Is anyone else annoyed that as soon as an enemy is 15ft away, followers will switch to a crappy hunting bow? I know you can give them better bows, but that isn't the point. Bethesda seriously needs to allow us to command our companions to use ranged or melee attacks. I hate it when my followers that I intend to be tanks stand back and use a bow. Conversely, I hate it when Aela the Huntress switches to her melee weapon.

Is it too much to ask to get a basic "Use melee/ranged" option for your followers?

I agree say F12 would be great, also let us decide what armour etc they wear. I hate to say it but games that open a menu and then have you slot items are so much nicer for this!

I'm not normally one to bash Bethesda, but they've actually removed the feature from Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, so this complaint is pretty justified.

Because they don't want to die?

Having a ranged offense, I actually wish my follower would use her bow MORE. So many times she just charged in, while I move around trying to get a good angle on the enemy and avoid killing her.

Lydia never uses her bow though... I wonder if your using the pro wood elf archer wild hunter(riverwood)... obviously he is using his bow

Except that some followers are terrible with a bow and it would make sense for them to charge the enemy.

Mine does, guess it depends on what you give her. My guess is that if you give her a 2-hander she will play more agressively and might not use a bow that much, as I said my current Lydia is only equipped with a one-hander and a bow and she will be using the bow until the enemy comes right up in her face.

Most followers have bow skills + block skills, no matter what archetype they are.

This happens with all followers, including Lydia. She uses her bow constantly in my game.

The female Dark Brotherhood Initiate uses her dagger.

Furthermore, I should be able to remove their crappy hunting bow from their inventory. I hate all of the forced handholding Bethesda put into the game, because god forbid our companions might not be able to hit dragons.

Based on my experience Lydia does seem to be pretty intuitive. When we get the drop on a band of enemies she does start with the bow, but if she has a clear path she will close the distance and switch to melee. If there isn't a clear path (i.e. stairs or cliffs in the way) and the enemy is using range she will continue to use range as well until the enemy stops using range themself, which usually requires me to close the distance myself to get the enemy to switch to melee.

My problem with her using her bow is that as she gets pelted with arrows they become a part of her inventory. She then equips the highest grade arrow she was recently shot with and uses her stupid hunting bow, even though she has an upgraded and enchanted ebony bow in her inventory. To get her to use the better bow I have to actively manage her arrow inventory so she has absolutly no arrows in her inventory. It's a bother that I can't maximize her ranged output because she will either use ebony arrows with her hunting bow or iron arrows with her ebony bow.