Playing with followers, how to make the game more challenging?

[Bloodfang]

Hey guys !

I'm setting up a modlist for a new playthrough, I have looked at the available followers on SE and so far I'm interested in having Inigo, Lucien and Auri. Especially due to the fact they can interact with each other.

 

My main issue will be how to make the game more challenging with 3 companions ?

 

I'd think not improving their weapons too much and using some mods like Wildcat, OBIS and a few others to make the combat a bit more deadly would be enough but I'm not sure.

Has anyone played with 3+ followers while keeping the game challenging ?

[Mez558]

3 minutes ago, Bloodfang said:

Hey guys !

I'm setting up a modlist for a new playthrough, I have looked at the available followers on SE and so far I'm interested in having Inigo, Lucien and Auri. Especially due to the fact they can interact with each other.

 

My main issue will be how to make the game more challenging with 3 companions ?

 

I'd think not improving their weapons too much and using some mods like Wildcat, OBIS and a few others to make the combat a bit more deadly would be enough but I'm not sure.

Has anyone played with 3+ followers while keeping the game challenging ?

 

First take away all custom weapons and armour as these are normally OP.

 

Unfortunately 3 followers will always be easy mode, unless you make them cowards.
The difficulty settings only affect the player so followers/npcs will always do the same level of damage to each other so they will kill everything for you.

 

 

 

[Gräfin Zeppelin]

Like the poster above me said.

Also you can downgrade their damage in NFF (a follower framework)

 

Then you can use mods like Obis or Immersive creatures to beef up the quality and quantity of enemies.

 

 

[★Foxxx★]

open esp in xedit or ck and lower armor/weapon values, check skills, health/magicka/stamina values

[Bloodfang]

Aye I think you’re right, 3 followers is just too much and the game is not made with that in mind.

 

I know Inigo has a setting to make him passive/coward, unsure about the others but I do wonder if such setting would make them basically invisible to enemies as in they don’t get aggro at all but only me and 1 active follower.

[Mez558]

59 minutes ago, ThisTimeIBeAGoodGirlSir said:

open esp in xedit or ck and lower armor/weapon values, check skills, health/magicka/stamina values

Yes, deleting a few perks often helps to balance things a little more.

 

Not sure who Auri is (I doubt it's a follower based on Kvothe's little moon fae) but the other two, Inigo and Lucien, aren't particularly OP as custom followers go but you'll still often find them mowing down things that your character might normally run away from (if you're playing on a hard difficulty) as they aren't affected by the damage adjustments.

 

I generally don't use followers much for this reason. I did have some fun with The Last Dragonborn as a follower but for all the challenges he posed I found he was able to save to day, more often than not.  I did take away his custom gear and some major perks.

 

I've found this has made things interesting.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16421

 

 

[Tlam99]

try this and set the followers as you want.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33002

 

 

[travelmedic]

23 minutes ago, Mez558 said:

Yes, deleting a few perks often helps to balance things a little more.

 

Not sure who Auri is (I doubt it's a follower based on Kvothe's little moon fae) but the other two, Inigo and Lucien, aren't particularly OP as custom followers go but you'll still often find them mowing down things that your character might normally run away from (if you're playing on a hard difficulty) as they aren't affected by the damage adjustments.

 

I generally don't use followers much for this reason. I did have some fun with The Last Dragonborn as a follower but for all the challenges he posed I found he was able to save to day, more often than not.  I did take away his custom gear and some major perks.

 

I've found this has made things interesting.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16421

 

 

Auri is from the mod "Song of the Green" on Nexus.  Some of her regular banter, and also the interactions with Inigo, are amazing and hilarious IMHO.  As much as they sometimes just get in the way, and for all the same reasons the OP describes of removing some of the challenge, I like adventuring with Inigo, Auri and Sofia.

