Round 1: Usefulness
Let’s start with D-Dog. He’s often lauded as one of the best companions to take on missions in MGSV, coming second to Quiet, only because she’s capable of sniping enemies from a distance. However, D-Dog has other skills that Quiet severely lacks.
While Quiet is capable of spotting enemies whenever you send her to an outpost, D-Dog marks everything on your radar. I mean, literally everything. Animals? Check. Enemy soldiers? You got it. Need to harvest some plants for Mother Base? DD’s got you covered. This makes D-Dog an extremely useful companion. Being able to mark every single little thing that moves out in the field, he allows players to be acutely aware of their surroundings.
Dogmeat is also capable of locating things in the environment, but he lacks the finesse and steady hand (paw?) that DD has. When you’re out exploring the wasteland in Fallout 4, you’ll occasionally see a pop-up in the top left corner telling you that Dogmeat has found something.
Well… that’s great. What the hell did he find? You don’t know, because Dogmeat doesn’t have the sense to pick it up and bring it to you. You can’t find Dogmeat because he doesn’t show up on your radar. He just blends into the wasteland, and sometimes he’s probably stuck on a tree miles behind you or something.
Even when you do command Dogmeat to scour the area to search for useful items, he usually ends up pointing you to that lousy 10mm pistol lying on the ground in front of you. Dammit Dogmeat, why would I need a 10mm pistol when I have the awesome Deliverer silenced pistol in my hand right now?
He also loves running blindly into things.
