Skyrim made Dragon Slaying boring

[Paladin Anderson]

I eagerly await the inevitable mod that will make dragons something you want to run from rather than towards.

More HP. Wholly mammoth level of HP.

Lands less, more aerial breath attacks.

Breath does more damage.

Not sure what else. Maybe summons monsters to harass you?

Also the difficulty of the game has a LOT to do with what tree you are focusing on. Want to be so over powered that you fall asleep on your keyboard? Focus on conjuration magic and bows.

 

[Zhukov]

Ya, I had a similar experience, although I wasn't quite as disappointed.

Fighting a dragon in melee mostly consists of standing behind a rock waiting for it to land.

Fighting a dragon with magic consists of aiming at it and holding down the attack button(s).

Fighting a dragon with a bow consists of shooting it from behind something solid.

I've taken to whittling down their health to a tiny sliver, then running up and tapping them on the nose with a knife or my fist. At least it's good for a laugh.

 

[kouriichi]

Raj has always had good time fighting dragons.
Unless they nom me. Then... not so much. I get alot of challenge out of them, being lightly armored and lacking range. Makes things exciting when 1 or 2 good blasts from him will take me down.

But think your taking game the wrong way. This is an RPG Action game. Not dragon slaying simulator, not Action RPG, nor is it hack and slash ((unless you try to play it that way at high level)). The Elder Scrolls has always been this. Combat is part of it, but not the highlight of it. The adventure is!

Its a game about discovering yourself. No butterflies in Hammerfell. Raj learn he love to run through feed catching them! Mostly to put under Wife Mjoll's pillow while she sleep, but none the less, catching butterflies! And never in younger days did i enjoy being sneaky! Always swing biggest sword i can find. But in Skyrim, dagger to the back is fun.

Not that Raj stabs people. From sound of it, your looking for a far harder challenge. Turn Difficulty up, or Perhaps try Dark Souls. Maybe its more your speed. Erratic sprint for angry man 3 times your size with Black Iron sword larger then you!

 

[Mr Companion]

It's these kind of stories that I wonder how anyone was excited for this game. The problem I have with Elder Scrolls, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fable and other games of similar blood is that they fuck up the action in Action RPG.
For that reason, I was more eager to play Rayman Origins than this game.

Hell, you make a good point! While I'm here, let me also reveal how mass effect and fable are equally masters at making the most extraordinary of circumstances and situations woefully uninteresting.

To be fair I don't think anybody is enthused by Fable.

On topic though I guess I can see your point, the dragon shows up without a huge amount of hoo-ha and you would have thought the whole town would be buzzing with excitement, people running home with their children and soldiers rushing to the walls bow in hand, this would have made it feel less like a scouts exersize.

On the other hand I am glad they make you kill it in a group of soldiers first so you can see the military gettin whupped by it. Too many games (Fable in particular) fail to show how the problem can't be solved by the town guards who are abundant when you commit a crime but scarce when monsters are kidnapping villagers.

 

[Mafoobula]

My first dragon was already at half health for some reason. I'm guessing it got bored and decided to annihilate a bandit fort, taking a lot of arrows in the process. My second only died because the AI got stupid and the damn thing decided to run into a wall while I turned it into an arrow hedgehog.
Third dragon, however, was legit. I was on a mountainside, taking pot-shots with arrows and double-hand healing while it was flying around. Eventually I decided I would be there all day if I didn't get him to land so I could melee his ass down. Run around, find a sorta amphitheater area, and sure enough, he decides to land. Run up to him, eat the breath weapon, power-slash his ass into the ground. Awesome.
Oh, and there was that one time I started a dragon battle with an arrow sneak-attack. It barely hurt him, but I thought that was just really cool.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it boring, really, but I admit dragon slaying lost its epicness fairly quickly. After the 4th dragon, the hardest part was getting them to land, and after that it's just a matter of going nuts with swords.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

It was a mundane fetch quest style mission! WHAT THE HELL?

fetch-quest style?
that's like saying stopping a group of terrorists blowing up a building is a fetch quest.

