as i understand it you learn the shouts from reading walls......not just killing dragons. explain to me how someone with a low level and no dragon shouts is supposed to be able to kill dragons, who are supposed to be the badasses of this game, with just normal weapons. if they go down that road again its going to look as stupid as when you could close oblivion gates at beginning levels while level 20 guards just stood around and [censored]ed about it. it just looks stupid that way. also this is asking about full fledged big dragons. if i can kill them at any level with regular gear then why in the world is anyone in tamriel even afraid of them. i dont mind if there are injured dragons or young dragons that we fight earlier on ( they should still be very hard fights) but for the big guys you should be very high level and have to use the dragonshouts.

maybe you want a cakewalk of a game but i dont want another easy peasy oblivion clone where im never afraid of dying at any time. i want to be afraid of the dragons and i want the fights to be super challenging. just say no to dumbing down of games.

@selbeth.........i would say that looking on helplessly as a dragon burns a village while all you can do is stand by and watch would be a typical story arch. the whole point of an RPG is that you start off fairly weak and then progressively stronger. it would also make the player connect if say the character spends some time in a "starter village" and gets to know the people and then sees them wiped out by a dragon. that would get the player into the story fairly effectively if he saw his friends burned alive.

I don't "want a cakewalk of a game", I am just using what I consider to be logic. Dragons and your ability to defeat them are pretty much what the main quest is all about, they aren't going to introduce this concept to you way late into the game. Who said you had to use dragon shouts to defeat dragons? And you would be able to defeat dragons at a low level because you are the dragon born; to quote the trailer "You are the one they fear."

once again that makes no sense. if i can kill dragons at a low level while guards who have better skills and better equipment are just standing around doing nothing that would be horrible game design. the dragons should kick your ass at low levels and be virtually impossible at midlevels. only when you get to high levels say 40 or above should you be able to fight dragons. i must specify as i did earlier that this applies to "advlt" dragons as the poll asked. i dont have any issues with fighting baby dragons or badly injured dragons earlier on. you say you dont want a cakewalk of a game yet you want to be able to fight and defeat dragons even at early levels...............how is that not an easy game.

being called the dragon born doesnt grant you a rocket launcher with anti dragon missiles or anything special. it just means that you are the one that destiny has foretold will/can defeat them. you still have to actually acquire the skills and equipment to do it and stay alive long enough to fulfill the prophecy. if you want to be mr badass in shiny armor that one hit kills everything then just turn on god mode and shoot some dragons flying above.

I don't want them to be just another random enemy. I want to see Dragons related to quests etc, and not every one of them unsympathetic villains.

I don't think they should be designed such that you start taking them on at a certain level. I wouldn't expect every advlt dragon to be equal in power, nor do I like the idea of fighting non-advlt dragons, since they are people.


I disagree here. You are assuming that every dragon is equal. I doubt that is the case! Moreover, they fear the dragonborn but that doesn't mean they are invulnerable to others. I suspect that they fear that the dragonborn can understand their language and use their powers, and fear that he/she may actually be able to stop whatever their plan is. If it were as simple as the big bad generic dragons come to destroy the world, as someone said in another topic they'd just be able to spread out and attack each city one dragon at each, even once the dragonborn is powerful enough to fight them directly. They are powerful, but they are not immortal (as far as my understanding goes).

As I said, you are assuming all dragons are equal. I highly doubt they are going to save dragons for when you are that high level, especially considering how many shouts there are to obtain.

I am not saying this is what I want, I am just saying this is how it is probably going to be like. Your player doesn't start off as a baby (I'm looking at you, FO3 :tongue: ) who doesn't know how to use a sword, bow, etc. And at level 40 and above is the only time you can defeat a dragon? That is ridiculous! Maybe if you were looking at it from a real-life standpoint (which still wouldn't make any sense since you're talking about levels), sure, but if you think about it, you will probably be able to finish the MQ at level 10 or above, like Oblivion. And baby dragons? When would you be fighting baby dragons?

I strongly suspect we wouldn't fight baby dragons because the dragons are a race of intelligent beings and that's not something Bethesda does with their games (as evidenced by the outright ban of such discussion on these boards). I fully support that stance too.

If I had to guess I'd guess we fight dragons by level 15-20.

I do not, however, suspect you can beat the game at level 10 like in Oblivion. There are areas of the game with minimum level tuning. This isn't leveled like Oblivion is; it's confirmed to be more like Fallout 3. I don't know how it works in that game, but from what I read it means we will almost certainly be unable to (easily) beat the game at level 10. People love doing low level challenges in games and achieve what sounds impossible at first, so I won't claim it will be impossible at level 10. It just won't be easily possible, if it is possible.

i hope that we cant finish the game at level 10. i dont want another oblivion. first thing i would do on my second playthrough then would be [censored] slapping all the guards for making me do all the work.

baby dragons was just an example of a dragon you could fight at an early level. maybe a hatchling that wandered from the nest. im assuming that the dragons are reproducing somehow.

