Follower's catch-up problem

[Johnny Casey]

I'm suck at English, but I'm trying my best to describe with it.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's having this problem.
They just can't catch up your movement. Always stay way back, unless you're walking.

The problem is that how Bethesda changed NPC's movement in Skyrim.

Back in Oblivion, or Fallout 3(and its expansion pack, New Vegas) There are only 2 speed measure for NPC - walking, and running. Just like how PC users move. We can either walk, or run. There are no 'fast walking', or 'slow running' in these games. It can only performed by console user, who uses joystick to move.

And when Skyrim was release, as always some nuts in Bethesda thought this '2 speed only' was bad, and had to be changed for some reason. So now all NPCs in Skyrim moves like as if someone controls them with controller. They can jog, and can fast walk, or anything between just walk and run. My only guess for their decision is this will make the game more immersive.

So now we know all the NPC's doing 'controller movement', Let's compare their movement, to ours.

You : Stop, Walk, Run
Them : Stop > Slow walk > Walk > Fast walk > Slow Run > Run > Fast run(To catch you up)

Yep. Basically like this.

Problem is, they cannot just skip slow walk or slow run to reach the higher speed measure.
If they want to peform 'Run', they can't just start running immediately. They HAVE TO start 'Slow walk' to 'boost' their speed.

And here we are. The infamous 'Follower can't catch up' issue was born.
It's really hard to explain this because of my English sucks, so if you observe how your followers move you may understand what I'm saying.

[Alliecienti]

I have seen this on followers as well. They quickly fall behind and are always struggling to keep up. Only custom mod followers that have added catch-up feature can keep up with you. The vanilla follower will also almost never follow down a difficult terrain evn if it is a series of short jumps down. They will go around to where they can easily walk/run and sometimes that is a LONG ways around a mountain. Many of the dungeons have those "coming to the exit" points that are above a room or hallway tht you just drop down that short bit. The follower will go ALL THE WAY BACK AROUND and not just jump down like the player did. It's the way the developers programmed the follower AI. Only in some modded followers d you find them jumping down those short distances and keeping up with the player.

[Eternie]

So easy answer is use a mod like AFT where the follower automatically spawns behind you when ever you draw your weapon. Or get the mod "Followers as companions" that has you set a follower to walk nearly beside you on either left or right.

Personally Bethesda did a great job with having running , sprinting and walking, What you describe is your difficulties at what speed do they follow at what weight encumberance. How overloaded are you are they all running at different speeds ... like in RL If you carry heaps or have shorter legs you would struggle to keep up with someone else.

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Eternie:

Personally Bethesda did a great job with having running , sprinting and walking, What you describe is your difficulties at what speed do they follow at what weight encumberance. How overloaded are you are they all running at different speeds ... like in RL If you carry heaps or have shorter legs you would struggle to keep up with someone else.

I don't understand what you're saying. Are you approving Skyrim's or...?

By the way, I don't like AFT cause it's too heavily scripted, and Followers as companions only supports two followers as its maximum.

[Eternie]

I think Bethesda did a dam good job with skyrim, it's an amazing game from 2011 probably before controllers even existed.

[Alliecienti]

Originally posted by Eternie:

So easy answer is use a mod like AFT where the follower automatically spawns behind you when ever you draw your weapon. Or get the mod "Followers as companions" that has you set a follower to walk nearly beside you on either left or right.

Personally Bethesda did a great job with having running , sprinting and walking, What you describe is your difficulties at what speed do they follow at what weight encumberance. How overloaded are you are they all running at different speeds ... like in RL If you carry heaps or have shorter legs you would struggle to keep up with someone else.

Well the 'shorter or longer legs' part isn't the problem since basically the vanillia NPC all have the same base body and move speed as the player. The only difference is male and female and that doesn't change the movement rate. Different races don't make a difference either. Followers who are carrying nothing other than the armor/weapons they are equipped with should not fall so far behind the player hen player has a similar or higher encumbrance (ie light or heavy armor), but they are. If I load my character to 1 unit below the max weight for run speed and my follower has nothing but robes on, I will still leave them behind due to the mechanics of how their movement is programmed. They will still not follow over rough terrain and go around it which makes them fall even further behind.

This is the problem that the original post was about. Without mods that alter their move mechanics, the followers cannot keep up like they should. Take a 30 second run across the tundra plains in a straight line (don't touch the sprint button, just run).... Your vanilla follower without mods to aid their movement, similar or lighter weight equipped, tries to keep up. At the end of the 30 second run. Stop. Turn around and watch how your follower is trying to catch up with you.

Even mod followers that ride horses don't keep up with your horse. Their horse should be just as capable as the one you bought at the stable but theirs suffers from the same movement mechanics problem as the NPC does. You leave them far behind if you go trotting off too long without stopping/pausing now and then for them to catch up.

[Eternie]

In skyrim they are more like real people where they know they have to follow so they don't run immediately, as they are only supposed to follow 6 meters behind you ... so they wait and then try to catch up. If that annoys you don't use followers to keep your game simpler.
Or make a mod to fix an issue as you see it.

What game are you comparing skyrim to, that you think all followers should be totally in sync with you running across the landscape?

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Eternie:

What game are you comparing skyrim to, that you think all followers should be totally in sync with you running across the landscape?

Oblivion and New Vegas. In these games, followers always catch up to you, thanks to the fact that only 2 speed are available for NPC.

Sure, they sometimes wonder around due to lack of pathing AI, but I never had any troubles with my followers always stay far behind.

What good is a immersive and realistic, if the feature is just overall bad?

Take good example of classic Fallouts, where you have to calculate the item values by yourself and pay with your caps/money when you're bartering with other people. That's realistic, but is tedious as hell. Are you gonna approve this as well?

[Johnny Casey]

Also, all the values that factors speed, they were existed back in Oblivion.

If you're atheletic skills, speed attribute are high, and your encumbrance is low, you can walk faster than anyone who's doing the same.

When Bethesda was developing Skyrim, however, they decided to remove all these attribute and skills to simplifized their game, and here we are, they added 'controler movement' to NPCs to give different speed to each other.

One step foward, two steps backward as always. And we have someone who's approving that for some reason.