Let me describe the experience. After completing the first dungeon in the game at the behest of the Whiterun king, reclaiming some truly unimportant and inconsequential item and returning to town, a dragon randomly shows up. Completely out of the blue. No lead up. No suspense. Just... go slay that dragon. And where do I go to slay this dragon? Atop a high mountain peak? A deep labyrinthian cave? Must I venture far and wide to reach the temple this dragon has occupied or the great castle it has laid siege to?
Nope. I must walk 2 minutes out of town. Into the middle of a field. The same field I walked through earlier to go to the dungeon. I can see the town and cottages. I get to the field, and just wait. Eventually, the dragon makes its entrance by basically just landing and walking around.

why would Whiterun care about a dragon if it was miles away on a mountaintop. the dragon is attacking the guard tower protecting whiterun. and what did you expect, a courier to drop by a little note saying 'Dear Player, I am a dragon. I will attack a guard tower today. This note is so you don't think there was no build up. I won't tell you WHEN though! From, Dragony Fuckface'

The astounding fight scene where I slay a dragon? All I had to do was stand slightly to the big guys left blasting him with double freeze spell hands while he sat patiently, roasting an NPC archer. Thank heaven he didn't remember he had wings and a good 2 tons on me or claws or teeth or the instinct to dodge or a sense of self preservation.

How the hell does he melee you when you walk away from him, and he's preoccupied by a group of guards? How does he dodge? that's like barrel-rolling a car to avoid hitting a pedestrian. and ice spells drain stamina and slow movement. plus, when you get dragons to a certain point of health, they can't take off.

I would drift slowly further left of him to avoid him turning far enough to flame me, downing mana and health potions where need be. And then he died. Just collapsed. No finishing move, no bloody struggle battle of wills. Just me holding the triggers belching frost.

so you complain he doesnt fight wou directly enough, but you were actually AVOIDING his attacks on purpose? what do you actually want from dragons? and magic has no finishers, were you expecting you to suddenly do something cool that has never happened because it isnt part of the game?

they made it piss easy

you're supposed to fight them repeatedly. if they were as tough as a fucking building then everyone would ***** and whine about how they can't do any outdoor quests because a dragon always turns up and kills them in five hits. and when they're part of the main storyline, the dev is obviously going to lean towards the side of 'anyone playing the game can kill them' as opposed to 'you need to powerlevel all your combat skills to the max, fuck all the other ones so you can get a decent hit in'.

WELL THEN. Have fun having your own opinion.

I'll be over there, with mine. Playing Skyrim. And having fun.

i agree with this guy. i find killing dragons fun and intense, because i play as a melee character. it's a lot more intense when missing one potion could mean the dragon can use its nommynommy finisher. and a lot more satisfying when you jump on the fuckers head and carve it like a turkey.

 

[Joccaren]

The first dragon fight was easy, but it was supposed to be. You can potentially get there in 20 minutes, and they don't want to leave new players unable to progress beyond the first 20 minutes due to them not being able to beat an OMGHARDCORE boss, so they made it easy. The next few dragons are also rather easy. However, get to a blood dragon that refuses to land for any reason whatsoever, and will constantly strafe run you, and you have a fight on your hands. At least if you are a warrior.

And of course there was no kill animation, you're using magic. I don't know a ton of games that will pull you out of your control to make some big deal out of doing something you've been doing for ages; blasting a spell at them. Warriors get a finishing move sometimes, where they jump on the dragon's head and slash at it and kill it, but I haven't seen that many magic finishing moves outside of games that purely focus on magic. You want a finishing move, zoom out, step into its fire breath and cast your spell forward. That is a battle of wills; who will run out of health first?

Also, why would you expect a massive quest to attack a dragon that's attacking the city. It makes far more sense to run to the burning tower to investigate, and then it attacks you too. If a dragon were attacking a city, I doubt I'd go to a nearby mountain or ruins to fight it. no, I'd go to the city.

Balance is very broken in Skyrim, a pure anything is massively overpowered, whilst spellswords and the likes have some challenge for a bit of it.

Now, when you get to the point that three ancient dragons that refuse to land are attacking you, and you find that easy, then you can complain that the game as a whole is too easy. When you're only fighting basic dragons, however, its for the people who don't like dying every five minutes and is balanced to be an easy kill.

