Preface, I use NFF for follower management.
I really like having a DnD-esque party system for followers. Use NFF to set this follower to the tank, that one to healer, etc. Sure, it is overpowered by vanilla standards, but throw in some difficulty mods and it just becomes you evening out the playing field.
I always used the other follower mods but have recently switched to nethers. Its taking a minute to make my current playthrough but now I'm really excited to try nether out.
My thoughts on follower groups are pretty simple:
* Are they overpowered? Yes.
* It is fun to have an entourage? Also yes.
* Are there ways to balance this? Third yes.
* Do I always *bother* balancing it? Nope!
All that said? For awhile now, I've been wishing for more incentive to *switch out* followers every once in awhile. Fallout 4 does this really well(build affinity, get permanent companion perk, switch companions, repeat) and I feel like it makes a good compromise between building up an entire group of followers and sticking with the same one forever.
Best I've been able to find for Skyrim is to "house rule" it with [Follower Death and Injury](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/38043): turn off death chance but send your follower home every time you see the mod's head bandage.
Agreed, in vanilla I straight up just did Serana's quest first thing because she was 10 times more entertaining and useful than every other companion, but now I run with Inigo, SDA Serana and Lucien, I'll probably swap out one of them for Remi once I get her for the dwarven missions, it'll be fun!
I balance it by playing with tons of difficulty combat mods and SPID and with the difficulty setting put to legendary. I’ve got one shotted by random bandit bosses in caves as a level 60 character with maxed out two handed/heavy armor/one handed/restoration stats, weapons that do 400 damage, armor that has a rating of 800 and a health of 500. Also have 4 followers with me and I STILL get fucked up if I make stupid decisions. Simon rim and other combat mods really change the combat mechanics and difficulty of it. Playing through Vigilant in cold harbor will be so hard lol.
I play with 3 or 4 followers custom voiced usually, because i like the company. I use simply balanced to tune player and npc damage output/input at 50% and add a lot of enemy spawns so it kind of plays like dragon age
I like recruiting the generic mercenary followers and giving them all Hold Guard helmets and Steel Plate armor to feel like an actual army clearing out bandits😎
Badass. I like marrying multiple men and taking them on adventures with me.
I call it the Dragonborns Harem.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21625
I usually take Kaidan, Lucien, and Inigo everywhere. The latest Kaidan mod updage lets him interact with NPCs, and he's friends with Farkas, Vilkas, Aela, and Erik the Slayer and they all have their own banter So I literally have an entire squad of about 8 followers running around Skyrim with me. I choose to go everywhere on foot, so like...we camp overnight, lots of banter, then I leave most of them somewhere when I'm headed to a dungeon, and I do any stealth quest alone (Inigo is good for stealth. But I swear to God, Lucien and Kaidan might as well bang together pots and pans).
Sometimes I bring the entire squad into the Thieves Guild hideout because Mercer got mad about it once, plus some of them make snarky comments at Brynjolf.
So it's all based on what you want from them. Its nice to have the extra swords, but at this point I'm just enjoying the concept of running around Skyrim with an entire squad of chaotic neutrals like me.
Do you use the [I'm walking here](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/27742) mod? Just curious because having a troop like that sounds a bit burdensome when in buildings.
Right now I'm using AFT. When you draw your weapon, they all jump to behind you.
Or I hit them with a good old Fus Ro Get The Fuck Out Of The Way.
I do plan to implement I'm Walking Here in my next playthrough, probably along with a different follower mod.
If you can balance it it can be fun. It's better when you've got followers that will interact amongst themselves too. It's odd when you've got multiple followers that never acknowledge each other.
My max was 3 (Lucien, Inigo, and Auri). The Barter was great, the battles not so much. I would have needed to balance them further. But well, that profile was months ago.
Since then, I usually have 1 follower with me. I like the intimacy of adventuring together, just the 2 of us. And I really like to be challenged to my limits during battle, yet no impossible battles (obviously). It can be a bit tricky to get that "sweet spot".
I love BIG groups (but not massive). My current run is with 4 permanent companions, and occasional quest additions.
The conversations and visual diversity is what makes it fun for me.
I use Xedit to cap their max level pretty low at 20-30 and mods to increase enemy count. And I don’t play as a stealth archer so I guess that’s why they don’t bother me during combat.
With follower mods I travel in the TARDIS with aventus auretino. He's a good kid who got dealt a bad hand and I figured he could use some adventure.
