Skyrim made Dragon Slaying boring

White-Death

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Oct 31, 2011
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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

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Dec 19, 2008
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Wintermute_ said:
Jandau said:
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

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Jul 7, 2010
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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

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May 1, 2009
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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

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Jul 18, 2009
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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.
 

teutonicman

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Some of the dragons were extremely easy to beat. However I remember the first time I fought Alduin, I was running from cover to cover trying to avoid his frost and fire breath, it was goddamn awesome.
 

LittleJP

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Played as Assassin. One shot sneak attacked the 2nd Dragon I ever met, the one being raised by Alduin.

I felt incredibly badass.
 

OniaPL

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minimacker said:
Real men play on Master difficulty. Though I'm only partially manly, so I'm always on Expert instead.
I find that the difficulty settings in Fallout and TES have been always somewhat twisted. It only adds to the raw health, damage armor etc. values, instead of making the player play more skillfully. Of course you can argue that increasing these raw values forces the player to play better, but more often than not the fights turn into endurance tests that are extremely tiresome, rather than extreme tests of skill.

However, I admit that it's rare that games do anything else nowadays when it comes to difficulty.
 

LordDarkPhantom

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Apr 23, 2011
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thiosk said:
The first dragon fight was a nail biter for me, but it happened very early. Now dragon slaying is more about "are the dragons going to slay people I need in that town"
It was a sad, sad moment when I discovered that last night's frost dragon attack had killed Alvar. :(

On topic, I have to agree that dragons are far too easy, but then again there's so much more you could be doing. Dragons are just one element of the game that is Skyrim. Personally, I don't really see what else they could be doing to make dragon battles any more interesting. Though I have reached the point where my fire-enchanted Daedric Sword (Legendary) can kill a dragon in 3 power attacks.
 

Trig0n

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The first dragon? Yeah it was easy, the fights are harder when there's nothing around to distract the dragon at the later levels (Blood, Elder, etc.) so that all it's attention is focused on you.

Also @ Skywolf: Dragons can move after they land. They just don't crawl very fast, which is understandable considering they have to pretty much crawl on their hind legs and the end of their wings.
 

Liviola

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May 9, 2011
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I agree that dragon slaying in Skyrim should have been made more challenging and rewarding (i.e. base level of difficulty higher, not just the player having to manually put up the difficulty slider, but actually make dragon-killing-difficulty harder to scale with the rest of the game difficulty).

I think part of the problem is that there are waaaay too many dragons, and the reward for killing one is pretty small. The shouts were pretty useless to me, it seemed like my enchanted weapons and certain spells are way more useful in regular combat than shouts. One way they could improve the experience is to make shouts much more useful and integral to success (basically more powerful), but with the catch of dragon souls being rarer and harder to obtain. Otherwise, killing dragons and sucking up souls in Skyrim is akin to killing and skinning rats for pelt during a rat plague.
 

OniaPL

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Trig0n said:
The first dragon? Yeah it was easy, now go fight two blood dragons at the same time if it means that much to you, and the fights are harder when there's nothing around to distract the dragon so that all it's attention is focused on you.
The thing is, immortal companions and conjured creatures can always be used to draw the dragon's attention away from you. As a rogue character, I could just shoot arrows in without even being touched by the dragon. As a mage, I stunlock dragons with the impact perk and dualcasting destruction spells.

Bethesda approached the dragon encounters in the wrong way, IMO. They are rarely dangerous. They are just oversized lizards that use either frost or fire on you.
 

WorldofHarvis

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Nov 26, 2011
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I agree simply because there is no variation. I'm hoping that in inevitable dlc that there are new Dragons unleashed like ones that have no wings or no long rang attacks.

Or have axes or just something to liven it up.
 

Hyper-space

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Wintermute_ said:
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.
The versatility and freedom of Skyrim comes at the price of context, for what you suggest (An Elder Scrolls game with the Bioware-esque story and emotional context) is simply impossible. Its both unfeasible economically and development-wise, for a studio would need such ungodly amounts of money and time to create anything even resembling what you suggested.