I eagerly await the inevitable mod that will make dragons something you want to run from rather than towards.

More HP. Wholly mammoth level of HP.

Lands less, more aerial breath attacks.

Breath does more damage.

Not sure what else. Maybe summons monsters to harass you?

Also the difficulty of the game has a LOT to do with what tree you are focusing on. Want to be so over powered that you fall asleep on your keyboard? Focus on conjuration magic and bows.

Sounds like you want one of those ancient dragons that refuses to land. They do happen. Some dragons will land too easily, some (Like my third dragon when I was a pure warrior with as sword and shield only) refuse to land until they are almost dead. Ancient Dragons have a lot of HP, do some reasonable damage with their breath attack (Though, depending on what perks and how you've specialised yourself it may still be negligible by that point), and dependant on where they are may refuse to land. Oh, and did I mention sometimes you fight 3 of them at once?
The early parts of the game area meant to be easy. Late game can become impossible, difficult, easy, or ROFLSTOMP dependant on how you spec yourself, but that is what happens when you have a million different combinations that a player might have by that point.

 

[Dougslashbob Hinklebertenmireston]

Following up on this: The Witcher 2 was also much more difficult, and its bosses sound more up your alley as well.

Witcher combat was hard? Did you have some trouble with Quen->mouse1mouse1mouse1mouse1mouse1->quen->mouse1mouse1mouse1mouse1? I haven't played 2.0 but Witcher combat was tedious as hell and shallower than Skyrim. If it weren't for that fact that you got insta-killed on difficult (exactly the way you do to dragons breath in Skyrim) it would have been downright boring.

I like both games.

 

[minimacker]

Real men play on Master difficulty. Though I'm only partially manly, so I'm always on Expert instead.

 

[skywolfblue]

The astounding fight scene where I slay a dragon? All I had to do was stand slightly to the big guys left blasting him with double freeze spell hands while he sat patiently, roasting an NPC archer. Thank heaven he didn't remember he had wings and a good 2 tons on me or claws or teeth or the instinct to dodge or a sense of self preservation. I would drift slowly further left of him to avoid him turning far enough to flame me, downing mana and health potions where need be. And then he died. Just collapsed. No finishing move, no bloody struggle battle of wills. Just me holding the triggers belching frost. Then I apparently absorbed his soul and learned how to yell dragon words, or so a "startled" npc told me. Then everyone else waltz off like it was no big deal, leaving me standing in a field with my thumb up my ass and a dragon skeleton looking at me. They even bothered to name the dragon btw. I don't remember it though because why should I have?

I agree a little bit.

The Dragons are extremely awesome looking, the absorbing soul and music that accompanies it is really neat, giving a very rewarding thematic feel after the dragon is dead.

But the actual combat? Their horrid AI is very showing. When they land, they stay fixed in one spot, which means they can't chase you unless they lift off again. They waste a lot of time taking off and landing instead of picking one or the other, thus giving the player a lot of time to take free potshots.

With the whole shout system I wonder why they didn't give more variety then just frost/fire/blood calls, what about a dragon that calls all nearby animals to fight you or a dragon that does fus-rah-do.

I don't want it to be extremely difficult, I just want it to be more involved then "whack away!".

And to everyone who said "Play an Action RPG instead", where was it stated that an RPG must have terrible combat, and why would you purposely desire worse combat over better combat? Srsly?


I like Skyrim, but it's combat does need to be criticized.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Edit: In summary- what a shallow experience this game has been. Not bad, certainly not, just shallow

As everything else in the whole reality - there's no single approach to any event.
For you it was shallow experience, but for some...

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

For those asking for more variety in dragon fights... there is. I've encountered dragons that use a variety of shouts, such as Animal Allegiance to get Spriggans to attack me and Unrelenting Force to stagger me. The difficulty of dragon fights tends to be a bit schizophrenic though; I spent half an hour fighting a regular dragon in its lair and then killed a Blood Dragon in 5 minutes when I fast-traveled to a guard tower.

