I must admit, fighting dragons is not what I hoped it to be. To be honest, I wanted "dragon slaying" to be an interesting fight...Like when I play Monster Hunter, they did Dragons crazy but it presented a unique challenge
Skyrim made Dragon Slaying boring
- Thread starter Wintermute_
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Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. Although your a bit inflammatory about, you have an EXCELLENT point.bussinroundz said:
You have a massive open world game that lets you do just about anything and to make a unique character? Thats great but so what? That doesn't mean the story can get away with being sparse and poorly constructed or that it's fine that every character is just a quest vending machine or exposition dumper.
And what's the point in having a few hundred "quests" available if they are all just vehicles for quick experience points and copy-pastes of one another after some point? And hell, thanks to that stupid fast travel system, rare is the time when you need to even walk to do them.
I say again, I want a REASON, a motivation, to do the many things available in Skyrim, not just the ability to do them just because I can.
When I played Skyrim, I assumed I would be playing as the guy with the awesome horned helmet in the commercials, with some great character background to give me a basis on which to develop my own character in the game. Instead I'm a soulless random prisoner that for some reason locals took to sending on errands.
It's a good game people, but not a great game. It's not game of the year, and I would not spend 150 hours or $60 on the timesink.
Wow mate, give it some time is my advice. Hell, i was playing a battlemage (mace in one hand, fire in the other) and once i got up into the higher levels and met my first frost dragon, i ran and hid under a bridge, sniveling and chucking fireballs whenever i could. Yes the dragon fights are a bit easy, but hell, the early one's you meet are just cannonfodder. Buildup for the blasted Ancient dragons that will rape your face if you so much as blink in their general direction, or if you just happen to be in the same postcode area. Point is, give it some goddamn time to grow on you you big baby.
"Bawwww I got hyped for Skyrim and was disappointed that X wasn't 100% perfect", we get this thread every other day.
The dragon slaying is fine. It's better than any of the wooden combat Bethesda has thrown at us thus far so what are you complaining about? If the dragons weren't good enough for you of all things then I suggest you put down the Elder Scrolls games and find something else to play because it doesn't get much better than that.
The dragon slaying is fine. It's better than any of the wooden combat Bethesda has thrown at us thus far so what are you complaining about? If the dragons weren't good enough for you of all things then I suggest you put down the Elder Scrolls games and find something else to play because it doesn't get much better than that.
I'm with you on this one. I went for a Khajit assassin/thief specializing in using bows and switching to magic when things went tits up and my position was discovered, and all i ever did with dragon encounters was let the dragon take on an NPC and shoot it in the face. In fact at one point the dragon died when it ignored me in favor of A FUCKING CHICKEN!
That weirdly survived the encounter. Something you may notice if you keep playing is that if you gain stealth and ranged attack abilities, the difficulty curve will break as you gain the ability to kill enemies that you should have been avoiding. But the dragons? They never pose a threat unless you're alone, and even then all you have to do is
A. If it's an open field, keep running until the dragon targets a random bear or bandit group
B. Take cover when the dragon uses a breath attack and use your own voice to stun it and hit it with whatever element the dragon isn't
That weirdly survived the encounter. Something you may notice if you keep playing is that if you gain stealth and ranged attack abilities, the difficulty curve will break as you gain the ability to kill enemies that you should have been avoiding. But the dragons? They never pose a threat unless you're alone, and even then all you have to do is
A. If it's an open field, keep running until the dragon targets a random bear or bandit group
B. Take cover when the dragon uses a breath attack and use your own voice to stun it and hit it with whatever element the dragon isn't
The dragon fights are some of the most interesting opponents in the entire game. Not necessarily the hardest, some of the bosses where just mean, but definitely the most interesting. They are flying around, they are breathing flame, they are landing and taking off, you are seeking out cover from their breath weapons or drinking potions against it, etc. I never fought a dragon with my mage, so maybe chucking magic at them isn't any more exciting than chucking it at anything else in the game, but it does spice up martial combat. At least until you get into high levels and tear through them like tissue paper, but thats also par for the course.
As for the combat in general being poor, its better than most elder scroll games. However, it is unrealistic to expect the dragon combat to be amazing when the normal combat is so-so. A bigger and better opponent isn't going to revolutionize a flat combat system.