And really, its okay. RPG's are okay where they are now and where they are heading. We got the Elder Scroll series there to give us freedom and exploration, and studios such as Bioware to give us story- and emotional-context. Demanding that one be like the other will only come out on the player, as it would lessen the versatility of the genre.
 

NeutralDrow

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...every time I see someone complain that the dragon fights are too easy, or that the dragons have horrible AI, I get terribly confused.

Dragons flying around in the air? I can't aim for crap unless they stop to hover, at which point I'm trading frost breath in the face for one or maybe two bowshots, let alone finding cover. Dragons landing? See problem about trading breath for bowshots. Otherwise, weapon-switching times kick me in the ass (particularly if I'm switching between bow and two-hander). Cover helps a ton, but it's only a guarantee if it's fortress-level (ie the dragon has landed permanently, but can't reach me). The safest way to weather a breath weapon is a ward spell, but you have to anticipate the breath, or the ward gets broken. The only way I've consistently melee'd them to death is through strafing, which still leaves you open to wing and tail-slaps, but at least doesn't leave you open to that fucking auto-kill bite.

Magic is the safest method overall, I'm seeing, but it's still nerve-wracking when I have lower health and lower room for error...which is about the time I've had dragons harass other monsters and lead them to me. It's hard to snipe a dragon when a couple of bears are biting your ass off or a bandit camp is trying to take care of the squishy potential looter first. The only ridiculously easy victory I've ever had so far was when the opposite happened, and a dragon stupidly tracked me to the middle of Riften. Say what you will about the corrupt jerks, the guards in Riften are numerous and very good shots.

Maybe I've just been winding up too high-leveled when I start consistently running into dragons. Even with tactical acumen, I often wind up beating dragons by drowning myself in health potions in the process. And even though I tend to hoard, I don't always have those.

Also, I'm on Apprentice difficulty.

...

I guess I'm saying I like the fights.
 

Spacewolf

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bussinroundz said:
Wintermute_ said:
And really, its okay. RPG's are okay where they are now and where they are heading. We got the Elder Scroll series there to give us freedom and exploration, and studios such as Bioware to give us story- and emotional-context.
I'm really sick of hearing this bullshit, that just because It's an open world/open ended game that the writing/quests/characters have to be shit. WRONG !! Try playing New Vegas. I know none of you fangirls want to admit it, but wake the fuck up. Bethesda is only good at making some nice outdoor enviorments. Jesus F. Christ.

It's okay where they are heading ? One makes LARPing/hiking sims and the other makes interactive movies with homosexual relationships. OK.
Are you saying New vegas was better since that was also bethesda game, and bioware games have a good story full stop, also i havent played skyrim or new vegas. But interactive movies sounds like your talking about a metal gear game
 

Spacewolf

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bussinroundz said:
I'm saying New Vegas was better because it was an OBSIDIAN game, not Bethesda. And Bio isn't even interested in making games anymore, much less RPGs.
It was both and bio seem to be making quite a few game with their MMO and ME3 just out
 

wurrble182

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Jul 20, 2010
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Ive clocked 150 hours of skyrim thus far and only now am i starting to actively avoid dragon encounters with sneaking and invisibility and the like (i wouldn't be if i didn't have 10+ souls to spare already) - ive had some incredibly epic battles with dragons, one of which lasted almost half an hour with me steadily climbing a mountain to reach my goal at the top while a powerful dragon harrassed me and was able to hack away 1/3 of my health with one swipe. we battled each other in fits and starts until i finally ran out of any kind of healing supplies/magic as his health dwindled to its last and the dragon cornered me and scorched me to death but i was just laughing because the whole thing had been so damn epic

in short, opinions. GOTY for me :) i really do think the game could stand to lower the spawn rate of dragons the more souls your carrying around though...