Your thoughts on all these follower mods?

[DashingKnight]

As an author of Follower Mods I take personal offense to this topic.

[fraquar]

Pretty much any follower that switches between melee and ranged is pretty much useless to me. Does no good to work out a tactic to take down the enemy and your follower does the exact opposite. For that reason, if I do use a follower I pretty much just use 2-hander charge type followers like Hoth and Stenvar - same tactic every time, no surprises - even if it's a suicide charge (Hoth vs 6 Falmer in Liar's Retreat).

 

Oh, and Victoria Secret style followers have no place in medieval Skyrim.

[MidevalGuy]

First, I third (or fourth, or fifth!) the sentiment all these Anime-style "hot chick" follower reskins/meshes are just dumb, IMO.

 

I'm not disparaging the artistic and technical effort that went into making them, but it's obvious (to me) the authors probably made them because they are most likely adolescent (or early 20s) males who aren't that good with the real thing, yet. Now, this doesn't apply to every mod author, obviously, but there is enough evidence to suggest this isn't an unfair generalization, either.

 

Second, players have to realize the limitations of the game's engine.

 

The biggest complaint about vanilla Skyrim is the game is too easy because the AI is so basic you can glitch, exploit or just out think it unlike other games where the AI is more advanced. OK, fine. If players know this, then they should install mods that do their best to correct and enhance the game's AI... And there are plenty of those kinds of mods on the Nexus that effect both friendly and enemy NPCs if players are willing to look for and install them.

 

Third, I use followers early in the game for support since your main character is relatively weak and he/she needs some of the heat from enemies taken off them so they can build up their skills.

 

I use AFT (Amazing Follower Tweaks) that addresses a lot of the complaints leveled in this thread e.g. ATF allows an "invisible" mode for your followers when you are sneaking, so the enemy AI won't detect them AND they won't attack enemies unless the player is hit, or detected. AFT also has a plug-in that makes them ignore friendly fire/spells damage/hits, too. So, if you are a Mage, you can just spam as many destruction spells as possible without worrying about accidentally killing them. AFT also allows all followers to be set as "essential" as well. Some may consider this immersion-breaking compared to permadeath, but this goes back to accepting the limitations of the AI and sacrificing realism in favor of less frustration and multiple restarts due to the followers incompetence and not your own.

 

However, there comes a point late-game where you are so God-like followers become a real hindrance and are best left at home watching the kid(s) and hearthfires. This is the point where you don't need them to distract enemy mobs anymore because you can just Fus Do Rah them en masse and then follow it up with your dual flaming Dedric swords that do 212 damage each, for example.

 

Fourth, most of the vanilla followers in Skyrim sans Serana are devoid of any real personality whatsoever. They are robots in every sense of the word, and I use them in precisely the manner I described above a.k.a. Drugar and Bandit magnets. If it wasn't for Lara Bailey, and the enhanced Serana mods that improve her combat AI, I wouldn't use any followers whatsoever because that is how boring and annoying they are.

[mikejaxer]

I tend to only use follower mods if they have a custom voice, a background or personality of some kind.

And have to look interesting.

[thomriis]

I use the ufo mod mostly to have followers guarding my no less than 12 houses , They cook , Clean and babysit my children.

 

Especially vilkas who won 1# price for best cabbage stew in whole Falkreath (yummy)

 

Im always accompanied by at least 2 protecting me on legendary setting, But none of these silly lolita manga types which totally ruins immersion.

[Faelrin]

I either stick to the vanilla followers or any of my characters that I've made into followers. In other words I usually just ignore follower mods. And the main reason I even use followers is to use them as a pack mule, unless I just want some company while exploring, which is seldom anyways.

[Indigoblade]

I don't really mind the companion modding scene too much... usually if I am looking for a mod of a particular type I just check out the top 100 mods of each category, and If I really feel like digging I can go into the 101-200 placed mods of each category and start picking from there. But OP if you are truly sick of a type of mod dominating the scene, then make your own mod that dominates the followers, I felt the same way about NPCs section only filled with beautiful facelift mods over actual content mods, 7 months later my content mod is on the top 20 list of NPC related mods that really adds to the game...

[PsYchotic666Joker]

I really enjoy followers that add in a ton of features and quests and not just a "install and go to location and get them" type.

 

I have Vilya, Atvir, cerwiden and i think a couple others i can't fully remember as i have been away from skyrim for a few months now.

 

I have used Hoth and the like but never really used them too much, oh and Valfar.

 

different playthroughs i will use different ones, or sometimes i will just take all and then have fun for awhile haha, then when i'm done i will have then wait around my house mods or w/e and look like a military base or something lol. gotta have my lands protected from dragons and bandits trying to raid my place.