Dear Bethesda: 10 Things I Want To See In The Elder Scrolls: Online

4. Improved A.I.

Playing as a thief, I relied on arrows, poison, and one handed weapons a lot, in addition to stealth. One of my biggest gripes was shooting an enemy, the arrow not killing him or her, and after a brief few moments of searching for me, my target went and sat his or her happy butt right back down - with the arrow still in them. Now, this falls under my "combat" gripe technically, but it still applies - there's times when the A.I. makes less than intelligent decisions. A bandit sees I have arrows? Rather than duck or take cover, she sprints right at me, claiming how easy I'll be to rob when I'm dead. A man glimpses me in his house after hours? I crouch behind a bench and wait for the Eye in the middle of the screen to close. A warrior sees myself and Iona approaching? He rushes in to assault my heavily armored housecarl, ingoring me, who is scantily clad and easily taken down by comparison (I'm not really a defensive player...). Now, A.I. isn't going to be implemented in The Elder Scrolls the same way it would in say... a shooter game. In The Last of Us, human enemies will react differently to Joel depending on whether or not he's armed with a bat, or a loaded gun. In Killzone, the Helghast WILL flank you just to pick you off at some unforeseen corner of the map. In Borderlands... well, you'll be shot at. A lot. A WHOLE lot. But there's variations in the behavior of enemy NPCs in those games, whereas Skyrim, which is comparably epic, lauded, and popular, simply has "See player. Kill player. Repeat."

And now, we get to YOU.

Unfortunately... friendly A.I. works in the same way.

Lydia, or in my case, Iona or Mjoll (my housecarl and "wife", respectively), are all guilty of leaving cover at an inopportune time to rush the enemy, often being completely OWNED, just to yield and cower on the ground, while the now incensed horde of Falmer, bandits, bears, or mages converge upon MY location.

You can imagine how infuriating this is.

Now, you have the ability to give your followers commands, (and the "wait here" option is a GODSEND), which largely nullifies this problem. But even so, if your follwer mimics your movements, such as sprinting and sneaking, why then can't they smartly analyze an situation? If we're entering a room filled with hostiles, it is more than obvious that rushing in, swords blazing is going to result in immediate death. At the same time, rushing a big enemy such as a Dwemer Centurion or an Elder Dragon is equally foolish. Would it be so much to ask for smarter, less berserk help?

And, regarding those big enemies: