there are so many things wrong with the implementations of the companions that their coolness is overshadowed by how completely frustrating they are to have around.

First of all the companion wheel doesn't even work considering it seems all of your companion's AI are set to "do whatever I want to do regardless of player input." I'm always opening it back up to make boone re-equip his rifle because for some reason he just has to have that machete ready to go.

Or the fact that even though i have the set to passive they still immediately run and attack the first enemy they see. The worst offender of this is ED-E who will run half way across the map to attack rad scorpions while I'm sneaking past a group of deathclaws.

They have no sense of self preservation. Veronica will run into a group of sentries and get killed before she even gets to them, again while she is set to passive mode. Even the enemy AI has a better sense of self preservation than the companions

Has anyone else gotten the glitch where Lily repeats the line "don't worry deary, grandma knows how to stay quiet" every ten seconds while sneaking? yeah that is a fun one.

The worst part is when THEY JUST DISAPPEAR.

It's kinda sad that the best way to use a companion is put them in your group and tell them to wait in your house so you can still have their perk...

I use em as pack mules.

Companions are okay IMO. I think they were added in part to allow people who like to focus on non-combat skills like Speech to get through the game without dying.
Lily's sneaking comments were put in there because she doesn't have a sneak animation, so the player needs some other cue to tell them she is sneaking. Duct tape exists in the game but it doesn't appear to work on her.
ED-E's pathfinding has been broken for me since upgrading him; he pops up next to me every time I enter a new area and patiently waits at the same spot while I go kill stuff. He is only kept around for his perk.
Companions attacking in passive mode seems to depend on detection. They don't seem to attack enemies while I am sneaking and undetected, but will attack an enemy as soon as it has detected me.

Never use companions apart from Dogmeat (but he aint in this game )

No but rex is go get him from the King.

This. Essentially on aggressive they'll go after whoever as soon as they see them. This is bad wieth ED-E because he sees everything. Yes, even what you did last night in the closet. On passive they only attack if something sees you.

However I've had ED-E +1 for most of my play time and I've really had no issue. I do a ton of sneaking and all my companions have done fine.

Companions might be great if they weren't glitched all to heck.

As it is I just park mine in a motel room. :cryvaultboy:

How do you send them to your safehouse?! I did it once and now I cannot get the option. Some one please tell me how.

No, but Veronica keeps asking if she has to "take that thing away from me" nearly every time I shoot at something. Whee?

After I Veronica kept prompting the dialog menu, simply saying "whats up?"

I then told her we had to part ways...and I went back to the lucky 38 and picked up Boone, who had somehow taken the weapons I had given to Veronica...He was a pain in the ass in the final fight as well...I expected him to be sniping everybody, but for some reason he had the urge to use a 9mm pistol. I opened up his inventory to take it away from him and found over 30 assault carbines and hunting rifles...

I was like, "Boone, buddy! Why you holdin' out on me?!"

This is a kind of a digression, so excuse me for that.

Given the suicidal bravery that all followers display, what does the character's "nerve" actually do?

Character nerve is pretty much their stats. The higher your charisma the higher then nerve and in return.. more companion dmg and hp. There all still pretty stupid though :/... i use em in hardcoe for a meat shield and when they die i find another. If they all die then oh well . So far im using Boone and he's been holding up on his end pretty nicely... hasn't died in the past 10 hours of play time! I also, don't mind them being stupidely agressive since im playing an unarmed character that likes to kill random [censored] along it's quest for power!

I hated companions in F3 and I hate them in NV. It just doesn't feel very genuine having people follow you around the wasteland, I feel like it's supposed to be more of a solitary experience and its diluted by having a person running around with you.

I do like making them wait but taking advantage of their perks though.

Well... you could take all melee weapons away...

Or you know... Take guns better then his away...

And the only reason he is attacking is because that certain enemy is looking for you or has detected you, so it registers as "Oh look hes engaged in combat time to pull the machete out!" Same for ED-E but his perception is super high so he pretty much registers enemies across the Mojave.