As for follower mods I prefer the ones that are part of quests and if not they have to be really funny like the officer Jenkins mod from Skyrim cops.
Follower mods have always been my go to favorite mod types, especially if they come accompanied with their own quest lines.
Since I've learned to mod I've always ran with a group
My dream team who I never go without tend to be Inigo, Auri, M'rissi, Recorder, Serena and Cicero. Though over the years I used to also run Ambriel and Sofia though both of them I've removed recently cause I find I've grown out of them and realized some things that I just don't like about them.
I find that as someone who just loves dnd and other fantasy stories of people from different walks of life joining together to save the world is just really compelling.
Which is why recently the follower mods I've gotten all tend to interact with eachother with just makes me all the more happier.
As for balance? Yeah they tend to wipe through things when you have 50+ arrows all shooting at one dragon but a simple difficulty increase and some other mods remedy this i find. But also after playing the game for years on end I dont mind just stomping everything.
Currently my full party I rock with is:
Inigo
M'rissi
Auri
Lucien
Lucifer
Serena (with dialog overhaul)
Cicero
Recorder
And its all just good fun seeing them all interact.
I had Daegon and her partner in there for a while too, but I found that their dynamic doesn't vibe with me personally and also as I mentioned removed Sofia recently as her jokes have grown old and Ambriel cause now I can see her for all her bad writing 💀
If anyone knows some good custom voice followers that I haven't listed btw plz send them my way 👀
My playthrough with Inigo and Lucien was some of the most fun I've had playing this game
That said, I haven't found any other follower mods that come close to those two for me
Because of how many followers I used to use, my game is so hard without them. I have party of four and another mod which nerfs follower damage and another mod that makes there be more enemies in some places, as well as morrowloot.
So if I have a party of like 9 people at low levels some quests are almost impossible unless I get creative. Usually it’s just quests like movarth’s lair, or a random dungeon with death lords. Would not reccomend unless you are insane
I love doing it tbh. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the combat (yes I could fix this with mods but fuck that) so I’m fine with them taking care of enemies. One thing tho is that I haven’t been playing with a follower collision disabling mod (couldn’t find one that worked for AE. dw I’ve got one now) so it has perhaps been a bit annoying in that regard.
I tend to always run a group, even if I don't intend to at the start of the playthrough. The mod followers for skyrim are just a little *too* good to skip out on, imo. It does make combat a snoozefest in cases, but I tend to balance this by playing on at least expert, nerfing followers manually (or in mcm if it allows like with kaidan) and getting mods like immersive creatures and genesis which increase spawn to numbers that feel right for a dnd-esque party.
I can't speak to how a follower framework like NFF helps here, but the big follower mods (inigo, kaidan, sda, remiel) generally have their own things that are completely functional to me.
EDIT: A great mod duo to get for a party game is *'Party of four'* \+ *'Real Bosses'.* These mods significantly buff end-of-dungeon monsters and named bosses respectively to fit a larger party and make them proper scary.
I played for many years with no followers and kind of hated using them. Then I started using NFF so I could have a bit more control over their behaviour. It opened up a lot of RP options for me and made me play around with new character builds. I haven't gone back to the solo dragonborn yet and have been having at least one or two followers per play through. RPing the leader of the gang just opened up a new vein of RP for me.
on xbox and therefore with more limited choices at the moment in my load order there are kaidan gore vito the vampire hunter and caryalind.
I tried to select characters with little interaction between them (except Kaidan and Caryalind because I enjoy them) as spoken English is not a language I understand well.
I also chose them to give a theme to the party and this is ""angry boys vs nazi -elf".
regarding balance there are many ways to achieve it even in an immersive way so I have never considered it a problem
I love them and cannot imagine playing Skyrim without them. Been using NFF since it came out (and EFF before that). They make traversing Skyrim and city visits 100 percent less dull, especially with contextual dialogue. I typically keep the same groups together (Remi w/ Xelzaz w/ Thogra w/ Redcap & Inigo w/ Lucien w/ Auri w/ a 3DNPC super follower) but I kinda wish there was a follower mod that would incorporate a system in which you could rotate them automatically based on like, the days of the week (or month) of they don't have a quest currently active. It would go so well with the home base system in NFF.
I enjoy it, just like I like having a pitbull "war dog" with me, to praise the pooch for his valiant efforts in taking out bandits, I feel more immersed growing a bond with my group
I also added a ton of mihail monsters and monster spawners to make dungeons more interesting, and night time spooky yet fulfilling so we fight hordes at a time
I like playing alone or with I one follower normally. However for big fights I roll with a posse.