As for the combat in general being poor, its better than most elder scroll games. However, it is unrealistic to expect the dragon combat to be amazing when the normal combat is so-so. A bigger and better opponent isn't going to revolutionize a flat combat system.
Monster Hunter has some of the most fun and interesting fighting mechanics I've ever played in a game. It takes will thought out strategy and kills to kill them. I freakin' love that game.Christopher N said:
Anywho... I pooped on dragons in Skyrim. I think being a mage makes it too easy. My spells were overly powerful.
Just wait until you bump into Ancient Dragons. I'm a level 47 and they still wreck my shit every time.
Or those occasional battles with 2 dragons at once. Holy fucking shit I don't think I've had a more epic battle than those.
The best part is that 99% of the dragon battles you'll get into are completely random. Nothing says, "help me, jesus" like seeing the shadow of a dragon interupt your flower picking.
Or those occasional battles with 2 dragons at once. Holy fucking shit I don't think I've had a more epic battle than those.
The best part is that 99% of the dragon battles you'll get into are completely random. Nothing says, "help me, jesus" like seeing the shadow of a dragon interupt your flower picking.
My first dragon battle went a little differently.
While talking to the Jarl we'd just got word that it had been spotted by the western tower. We rushed down to find the tower in ruins and on fire when I heard the roar of the dragon as it circled over head into view.
Being a standard sword warrior, I had to wait for it to land. It eventually did and started belching fire at all those around it - I managed to land a few lucky hits but eventually had to withdraw to the ruined tower quickly as I was running low on health potions.
I tried to notch a few arrows into it from the holes in the tower which wound him up a bit as he took to the air again. I carried on up the tower to the roof just in time to see the dragon swoop low over me (thought it was trying to knock me off). I took a few sword swings at it before it moved further up into the air, sent a few chasing arrows until it was down to the last bit of health... it flew straight towards me and I sent an arrow into its head just before it took me out.
While talking to the Jarl we'd just got word that it had been spotted by the western tower. We rushed down to find the tower in ruins and on fire when I heard the roar of the dragon as it circled over head into view.
Being a standard sword warrior, I had to wait for it to land. It eventually did and started belching fire at all those around it - I managed to land a few lucky hits but eventually had to withdraw to the ruined tower quickly as I was running low on health potions.
I tried to notch a few arrows into it from the holes in the tower which wound him up a bit as he took to the air again. I carried on up the tower to the roof just in time to see the dragon swoop low over me (thought it was trying to knock me off). I took a few sword swings at it before it moved further up into the air, sent a few chasing arrows until it was down to the last bit of health... it flew straight towards me and I sent an arrow into its head just before it took me out.
You sound like you don't. Skyrim simply gives you a world, everything else is up to you. It is the closest any game has ever come to a true RPG. You invent the reason, you define your followers, why does your character feel compelled to join the mages college? Why does your character feel the need to fight dragons, why not just run away? Why does he/she steal every coin he/she sees?Wintermute_ said:
The game isn't going to tell you, and that's why it is an almost perfect RPG experience. This isn't a game where you get to live in someone else's imagination, you don't get to hear someone else's grand story or play in their hand crafted world. This is a game where you get to play your grand story, and although the world is provided to you by Bethesda you tell us why Lydia feels compelled to follow you, why she's so partial to that Ebony armor.
My advice? Crank up the difficulty. If you're enemies all feel the same in difficulty it's because they've been dumbed down to take away the challenge. I play on Adept (Medium) and Dragons can 2-hit me if I don't bother healing up after every hit. They even throw in a finishing move when I have 60% health. With this you're forced to use heals, avoid lines of sight, and find the opportune moment to attack or else you're done for. I have to time shield bashes just to insure they don't knock out most of my health with breath attacks and even that doesn't work all the time. Hell, Bandit Leaders are terrifying in their own right on higher difficulties. Though they're much easier to control with stuns then a dragon. Right now I'm being forced to save before any major confrontation. And if I get careless out in the wild I'll be jumped by a pair of Saber Cats and die without time to heal up.
The challenge of the fights are up to you. And if you don't make the fights challenging enough for your expectations then there's not much else to say.
The challenge of the fights are up to you. And if you don't make the fights challenging enough for your expectations then there's not much else to say.
it was made by Bethesda, what exactly did you expect? they suck at game play.
now, if you need a world made, yes, that they are good at.
now, if you need a world made, yes, that they are good at.
I don't understand why people get worked up about things like that.
