This is the biggest deterrent I have to using them, lol. Just without the stats. Don’t care for those, just the killing.
But my loot goblin tendencies always mean I carry way too much shit so I need a slave to haul everything around.
The reason why I often had an animal companion, but there are several workarounds for this without having to have a follower (especially since AE). Just summon hilda the goat when overencumbered and send her home after giving her 100 weight worth of trash or just ride a frickin horse if it happens in the open world
Yeah well I kind of understand, but on the other hand, you can always summon hilda so everytime I loot something and get overencumbered by it, there's no way I wouldn't notice that and also theres no way I don't wanna immediatly get rid of that, limitations are just to heavy (pun intended), so theres no real other way (to me) than to summon her, give her 100 weight of my stuff, send her home and go on looting. 100 weight is more than enough to carry on looting a while (if I still do get hung up by looting that much that it happens multiple times before going home and storing everything I summon all the other animals and send them to where I store my stuff). So yeah in essence I get your point, I'm no good at remembering stuff like this, but on the other hand, the way the game is set up, there's no way I could not remember it 😅
Hilda: *"Cant you lot see, he abusing us."*
Skritch: *"I don't know. He does feed us."*
Hilda: *"That's it?. You just going to be his loot whore forever more?. What about you manic elytra? just going..."*
Manic Elytra: *"You know, the only one of us that can be food is you. So i'd shut it if were you."*
Skritch: *"You tell her. i tell the boss if she does not shut up about abuse."*
Hilda: *"You should have been called Snitch."*
Are you familiar with the Black Books from Solstheim?
I am a huge looter, but often pick up stuff and later decide it’s being sold. This allows you to summon a merchant to you anywhere at anytime.
I hate having followers so I installed a mod that gives me a carry weight of 100k, which is perfect for my goblin looting tendencies. The Earring of Godly Unburden.
I use them but I agree they get in the way. I can’t tell you how many times a companion has stepped in just the wrong spot and gets hit by my weapon and just fucking dies. I’ve killed Lydia at least 2-3 times on playthroughs
99% of the time I find them a liability.
When I’m a mage, they’ll die or get pissed of from my aoe spells.
When I’m a sneak build, they blow my cover
When I’m a warrior who needs ranged support, I’m in their line of fire
I wish there was a follower who could use healing hands or heal other on you, but nope
The only follower I ever use is J’zargo since he’s essential, has no level cap, and has 0 morality
You just summed up why I never use followers. My one exception is Serana, and that's only during the Dawnguard quests. Once those quests are done, I let her go.
>has 0 morality
I never use followers but maybe a week ago I started my first real AE playthrough and I was bringing Faendal to Goldenhills where we ran into some Thalmor. So I did what anyone would do and shot them, and then Faendal that DOG reported me and started trying to kill me. I was a low level and I ended up dying to said Thalmor.
I never knew followers were snitches until that moment lmao.
Definitely sacrificing him later, idk if I can hire a steward after killing him but I don’t care.
The Black Market guy loves to hook me up with the killer deals, which is weird considering I just forced him into my realm. He’s surprisingly easygoing.
Dremora Merchant: *"It's an apple Skamp. A fabled GREEN one. Not like those common red ones you can actually cook with. 70,000 gold and it's yours. You know it costs like 2 million in Skyrim so this is a Deeeeeeeaaallll."*
I’m all about the immersion. Fighting a whole fort of bandits or whatever without backup is just … suicidal.
When I DO end up in a cave or something without Jen cus she got stuck somewhere, it doesn’t take twice as long, it takes 5X as long without the help. Whole strategy changes - gotta take it as slow and quiet as possible.
They don’t ever have the stats I have and die most of the time anyway. By the time I would need them, all they are good for is distracting an enemy long enough to get a few good hits in, and if it like a skirmish, I accidentally hit them sometimes anyway soooo… I don’t use them.
