I plan for followers to be more than just your average follower like in most games. I want the follower to mean something to the player. I want them to be able to form relationships with each and every follower that they come in contact with. However the combat aspect seems to be the most important so I will explain it right now.
Combat:
Followers when you first receive them will have stats based on the area they are in. I.e if a follower that is level 1 is in a low level area that follower wont have as good stats as a level 1 follower in a higher level. Followers will attack the enemy when you attack. They will attack AFTER you attack and can be very deadly in battles. They will lose health as you do and when they die... they die. They'll have more tolerance for death i.e You WILL have time to revive them but their deaths are permanent. We are even playing around with the idea of being able to visit their graves.
Leveling, customization and progression:
The followers will have their own weapons and attacks. We are looking into the possibility of having you "upgrade" their weapons. There will be a few you can name but for the most part followers will sort of have their own personality, but we will tell more on this in a bit. Followers can level up just like the player can. You can have a max of two followers right now so that means that if you trade in a follower their stats get wiped and if you go to get them again these stats will be gone. This is a way of balancing them. In higher level battles followers will gain more XP and will level small ones up faster. As followers level up their damage and other stats will go up with them. Again, there are many things that we are discussing such as perks, scavenging and what not.
Personality:
Here's what i believe could be the best part of these followers. I plan to try and make each follower have their own back story and personality. This means you can talk to practically every follower you have follow you. You'll be able to learn more about them the more time you spend with them. Each follower will have something new to say. We hope this will cause the player to become more attached to their followernot only making you less likeley to trade them in but to also make their deaths more meaningful and sad if you took the time to know them.