 

[electric_warrior]

I was totally underwhelmed by the dragons until Ii got to the Ancient Dragons at around about level 45. Those sons of bitches pose a genuine challenge and battles with them are genuinely epic.

The first four type of dragon are pretty dull, however.

 

[Wintermute_]

One thing that people seem to forget A LOT when talking about Skyrim is that so little of it is scripted. Take dragons, for instance - Look at the various dragon fights you've had in the past. Most of them were either heavily scripted or the dragon had a very limited number of options and had to interact with very few variables (basically, whatever area was designated for the fight and the player).

Skyrim's dragons are designed to be a part of the world. Wherever you are, they will fit into the situation. They will alter their behaviour according to their environment. Yeah, at any given point there is only a limited number of things a dragon can do (Fly Around, Strafe, Hover, Land on Structure, Land on Ground, etc.), but they can do it ANYWHERE.

And that, in general, is Skyrim's strenght, the lack of scripting. There isn't "that one dragon fight" that plays out pretty much the same for everyone. There are numerous fights and numerous locations that can play out vastly differently depending on the circumstances. Yes, you sometimes get a lame fight where you glitch the dragon or it locks onto an immortal NPC or something. But you also get some truly memorable ones, like playing Cat'N'Mouse through the cluttered streets of Windhelm, trying to line up a shot on the beast, or being a part of a battle between two dragons and a tribe of giants.

It's easy to script an epic fight, but it's much harder to create an engine that can make such fights happen in an unscripted fashion in a wide open world. Is Skyrim perfect in that regard? No. But it's the best that anyone has made in that field thus far and I enjoy it as such.

You raise an excellent point. The versatility of Skyrim is truly something to be praised where praise be do. However...

I, personally, WANT that script! I want a better context for performing these exceptional battles! Its not just dragons, its most every boss I, and a friend or two, have encountered thus far. There is no build-up and emotional investment in the battles. I was just walking between towns once for a "quest" (because fast travel ruins any sense of adventure) and a dragon plopped himself down next to me, and I killed him accordingly. Then walked away, went to town, no worse for the whole ordeal.

Scripting can be a GREAT thing. Scripting is what, IMHO, Skyrim needs A LOT more of so that there is not only motivation for characters to perform actions beyond getting exp. and bumping stats, but the whole gameplay experience and freedom to do soooo much is framed in an environment like you really are the main character in an amazing legend rather then some random prisoner that got scrapped off the streets and set to work doing quest chores.

 

[RedxDecember]

Turn up the diffuculty, bud. Those Blood Dragon fuckers really hurt on master

 

[White-Death]

I don't know about you, but for me my first dragon kill was hard as hell.He landed far away from me all the time.First he roasted the archers, ate one or two guards, and flew up then swooped down and fried me multiple times.(This was on expert difficulty mind you)
I only killed Mirmulnir when he swooped down and i caught him with my blade, making him crash into the ground.I ran up to him, and (Tried) to hack his balls off, but he insta-killed me with his tail strike.
6th time around, I got lucky again, and the crashed.I decided to go for the head, where he tried to eat me.Used up all my health potions. Just as he was about to lay the final strike, my character initiated an awesome finishing move.The epic music & the dragon absorbsion with the guards all staring at me in awe was very rewarding.

 

[Jandau]

One thing that people seem to forget A LOT when talking about Skyrim is that so little of it is scripted. Take dragons, for instance - Look at the various dragon fights you've had in the past. Most of them were either heavily scripted or the dragon had a very limited number of options and had to interact with very few variables (basically, whatever area was designated for the fight and the player).

Skyrim's dragons are designed to be a part of the world. Wherever you are, they will fit into the situation. They will alter their behaviour according to their environment. Yeah, at any given point there is only a limited number of things a dragon can do (Fly Around, Strafe, Hover, Land on Structure, Land on Ground, etc.), but they can do it ANYWHERE.

And that, in general, is Skyrim's strenght, the lack of scripting. There isn't "that one dragon fight" that plays out pretty much the same for everyone. There are numerous fights and numerous locations that can play out vastly differently depending on the circumstances. Yes, you sometimes get a lame fight where you glitch the dragon or it locks onto an immortal NPC or something. But you also get some truly memorable ones, like playing Cat'N'Mouse through the cluttered streets of Windhelm, trying to line up a shot on the beast, or being a part of a battle between two dragons and a tribe of giants.