Nope. Tried once when I got Lydia. Bitch annoyed me to no end. Gave away my position. And got in the way. Fus ro dahd her off a cliff and never used one again. Until I married the werewolf from the companions guild. She's unkillable so she was good for a meat shield lol
Yeah no, I also never use them apart from roleplay reasons maybe, but even then I try to keep it to a minimum. Don't like the beeing followed thing, and I also don't really like any of the followers (as a follower) one can get. Apart from that they just straight up ruin my complete gameplay experience, since, once started, it's just a tedious babysitting job instead of an epic adventure, having always to look out, they don't get stuck, hope they don't get in my way while fighting (which they do EVERY SINGLE TIME) "stealing" ep from me, blocking EVERY F*CKING DOORWAY THEY CAN FIND (which is really the most bothering asset to me) and overall just downgrading my game experience. Once I have a follower, the control I have over the game is minimized too badly. It's not fun to play the game anymore than, it's just work. I have enough of that the rest of the day, don't need/want it when playing games. Don't like that at all. It's a cool game mechanic, but just not for me (or just poorly executed game mechanic, idk)
I never liked using them much in the past. Always used to go it alone but more recently I took to upping the difficulty and I can more appreciate having someone back me up and have a wee spot of banter.
Hell no, f the companions. They're always in the way and if it doesn't have ranged attacks, I will 100% kill them by accident. I only take that dude from whiterun fletcher for quest where I need to sacrifice someone
I'm a creatire of habit. I always use aft to recruit edda them manually manage her skill points. Using a not custom, generic npc as a companion has the added perk of very few lines of dialogue.
AFT -> {{Amazing Follower Tweaks}}. A recruit follower mod that's rather outdated, but creature of habit and all that..
Anyway.
Generic NPCs don't (typically) have much "ambient" or timed dialogue, serena complaining about the sun when outdoors for instance.
AFT doesn't add much in that area (just repurposes default dialogue) so that's one of the reasons I use it.
AFT also has a utility to manage follower leveling, whereas the base game followers are managed (ie. Level up) automatically as do most custom followers.
In AFT (with manual leveling turned on and "boost stats" off) a NPC starts with +15 points across the board in: one handed, two handed, armor, speech, lockpick, health, etc. and gains additional points (for you to distribute) each time you level.
So Edda's stamina becomes 75.
By about mid game Edda is something like: lockpick+100, dual swords+100, health+300, Stamina+300, Stealth+100, etc. I build her into who the theive's guild wish they were, a fast dual wielding cat burglar.
Bonus, you can still get The Gift of Charity (speech +10 for 1 hour) by giving her septims.
I enjoy the banter. I used to love using Sofia (mod follower), but she hasn’t been updated in years and the mod author is a prick. (He intentionally set her follower distance to one third that of normal followers, causing her to constantly run into you. That’s the number one bug complaint. His response: “Your load order is messed up. Don’t contact me with bugs involving your load order.” WTF does my load order have to do with you INTENTIONALLY MAKING YOUR FOLLOWER RUN INTO ME?) Unfortunately, her dialog is repetitive and she never shuts up. (Even Mjoll occasionally stops talking.)
The two best followers I’ve used are Inigo and Lucien, especially together as they banter with one another. Remiel is fun as well. I’d encourage those who like mods to try Aniya, as her mod author is new and I like to encourage newcomers to modding. (She’s done a great job.)
I generally don’t care for the vanilla followers because Bethesda overused the voice actors. It breaks immersion to have Mjoll following you and then see some random guard using her voice, or have Jordis the Shield-Maiden squeaking along using Elisef the Fair’s voice. Going forward, Bethesda needs to not cut corners and pick ONE voice actor for each character and not give them other randos to voice as well (or at least pick actors who can do DIFFERENT voices well).
I prefer alone due to chaos from friendly fire. My last straw with my fave girl Illia (mage) caused a riot in town when we arrived in the middle of the night and the guards & citizens were going after a thief. She blasted ice at the thief thus hitting a whole lot of them and of course everyone started chasing ME. (Thank goodness for my Quicksave!)
Illia was my travelling buddy for a long time but she is glitched so I can't get her back now. But when it came to me avoiding going to town altogether, I realized she was hindering my casual dragonless playthrough and knew it was time to be a single roamer again.
My most recent playthrough is a werewolf, so no not really. Wish aela would transform with me. Ahh its fine one swipe sends em all flying like bowling pins anyways
I sometimes keep one around at low levels, especially if I’m doing a mage character. But once I get tough, they become unnecessary and I usually leave them at home. Although if I know I’m going to be hauling a lot of loot, like harvesting scrap metal from a dwemer ruin, I might bring one as a pack mule.
At first I thought this was a travel sub, and I was "Hell yeah, solo travel is the best!"
But it's the same for Skyrim. I sometimes take a follower into Dwemer ruins to help pack out all that metal.
I had Serana as a companion and ran into Meeko. So I took him with me. We ran into bandits and Serana was attacking. She hit Meeko with any icy spike - he didn’t like it so he attacked her. She killed him. I reloaded a previous save and ditched Serana as a companion and never took another person with me.
