I don't use followers, but if i do it would be Cicero.

Ps i liked the FONV followers, but again: never used them.... except for the little followers quests.

I don't mind followers being shallow honestly I like the more quantity than quality sure fallout new Vegas had amazing followers but how many were actually good? like 3 and each of those followers had a specific faction alignments so alot of the time you would be out of Also if a follower didn't have the Skill set/morally you wanted or needed.

What dissapoints me however iswith followers is that they don't level up with you so they become useless this is fine if you use warrior followers caus there's a dozen of those but if you use a ranger/Mage follower your out of luck cause out of the 5 mage/ranger followers there's actually one or two that are good

It's clear that they aimed for many companions, but all very shallow, instead of few companions, but far more fleshed out. Which approach is better is hard to say, I'm guessing there are people who prefer both methods. Personally, I would definitely have preferred fewer, but more fleshed out companions.

Instead of followers having a set moral system, you should in some way be able to mold your followers over time. So if you've had a follower for a long time, they would more easily accept cold murder, different alignment or other moral conflicts.

I never understood the whole leveling issue with companions. I've read that J'zargo is the only companion who can level all the way to 81. Some people have posted that you can use the console to disable, and then enable a follower, to make their level match yours again. So what's right, do they level or not?
The best method to level companions in my opinion, would have been to give them skills as well, so if your companion were using bows all the time, their archery skill increased.

followers do level it's just there skills do not I have hear j'zargo's destruction levels with you but from my experience he only uses sparks and is useless the thing is the level you meet companions there skills are stuck on that level forever like meeting farkas at level one his heavy armor will be at lvl 15 but he will gain health with your levels

In TES, I've never been one to much use followers, but in Fallout I did enjoy using them. Bethesda, Quite frankly svcks at followers. I can't say that they've gotten any better at them either, Skyrim is a perfect example of how they haven't improved. They had a perfect example of how followers should've been handled in game right in front of their eyes in the name of New Vegas and chose to ignore how it should be done.

Bethesda ought to be ashamed at how they continue to handle the followers in their games, especially considering how some of their modders handle them...which tend to be far superior to what they can put out.

IIRC I remember hearing Todd say somewhere before release that they were aiming more for a higher amount of potential followers, rather than actually having any depth to them. That was one of the best things that new Vegas had going for it, but those lessons went ignored. It a shame really.

I have a hard time calling what we got in Skyrim "companions". The word companion implies a level of camaraderie and/or interaction. The companions we got in Skyrim are basically just walking storage chests. Pretty disappointing after seeing how well Obsidian did companions in NV.

As others have pointed out, Emma had years of time to work on Vilja. Perfecting Vilja has been her focus since early 2009. She is still working on Vila, continuing to make the mod better all the time. And she has an an enormous amount of help from cdcooly and others in this. At the very least they are a team of three (if one counts Terry Pratchett)...plus the beta testers and players feeding her ideas in her release threads. She has spent almost as much time on this one companion as Bethesda spent on the entire game. It's ridiculous to compare this kind of intense, hobbyist specialization to a game developer putting out a game in the same amount of time.

The same goes for other fantastic companion mods like Sultericdrums' Viconia, Kateri's Julan mod for Morrowind and for Emm'a Morrowind companion mods.

THe very least they could have done is have the followers actually be able to follow us. They still get stuck, won't jump down from things all the time, can't follow up steeper terrain, have issues navigating things like rivers, and take the long way around something when there is an obvious short cut.

But yes the modders always do a much better job with them.

Also for the life of me I don't understand why they made aoe spells damage our companions. My own spells won't hit me but they sure do hit my companion which makes no sense at all. Not only that but it kills them even though nothing else can. That was a really bad decision by whoever made it. At the very least they should have given us the option to tell them to only use ranged attacks so they would stay back out of the way. That would have helped immensely and some modded companions have such commands available so I know it's possible.

You seem to know stuff. Do you have any idea if she has plans on creating a new companion for Skyrim?