Is there such a thing as having too many followers?

[MsOtaku]

So, I have four followers. I've spent over a decade playing MMORPGs and like to have a "group" with my character. If I'm able to make that happen in a single player game then I'm really happy. I love the comments, conversations, and other things that shall remain nameless....NSFW.

 

However, I've noticed that when I've gotten more than two followers things start to become glitchy in game. I use AFT, and no I don't want to hear about how EFF is better....we all have our preferences. Anyway, four followers is the most I'll ever have - one for each "class" if you will - and about that time they start behaving oddly. Sometimes they will not attack if my PC is being attacked or one of them is being attacked or they will turn on each other and it is an endless cycle of fighting to a point where I have to reload from a previous save.

 

Lately I've noticed that they ruin quests that I'm on if it involves an NPC that has decided to or needs to join "us" into a dungeon for some quest. My followers will suddenly turn on he or she until said person is "dead," comes back to life, then they go at it again. If I reload and start over the NPC is where I'm supposed to meet him or her, enters the dungeon but, is no where to be seen and I fail the quest because I was not able to protect said NPC.

 

As of this moment I have Falkas and Vilkas (sp?) the brothers from the companions, Inigo, and Acalypha. Inigo is always a must for me. I'm not sure if these "special" followers are the cause or if it's just that I have too many followers. I'd also like to know why they turn on each other and the NPC we are supposed to be helping.

 

If anyone has experienced issues with more than two followers please tell me what you've experienced, this is getting frustrating.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

xoxo

-MsOtaku

[D_ManXX2]

i am not using eff or aft but Mixed unit tactics: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57589/? this way you can easily command follower group the real problem with old skyrim is memory management so the more follower you use the slower the game becomes if it is a group of female it will be even worse when using eff or aft due to textures or worse hdt etc.. 

 

As for companion fighting each other that is due to poor AI from skyrim nothing can fix this bethesda shit. there is a mod who was suppose to fix it but even that will not fully fix it. just make sure when you give them weapons or spell that it does not contain area of effect these are the spells that will make follower goes hostile towards each other when it happen just cast calm spell on them to stop the fighting.

 

And yes there is such a thing as having too many followers for regular skyrim. Skyrim SE should be able to handle multiple followers much better.

[yatol]

 

As for companion fighting each other that is due to poor AI from skyrim nothing can fix this bethesda shit.

 

problem is the factions...

 

i use sofia, sofiafaction is allied to player

when you recruit lydia, she get currentfollowerfaction that is allied to player

don't know if sofiafaction is allied to currentfollowerfaction (don't need 2 pack mules, lydia is on broom duty at breezhome), but i know she is not allied to some npc that follow you during quests, 3dnpc, the dwarven robot, jespar....

so if one of those npc cast an aoe spell that hit sofia, she will turn on them

 

you don't want sofia to turn on 3dnpc caster that cast aoe spells that nearlly kill you? you add 3dnpcfaction to sofiafaction as allied

and sofiafaction to 3dnpcfaction as allied

if mod x do it for faction y, and mod z also do it for faction y, crap kit will whine faction x is allied to faction y but faction y is not allied to faction x

 

that won't change anything if something in your load order reduce the number of friendly fire between allied to 0

[MsOtaku]

i am not using eff or aft but Mixed unit tactics: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57589/? this way you can easily command follower group the real problem with old skyrim is memory management so the more follower you use the slower the game becomes if it is a group of female it will be even worse when using eff or aft due to textures or worse hdt etc.. 

 

As for companion fighting each other that is due to poor AI from skyrim nothing can fix this bethesda shit. there is a mod who was suppose to fix it but even that will not fully fix it. just make sure when you give them weapons or spell that it does not contain area of effect these are the spells that will make follower goes hostile towards each other when it happen just cast calm spell on them to stop the fighting.

 

And yes there is such a thing as having too many followers for regular skyrim. Skyrim SE should be able to handle multiple followers much better.

 

I took a look at that mod and it just might be the thing I'm looking for. Thanks so much for that. In regards to SE, I don't see myself playing it until all of my favorite mods and SKYUI are there. xoxo

 

 

 

As for companion fighting each other that is due to poor AI from skyrim nothing can fix this bethesda shit.

 

problem is the factions...