I found that when I became more powerful or played at lower difficulty, I preferred to be alone.
Don’t forget, you can direct your follower to do things for you. You can send them into a bandit camp ahead of you and then you can engage from range.
Latest play through has been on survival mode. And the trail can feel pretty lonely at times. Followers at least make me feel like I’m not completely alone.
My husband gives me a hard time about using them just as lack mules. But honestly, early on they’re great for helping to make sure I don’t die as easily and helping me carry stuff to sell so I have money to get better equipment or supplies to make it. Later on I might not use them as much except for story purposes or just because it’s fun. Although sometimes I like to see how long I can go before gets killed by being stupid….
if I go a mage build I typically go solo, using fury spells or explosive destruction spells is bound to make them agro wayyy too often for me to justify a follower.
also as a mage you arent wearing armor, so carry weight isnt really an issue most of the time so I dont need the extra follower to carry stuff
Sometimes I bring one, sometimes I don’t. But i roleplay a lot in my head and pretty soon I’m feeling important enough in the game where I should always have a bodyguard so I’ll probably be finding someone and gearing them out to follow me around and protect me soon.
I rely on strategy and planning going into battles. A follower in Skyrim cannot be strategized with. I can't tell Lydia "okay here's the plan" instead I have to watch my plan fall apart when I was quietly sneaking by a bandit filled fort and she decided to rush in and raise the alarm. So I don't like using them.
If I was better at the game I probably wouldn’t. I tend to bring along strong melee fighter so I can support them from the backline but it is kind of like training wheels. I’m just not great at action combat and I also get creeped out easy so having a big swingy swordy companion helps.
It depends. I sometimes use them I sometimes don't. It depends on my play style or if I want to listen to someone talk while I'm traveling. Sometimes I just want silence while I listen to the ambiance of Skyrim. I really like bringing Erandur with me when I want someone to listen too. But if I don't really want a companion for practical reasons either I'll just go it alone.
Definitely not, I'm also doing the whole game alone. For me, companions are more of a liability than helpful assistance. Also, playing as a stealth archer in my case automatically excludes any companions by my side.
[удалено]
Yesss plus i don’t want them to take the kills from my statistics
This is the biggest deterrent I have to using them, lol. Just without the stats. Don’t care for those, just the killing. But my loot goblin tendencies always mean I carry way too much shit so I need a slave to haul everything around.
Yeah, that’s basically the only advantage I can see in them haha
The reason why I often had an animal companion, but there are several workarounds for this without having to have a follower (especially since AE). Just summon hilda the goat when overencumbered and send her home after giving her 100 weight worth of trash or just ride a frickin horse if it happens in the open world
I don’t really remember to do that, so it piles up. Too focused on killing and looting.
Yeah well I kind of understand, but on the other hand, you can always summon hilda so everytime I loot something and get overencumbered by it, there's no way I wouldn't notice that and also theres no way I don't wanna immediatly get rid of that, limitations are just to heavy (pun intended), so theres no real other way (to me) than to summon her, give her 100 weight of my stuff, send her home and go on looting. 100 weight is more than enough to carry on looting a while (if I still do get hung up by looting that much that it happens multiple times before going home and storing everything I summon all the other animals and send them to where I store my stuff). So yeah in essence I get your point, I'm no good at remembering stuff like this, but on the other hand, the way the game is set up, there's no way I could not remember it 😅
Hilda: *"Cant you lot see, he abusing us."* Skritch: *"I don't know. He does feed us."* Hilda: *"That's it?. You just going to be his loot whore forever more?. What about you manic elytra? just going..."* Manic Elytra: *"You know, the only one of us that can be food is you. So i'd shut it if were you."* Skritch: *"You tell her. i tell the boss if she does not shut up about abuse."* Hilda: *"You should have been called Snitch."*
It do be like that, luv it 😂
Do you have the black market ability?
Black market ability?
Are you familiar with the Black Books from Solstheim? I am a huge looter, but often pick up stuff and later decide it’s being sold. This allows you to summon a merchant to you anywhere at anytime.
Oh that. I usually take secret servant. But I forget I have it so, loot slave it is
Same same lol. Only difference is Black Market isn’t restricted to once a day, and the guy has 2k gold!
Dremora butler ftw
I put them on wait at the entrance to the dungeon.
I hate having followers so I installed a mod that gives me a carry weight of 100k, which is perfect for my goblin looting tendencies. The Earring of Godly Unburden.