[Bloodfang]

19 minutes ago, travelmedic said:

Auri is from the mod "Song of the Green" on Nexus.  Some of her regular banter, and also the interactions with Inigo, are amazing and hilarious IMHO.  As much as they sometimes just get in the way, and for all the same reasons the OP describes of removing some of the challenge, I like adventuring with Inigo, Auri and Sofia.

Have you been able to set Inigo as passive so he doesn’t aggro ot attack ? I’m pretty sure I read he had this option.

 

No idea for Lucien, but it seems he has to fight no matter what. I’m afraid using mods to change their AI would break them.

[nilead]

 Ive fiddled around the same question recently.

Firstly, you need this: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/98605

TES5 does not apply difficulty settings to followers by default, so options are: Keep difficulty multipliers at 1 and use other means to balance the game or 2 - use this mod.

Secondly - you need a multiple follower handler. Unfortunately this one is a pick you poison.

Nether's follower framework people suggest is  awesome, works with 3DNPCS and provides some utterely awsome functionality. Dont use it, its incompatible with both Lucien and Inigo.

AFT is more limited, but still good. Has its own conflicts (notably, does NOT work with 3dNPCS even with a patch), not sure on compability with followers you listed. There is allso EFF, and again ive seen it in incompability lists, never used myself thou.

Third - for a team of 3-4 vanilla skyrim just doesnt have enough enemies. Genesis uleashed (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/87043) can solve that problem well enough, and i use that one, although ASIS or full SoT can do the trick as well. I just find that Genesis uleashed does it with the least fiddling and extra stuff i myself dont need.

 Other than that - the best mod for tweaking Skyrim difficulty is SkyTweak (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33395), you can finetune it for different types of enemies with Enemy Enchancer (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/69233). Id also get HLE, just because i allways get it.

Mix those together and you should get challenge you want. Beyond just number tweaks - there are mods like Animal Tweaks to force you to adapt to different opponents and diversify the ways your party will be wiped.

 

[travelmedic]

3 hours ago, Bloodfang said:

Have you been able to set Inigo as passive so he doesn’t aggro ot attack ? I’m pretty sure I read he had this option.

 

No idea for Lucien, but it seems he has to fight no matter what. I’m afraid using mods to change their AI would break them.

I've never tried.  I've just accepted the trade-off that in order to get the banter and commentary from the custom followers, which I really like, that I'll make sacrifices in other areas.

 

Of course, after reading this thread, I may give some of these other mods or ideas a try.

[Bloodfang]

5 hours ago, travelmedic said:

I've never tried.  I've just accepted the trade-off that in order to get the banter and commentary from the custom followers, which I really like, that I'll make sacrifices in other areas.

 

Of course, after reading this thread, I may give some of these other mods or ideas a try.

I’ll try to test it out but selecting and preparing mods for a heavy modded but stable install takes a ton of time.

 

Forgot how time consuming it can be !

 

In the case they don’t have an option to be set as coward/passive, wouldn’t it be easier to set them that way directly on the CK? I’m unsure as they use custom AI but who knows, it might work.

 

Last time I tried a few mods to increase the amount of enemies by a lot and making the combat harder but it just ends up being a oneshot party instead of bulletsponge. But that was years ago now.

[Harvald]

simply increase the difficulty of the game.  Expert, Master, Legend. I'm playing Master, but perhaps you are better than me.

[SmedleyDButler]

15 hours ago, nilead said:

 Ive fiddled around the same question recently.

Firstly, you need this: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/98605

TES5 does not apply difficulty settings to followers by default, so options are: Keep difficulty multipliers at 1 and use other means to balance the game or 2 - use this mod.

Secondly - you need a multiple follower handler. Unfortunately this one is a pick you poison.

Nether's follower framework people suggest is  awesome, works with 3DNPCS and provides some utterely awsome functionality. Dont use it, its incompatible with both Lucien and Inigo.