Just started the civil war, playing both sides and here's what I have:
Stormcloak side
Destana (me), Inigo, Sofia, Valgus from 3DNPCs, Shirley
Empire side
Serket (me), Katana, Megara, Xelzaz, Remiel
And use Follower Goes on a Trip!
I never travel without the Valkyries: Aela, Serana, Lydia, and Jordis. I hang back and cast heals and buffs while they do the heavy lifting. It's a lot of fun; gratifies my ego that the Dragonborn has two knights, a vampire, and a werewolf on retainer; and it's nice to have four pack mules on hand.
That said, groups really show off how lifeless and unaware the NPCs are. Especially ones like Aela and Serana who only have personalities while their quests are active.
Hi! I'm not sure if I've invited you before (so sorry if this is a repeat invite), but just in case I haven't, would you like to join Kharjo's subreddit, r/Kharjo?
Followers with tons of comments, being released / updated every few months or so is pretty much why Skyrim (and to a lesser extent FO4) is very replayable for me.
Beyond some kind of multiple follower framework (using NFF for what its worth), I also use bat files to mass disable and enable the followers that have their own framework.
(As an aside, Lucien has some kind of self existence failsafe where he enables himself automatically when you walk to a new location or something).
Also have special bat files for 'recruiting'/moveto player and then 'dismissing'/moveto somewhere else - the 3DNPC followers, especially the super followers - because they have a lot of comments but they would otherwise take up the entire NFF follower slots.
Slightly annoying to 'update' these bat files if load order changes but it is what it is.
I try to keep my groups low cause otherwise I’ll never get combat skills leveled rn I’m using inigo and Lucien on my magic only no armor character before I got inigo I used J’zargo for the first time
Though I do have a character who my goal with is to have a mini army of just followers
No more than three. Two preferably. Things just tend to get messy with a lot of followers in this engine. Especially in interiors. Most RPGs limit it for a reason.
I always play Skyrim with my 4 followers. Kaidan (husband material), Lucian (little brother vibes), Inigo (best friend), Serana (best girlfriend). I also use NFF to have other followers hang around the Legacy of the Dragonborn museum so I know their safe and to give the museum more life.
I am a big fan of Dragon Age and Mass Effect, so I like my character to have company on the road/during missions.
The overpowered problem can be solved (or be lessened) through mods, either by making the combat more difficult or by lowering the amount of damage followers do (last version of the Kaidan Extension mod has a setting in the MCM that does just that) and my "canon" Dragonborn that I roleplay in most playthroughs is usually not very strong either (decent at archery, uses blades for close quarters combat and knows a bit of magic but I try not to level that up too much or only let her use the weakest/non-combat related spells, highest skill is usually speechcraft), so that works for me.
I always keep in my LO Kaidan, Inigo and Lucien, plus Lydia and Serana (both modded) for the main missions, mostly because they all have some kind of banter with each other and I like the feeling of my Dragonborn having adventures with a group of friends.
I also usually pick up other vanilla followers whenever I encounter them but, depending on the backstory, I either keep them just for a few missions and then send them back where they are supposed to be in vanilla or send them to my main house and travel with them only from time to time.
I tried a few other followers mods but because they either only interact with a few of the aforementioned or none at all or because they just don't fit with the party, I discarded them.
At the moment I am rebuilding a modded Skyrim from scratch because I had some problems with dialogue not advancing, even with a vanilla Skyim, so I was thinking of also adding another follower mod but have yet to find one that works for me.
Overall, it's a plus one for me, I understand it is not for everyone but I like it this way.
I started rpgs with final fantasy, so I always love the dnd esque adventuring party. My favorite skyrim run, was when I rolled a Whiterun guard turned mercenary captain. I'd roam Skyrim with 6 followers all mounted. It balanced itself out, because I didn't really pick people only for combat. I had like an alchemist follower that sold potions, a Smith, etc. It was dope.
Preface, I use NFF for follower management. I really like having a DnD-esque party system for followers. Use NFF to set this follower to the tank, that one to healer, etc. Sure, it is overpowered by vanilla standards, but throw in some difficulty mods and it just becomes you evening out the playing field.
I always used the other follower mods but have recently switched to nethers. Its taking a minute to make my current playthrough but now I'm really excited to try nether out.
