Followers walking off cliffs is a feature not a bug

[DragonbornVet]

Serena just yeeted herself off a mountain in Bleak Falls Barrow and honestly I'm not even mad anymore. This is the fifth time in two playthroughs that my follower has decided gravity is their enemy. At this point I'm convinced the pathfinding AI is just fundamentally broken in ways that can't be fixed without mods, and I've made peace with it.

Like yeah, USSEP probably fixes some of it, but there's something about how followers navigate narrow terrain that just breaks. They'll stand next to you, you turn around, and suddenly they're tumbling down a ravine because they tried to path through solid rock or something. I've watched it happen in slow motion enough times to know it's not lag on my end.

Anyone else just accept this as part of the experience now? Or do you have a follower mod that actually solves this? I'm on PC so I could swap things around, but honestly at this point I kind of enjoy the chaos. Makes me actually use Mayhem spells and Fury more often since I can't rely on backup.

 

[RiftenWanderer]

I feel this in my soul. Serana especially seems to have a personal vendetta against solid ground - I've lost her to the Soul Cairn terrain more times than I can count, and she just... walks into walls and then off cliffs like it's a speedrun strat.

The thing that gets me though is it's not even consistent? Like sometimes followers will navigate tight spaces fine, and other times they'll see a perfectly walkable path and decide "nope, I'm going through that mountain." I think it's less about the pathfinding being broken and more about how they prioritize "stay near the player" over "don't die horribly," so they'll cut corners that the engine doesn't actually let them cut.

Honestly I'm with you on making peace with it. I stopped treating followers as reliable backup and started thinking of them more as... companions who are there for roleplay and occasional help. My current playthrough I'm using mayhem spells way more than I used to, and it's actually made combat feel fresher. Plus there's something darkly funny about watching Farkas just walk off a cliff while you're standing still because he miscalculated his follow distance.

If you ever do get tired of it though, I've heard people mention follower mods that improve their pathfinding, but I'm blanking on the specific names. Might be worth a quick search if the chaos eventually wears thin.