AFT is more limited, but still good. Has its own conflicts (notably, does NOT work with 3dNPCS even with a patch), not sure on compability with followers you listed. There is allso EFF, and again ive seen it in incompability lists, never used myself thou.

Third - for a team of 3-4 vanilla skyrim just doesnt have enough enemies. Genesis uleashed (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/87043) can solve that problem well enough, and i use that one, although ASIS or full SoT can do the trick as well. I just find that Genesis uleashed does it with the least fiddling and extra stuff i myself dont need.

 Other than that - the best mod for tweaking Skyrim difficulty is SkyTweak (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33395), you can finetune it for different types of enemies with Enemy Enchancer (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/69233). Id also get HLE, just because i allways get it.

Mix those together and you should get challenge you want. Beyond just number tweaks - there are mods like Animal Tweaks to force you to adapt to different opponents and diversify the ways your party will be wiped.

 

 

It may not affect the OP's choice, but Inigo's own built-in follower management gives him a slot separate from any normal followers and also has more robust follower management tools than literally any general follower management mod. Most follower management mod authors will strongly advise players not to try managing Inigo, as does Inigo's author, since any attempt to take over his framework in any way typically breaks him.

 

Some folks might find it inconvenient to use more than one management system (Inigo's own + whatever follower manager you use), but Inigo is largely self-managing once you set him up, so I can't say I've ever felt like the extra fiddling was a burden.

[Gräfin Zeppelin]

23 hours ago, Harvald said:

simply increase the difficulty of the game.  Expert, Master, Legend. I'm playing Master, but perhaps you are better than me.

If you do that without a difficulty fix you also boost your followers aggravating the problem.

[Mez558]

On 7/31/2020 at 11:48 PM, Harvald said:

simply increase the difficulty of the game.  Expert, Master, Legend. I'm playing Master, but perhaps you are better than me.

As GZ said.

 

The damage reduction from higher difficulty only affects the player. I don't know if there is actually a damage boost to NPC's (if there is then, as they are also NPC;s, it is  applied to followers as well) or it is simply a case of the PC's mitigation/resistance being reduced so you take more damage.

Either way, increasing diffictulty, whilst tougher for you, has no effect on a follower and having 3 will still be a walk in the park, as long as you avoid getting hit.

[winny257]

On 7/31/2020 at 2:31 PM, Bloodfang said:

Aye I think you’re right, 3 followers is just too much and the game is not made with that in mind.

 

I know Inigo has a setting to make him passive/coward, unsure about the others but I do wonder if such setting would make them basically invisible to enemies as in they don’t get aggro at all but only me and 1 active follower.

I hate followers, because the artificial intelligence is too stupid in games! ?
I really enjoy playing as an archer where quiet behavior is required, either hinder thee your followers and they get Friendly Fires, or they betray your camouflage!

Spoiler

 

 

[Mez558]

3 minutes ago, winny257 said:

I hate followers, because the artificial intelligence is too stupid in games! ?
I really enjoy playing as an archer where quiet behavior is required, either hinder thee your followers and they get Friendly Fires, or they betray your camouflage!

 

It has always been my opinion that the AI of followers was designed to be annoying. They're movement in combat designed to endanger themselves and hinder you.
The AI of Enemies, although very simplistic, generally easy to predict and use against them, is no where near as inept.

 

 

[Mez558]

On 7/31/2020 at 11:18 AM, Bloodfang said:

Hey guys !

 

 

An extra addition I've added to make things more challenging is No Health Regen which removes all health regen from playable races (and therefore from NPC's) I've adjusted in xEdit to be 0.01 (default is 0.7) so there is some autoregen but it's really slow. Makes Cooking and collecting ingredients for Stews and Soups suddenly important.

 

I'm still not using Followers myself but that could certainly limit them.

 

Of course if they have custom races you would need to edit that yourself.

 

[Bloodfang]

After some thoughts I think I'll just take a single one that will be active and rest as cowards/passive cucks.

 

With some difficulty enhancers of course.