Yeah but I don’t like using cheats, I’ll use mods that make me OP, sure, like Ordinator, but I like that I still have to earn it
Agreed.
I don’t like it till i think about it like this :Extra stuff can be taken if you have a pack mule. Companion = Pack Mule.
“L-L-Lydia…j-j-just. Get OUT of my fucking way! Yo I’m gonna need three feet! Move!”
I use them but I agree they get in the way. I can’t tell you how many times a companion has stepped in just the wrong spot and gets hit by my weapon and just fucking dies. I’ve killed Lydia at least 2-3 times on playthroughs
99% of the time I find them a liability. When I’m a mage, they’ll die or get pissed of from my aoe spells. When I’m a sneak build, they blow my cover When I’m a warrior who needs ranged support, I’m in their line of fire I wish there was a follower who could use healing hands or heal other on you, but nope The only follower I ever use is J’zargo since he’s essential, has no level cap, and has 0 morality
You just summed up why I never use followers. My one exception is Serana, and that's only during the Dawnguard quests. Once those quests are done, I let her go.
>has 0 morality I never use followers but maybe a week ago I started my first real AE playthrough and I was bringing Faendal to Goldenhills where we ran into some Thalmor. So I did what anyone would do and shot them, and then Faendal that DOG reported me and started trying to kill me. I was a low level and I ended up dying to said Thalmor. I never knew followers were snitches until that moment lmao. Definitely sacrificing him later, idk if I can hire a steward after killing him but I don’t care.
If you use mode there is one. I forget her name, but she is a mage that can heal you. You can even tell her not to fight and just be healer I think
I rarely use them. I prefer periodically pulling Dremora into this realm and forcing them to do what I want.
I love that haha
Ah yes. The precious slave.
The Black Market guy loves to hook me up with the killer deals, which is weird considering I just forced him into my realm. He’s surprisingly easygoing.
He just likes being needed lol
Guy probably does a Skurge-like "Hey guys, just got back from Nirn. Behold, my stuff!"
Dremora Merchant: *"It's an apple Skamp. A fabled GREEN one. Not like those common red ones you can actually cook with. 70,000 gold and it's yours. You know it costs like 2 million in Skyrim so this is a Deeeeeeeaaallll."*
i travel with a companion because it’s make my journey less scary
Never! They suck at stealth and get stuck or dead.
I never use a follower until I do dawnguard with serana. I’m normally level 50-70 by then.
Never. I prefer travelling alone
I feel you
I’m all about the immersion. Fighting a whole fort of bandits or whatever without backup is just … suicidal. When I DO end up in a cave or something without Jen cus she got stuck somewhere, it doesn’t take twice as long, it takes 5X as long without the help. Whole strategy changes - gotta take it as slow and quiet as possible.
They don’t ever have the stats I have and die most of the time anyway. By the time I would need them, all they are good for is distracting an enemy long enough to get a few good hits in, and if it like a skirmish, I accidentally hit them sometimes anyway soooo… I don’t use them.
I keep blowing up my companions. Better to leave them behind.
Nope. Tried once when I got Lydia. Bitch annoyed me to no end. Gave away my position. And got in the way. Fus ro dahd her off a cliff and never used one again. Until I married the werewolf from the companions guild. She's unkillable so she was good for a meat shield lol
Aela is essential up until you finish her quests
What you mean? I beat all her quests . And beat all the dlcs the game everything and she's still immortal for me lol
On my current save I have Serena and she's immortal too.
Yeah no, I also never use them apart from roleplay reasons maybe, but even then I try to keep it to a minimum. Don't like the beeing followed thing, and I also don't really like any of the followers (as a follower) one can get. Apart from that they just straight up ruin my complete gameplay experience, since, once started, it's just a tedious babysitting job instead of an epic adventure, having always to look out, they don't get stuck, hope they don't get in my way while fighting (which they do EVERY SINGLE TIME) "stealing" ep from me, blocking EVERY F*CKING DOORWAY THEY CAN FIND (which is really the most bothering asset to me) and overall just downgrading my game experience. Once I have a follower, the control I have over the game is minimized too badly. It's not fun to play the game anymore than, it's just work. I have enough of that the rest of the day, don't need/want it when playing games. Don't like that at all. It's a cool game mechanic, but just not for me (or just poorly executed game mechanic, idk)
I don't since I really can't escape from the stealth archer build, so having a companion is more detrimental.
