In Fallout 4, a common problem when traveling with companions is encountering radstags. Radstags (essentially, fallout-ified deer) are marked as “hostile” to the player, but in most cases only attempt to flee from the player instead of fight. Unfortunately, because they are technically an “enemy”, companions tend to aggro on them and chase them to the ends of the earth, getting themselves (and you) in to all sorts of trouble in the process.
In Fallout New Vegas, there exist bighorners, a ram-like creature. They are also marked as hostile by the game. They have a slightly different behavior; they will attack the player, but only if the player gets very close to them (or attacks them of course), and they even have a warning behavior before they attack. Despite them being marked as an enemy even from far away, companions will not attack bighorners until one way or the other the player themself is engaged with the creature.
What I’m getting at is that Bethesda managed to make their AI significantly stupider with their next-gen title. They un-solved a solved problem. Where the hell did Fallout 4′s dev time go to.