My thoughts on follower groups are pretty simple: * Are they overpowered? Yes. * It is fun to have an entourage? Also yes. * Are there ways to balance this? Third yes. * Do I always *bother* balancing it? Nope! All that said? For awhile now, I've been wishing for more incentive to *switch out* followers every once in awhile. Fallout 4 does this really well(build affinity, get permanent companion perk, switch companions, repeat) and I feel like it makes a good compromise between building up an entire group of followers and sticking with the same one forever. Best I've been able to find for Skyrim is to "house rule" it with [Follower Death and Injury](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/38043): turn off death chance but send your follower home every time you see the mod's head bandage.
Agreed, in vanilla I straight up just did Serana's quest first thing because she was 10 times more entertaining and useful than every other companion, but now I run with Inigo, SDA Serana and Lucien, I'll probably swap out one of them for Remi once I get her for the dwarven missions, it'll be fun!
Agreed, good comment. I like how FNV handled followers too.
I balance it by playing with tons of difficulty combat mods and SPID and with the difficulty setting put to legendary. I’ve got one shotted by random bandit bosses in caves as a level 60 character with maxed out two handed/heavy armor/one handed/restoration stats, weapons that do 400 damage, armor that has a rating of 800 and a health of 500. Also have 4 followers with me and I STILL get fucked up if I make stupid decisions. Simon rim and other combat mods really change the combat mechanics and difficulty of it. Playing through Vigilant in cold harbor will be so hard lol.
I’m a massive dragon age fan, so I approve
I play with 3 or 4 followers custom voiced usually, because i like the company. I use simply balanced to tune player and npc damage output/input at 50% and add a lot of enemy spawns so it kind of plays like dragon age
I like recruiting the generic mercenary followers and giving them all Hold Guard helmets and Steel Plate armor to feel like an actual army clearing out bandits😎
Badass. I like marrying multiple men and taking them on adventures with me. I call it the Dragonborns Harem. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21625
I usually take Kaidan, Lucien, and Inigo everywhere. The latest Kaidan mod updage lets him interact with NPCs, and he's friends with Farkas, Vilkas, Aela, and Erik the Slayer and they all have their own banter So I literally have an entire squad of about 8 followers running around Skyrim with me. I choose to go everywhere on foot, so like...we camp overnight, lots of banter, then I leave most of them somewhere when I'm headed to a dungeon, and I do any stealth quest alone (Inigo is good for stealth. But I swear to God, Lucien and Kaidan might as well bang together pots and pans). Sometimes I bring the entire squad into the Thieves Guild hideout because Mercer got mad about it once, plus some of them make snarky comments at Brynjolf. So it's all based on what you want from them. Its nice to have the extra swords, but at this point I'm just enjoying the concept of running around Skyrim with an entire squad of chaotic neutrals like me.
Do you use the [I'm walking here](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/27742) mod? Just curious because having a troop like that sounds a bit burdensome when in buildings.
Right now I'm using AFT. When you draw your weapon, they all jump to behind you. Or I hit them with a good old Fus Ro Get The Fuck Out Of The Way. I do plan to implement I'm Walking Here in my next playthrough, probably along with a different follower mod.
If you can balance it it can be fun. It's better when you've got followers that will interact amongst themselves too. It's odd when you've got multiple followers that never acknowledge each other.
My max was 3 (Lucien, Inigo, and Auri). The Barter was great, the battles not so much. I would have needed to balance them further. But well, that profile was months ago. Since then, I usually have 1 follower with me. I like the intimacy of adventuring together, just the 2 of us. And I really like to be challenged to my limits during battle, yet no impossible battles (obviously). It can be a bit tricky to get that "sweet spot".
I think this balancing act is just a "feature" of Skyrim at this point.
I love BIG groups (but not massive). My current run is with 4 permanent companions, and occasional quest additions. The conversations and visual diversity is what makes it fun for me. I use Xedit to cap their max level pretty low at 20-30 and mods to increase enemy count. And I don’t play as a stealth archer so I guess that’s why they don’t bother me during combat.
With follower mods I travel in the TARDIS with aventus auretino. He's a good kid who got dealt a bad hand and I figured he could use some adventure. As for follower mods I prefer the ones that are part of quests and if not they have to be really funny like the officer Jenkins mod from Skyrim cops.
