Why are people defending faulty game mechanics?

NPC's should not become hostile from buffing or healing.
End of.

I've done the same healing a town guard while he was fighting a dragon. I thought he'd be happy that I didn't just stand there and let him die but next thing I know, I'm being arrested after the dragon was killed.

Something tells me Bethesda didn't flag benevolent spells and destructive ones separately so any spell is classed as an attack.

Well I do have this weird thing going on where Lydia yells "I'M ON YOUR SIDE MORON" when I use healing hands on her..

EDIT: speaking of, that might also explain why in my last playthrough I was arrested several times, even though I did absolutely nothing, I couldn't even do it by accident considering I only kill wild life and enter the town only for a short period of time that takes me to trade off loot.

Why not? How do they know what you just casted on them. If an NPC is indifferent toward you or has a low disposition towards you it makes perfect sense that any spell cast on them would turn them hostile.

This was my thought. I had a similar experience fighting off hired thugs by the Solitude stables. Next thing I know, the guards have joined the fight against me, and I have a bounty on my head. Time to reload a thankfully recent save.

Courage is NOT usually considered an attack. Running round a town casting courage on everyone is a standard exploit to grind illusion skill.

Could be you dissed the imperials off in the past, or you chose to join the stormcloaks?

Because its faulty game mechanics.
Healing hands is supposed to be cast on others.
As pointed out, even followers object when you use it on them.

It most certainly does not make 'perfect sense'.

This...is a pretty good point. See, it's for responses like this that I post on these forums

Well a follower isn't and NPC with a low disposition toward you so maybe read things through before you comment because thats not what I said. Yes healing hands is supposed to be cast on others but that doesn't mean they will accept you casting it on them.

Casting courage on an NPC in battle could be considered an attack because you have taken away that NPC's ability to flee. So now if they are losing the will die instead of being able to run. So casting it on a calm npc wouldnt be considered an attack but casting it on a npc in combat could.

Hadn't really started the civil war yet, though in the process of talking to Tullius for the "Missing in Action" quest I did say that I wanted to fight for the legion (for what it's worth). As for those immediate legionaires, they hadn't shooed me off or anything, they had just ignored me up until that point.

Weirdly, I just had a tangential but vaguely similar experience.

A couple of wolves were attacking some goats, so as I ran up I cast courage on one of the goats - it may as well go down fighting, right? Now I already knew that for some odd reason if you cast courage on general wildlife it makes it hostile - for some inexplicable reason bunnies, deer and goats are itching to attack you but lack the balls. So I wasn't that surprised when the goat ran over and attacked me in its pitiful goat way, despite having a wolf on its heels. What was odd was that the two other goats in the immediate vicinity also became hostile - I've never seen that before and don't understand how that happened. I felt really bad killing them, but their ineffectual butting was becoming annoying.

If that were true, the spell's broken - combat is exactly what it's for.

So you want to buff your enemies then....

Sure, makes perfect sense.
In a melee someone I dont like very much heals me and saves me from dying.
Now I want to kill him.

Quit defending faulty game mechanics.

Cuz you're gonna know he's healing you right? One who isn't a magic user yourself and probably disdains magic users. If you just think for a second. Let's say your character is wandering around and gets attacked by a frost troll. You start fighting it and, meanwhile, some mage that you aren't familiar with wanders up to you and casts a spell on you (you obviously wouldn't know which one at the time). Chances are, you'd immediately turn and start attacking the magic user. Stop defending the kneejerk "it's broken" mantra that usually follows without thinking through a scenario very well. Oh wait, you're one of the kneejerkers. Nevermind.

When a mechanic is glaringly broken, it's broken. But this scenario is completely feasible. You're just finding another thread to turn into a complainers bandwagon, dude. It's what you're good at.

I dont even know how to begin to reply. I will smugly mention that Im not going to adress the ad hominem, because it makes me feel all tingly inside to stay the high ground.

Look its quite obviously a bug, or something missed in design.
Its not supposed to work this way. It makes no sense. It has never worked this way before.

The amount of people bending themselves through hoops to defend what is clearly a faulty game mechanic is staggering.
What is even your motivation for doing so?

I don't know which patch started it, but if i heal people being attacked *especially the wandering bard* they will attack me... It's pretty annoying and stupid.

I attacked some giant west of Whiterun and ran back towards town. The only ones that tried to help where the Khajiit Traders before they ran away. So you have 2 giants chasing me and the killed poor old Lilith and all the guards did was watch and say this should be good.


By the by... good little trick is to hide in the rooms in the wall and pick them off with magic or arrows. Finally killed them while taking no damage to meself.

That's more of an issue and I agree that the guards should be more aggressive when they witness giants running around killing civilians. But the OP was with regard to a specific situation which certain people, who do way too much complaining, considered to be totally impossible... which it wasn't.

I had an experience like this yesterday. I was walking (over-encumbered, along with my follower) towards Whiterun from near Rorikstead, and was bored. So I started casting Magelight on everything and anything: rocks, trees, animals, a trio of Stormcloaks I was following, whatever.

Then I come across that wandering Tolfdir(?) character, and my Magelight turns him hostile. I just keep walking, and he's being set upon by my dog, my follower, my Flame Atronach, two Stormcloaks (one got killed by a Sabrecat), and a farmer "heading for Windhelm to join up with the Stormcloaks - Ulfric has the right of it!".

Now, for whatever reason, the guy is marked as essential... so he kneels instead of dying. And gets back up, attacks, yadda yadda.

Eventually I walked past the scene, and my entourage came with me. I didn't see more of the Stormcloaks, though, so I guess they kept beating the poor guy up?!

Pretty sure this has been around since launch day. My incident with the paranoid Stormcloak soldier was back in the days of 1.2, if not earlier. It seems primarily to affect "quasi-friendly" NPCs: in other words, NPCs that should in theory be friendly toward you, but aren't in a follower faction. I think the fact that they aren't following you is what makes them more paranoid about spell-casting; there's no code telling them that hey, you're on the same side, so this spell that's just been cast on them is a-OK.

I think creating an AI that can recognize and adapt to all the variables in that kind of scenario is a little beyond modern games programming. You'd have to create situational awareness or something like that (in order to recognize that the PC is friendly, is casting a harmless/"friendly" spell, etc.). And if there's one thing NPCs in TES games don't have, it's situational awareness.

Had the same thing happen coming out of the Ratway in Riften... let's just say someone was waiting around for me with malicious intent. I had my bow equipped so when I realized I was going to be attacked I tried to get a shot in before they got too close. It missed and there must've been a guard walking a beat up on the walkway behind the assassin who got hit instead. Suddenly every guard in the vicinity wanted my head on a platter.

Well i healed Aranea that was kneeling down after taking abeating from a Frost Troll, and she said "I hope you're not expecting a thank you.". I wonder if she expected having to trek rigth back at her mountain?

Never used courage, come to think of it, so i don't know how people react to that.

And i've casted Magelight at many a guard and neutral NPC, even the precious chickens, and no one has even commented on it much less attacked me.

Er no. Courage and Healing Hands are positive spells to be used on allies. If either turn friendly NPCs hostile, they are malfunctioning. And no amount of people trying to rationalise it away with incoherent 'explanations' changes that.