I like the Companion update, but the dog itself is sooo stupid that it is basically only good for a distraction and as an additional carry bag rather than anything else.
Those are things that really bother/piss me off:
- It keeps teleporting into your way and so many times it teleports in front of you, especially it likes teleporting in front of your motorbike when riding, so you fly over the steering bars, you get damage, bike gets damage and the newly attached armor on your dog gets wrecked as well, nice.
- It also keeps teleporting exactly to your spot when Fast Traveling, so it catapults you to the air and you play Superman for a while. At least it doesn’t harm you.
- It still keeps bumbing into me, as it is randomly running around, especially when I’m in a cover. It doesn’t have any problem pushing me in front of enemies, this is also very upsetting. Or you are walking on the pier and he bumps you into the water.
- It is blocking my way, especially in the narrow corridors of the bunkers, it just stops at the door and doesn’t move, so I need to push it away.
- It is still shooting dead enemies. I kill someone and it probably wants to make sure it is dead, so it keeps shooting at the corpse instead of shooting at the other enemies.
- It is shooting enemies through the walls, as they would be in direct line of sight, so it cannot do anything to anyone.
- It is so stupid that it steps into the fire, taking damage and squeeking, but stays there. Also, it obviously likes a barbed wire in the same way (btw, I’m not sure how the barbed wire could possibly damage it).
- It is shooting at distant enemies, dragging them into the fight instead of focusing on the enemies near by.
- It has probably configured unlimited mass or at least much higher mass than the biggest enemies, so when it is randomly running around, it kicks away corpses like they were nothing, even Harvesters and Tanks. So sometimes it flies away and you have to chase it for loot. There should be some collision avoidance configured for this.
- SMG gun is very weak, it would be good if he could at least selectively and precisely shoot off important components on the machines, so it has some effect at least.
I would suggest these improvements:
- Collision detection, so it doesn’t teleport into you, doesn’t bump into you, doesn’t bump into other things.
- Better AI, so it is not that stupid.
- Commads, as many people suggested here, like selecting a target, heel, aggressive or neutral stance, etc.
- Avoid things that could harm it, like fire or barbed wire (which should be configured to cause no damage).
- Shoot only what is alive and don’t shoot at the walls.
- Possibility to attaching new armor in the field (perhaps with a proper Engineer skill) would be a good thing.
- A bit calmer behavior, so it is not running around like a crazy dog without any reason.