 

i use sofia, sofiafaction is allied to player

when you recruit lydia, she get currentfollowerfaction that is allied to player

don't know if sofiafaction is allied to currentfollowerfaction (don't need 2 pack mules, lydia is on broom duty at breezhome), but i know she is not allied to some npc that follow you during quests, 3dnpc, the dwarven robot, jespar....

so if one of those npc cast an aoe spell that hit sofia, she will turn on them

 

you don't want sofia to turn on 3dnpc caster that cast aoe spells that nearlly kill you? you add 3dnpcfaction to sofiafaction as allied

and sofiafaction to 3dnpcfaction as allied

if mod x do it for faction y, and mod z also do it for faction y, crap kit will whine faction x is allied to faction y but faction y is not allied to faction x

 

that won't change anything if something in your load order reduce the number of friendly fire between allied to 0

 

 

Hmmm... the whole faction thing never occurred to me, that makes so much more sense. There has been a lot of AOE with Acalypha, I love her to death but she'll be the death of me if this keeps happening. I don't want an army of followers, just a party but, I guess I have to be careful and pick wisely when I take up a quest involving another NPC and perhaps go at it alone or pick one follower to join me that won't cause trouble.

 

Thanks so much for clearing that up!

xoxo

[Limbic2Node]

Hello MsOtaku.

I use AFT and have experienced some of your issues. Make sure "ignore friendly fire" in on.

Friendly fire from spell casters is going to be an issue, no matter what. As stated bellow it is appears faction issue, so what I have done is change the follower fighting style through AFT dialog and thereby remove their magical abilities. This happens to suit my combat style well, as I use very little magic.

Now they don't fight. If you must play with magik, I have noticed that electrical spells are well tolerated by a group... but not the type that discharge across multiple targets, also ice spike spell.

 

Will not attack, there is a setting for changing attack rules, mine is set for followers to attack only after I have been attacked, so yes they will stand there and take a beating until you are attacked. The other choice is for them to attack all hostiles, they will chasing mudcrabs all over Skyrim. Seriously annoying .

 

Attacking NPC, have never had this issue. I can ask if AFT is not being "overwritten"... 

 

Hope this helps , sorry if it was pretty obvious stuff.

 

As too many followers? I have  Selene Kate and Recoder, my own follower, Hikari, Lynx, Eliel Twins and Nina. I may keep some back or I may watch them slay absolutely everything in their path, I'll stand in the center and pick off archers.

[MsOtaku]

Hello MsOtaku.

I use AFT and have experienced some of your issues. Make sure "ignore friendly fire" in on.

Friendly fire from spell casters is going to be an issue, no matter what. As stated bellow it is appears faction issue, so what I have done is change the follower fighting style through AFT dialog and thereby remove their magical abilities. This happens to suit my combat style well, as I use very little magic.

Now they don't fight. If you must play with magik, I have noticed that electrical spells are well tolerated by a group... but not the type that discharge across multiple targets, also ice spike spell.

 

Will not attack, there is a setting for changing attack rules, mine is set for followers to attack only after I have been attacked, so yes they will stand there and take a beating until you are attacked. The other choice is for them to attack all hostiles, they will chasing mudcrabs all over Skyrim. Seriously annoying .

 

Attacking NPC, have never had this issue. I can ask if AFT is not being "overwritten"... 

 

Hope this helps , sorry if it was pretty obvious stuff.

 

As too many followers? I have  Selene Kate and Recoder, my own follower, Hikari, Lynx, Eliel Twins and Nina. I may keep some back or I may watch them slay absolutely everything in their path, I'll stand in the center and pick off archers.

 

I really appreciate this. My only issue is that I NEED to have one magic caster in my group, it's just a thing for me. So the idea of turning magic off through AFT kinda kills it for me. I've hired, downloaded special followers, ect. that are destruction mages and if some heal me then that just makes it peachy. I get that the AOE spells makes everyone go nuts but, since I don't like to use magic myself I rely on a follower to do it for me. To this day it still hasn't worked out. If I have one mage in my group they all go ape-shit....

 

#gamerproblems

[loopie]

I run my games with around 20ish followers, but never all at once of course. This is what I do:

 

Get 2 modded player homes, usually Lakeview extended with the basement and beds there, and 1 more smaller, usually Breezehome with extra beds, or whatever is my choosing.

 

get My Home is Your home, latest version, get Better Stealth tactics, and get Immersive AFT. All the other follower mods seem to be somewhat outdated and have many issues including original AFT. Immersive AFT is most up to date, most bug free, and has the lightest load.

 

In game, I set the options to ignore friendly fire in the Immersive AFT MCM. This helps a ton, especially on any of the AOE stuff.

 

I recruit my followers about 2-3 at a time, take them to Lakeview, gear them up, assign sex(y) outfits (or sometimes devious devices), assign their work and sleep time and place. Then dismiss them. They now go to their new home spots, outfitted, sleeping, working, guarding, doing whatever I set them to do. I like having 2 or 3 somewhat OP ones in Breezehome and set them to guard mode at nigth around the Whiterun entrance (forge area) and sleep during daytime. This helps a great deal with any vampires, bandits, or whatever that pops up so the regular NPCs don't get killed.

 

One thing everyone should be aware of though, its best to not have any followers actively following you if you are doing the Dawnguard stuff, because Serana is extremely broken, not by us or mods, but by Bethesda and very often bugs out any / all followers when she follows on a quest. So basically, best thing to do here is dismiss all followers, let them go back to their assigned homes and do their thing, playthrough Dawnguard in its entirety, then after all is done come back and pick up whatever follower(s) you want.

 

 

[MsOtaku]

In game, I set the options to ignore friendly fire in the Immersive AFT MCM.

 

 

Um...I have no MCM menu for AFT.

 

Also, I've seen a lot of homes with "extra beds/baths" for followers" but my followers NEVER go to sleep even if I tell them to relax via AFT and if I do tell them to sleep they do it on the very spot on the floor where I give he or she the orders to. No followers use the "follower/guest beds". The ONLY exception is Breezehome and that one home you build after becoming Thane of Dawnstar, I believe. But, it really is rarely.

[loopie]

 

In game, I set the options to ignore friendly fire in the Immersive AFT MCM.

 

 

Um...I have no MCM menu for AFT.

 

Also, I've seen a lot of homes with "extra beds/baths" for followers" but my followers NEVER go to sleep even if I tell them to relax via AFT and if I do tell them to sleep they do it on the very spot on the floor where I give he or she the orders to. No followers use the "follower/guest beds". The ONLY exception is Breezehome and that one home you build after becoming Thane of Dawnstar, I believe. But, it really is rarely.

 

 

Hi

 

1st off the original AFT is very buggy. Immersive works much better. it is still buggy with custom followers and Serana, but even so it is heaps and bounds less buggy then UFO, EFF and a few others, also you need a mod called My Home Is Your Home, to work in conjunction with iAFT.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71689/? and http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/18045/? once you get the MCM for My Home is your home, disable the book of homies unless you really use and like it, otherwise its just a resource hog.

 

In your follower dialogue you should now have a "something insert about home here" option when you talk to them. Use it, take follower to a place near home, tell them its their home, take them to a place near work, tell them its their work and assign the hours, take them near an unoccupied bed, make sure the bed is not already taken, or yours, and tell them they can sleep in this area and set their sleep hours, opposite of work hours. then save, go outside, dismiss them and watch them do all the stuff you just set up.

 

Now for the MCM menu in your skyui. There are multiple reasons why this may happen. Most common is load order, especially if you use Loot for sorting. AmazingFollowerTweaks.esp should be 2nd or 3rd from bottom. Only mod that I know and use that goes below it is Alternate Start (Live another life). If you used Loot then its in wrong position and needs to be moved manually. If your load order is correct and the esp is enabled, and you have no access to the MCM or any of its functions on followers then you may have either overwritten something with other mods, or there is a conflict, or you need a specific patch. Some of the most popular followers come with their own patches for it. You may want to re-install iAFT. You can just overwrite it, but not if you used the original old mod. You will need to uninstal and clean save then re-install. 

 

If you are far into your game then you may be stuck. Get UI extensions http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57046/? this will help. Also do the following:

 

Go into empty lockable house so no NPCs will enter and bother you, save your game twice, exit, clean with script cleaner, reload the save. Once in the game, open up console and type the following:

setstage SKI_ConfigManagerInstance 1

 

Then do nothing, just wait a while, and I don't mean use the wait function, but actually wait, it takes maybe 10-20 minutes sometime for all the stuff to kick in. If that doesn't work, there is one more thing you can try:

 

Save your game in the empty room, exit to desktop, restart game and do not load a save. Start a new game, set up a brand new character as normal, let the SKYUI run its course and register all the MCM stuff. this takes a while, I have 39 menus in mine and it takes me up to half hour. Also some mods have to be activated / installed via MCM (for example sexlab defeat) and then the other mods that are dependant on those wont even register until the requirements are fully running.