Fact is, while the complaint of the OP, namely that Skyrim's gameplay mechanics are repetitive (not easy because neither is that his/her point nor a valid statement in itself) there is almost no merit in discussing it.
This will sound offensive but rest assured that I am merely trying to describe an observation:
Alot of people seem to have problems to interact with media in a beneficial way.
Meaning in this case they either don't consult reviews in the first place or do not use them to their full extend.
Concerning Skyrim the following questions should be asked before making a purchase decision:
1. Do I like the genre (rpg)?
2. Do I like the theme/setting (medieval)?
3. Do I like the gameplay?
Previews and reviews will answer all those questions (completely spoilerfree if you put minimal effort in the search). Skyrim had several minutes of spoilerfree gameplay footage released long before the game went on sale. In case you are still not sure after that you can always take a look the series' older games where you will notice that the gameplay has been the exact same in all four prior installments.
Which coincidentally brings me to my last point:
But Sir, you will argue, you misconceived my benevolent suggestion for improvement on game design as a complaint. Someone even compared TES to Fallout earlier.
At this point I would have to ask you to use good old simple reason:
Bethesda made five games using the exact same combat mechanics. It is completly within said reason to assume that the lack of change does not originate in inability but in choice.
Same argument applies in different wording for almost any other aspect of any game (and the rest is so flawed that you wouldn't buy it in the first place).
No one wants to deny you the right to vent your anger, dissapointment or frustration about your experience but please use Facebook, Twitter, Blogs or real life for and do not try to disguise it as a discussion because that is what happens when you post in a forum.
Fact is, while the complaint of the OP, namely that Skyrim's gameplay mechanics are repetitive (not easy because neither is that his/her point nor a valid statement in itself) there is almost no merit in discussing it.
This will sound offensive but rest assured that I am merely trying to describe an observation:
Alot of people seem to have problems to interact with media in a beneficial way.
Meaning in this case they either don't consult reviews in the first place or do not use them to their full extend.
Concerning Skyrim the following questions should be asked before making a purchase decision:
1. Do I like the genre (rpg)?
2. Do I like the theme/setting (medieval)?
3. Do I like the gameplay?
Previews and reviews will answer all those questions (completely spoilerfree if you put minimal effort in the search). Skyrim had several minutes of spoilerfree gameplay footage released long before the game went on sale. In case you are still not sure after that you can always take a look the series' older games where you will notice that the gameplay has been the exact same in all four prior installments.
Which coincidentally brings me to my last point:
But Sir, you will argue, you misconceived my benevolent suggestion for improvement on game design as a complaint. Someone even compared TES to Fallout earlier.
At this point I would have to ask you to use good old simple reason:
Bethesda made five games using the exact same combat mechanics. It is completly within said reason to assume that the lack of change does not originate in inability but in choice.
Same argument applies in different wording for almost any other aspect of any game (and the rest is so flawed that you wouldn't buy it in the first place).
No one wants to deny you the right to vent your anger, dissapointment or frustration about your experience but please use Facebook, Twitter, Blogs or real life for and do not try to disguise it as a discussion because that is what happens when you post in a forum.
This makes it entirely clear. You bought the wrong game. Skyrim is not a game with well written back-stories, they don't provide you with a reason for anything, the reason has to come from you!Wintermute_ said:
I like the dragon combat in this game. As good as others? No, but considering it was Bethesda's first crack at it, they did a job. It's intense and heat of the moment. Put yourself into your character (hence why they enable crazy amounts of physical options). Combat has never really been The Elder Scrolls big thing and anyone buying it for that reason should do their homework. Do I think it should be improved? Yes. Will it? Probably not. If it sells as well as it does, why change it? Elder Scrolls is all about adventuring across a large landscape with differing environment (Morrowind remaining my favorite for that). I have my fair share of complaints (can see me in most Skyrim discussion boards) but all-in-all lives to its expectations. And although dragons are not all that tough, I still find it intense when you hear one flying around and land near you or in a village land on a house and murder a random citizen, not to mention laughing when the ai were only sad for about 4 seconds and then were like "so yeah that dragon was intense!" "I was Dragonborn once, and then I took an arrow in the knee." yadda yadda yadda. Not to mention when you see one flying around and you book it to catch up, or it flies over a mountain and you scale that mountain in hot pursuit...lots of fun. Especially when you fight the dragon on top of said mountain, that is epic. Also made a dragon biff into the ground one time (not sure how...only saw it happen once) and it face-planted for good 20ft into the mountain wall (I barely got out of the way), got up, I killed it and then looked around to find a dead troll where the dragon had biffed, haha...physics. Great random moments like that when a dragon runs over a troll. The dragons look great, sound great, feel right, just overall well-done. I'll let the combat aspect slide in the face of all this. Not to mention in this kind of game, I'd rather beat something relatively easily than get killed and spawn miles away. Especially if I needed its soul.