I never liked using them much in the past. Always used to go it alone but more recently I took to upping the difficulty and I can more appreciate having someone back me up and have a wee spot of banter.
A true stealth archer does not need a companion.
Serana is always by my side, I don’t go anywhere without her
Used to be a person, but now I like having a pet with me
Lydia and I sometimes roleplay that she is my pet
How dare you, that is brilliant
I particularly enjoy the lone nature of the Dragonborn ,something about it. I Dunno
First playthrough I had no companion. They kept getting in my sneaky way.
I’m normally alone, but I do like bringing Serana sometimes since she has personality.
Skyrim is a big world and gets awfully lonely. It’s nice to have a friend to fight with.
Hell no, f the companions. They're always in the way and if it doesn't have ranged attacks, I will 100% kill them by accident. I only take that dude from whiterun fletcher for quest where I need to sacrifice someone
I'm a creatire of habit. I always use aft to recruit edda them manually manage her skill points. Using a not custom, generic npc as a companion has the added perk of very few lines of dialogue.
Explain please what you mean by managing her skill points? By using armour? Also why very few lines of dialogue?
AFT -> {{Amazing Follower Tweaks}}. A recruit follower mod that's rather outdated, but creature of habit and all that.. Anyway. Generic NPCs don't (typically) have much "ambient" or timed dialogue, serena complaining about the sun when outdoors for instance. AFT doesn't add much in that area (just repurposes default dialogue) so that's one of the reasons I use it. AFT also has a utility to manage follower leveling, whereas the base game followers are managed (ie. Level up) automatically as do most custom followers. In AFT (with manual leveling turned on and "boost stats" off) a NPC starts with +15 points across the board in: one handed, two handed, armor, speech, lockpick, health, etc. and gains additional points (for you to distribute) each time you level. So Edda's stamina becomes 75. By about mid game Edda is something like: lockpick+100, dual swords+100, health+300, Stamina+300, Stealth+100, etc. I build her into who the theive's guild wish they were, a fast dual wielding cat burglar. Bonus, you can still get The Gift of Charity (speech +10 for 1 hour) by giving her septims.
You too have a touch of the 'tism. Love it
I don't use them either
I enjoy the banter. I used to love using Sofia (mod follower), but she hasn’t been updated in years and the mod author is a prick. (He intentionally set her follower distance to one third that of normal followers, causing her to constantly run into you. That’s the number one bug complaint. His response: “Your load order is messed up. Don’t contact me with bugs involving your load order.” WTF does my load order have to do with you INTENTIONALLY MAKING YOUR FOLLOWER RUN INTO ME?) Unfortunately, her dialog is repetitive and she never shuts up. (Even Mjoll occasionally stops talking.) The two best followers I’ve used are Inigo and Lucien, especially together as they banter with one another. Remiel is fun as well. I’d encourage those who like mods to try Aniya, as her mod author is new and I like to encourage newcomers to modding. (She’s done a great job.) I generally don’t care for the vanilla followers because Bethesda overused the voice actors. It breaks immersion to have Mjoll following you and then see some random guard using her voice, or have Jordis the Shield-Maiden squeaking along using Elisef the Fair’s voice. Going forward, Bethesda needs to not cut corners and pick ONE voice actor for each character and not give them other randos to voice as well (or at least pick actors who can do DIFFERENT voices well).
I keep em until early midgame then they're pretty much useless
I don’t want them robbing my precious xp
Same. Unless I’m going into a fight Ik I will get my ass kicked in (like a dragon prist) I don’t like to take them.
I prefer alone due to chaos from friendly fire. My last straw with my fave girl Illia (mage) caused a riot in town when we arrived in the middle of the night and the guards & citizens were going after a thief. She blasted ice at the thief thus hitting a whole lot of them and of course everyone started chasing ME. (Thank goodness for my Quicksave!) Illia was my travelling buddy for a long time but she is glitched so I can't get her back now. But when it came to me avoiding going to town altogether, I realized she was hindering my casual dragonless playthrough and knew it was time to be a single roamer again.
Once I get the black market book, companions (pack mules) are abandoned.
My most recent playthrough is a werewolf, so no not really. Wish aela would transform with me. Ahh its fine one swipe sends em all flying like bowling pins anyways
Is there any good companion, modded or not, for an evil character?
I sometimes keep one around at low levels, especially if I’m doing a mage character. But once I get tough, they become unnecessary and I usually leave them at home. Although if I know I’m going to be hauling a lot of loot, like harvesting scrap metal from a dwemer ruin, I might bring one as a pack mule.