 

Anyways, once you have all your MCM items on your new character, save your game twice, once in case you need to edit a save and once for the backup. Then, from within your new game, load the old game, your original character save, sometimes this jumpstarts things to work, sometimes it doesn't, but its wort ha try. Also if it works on your new game but not your old one, then you will know for 100% you are playing on a corrupted save.

 

Last but not least, it may simply stall, depending how many scripts you are already running and how much reserved memory you assigned. In your ENBLocal.ini there is a line  ReservedMemorySizeMb= find it and see what its at, you can increase it in intervals of 64 or 128. I usually set mine at 512, it is recommended not to go over 1024 and default is 256, but beware, that reserving this will mean less memory for other stuff, so you may or may not get good results, depending on what else you got running and how much its using up.

 

If your game starts hanging or scripts start freezing up or you get CTDs you may try http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/72725/? 

but if you are at or near memory limits, + on older GPU / CPU on top of that then you will need to remove some stuff for other stuff to work, no way around it.

[panthercom]

 If you have a bunch of female followers their menstrual cycles synchronize and they all get bitchy at the same time and

attack each other   

 

 More seriously, four followers is where things start to go really south for me. I've found having any users of destruction

magic in a large group is a disaster waiting to happen, because of friendly fire incidents. I've been using UFO, and it seems

to work well for me. I looked at the choices for follower control mods, and they all had their critics and proponents, so I just

picked one and hoped for the best.

[MsOtaku]

 

Hi

 

1st off the original AFT is very buggy. Immersive works much better. it is still buggy with custom followers and Serana, but even so it is heaps and bounds less buggy then UFO, EFF and a few others, also you need a mod called My Home Is Your Home, to work in conjunction with iAFT....

 

This is so much great information! Right now I'm in the middle of the Dawnguard quest and I have noticed that I've been having problems with Serana, I didn't even know it was a problem until I looked it up. Any way, once I'm done with that whole quest line I'll switch to iAFT and give it a go. I love the wheel menu of EFF but, not having the option to remove helmets when not in combat was what killed it for me. I never had a problem with AFT and yes, it is third from the bottom in my load order.

 

I have a question: Do "Your Home is My Home" and "More Adoptable Children" work well together? It would be nice to have my "family" home and a home for my followers. Though there still a Sims part of me that likes to see what everyone is doing - especially when I have unique, "smart" followers like Inigo wondering around.

 

Again, thank you so much for all of this. I've bookmarked this page and will follow all of your helpful instructions!

[MsOtaku]

 If you have a bunch of female followers their menstrual cycles synchronize and they all get bitchy at the same time and

attack each other 

 

 More seriously, four followers is where things start to go really south for me. I've found having any users of destruction

magic in a large group is a disaster waiting to happen, because of friendly fire incidents. I've been using UFO, and it seems

to work well for me. I looked at the choices for follower control mods, and they all had their critics and proponents, so I just

picked one and hoped for the best.

 

Um...yeah. I know. Ewww..... I don't want to talk about women's cycles. I don't even want "Being Female" (sp?) anywhere near my game.

 

 

Yes, four followers is when shit hits the fan. I LOVE diversity but, it just does not work and yes, it almost always the caster that causes havoc with the AOE. Sometimes if I accidentally hit the NPC I'm helping then they will ALL start attacking him or her. I just never understood why they all fight when we enter a major city. We're fine on the road but, once we enter through the gates of a city they are at each others' throats and there is nothing I can do to stop them. And since I'm with them I'm tainted by association and while I'm standing far away, guards start wailing on me. So for now, I'm sticking to three or two and a few critters. UFO was the first follower mod I used and it was incredibly problematic for me plus it wasn't compatible, at the time, with a lot of mods I used then and now.

[loopie]

 

 

Hi

 

1st off the original AFT is very buggy. Immersive works much better. it is still buggy with custom followers and Serana, but even so it is heaps and bounds less buggy then UFO, EFF and a few others, also you need a mod called My Home Is Your Home, to work in conjunction with iAFT....

 

This is so much great information! Right now I'm in the middle of the Dawnguard quest and I have noticed that I've been having problems with Serana, I didn't even know it was a problem until I looked it up. Any way, once I'm done with that whole quest line I'll switch to iAFT and give it a go. I love the wheel menu of EFF but, not having the option to remove helmets when not in combat was what killed it for me. I never had a problem with AFT and yes, it is third from the bottom in my load order.

 

I have a question: Do "Your Home is My Home" and "More Adoptable Children" work well together? It would be nice to have my "family" home and a home for my followers. Though there still a Sims part of me that likes to see what everyone is doing - especially when I have unique, "smart" followers like Inigo wondering around.

