so you are not struggling to keep your summoned creature of choice out as long as you are trapping souls.
However, how guards act towards you and your summoned creature should depend on which region you are in.
More conservative regions of Skyrim that hate daedra worship should attack you and your creature, whereas more progressive and open to magic regions should just leave you alone. (Yes, different regions should have different attitudes to various issues!)

This is the sort of thing I'd like mages familiars or trained animals to do
Not every companion need be a killing machine and thats what short-term summons are for

Permenant trained animals should be a Bosmer racial ability.

Maybe under my system the most powerful daedra should only last a minute or two then (at high level Conjuration) so it feels like you are using a resource when calling on them.

Most of Oblivion conjure spells were linked to daedra right? I can't recall.. The thing is Necromancy doesn't look very different from your normal conjure spells, there was no real reanimating dead thing because you would just simply conjure undead out of dust, there was no corpse required.

So it seems people don't really care much for having companions or not or even how they could work! (i'm sorry, i just really wanted to discuss this )

How about a summonable storage chest to store loot, rather than having to carry it all around with you.