I use them just for carrying capacity. Other than that they are annoying
The only time I use them is when a quest has them tag along.
I haul them around with me for loot. They carry stuff. Then once I'm high enough I can grab stuff and leave, I drop them.
I only use one once I get companion insight, I have a habit of roasting them because I like fire
I never use one either. I feel like they would slow me down.
I used to feel that way, then I did a playthrough with Inigo and he’s been with me ever since.
At first I thought this was a travel sub, and I was "Hell yeah, solo travel is the best!" But it's the same for Skyrim. I sometimes take a follower into Dwemer ruins to help pack out all that metal.
You're not alone... in being alone. I don't use followers because they interrupt my sneaky playstyle.
I like the amazing follower tweaks mod, get a few homies and invade bandit camps or dungeons
I was honestly shocked at how many people use them. The last thing I want in Skyrim is someone always getting in my way.
I had Serana as a companion and ran into Meeko. So I took him with me. We ran into bandits and Serana was attacking. She hit Meeko with any icy spike - he didn’t like it so he attacked her. She killed him. I reloaded a previous save and ditched Serana as a companion and never took another person with me.
I never use them, they are just annoying and get in the way
I found that when I became more powerful or played at lower difficulty, I preferred to be alone. Don’t forget, you can direct your follower to do things for you. You can send them into a bandit camp ahead of you and then you can engage from range. Latest play through has been on survival mode. And the trail can feel pretty lonely at times. Followers at least make me feel like I’m not completely alone.
You’re not alone. I rarely travel with a companion. They get in the way too much.
I use to never use em until i discovered Inigo
My husband gives me a hard time about using them just as lack mules. But honestly, early on they’re great for helping to make sure I don’t die as easily and helping me carry stuff to sell so I have money to get better equipment or supplies to make it. Later on I might not use them as much except for story purposes or just because it’s fun. Although sometimes I like to see how long I can go before gets killed by being stupid….
I usually go with Lydia or Serana.
I never use companions.
I bring them occasionally. Usually only for role-playing reasons. Trying to "build a relationship" with a certain character.
if I go a mage build I typically go solo, using fury spells or explosive destruction spells is bound to make them agro wayyy too often for me to justify a follower. also as a mage you arent wearing armor, so carry weight isnt really an issue most of the time so I dont need the extra follower to carry stuff
Same. I want my companions summon-able, for convenience.
I never use them in Skyrim or fallout. I kinda feel like it is cheating for some reason.
I like a companion around sometimes, depending on how annoying I find them lol
Sometimes I bring one, sometimes I don’t. But i roleplay a lot in my head and pretty soon I’m feeling important enough in the game where I should always have a bodyguard so I’ll probably be finding someone and gearing them out to follow me around and protect me soon.
I rely on strategy and planning going into battles. A follower in Skyrim cannot be strategized with. I can't tell Lydia "okay here's the plan" instead I have to watch my plan fall apart when I was quietly sneaking by a bandit filled fort and she decided to rush in and raise the alarm. So I don't like using them.
I accidentally got Lydia killed and never tried again. I felt too responsible and didn’t like that feeling lol
If I was better at the game I probably wouldn’t. I tend to bring along strong melee fighter so I can support them from the backline but it is kind of like training wheels. I’m just not great at action combat and I also get creeped out easy so having a big swingy swordy companion helps.
I prefer to not have them, but I'm playing survival ATM and find it necessary for storage, so I have Aela for companion and wife.
It depends. I sometimes use them I sometimes don't. It depends on my play style or if I want to listen to someone talk while I'm traveling. Sometimes I just want silence while I listen to the ambiance of Skyrim. I really like bringing Erandur with me when I want someone to listen too. But if I don't really want a companion for practical reasons either I'll just go it alone.
I also run solo
Only when I need the ebony mail, sorry Sven
Definitely not, I'm also doing the whole game alone. For me, companions are more of a liability than helpful assistance. Also, playing as a stealth archer in my case automatically excludes any companions by my side.
I always travel solo. If only there was a Skyrim Dogmeat equivalent.
I prefer invincible animal companion. Nothing like hiking with a dog. But they do get in the way. Hence why I make them invincible if on PC.
How crazy would it be if you actually were the only one?
I Nevers use them. Always in the way, never stealthy enough.
I use essential characters because I don't want to worry about ubound storm killing them, and they can hold stuff.
I play a rogue. So no