 

Again, thank you so much for all of this. I've bookmarked this page and will follow all of your helpful instructions!

 

 

Up to a certain point. Remember you have a very limited total amount of memory for scripts, and adding another mod, + adding more children via that mod, are both very script heavy. So if you use it and adopt more children, you'll have to scale down on some other stuff somewhere, if you do not, then you will have issues.

 

iAFt is capable of having 80ish or 90ish followers, but then you throw unique, stand alone followers on top of that with their own dialogues and voices and quests, then you do their wardrobe, gear them up, then assign home, sleeping, working, guarding, all that stuff brings that number down. the max is more like generic vanila followers without any of the advanced management functions. realistically you can have like 10 ish at a single location before scripts start going wonky on you, this includes adopted children.

 

so yes you can do that and i have in one of my past installs, but it does take its toll so you need to be a bit careful and plan an install for it. 

[MsOtaku]

Well, I don't plan on having an army. Just my PC's husband, two (maybe three followers - that's including the hubs), no more than three kids that DO NOT FOLLOW ME, and I always have Lydia "follow" me then I use AFT to "dismiss but, stay here". She's my pretend nanny, plus she, the husband, and my PC have super-happy-fun-times on occasion, and if I have a female follower then it's a foursome. So babysitter with benefits - she's just not allowed to leave the house.

 

So when I'm out in the world its three to four total people and one or two critter followers.

[nutrigrain]

On case it's not been mentioned, turn the 'friendly fire' option off and on again, has stopped my multiple attackers mid fight. Reminded them they were friends I guess.

[MsOtaku]

On case it's not been mentioned, turn the 'friendly fire' option off and on again, has stopped my multiple attackers mid fight. Reminded them they were friends I guess.

 

I am going to try that. I hired that mage in Riften and he and my other follower kept trying to kill each other for days on end... Thanks for the suggestion! xoxo

[nutrigrain]

No problem-good luck! :-)

[khumak]

Followers start to seem like more of a burden to me if I have more than 2 or 3 of them.  I never have more than 3 except for temporary quests where I have to escort someone somewhere or accompany them on some quest.  Normally I prefer 1 or 2 followers.  Not really even sure how you could get game to continue to be challenging with a bunch of them unless you used some follower overhaul to tell them to never fight under any circumstances.

[ANGRYWOLVERINE]

hmm.

I have oh 10 or so different profiles with between 15 and 20 followers each .Yes that is a lot  and I have taken steps to get things running better.I have a much better pc, a 16gb 2T rather than the old laptop I had before I have.I am putting bashed tags on mods that will  accept them that don't have them.That has smoothed things out quite a bit.I intend to use matorsmash but I having trouble understanding it .So it is still a wip. 

 

The major problem is narrow tunnels where the followers can get jammed together.There is a get out of my way mod that helps with that.

I have GOS and OBIS on a couple of them and it is  fun having large scale battles.

 

If I make an y more profiles I will only have 1-2 followers as I don't want to have to deal with trying to continue to improve performance of any new profiles I start.Just deal with my old ones.

 

Unless you have a really  good pc I wouldn't  make my mistake as I did and try to run  that many followers.Even though now I have better performance I wouldn't do it again.

[MsOtaku]

Followers start to seem like more of a burden to me if I have more than 2 or 3 of them.  I never have more than 3 except for temporary quests where I have to escort someone somewhere or accompany them on some quest.  Normally I prefer 1 or 2 followers.  Not really even sure how you could get game to continue to be challenging with a bunch of them unless you used some follower overhaul to tell them to never fight under any circumstances.

 

I agree. I took me a long time to get over the whole "You're not in an MMO any more and you don't need a party of five" thing. Two followers are more than enough for me.

 

hmm.

I have oh 10 or so different profiles with between 15 and 20 followers each .Yes that is a lot  and I have taken steps to get things running better.I have a much better pc, a 16gb 2T rather than the old laptop I had before I have.I am putting bashed tags on mods that will  accept them that don't have them.That has smoothed things out quite a bit.I intend to use matorsmash but I having trouble understanding it .So it is still a wip. 

 

The major problem is narrow tunnels where the followers can get jammed together.There is a get out of my way mod that helps with that.

I have GOS and OBIS on a couple of them and it is  fun having large scale battles.

 

That....is a lot of followers. I have no idea how you do it. But kudos to you for being able to handle an army of people with you!