Ok, so the whole thing about having followers, a horse, a war dog, etc. is cool and all... until you realize that any attack from you can hurt them. I can't tell you how many times I've been fighting really tough enemies and after I finish I notice I accidentally killed one of my followers (same with dogs). It makes no sense whatsoever for there to be friendly damage on in the middle of a fight. Sure, the option can be left to attack/kill them outside of combat, but while I am fighting stuff I don't want to have to worry about accidentally killing a follower or a dog.

A similar problem... chain lightning jumps to FRIENDLIES too. I gave a chain lightning staff to a follower and while he was using it it hit my war dog and then the dog and him started fighting *each other*. Absurd.

I just noticed this, but the fact that the "Storm Call" shout damages neutrals or friendlies while in combat is absolutely HORRIBLE. It makes this otherwise awesome shout completely and totally USELESS. A dragon started attacking a little town and so I thought to myself "eat lightning dragon!". After I did the shout I had ended up with a bounty of ***3000**** gold in that area (the lightning from my shout killed THREE neutrals in less than TEN SECONDS).

Honestly, this is my absolute biggest complaint for this game. It may be fixed sometime, but I am very far into the game and I don't want to have to stop and wait a few months before playing it again. I understand it is impossible to eliminate all bugs/quirks from such a big game, but being able to damage friendlies during combat (ESPECIALLY with the storm call shout) is such a big part of the game I am upset that it was not corrected before the game was released. I almost wish I would not have purchased the game and had just rented it.

Be careful where and when you cast it, if you can't keep your followers out the way, then don't use that spell.


It's an AOE shout, it's supposed to do that.

It makes sense that hitting a follower with a sword or casting a spell at them will hurt them. If you can't be careful, then don't use followers.

The storm call shout tells you that it hurts friendlies as well as foes in the game......

This.

How terrible would it be for immersion if you took a swing at your followers and...nothing happend?

I know how you feel, that is why I became a lone wolf. No more followers for me, the game is back to awesome again.

I agree totally, it's really annoying having to restart missions several times because you've accidentally killed your follower. Especially as they die really easily and sometimes you don't even realise straight away. One blow from my sword now can kill my follower, which is especially annoying when you're trying to hit an enemy that's attacking them and you're just trying to save them.

It doesn't help that the collision detection is awful either. Many times I've "killed" my follower even though it was clear that my sword was nowhere near them. You shouldn't be able to kill them at all, it really ruins the immersion when you have to keep reloading the same dungeon over and over again just because they've died yet again. I even equipped my follower, Ria, with massively improved armour but it made no difference whatsoever, she still dies just as easily and as often.

This is why I've never used a follower in this game except when absolutely required as part of a quest. Even in other ES games if I was supposed to escort someone through some dungeon or whatever I'd always go into the dungeon and clear it out before talking to them. Just makes life so much easier.

Lydia is the worst with the suicidal jump in front of me while my 2/2 dual fury is already in progress

This game gives you choice as to how you play the game in every other aspect so I see no reason why there can at least be an option.

"The storm call shout tells you that it hurts friendlies as well as foes in the game......" I suppose that it isn't a bug or a glitch then, just an absolutely awful design choice. If I am Dragonborn and have the magical ability to call a freaking thunderstorm with my voice you would think I would also be able to have it only affect enemies, just saying.

"Be careful where and when you cast it, if you can't keep your followers out the way, then don't use that spell.


It's an AOE shout, it's supposed to do that. It makes sense that hitting a follower with a sword or casting a spell at them will hurt them. If you can't be careful, then don't use followers."

So if I have a follower or there are any civilians around I just can't use storm atronachs or chain lightning anymore? That is absurd.

Just because it is an AOE shout doesn't mean that it has to kill your followers, your horse, your dog and/or almost ANY civilians in the area. If a dragon is attacking a town and I use it my bounty grows to about 4000 in 15 seconds. The only time where the shout is useful is when you're alone in the wilderness. "If you can't be careful, don't use followers". I'm sorry, but no. Instead of acknowledging mandatory (instead of optional) friendly fire as a design choice that a great number of people find annoying to say the least, you say the fix for it is to not use followers, pets or horses, all of which can be a large part of the game. People should learn to be a little objective about these sort of things instead of maintaining blind allegiance to Bethesda and defending their every wrong. I would hope that you would at least be able to acknowledge that the PS3 version of Skyrim can be difficult just to play because of lag and hard freezes.

"This. How terrible would it be for immersion if you took a swing at your followers and...nothing happend?"

I would say there wouldn't be that bad. Honestly, there are a lot of other things that hurt immersion that should be worked on. There are times when I have been fighting a dragon and people in the city are just walking around like nothing happened. Also, there are times where people have died (dragon attacks, etc.) and I go back to the town/city hours later and the bodies of the people's loved ones are still laying in the same spot where they died. The wife of the blacksmith in Riverwood walked up to his body hours and hours of gameplay later and was like "oh goodness what happened here?" and then proceeded to say "oh hello, blah blah blah, me and Alvor here, we've got a daughter". Also, the fact that it seems like nobody is in awe of you for being Dragonborn is silly. If you shout or kill a Dragon they say something, but then the next time you visit the area they act like nothing has ever happened. If it was immersive I would expect people [that wanted the Dragonborn to return] to remember and when you went into areas they would cheer for you or at least be like "what can I do for the Dragonborn!?". Heck, even a discount at some stores would be nice.

