Hi everyone, firstly I'd just like to say I'm having a blast playing Fallout 4, I love it; thank you so much Bethesda for creating yet another amazing RPG. I can't wait to see what else you bring to Fallout 4 in the near future.

After playing for over thirty hours, I have one huge pet peeve for me that really distracts me from the game regarding some of the companions that I've found so far and I really hope someone at Bethesda can read this and carry on this message to see if you can add this in a future patch.

For the example about my issue, I'm going to use the companion 'Piper' (don't worry I won't go into details about her or any other companion to avoid potential spoilers for people who haven't met her yet), she has a home in Diamond City with her little sister. After letting her join my travels and getting to know her, I really liked her and my character even ended up actually getting together with her. I have one minor complaint about the companions so far; they're all too interesting and good! Every time I meet someone knew I want to dismiss my other companion to get to know them better but I get torn because I want to know my current companion better also! Anyway, after travelling with her for a while, I met another interesting companion, and I wanted to get to know him.

This other companion also happens to have a home in Diamond City, so I assume when I dismiss him the same issue will happen with Piper, but after dismissing Piper for the new companion, it gave me options on where to send Piper. I could send her to one of my several settlements including Sanctuary. No where on that list was her home in Diamond City, which is where I would prefer her to go when I'm not using her as she will be easier to find when I want her again instead of having to hunt around Sanctuary for 5-10 minutes to find her. Since I'm in a relationship with her now, I wouldn't even mind sending her to my own house in Diamond City, but as she has a little sister to look after, I would prefer to send her to her own home.

So what I'm asking Bethesda is if you could please patch in the game sometime in the future the option to send companions back to their own homes (if they have one of course) instead of only settlements you own. I would also like the option to send certain companions to your personal homes like the ones you have romanced or preferably for me; sending Codsworth to my home in Diamond City because personally I would prefer for Codsworth to look after my personal home while I'm away instead of patroling Sanctuary.

I hope everyone who reads this agrees with me and please if you can help Bethesda see this post and help hopefully making this a reality, I would feel a lot happier about dismissing certain companions. I just really feel uncomfortable about leaving some companions at my random settlements when they have a perfectly easy to find them home somewhere else more convenient and that makes more sense.

Thanks a lot for reading, I hope everyone is having as much of a blast I am playing Fallout 4. Time to head back to the Commonworth!

Adding a TL;DR version:

Please allow us to send companions back to their own home if they have one instead of forcing us to send them to one of our settlements. I would also like to send others to like Codsworth for e.g. to my home in Diamond City.

Using Piper again as a shorter example, she has a little sister she looks after and lives with. It makes more sense for me to dismiss her to her own home so she can look after her sister and she will be easier to find when I want to take her out again.

After about 20 hours of game play I now have a "collection" of old followers all congregating at my red rocket base. WOW I am not going to accept any more followers now if that is the case as it is WAY TOO crowded at red rocket now!

Dogmeat is all I really want with me in this game anyway.

How did this not get noticed by Beth in the playtesting?

I hope more people will voice the same opinion so Bethesda can add in the options to send followers to their own home. I've found a few more companions now who I'm yet again forced to send to one of my settlements when they could be somewhere where they belong that makes much more sense. I remember Todd Howard saying the whole settlement feature is a completely optional part in the game but it just doesn't feel that way to me if I'm being forced to send companions away to settlements I can't be bothered to fortify just yet. I just want them to go to their own home so it's much more convenient to find them. Not to mention it makes more sense in some cases like I've said.

It's wierd you can't send follower backk to where they are from it makes little sense for some follower to leave to one of your settlements

Yeah, just noticed this - Bethesda please fix this

Thank you! I made a thread on this last night but nobody responded. It bugs the hell out of me that the only option after recruiting companions is to have them leave their homes forever. Piper runs a business and takes care of her kid sister for goodness sake! It makes no sense for her to just permanently the abandon all of that just to take up a life of farming or whatever the hell else we decide to make her do for our settlements.

I see what you are saying and it is kinda weird they all just live where you tell them to but did you know they defend your settlements? I look at them as top of the line defenders with the best gear and all

I'm at about the same the point and totally agree. It's a shame because to my surprise, I think they've really done a great job with the characters, but they are basically treated as your property as soon as they travel with you.

Although, does Nick count as a proper companion? Because he went back to the agency and I didn't even see an option to "collect" him.

He does, and all of the companions do that if you never send them to one of your settlements at least once. Unfortunately, once you've done it once, they will never go home again.

When I swapped out Nick for Dogmeat, I only had the option to send him to one of my established settlements, which was frustrating at the time because he's got a business to run and I'd like to let him go back to it.

But what's more frustrating now is that I want to bring him with me again, and I can't find him anywhere! I sent him to Sanctuary, but I've been all over town twice and he's not there, nor did he go back to his home. I wish there were some kind of way to check your inactive companions' locations.

It's situations like that where I would really prefer most of my companions return to their own home instead of being forced to go to one of our settlements. Especially if you haven't bothered getting into settlement building yet so you're basically sending them to a dangerous inhabitable place. In this case you could just return to Diamond City and walk into Nick's office since he's a private investigator and it's his job when he's not travelling with us.

I know they help defend settlements which is cool in all but honestly for an immersive thing for me, I would prefer they go back to their homes and I have random settlers in my settlements. So far all the companions I've had the pleasure of meeting have all been really interesting and quite well fleshed out, they're not my personal slaves that I can tell them to abandon their former lives and live in one of my settlements. It really bugs me and I hope Bethesda allows us the option to send them home in the near future. I haven't been taking any more companions because I don't want to be forced to send them away when I want to dismiss them.

Thanks for all the replies everyone, I'm really hoping enough people voice their concern with being unable to send companions back to their personal homes so we'll hopefully get it in a future patch.

I did, at least, find Nick again in the end. Because he was involved in my next main-plot quest, he'd actually gone to the location of that quest even though I'd sent him to Sanctuary. As frustrating as that was, it does make sense, as otherwise sending a companion away would potentially break a quest they were associated with.

So, if anyone else is having trouble finding a companion, consider whether they were involved in an active quest, and check the next stop on that quest.