It's easy to script an epic fight, but it's much harder to create an engine that can make such fights happen in an unscripted fashion in a wide open world. Is Skyrim perfect in that regard? No. But it's the best that anyone has made in that field thus far and I enjoy it as such.

You raise an excellent point. The versatility of Skyrim is truly something to be praised where praise be do. However...

I, personally, WANT that script! I want a better context for performing these exceptional battles! Its not just dragons, its most every boss I, and a friend or two, have encountered thus far. There is no build-up and emotional investment in the battles. I was just walking between towns once for a "quest" (because fast travel ruins any sense of adventure) and a dragon plopped himself down next to me, and I killed him accordingly. Then walked away, went to town, no worse for the whole ordeal.

Scripting can be a GREAT thing. Scripting is what, IMHO, Skyrim needs A LOT more of so that there is not only motivation for characters to perform actions beyond getting exp. and bumping stats, but the whole gameplay experience and freedom to do soooo much is framed in an environment like you really are the main character in an amazing legend rather then some random prisoner that got scrapped off the streets and set to work doing quest chores.

On one hand, I understand what you're saying. Scripted fights can be great. They ARE great. A well paced encounter is a wonderful thing. But it doesn't have to be in EVERY GAME.

See, I want the script too, but that doesn't mean nobody should try anything different. The point of open world games is that the world reacts to you according to the parameters set instead along a single predetermined path. And out of the interplay of those various parameters hillarity ensues. This is far more difficult and complex than making a game that is basically a linear sequence of scripted events. Crafting a huge open world is a massive undertaking, as is designing the parameters and reactions according to which the entities in that world would act.

And 99% of games are scripted and mostly linear. There are plenty of scripted dragons for you to kill. Plenty of set-up bossfights and whatnot. So very few games try to do open worlds that not only allow freedom for the player, but for the artificial entities within it. This is so rare and uncommon that to me it seems shortsighted and selfish to demand that they stop doing something different and be more like everyone else.

Maybe you'd like more scripting. But maybe you should acknowledge that there is plenty of scripting elsewhere and try to enjoy Skyrim for the things that it does do. It's not perfect. There's still so much to be done with open world RPGs. But it's on the right track.

Skyrim doesn't need more scripting. A sequel to Skyrim wouldn't benefit if the fights were more staged. It WOULD benefit from a greater number of parameters, a more complex system for proceedural generation of encounters. It doesn't need a tighter leash, it needs more tools to play with. And as those tools grow more complex, as the developers create more varried and convincing game worlds populated by entites with an even greater spectrum of possible actions, the epicness will emerge without the need for a script, without needed each fight to be set up in special ways.

Skyrim is a great game for what it is. You can either wish it were something else or you can enjoy it for what it is. I know what I'll be doing...

 

[JimmyC99]

Killing a Dragon in Dragon Age Origins was a incredibly momentous occasion, as for one its actually not easy (it was in Awakening but i was several levels above everyone else). and considering there was only 2 dragons and Flemeth, and all are tough fights. (also the dragons in Skyrim are actually Wyverns). i think DA:O does dragons the best

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Wait until you get to ancient dragons...
Wll, actually, by the time you get to them, they're not so tough anymore, so open the consola and spawn one in or something...

 

[sabercrusader]

Fair enough, for being hyped up like they were, Dragons were relatively easy for the most part. Elder Dragons provide a decent challenge, and Ancient Dragons are difficult as hell. Those fights are awesome. Regular dragons? Fucking giant could kick it's ass without getting a scratch I bet. If you want an epic fight, go fight a Giant before level 15 (maybe even level 20, each damn hit does about 100 points of damage unless you have really good armor or have good enchantments on said armor), or get higher level, and start fighting Frost Dragons and Elder Dragons and such, they're much more epic fights, and, they provide an okay challenge, nothing that you won't get out of without a scratch, but not something that'll make you throw your controller at the wall in rage or anything.