Also, another thing that isn't very immersive is the fact that your playable character doesn't even have a voice, you choose dialogue options from text windows like the game was from 2002. I'm sorry, but after games like Mass Effect 1 and 2 where conversations are interactive cutscenes you cannot call this immersive. Note that I am just saying that friendly fire wouldn't be nearly as bad for immersion as some of these things, I am NOT giving reasons for saying how bad the game is. **In fact, I actually like it quite a lot, despite it's flaws.***

"Nooooooo! Beth, please don't listen to these spoiled little 8 year olds. FF needs to stay on." So all of the people who disagree with you are automatically immature, idiots or both? I fail to see the logic behind that. If you were in fact mature, you would realize this is a very annoying game design choice for many people. If you and others want the "thrill" of having to avoid accidentally killing pets, civilians and followers then have at it, but there is a reason that escort missions are among the most hated in video games and this design choice shares many similarities. The most logical solution to this game design choice would be to give an option where you can turn friendly/neutral fire off only in battle, turn it off altogether, or leave it on all the time. That would make most everyone happy. You can go back to blindly defending Bethesda some more now.

jerseydevil: oh, Lydia was killed very early on while I was going through a cave of vampires. I had just started the game and didn't know that only the player could kill followers so I assumed the vampires had killed her and continued playing. I didn't even bother to get another follower until someone I know told me that only you could kill them because they were so weak. At least now that I'm level 66 I've got a new Thane who can take on two Draugr Deathlords by herself

LOL, i just let em fight, even send em forward to start the fight and pick off the enemies my folower is not fighting with.
Then when my follower is exhausted or defeated and kneels down to give up, the enemies left will attack me and i can fight them with no follower stepping in front of my blade, away from my follower.

I agree FF needs to stay ON.

Make it a toggle in settings...

Yeah I agree with anyone that says just live with it. The game is meant to immerse you with small details, and being able to hurt your followers is another detail. Having them be invincible would really take me out of it. Makes the cumbersome battle system a bit more challenging.

its amazing the willpower some people have. i know i wouldnt contrive a defense for this tacked-on, barely thought out feature if you put a gun to my head, but you guys are right there with no qualms whatsoever!

yes, in reality a sword to the face is a sword to the face no matter who it is, but also in reality you have a lot more control of where and how you attack and people are not nearly as suicidal and uncaring of where your swinging an axe. until games can implement the last 2 features, the first one needs to hit the bench as well. you cant just throw in whatever bits of realism technology allows and call a game immersive, everything needs to mesh with everything else to a reasonable degree, and as it stands the hack and slash combat, constantly moving enemies, completely lacking in self-preservation companions, and lack of friendly fire toggle do not mesh at all. i find it night impossible to believe you people can find the complete inability to fight cooperatively with the AI due to the game's limitations immersive just because your fireball burns them to.

People hitting their companions while using AOE spells in close combat have only themselves to blame. Fireball has a fifteen foot radius, so what do you expect when you use it on the guy with an axe standing right in front of you, with a companion close by? Stop button mashing and use appropriate close combat spells like firebolt ect. The reason chain lightning jumps is because its a spell for hitting two people at once, at long range, obviously, so stop using it on the odd skeever that crosses your path and complaining when the spell has nowhere else to go but right through your follower.

it's your fault. aoe spells got aoe effects.

and you could always just get a ranged follower

But how will I level my sneak on hadvar/arngeir?

If a follower jumps in front of me in a tight area I just wait until the enemy beats them down and I have a clear line of sight. As far as companion damage, I don't hire Marcurio for that reason. His shock spells have taken my heath down more than the enemy I'm fighting when he gets carried away (and starts hitting me).

You guys are talking about how it needs to stay on because of "immersion" yet none of you seem to remember that followers can only be killed by friendly (or stray fire). FF is okay, but chain lightning is just [censored] since it jumps through your friendlys, you'd think as an adept in Destruction magick I would be able to control a simple chain lightning...

There are Mods that do this (makes them essential).

The sad thing is, you can`t even tell them to wait and `stay out of the fight`.

What really needs doing is to upgraded Followers so that they can be told to `Stay back` or `use only long range weapons` to keep them out the fight.. Modders made better Followers in Oblivion and FO3 that do exactly this.

Kinda sad bethesda still haven`t figure it out yet.

I find that if you kill your followers regularly using ranged or magic-using followers works best since they stay out of the way.
I've learned how to deal with close up followers by aiming my arrows around them. If they do accidently die I reload, but that doesn't happen often. Don't forget to enchant their gear with magic and elemental resists, it helps them not only against friendly fire but against enemy casters as well...

Just give them giant heavy armour and you should be fine. I gave made my follower a set of dwarvern armour and i having had problems since.

About that shout and chain lightning, what if you *wanted* to kill someone who wasint attacking you? How can the game tell who you do and dont want to kill? Its like saying "I didint want to kill you but when i swung my axe in your face you died. WTF?"

I Disagree.Everybody should die in this game,you are supposed to do everithing you want....Friendly fire is something more closed to a Fps than an actual RPG gameAnd as some people here said, it's and AOE effect..

Just be glad that followers attacks dont friendly fire YOU.

I think that friendly fire should just be an option that you can turn on and off. I always kill all my followers even if I don't mean to. I was going to marry the dark elf Brelyna but then I killed her when she was following me. I think that followers should just go into their kneel stance when they would be dying instead of actually dying.

I pissed off a whole shrine on accident once.


I'm actually not ok with them not being able to.