Lydia is very dumb.

[cody]

I enter dungeons and she will either stop following me or get lost ten minutes in. I will solo a 20-30 minute long dungeon only to find that she only reappears after i've left it.

[craigsters]

https://youtu.be/NuvxmAss_sU?si=MbyqBNEZhjx-7ynE

[worm_master]

Yeah, i leave her as steward on my plantation

[Ilja]

Any followers - even custom "smart ones" are dumb in dungeons. They have a lot of path finding issues.

It is easiest to manage them. Doable without mods, but requires a lot of interaction. Mods like NFF or AFT make the managing far easier, with various hotkeys.

Usually I leave Lydia proper spot, where I can retreat for extra cover. She is usually just crossing or two behind, so she is able to actually able to catch up and find my character, instead of running across 3 different levels and and loosing herself to some corner.

[Eternie]

Lydia isn't the smartest follower, however if you have a mod like AFT (as ilja mentioned )
that have followers become positioned behind you as soon as you draw your weapon.

So even if they get lost somewhere in Skyrim or in a dungeon they are immediately there behind you when you draw your weapon .. and they ready theirs to help you.

[76561198880414723]

they are smart as navmesh in vanilla is. npc will stop if navmesh is broken and the only way to fix it for time being is to shout at follower or push it to the other side. there is a mod who fix tons of this broken cells where follower can stop following you. Navigator - Navmesh Fixes

[xybolt]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Ghostyy:

I enter dungeons and she will either stop following me or get lost ten minutes in. I will solo a 20-30 minute long dungeon only to find that she only reappears after i've left it.

As others have pointed out, the AI uses path finding to be able to be near you. You may see walkways, paths, floors, ... being accessible but it is only for you. There is an invisible layer on top of that, the so called "navmesh", containing multiple connecting 2D polygons to allow the AI to find their way to you, by using these connection points. The problem it is that it is fragile (a small mistake can have disastrous results) and something can be set incorrectly. Or that there's a gap in between, leading an AI NPC to not be able to reach you.

If Lydia is having troubles with that, so will it be for other followers.

[ShelLuser]

NPC followers are one thing, NPC pets can become even more annoying. I play with several mods and one of those added spiders to the game, a new form of magical creature. And they can follow you!

Unfortunately they also have a tendency to stand right near the exit of a tunnel which means that they effectively block the entire pathway because you can't just jump over them.