Do not blame them for charging just because they think your engaged in combat or can can sense the enemies are looking for you... At least that's what I think is the problem for you..


Personally I have had no problems like this at all with any of my companions.

So happy trails! Or you know.... Glitchy trails! :celebration:

ai pathfinding is horrible... i left boone somwhere, and idk where, and i dont care.

I wish that there was a "self-defence" AI setting, where they would try to run and take cover as a first response, and then only engage the specific enemies attacking them if they had to.

At the moment the eyebot, set to "passive", does killer criticals and sets enemies of fire while I am still trying to figure out where the enemies are. It took me a while to figure out that "passive" actually means "uncontrollable predator".

No biggy. The game still rules.

Like in Fallout 3, the companions like to pull out their melee weapon randomly when there is an enemy that detects us that he can't see. They like to grab their melee weapon, slowly walk towards it, and then when they find it, switch back. Very rarely have they actually stuck with using the melee weapons for more than a second, at least for me.

I haven't had much issues with the companions except for some reason Boone seemed to come with aggressive on instead of passive. So when I got into the Repconn Test Site he took off like a bat out of hell and ED-E in hot pursuit. I was trying to chase them down and loot at the same time, it was annoying and hilarious, I was following a wave of death. They do like to stand exactly where I want to be though.

I have noticed that 7 or 8 times out of 10 when I crouch (mostly for better shooting accuracy) Boone pulls out the machete. I don't know if he wants to not blow the cover of sneak or what.

All I will say is I would never in a million years have made it through Scorpion Gulch alive at level 10 without them.

Yeah I I really liked Rex's perk but the little mutt insisted on running (faster than me I might add so it's not like I can catch up and save his ass) to every enemy in the vicinity and biting them until they unloaded their clips/claws/whatever till he was dead, losing me my precious perk. Passive/Agressive mode is useless. It seems to be based on the enemies detection on YOU. it SHOULD be based (passive at least) on the enemy damaging you. when they start firing, THAT's a better reason for the morons to throw themselves to their death. but whem I'm walking through the waste land must boone snipe every [censored] living thing? or Rex run off and kill anything that doesn't smell like player?

It's an improvement over fallout 3's npc's but the inherent flaws are still there. This was one of their selling points for the game, and I think they overestimated how people would feel about them.

The biggest problem I had is when I put a combat knife in Veronica's inventory. She started using that instead of her ballistic fist. Then, there was the time after I completed a quest where she wouldn't move. It didn't matter that I dismissed her and recruited her again. I had to reload to a previous save.

I've been running around on my own, in a new playthrough, for 10 levels. It's been about the same as with a companion. I compensated for the lack of firepower by avoiding fights I couldn't win.

I love companions.. allows me to fully develop speech, lockpick and science. Guns is my highest skill at 28 and the rest are sub-20 and I do fine thanks to Boone and Ed-E :foodndrink:

I feel the same, but I don;t even want ED-E's perk because it takes away any chance of enemies surprising me. I don't need a satillite lol. I like to get companions and leave them in my home town or guarding my abandoned tent or whatever. I like lesser perks though, for them. ED-E's is wayyyyy too good just for having him as a companion. They make the game too easy, but then on the other hand they just run off and die for no reason, and this makes me feel it was so pointless and this influences me to reload from my last save, which I hate doing. So ya....they should make companions SMARTER and less powerful.

Also the dev's should fix that glitch where NPC's will comment on your companion even if you didn't bring them with you. Seems silly and easy to fix. By all rights companion perks should only be in effect if they are not Waiting somewhere else.

Yes, they are horribly unbalanced and horribly buggy and the disappearing thing is really bad. Their patheticness is severely inhibiting my ability to enjoy the game. I was very hopeful that they would be much improved over the FO3 companions, and although they do have nicely written backgrounds, and stories, and quests, the problems are driving me batty. I've already modded my own NPC follower to start correcting for a lot of their shortcomings and plan to do another. I'm bitterly disappointed in them.

I actually miss Jericho, he's my favourite companion of all time (Cassidy comes close though)