I'm fine with protected character, that only the player can kill. But I wouldn't want any character in the game to be essential. Immortal's okay, if they're a ghoul.

Play fallout 3 with companions on, they die so fast. Keeping companions essential is a pretty good idea or just make them powerful enough to not get killed so damn fast.

I am sure it has been mentioned a few times, but tie it to toggle-able option or game mode. Problem solved.

I voted yes, because I just reload the game if my companion dies. And before anyone says anything about new or casual gamers, I've been reloading saves after companions deaths since Ultima 6. That's over 25 years now.

I like them immortal but it's okay if they take a knee or go unconscious during a fight and then maybe require some medical aid to get back up. Then I'm still punished if they get in a bad way but I don't have to reload.

I always just end up reloading when they die.

Pfff.. noob

I actually do the same thing with my stupid companions. Especially Skyrim. I can't count how many time Lydia would run between the enemy and myself and I'd end up putting an arrow through her head. Okay, so maybe it was my fault. I ended up taking away her weapons and gave her a bow. Problem solved.

Yep, all it takes.

That worked out pretty well in New Vegas.

The option for players who did want it in Fallout 3 was to use console commands or mods. Turn about is fair, especially as mods are likely coming to the consoles.

I want a companion who takes too much damage to no longer be able to contribute to the fight in which the damage occurred, but not for them die.

I think they should be immortal on normal and lower difficulty settings. Personally I just use them as extra bag space and I don't want to have to reload every time they die because they saw a deathclaw somewhere far off camera and wanted to go say hello. But I understand not wanting to make the harder difficulties meaningless because immortal meat sponge is with you so they should be mortal for those runs. If they are mortal on all difficulties I hope they improved their AI and combat over FO3. Every mortal follower except Fawkes just died almost instantly in any end game combat the melee ones were especially useless.

Edit for clarity: when I say Immortal they should still go unconscious and fall over if they run out of HP. Just have them get up again when the fight is over. I just don't want to accidentally kill a traveling companion I enjoy spending time with because I wanted to use my flamer. Or make multiple trips to retrieve their share of the loot because they wanted to duke it out with a deathclaw.

It doesn't matter. This is easily fixed either way with mods/console commands. Rather easy to turn the flag on/off.

I voted indifferent as to what Beth does, though I think choice is a good thing. For myself I almost always play with followers as essential. I don't see the game as something to 'win' and I don't care if followers 'steal' the kills, though I use mods to add more enemies to offset that. I rarely play without followers and don't want to reload when they go down. When followers go down in combat I prefer that they stay down until combat is over. The Phalanx mod for FO3 overhauled the vanilla followers to do just that and I also did that with my own follower mod.

That option wasn't available to the vast audience that was on consoles, and it doesn't need to be explained why people on console didn't do it by other means. But as you say, doesn't matter anymore considering mods are coming to consoles.

Pretty much this. Immortal doesn't necessarily have to mean unstoppable.

I think they've already said they will be more involved in the questlines. That being said, companions should also have their own stories, and whether you choose to help them or not creates dual pathways, one of which is where they leave on their own anyway. Maybe you rescue them later, maybe you find them dead! Consequences.... Other touches would be allowing them to alternate armor and weaponry (from what you've asked them to carry) on their own depending what the challenge and levels or progression you are facing. And depending on your charisma they might have different dialogue options, or there's the other perks such as ladykiller etc. that can set a tone. Really would like to so see something closer to sentience rather than pack mules.... Heaven forbid we should hear, " hey look, there's an old bunker, wonder what's inside?" just after you've cleaned it out thoroughly...

There can be only one.

New Vegas did it best.

Companions were immortal except on hardcoe mode, where they could die. hardcoe mode was very awesome, but not something to do on your first playthrough.

sort of depends if they fixed the followers AI wich i highly doubt

nothing is more frustrated in almost every ES or FO game than your followers constantly setting off traps , mines or just stupidly charging towards the enemy or the worse thing standing in a dorrway and refusing to move

No Immortal NPC's, that includes Followers. While New Vegas protected Followers outside of hardcoe mode, it also didn't in hardcoe mode. If a Character dies well, that just happens and would add immersion and sadness. Having the character be immortal would make it unrealistic. Like for example you run into a pack of Deathclaws, you should die and your follower too. It shouldn't be a situation of, "Oh I'll just let the deathclaws attack my follower while I loot and throw a stealth boy, knowing that my follower won't die". To me it's not realistic to have that kind of system in place at all IMO.

I wouldn't say it adds value but I'd just rather not have to reload after a particularly tough fight because I find the mangled corpse of my companion. I am one of those people who will save a bunch of time not having to reload because of a dead companion.

I could see it being an option though for people who don't like it.

If they are unable to make proper cNPC's that aren't [censored] up by the AI or what ever else quirk that can't for [insert a reason] be fixed, they shouldn't be making any and putting their focus elsewhere. The player not being able to take the loss isn't their problem, but that their [censored] works is.

Eh, when Veronica dies in every single fight at the Dam battle, because she's an idiot who charges right into each group of OP Legion dudes, it just emphasizes that you're playing a game with terrible AI & companion mechanics. Not a lot of "sadness" or "immersion" there. (Of course, if one was playing with companion death, you wouldn't have seen any of that past the first fight, unless you got caught in a reload loop where you never got past the first fight at all.... no sadness/immersion, just frustration.)

I can't say it better.

That's an asinine statement and you know it, BGS is in way too deep by giving players the choice to have companions for them to stop now.
The sheer volume of people arguing for companions to be "unkillable" or to have better AI mechanics should tell you there'd be an outrage if they didn't implement companions.

Did ever occur to you that videogames primary function is for a person to relieve stress and have fun and not to cause legitimate frustration, but wait I forgot your a more "mature" gamer and back in your day rabble rabble rabble

I'm surprised you could even read that post. It was almost unintelligible to me. [censored] this, [censored]that, [censored] the other thing.... I guess it's too much to expect some people to write thoughtfully and intelligently these days.

You could set Veronica to ranged, even though she will complain about it, she is pretty good with an energy weapon. Being able to set these in New Vegas helped compensate a little for the AI.

For what it's worth, I usually take Boone or Arcade for the final battle. If you do their personal story (either one) they have some really good armor that helps their survival rate. And of course they only 'really' die on hardcoe mode.

The player not being able to handle essential NPCs is also not their problem. That's a two way street.