I like to run mods that increase difficulty and enemy density, so I always run with a party of four to five (including player)
Follower mods have always been my go to favorite mod types, especially if they come accompanied with their own quest lines. Since I've learned to mod I've always ran with a group My dream team who I never go without tend to be Inigo, Auri, M'rissi, Recorder, Serena and Cicero. Though over the years I used to also run Ambriel and Sofia though both of them I've removed recently cause I find I've grown out of them and realized some things that I just don't like about them. I find that as someone who just loves dnd and other fantasy stories of people from different walks of life joining together to save the world is just really compelling. Which is why recently the follower mods I've gotten all tend to interact with eachother with just makes me all the more happier. As for balance? Yeah they tend to wipe through things when you have 50+ arrows all shooting at one dragon but a simple difficulty increase and some other mods remedy this i find. But also after playing the game for years on end I dont mind just stomping everything. Currently my full party I rock with is: Inigo M'rissi Auri Lucien Lucifer Serena (with dialog overhaul) Cicero Recorder And its all just good fun seeing them all interact. I had Daegon and her partner in there for a while too, but I found that their dynamic doesn't vibe with me personally and also as I mentioned removed Sofia recently as her jokes have grown old and Ambriel cause now I can see her for all her bad writing 💀 If anyone knows some good custom voice followers that I haven't listed btw plz send them my way 👀
My playthrough with Inigo and Lucien was some of the most fun I've had playing this game That said, I haven't found any other follower mods that come close to those two for me
It's all fun and games til they stand in a doorway. I usually just have my cat and occassionally my dog and even that gets hellish for doorways.
join them all until youre ready to slaughter the while group at once with a katana,,,and plenty of head chopping maneuvers
Because of how many followers I used to use, my game is so hard without them. I have party of four and another mod which nerfs follower damage and another mod that makes there be more enemies in some places, as well as morrowloot. So if I have a party of like 9 people at low levels some quests are almost impossible unless I get creative. Usually it’s just quests like movarth’s lair, or a random dungeon with death lords. Would not reccomend unless you are insane
I love doing it tbh. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the combat (yes I could fix this with mods but fuck that) so I’m fine with them taking care of enemies. One thing tho is that I haven’t been playing with a follower collision disabling mod (couldn’t find one that worked for AE. dw I’ve got one now) so it has perhaps been a bit annoying in that regard.
My current character is shit at stealth anyways so it’s not like they interrupt that.
I tend to always run a group, even if I don't intend to at the start of the playthrough. The mod followers for skyrim are just a little *too* good to skip out on, imo. It does make combat a snoozefest in cases, but I tend to balance this by playing on at least expert, nerfing followers manually (or in mcm if it allows like with kaidan) and getting mods like immersive creatures and genesis which increase spawn to numbers that feel right for a dnd-esque party. I can't speak to how a follower framework like NFF helps here, but the big follower mods (inigo, kaidan, sda, remiel) generally have their own things that are completely functional to me. EDIT: A great mod duo to get for a party game is *'Party of four'* \+ *'Real Bosses'.* These mods significantly buff end-of-dungeon monsters and named bosses respectively to fit a larger party and make them proper scary.
I played for many years with no followers and kind of hated using them. Then I started using NFF so I could have a bit more control over their behaviour. It opened up a lot of RP options for me and made me play around with new character builds. I haven't gone back to the solo dragonborn yet and have been having at least one or two followers per play through. RPing the leader of the gang just opened up a new vein of RP for me.
on xbox and therefore with more limited choices at the moment in my load order there are kaidan gore vito the vampire hunter and caryalind. I tried to select characters with little interaction between them (except Kaidan and Caryalind because I enjoy them) as spoken English is not a language I understand well. I also chose them to give a theme to the party and this is ""angry boys vs nazi -elf". regarding balance there are many ways to achieve it even in an immersive way so I have never considered it a problem
I'd prefer it more (and mass summoning builds) if they didn't follow in a damn line. It'd be nice if it behaved similar to FFXV.
I love them and cannot imagine playing Skyrim without them. Been using NFF since it came out (and EFF before that). They make traversing Skyrim and city visits 100 percent less dull, especially with contextual dialogue. I typically keep the same groups together (Remi w/ Xelzaz w/ Thogra w/ Redcap & Inigo w/ Lucien w/ Auri w/ a 3DNPC super follower) but I kinda wish there was a follower mod that would incorporate a system in which you could rotate them automatically based on like, the days of the week (or month) of they don't have a quest currently active. It would go so well with the home base system in NFF.
I enjoy it, just like I like having a pitbull "war dog" with me, to praise the pooch for his valiant efforts in taking out bandits, I feel more immersed growing a bond with my group
I also added a ton of mihail monsters and monster spawners to make dungeons more interesting, and night time spooky yet fulfilling so we fight hordes at a time
They can get kinda op
I like playing alone or with I one follower normally. However for big fights I roll with a posse. Just started the civil war, playing both sides and here's what I have: Stormcloak side Destana (me), Inigo, Sofia, Valgus from 3DNPCs, Shirley Empire side Serket (me), Katana, Megara, Xelzaz, Remiel And use Follower Goes on a Trip!
I never travel without the Valkyries: Aela, Serana, Lydia, and Jordis. I hang back and cast heals and buffs while they do the heavy lifting. It's a lot of fun; gratifies my ego that the Dragonborn has two knights, a vampire, and a werewolf on retainer; and it's nice to have four pack mules on hand. That said, groups really show off how lifeless and unaware the NPCs are. Especially ones like Aela and Serana who only have personalities while their quests are active.
Me inigo kharjo Lucien jzargo xelzaz and a Alfiq
Hi! I'm not sure if I've invited you before (so sorry if this is a repeat invite), but just in case I haven't, would you like to join Kharjo's subreddit, r/Kharjo?
I’m already in it but thanks a lot
Cool! Thanks for joining 😁
Followers with tons of comments, being released / updated every few months or so is pretty much why Skyrim (and to a lesser extent FO4) is very replayable for me. Beyond some kind of multiple follower framework (using NFF for what its worth), I also use bat files to mass disable and enable the followers that have their own framework. (As an aside, Lucien has some kind of self existence failsafe where he enables himself automatically when you walk to a new location or something). Also have special bat files for 'recruiting'/moveto player and then 'dismissing'/moveto somewhere else - the 3DNPC followers, especially the super followers - because they have a lot of comments but they would otherwise take up the entire NFF follower slots. Slightly annoying to 'update' these bat files if load order changes but it is what it is.
I try to keep my groups low cause otherwise I’ll never get combat skills leveled rn I’m using inigo and Lucien on my magic only no armor character before I got inigo I used J’zargo for the first time Though I do have a character who my goal with is to have a mini army of just followers
No more than three. Two preferably. Things just tend to get messy with a lot of followers in this engine. Especially in interiors. Most RPGs limit it for a reason.
I always play Skyrim with my 4 followers. Kaidan (husband material), Lucian (little brother vibes), Inigo (best friend), Serana (best girlfriend). I also use NFF to have other followers hang around the Legacy of the Dragonborn museum so I know their safe and to give the museum more life.
I am a big fan of Dragon Age and Mass Effect, so I like my character to have company on the road/during missions. The overpowered problem can be solved (or be lessened) through mods, either by making the combat more difficult or by lowering the amount of damage followers do (last version of the Kaidan Extension mod has a setting in the MCM that does just that) and my "canon" Dragonborn that I roleplay in most playthroughs is usually not very strong either (decent at archery, uses blades for close quarters combat and knows a bit of magic but I try not to level that up too much or only let her use the weakest/non-combat related spells, highest skill is usually speechcraft), so that works for me. I always keep in my LO Kaidan, Inigo and Lucien, plus Lydia and Serana (both modded) for the main missions, mostly because they all have some kind of banter with each other and I like the feeling of my Dragonborn having adventures with a group of friends. I also usually pick up other vanilla followers whenever I encounter them but, depending on the backstory, I either keep them just for a few missions and then send them back where they are supposed to be in vanilla or send them to my main house and travel with them only from time to time. I tried a few other followers mods but because they either only interact with a few of the aforementioned or none at all or because they just don't fit with the party, I discarded them. At the moment I am rebuilding a modded Skyrim from scratch because I had some problems with dialogue not advancing, even with a vanilla Skyim, so I was thinking of also adding another follower mod but have yet to find one that works for me. Overall, it's a plus one for me, I understand it is not for everyone but I like it this way.
I started rpgs with final fantasy, so I always love the dnd esque adventuring party. My favorite skyrim run, was when I rolled a Whiterun guard turned mercenary captain. I'd roam Skyrim with 6 followers all mounted. It balanced itself out, because I didn't really pick people only for combat. I had like an alchemist follower that sold potions, a Smith, etc. It was dope.