While i cannot agree with Hafrael's initial reasoning, his/her conclusion is correct. My argument would be that there seems to a grave misunderstanding about the rholeplaying: It is you who has to fill the giant blank that is your starting character. You do this through your decision making while playing.Hafrael said:
I now understand that you'd probably prefer a mass effect or dragon age like setting. The problem is that these are not true rpg's. They only give an illusion of choice. Calling them rpgs can be very misleading. But again you easily can avoid such misunderstandings by doing some research beforehand.
Not
However, my original point: Slaying a dragon in Skyrim is boring. No level of role-play and character fabrication can fix that. The encounters are presented randomly and with so little context and, for lack of a better term, fanfare that I an unengaged by the entire concept. Skyrims gameplay and NPC interaction, and especially scripting and story, is just so lacking. The "almost perfect RPG experience" is a boring RPG experience: No matter how astounding I want my character to be, no matter how incredible his feats or complex his backstory, it doesn't matter jack if I can't see just SOME of what I'm doing reflected in the game world, and have exciting and imaginative ADVENTURES.
Having a more exciting set-up, backstory, and concept behind fighting a god damn Dragon than "there's a dragon (first dragon seen in hundreds of years), walk to this field and kill it" or "Your walking to the next village when a dragon lands and yells at you, kill it," is not, as you say, living in someone else's imagination, hearing someone else's grand story or playing in their hand crafted world, it's having an exciting, engaging and imaginative experience in my own role-play interpretation!
Good way to word it might be to say that the set-ups for the dragon battles (what I believe should be exceptional encounters and momentous occasions that have some manor of repercussion and story context) do not in any way inspire me to try and role-play why the hell my character, and by surrogate relation I myself, should have any emotional investment in what is happening in the game. I was hoping that slaying a freaking Dragon, a beast of legend that is infamous and recognized by pretty much, would reasonably assume, 90% of all humanity would have been more important and given better consideration beyond random dragon encounters and the occasional forced encounter "because there's a dragon in this dungeon also, it has your fetch quest package, kill it."
I shouldn't have to imagine that the game is fun and that the events in it are interesting.
You make an excellent point, and it's a wonderful level of freedom for role play, true.Hafrael said:
However, my original point: Slaying a dragon in Skyrim is boring. No level of role-play and character fabrication can fix that. The encounters are presented randomly and with so little context and, for lack of a better term, fanfare that I an unengaged by the entire concept. Skyrims gameplay and NPC interaction, and especially scripting and story, is just so lacking. The "almost perfect RPG experience" is a boring RPG experience: No matter how astounding I want my character to be, no matter how incredible his feats or complex his backstory, it doesn't matter jack if I can't see just SOME of what I'm doing reflected in the game world, and have exciting and imaginative ADVENTURES.
Having a more exciting set-up, backstory, and concept behind fighting a god damn Dragon than "there's a dragon (first dragon seen in hundreds of years), walk to this field and kill it" or "Your walking to the next village when a dragon lands and yells at you, kill it," is not, as you say, living in someone else's imagination, hearing someone else's grand story or playing in their hand crafted world, it's having an exciting, engaging and imaginative experience in my own role-play interpretation!
Good way to word it might be to say that the set-ups for the dragon battles (what I believe should be exceptional encounters and momentous occasions that have some manor of repercussion and story context) do not in any way inspire me to try and role-play why the hell my character, and by surrogate relation I myself, should have any emotional investment in what is happening in the game. I was hoping that slaying a freaking Dragon, a beast of legend that is infamous and recognized by pretty much, would reasonably assume, 90% of all humanity would have been more important and given better consideration beyond random dragon encounters and the occasional forced encounter "because there's a dragon in this dungeon also, it has your fetch quest package, kill it."
I shouldn't have to imagine that the game is fun and that the events in it are interesting.