Ok. So, as long as you remain a loner who doesn't really want to go out of his way to help people, you can get pretty damn far in this game with very little challenge from enemies (at least with no fear of dying). But then you decide to be a nice guy and help certain impersonators and their certain robot dogs or pick up certain followers who have certain spontaneous desires to travel somewhere on the map a sensible person would never travel and you now have a problem on your hands... if you play on hardcoe. You see, your followers are not only dumb as rocks in battles, but they expose your position to early and they're weak as hell. So, if you really want to complete one of their missions as a kind gesture, you have a bit of an issue actually keeping the idiots alive in order to complete their pet missions.

The only damn time I put myself in glaringly obvious precarious positions is on these missions, so far. I've actually reloaded a few times because those idiots get themselves killed. Gaahhh. It's frustrating to say the least. Rant over.