@zeopard.....im only responding to the poll question. he asked about "advlt" dragons and while they are going to have different powers and some will be stronger than others i imagine that they are going to have similar statistics. im guessing here but i bet bethesdas storyline is going to have your first dragon fight either a infirm or injured dragon or maybe you have some help brining it down. if indeed they introduce your first dragon fight mano to mano and you can beat him at level 5 i will be pissed if that was a healthy "advlt" dragon. am i the only one that was disturbed by the fact that i was closing oblivion gates at early levels while guards who were much higher level than me did nothing? if the guards are going to do nothing again then at least make it make sense ingame.

also, can someone confirm or deny learning dragonshouts from walls as well as dragons? i remember reading a post about it somewhere.

There are no such things as set pathways in these games. Like it or not some form of level scaling is absolutely necessary in an open world game. if we didn't have it then it would be necessary for the devs to control the number of enemies and items available to the player at any given time and the only way of doing that is to corral the player along a set path. Would you really be willing to give up the open world in order to eliminate scaling or to introduce game play that requires specific control over where the player can go or what specific enemy the player fights at any given point?

I don't really want to be able to kill a dragon single handed at any stage of the game. Perhaps I'm the only one that can actually kill the dragon but I'd at prefer that I at least need help to take them down. I don't expect I'll get want I want though - something else for a mod.

I think that they should be an encounter like wolves in oblivion, just not as often, what i mean is that you should be able to be walking around and say you see a giant shadow pass over you, you know its a dragon so you either fight or flee, you'd probably flee depending on level and equipment, but also that the different level dragons should be in different areas. like in the trailer that one ruin it shows in the back ground, that has to be important so, there is gong be a higher level there, and say outside of the first town you go to will be a low level weaker dragon because its easier to "get" or slay. So basically fight at your own risk and will.

As far as the walls and dragons go you learn words from one and the actual shouts from another if I recall. I don't remember off hand though?

I think you are putting too much stock into NPC levels. The guards in Oblivion were at high levels not because they were some uber fighting force but because the PC couldn't just laugh in their face when the guards try to arrest them and very easily kill them like they the PC could do with bandits.

Absorbing a dragons soul gives you the ability to read a word on a wall. Chances are very good that we will have to kill three dragons per for the first few shouts then 2 sometimes there after but not if all 60+ words are unique to the 20+ shouts. If that is the case then each shout will require three dragons to be slain in order to learn it.

ok thanks. does that mean that every dragon has its own wall or can you mix and match dragons with various walls?

@amidamaru.............im almost positive that in one of the podcasts they said that the dragons would mostly ignore you flying overhead unless you shot at them.

@warnek3m.............what i meant was that you could finish the oblivion questline at level 3 with crappy gear and low skills while guards with better gear and much higher skills that are supposed to defend the empire did nothing. it was just silly game design from that perspective. just like the final bruma battle that consisted of a "huge" army of 12 soldiers from all over cyrodil to aid you.

Sure as long as the dragon legends are actually challenging.

My problem with this is that it excludes the people that don't play to level 40. I for one start a new character long before that and would be majorly disappointed if I never got a chance to kill a full grown dragon so I would say level 10 for dragon killing. It wouldn't be easy but it is doable.

You learn the words from the walls but the power comes from defeating dragons.

I think that you shouldnt be able to kill the really strong one that you can seek out an are in caves and stuff until you are about level 20, but it should nigh on impossible, and you would have to have enchnated everything and about 50 health potions. At the start of the game I want to HAVE to run from dragons, maybe at level 9 have the possibiltiy of slaying a smaller one, but not without either backup/lots of Health potions. They should be the biggets and baddest guys around, and in terms of scaling, maybe have the smaller ones for the lower levels, and when you get to higher levels advlt ones appear? The smaller ones stay and you still have to work at killing them, but you no longer feel the need to run.

As you level up, i think that you should feel powerful. The dragons would still kick your ass given half the chance, but when you see one coming, you draw your sword and wait for it rather than turning and running. They are still hard, but you yourself feel like you can take the beast down.

Once a month in-game

He raised his athletics and leveled up 10 levels before fighting the dragon. Obviosuly.

No change in strength please... this kind of level scaling is so annoying >.<. I wanna seem em pretty rarely, but it should still be something you're constantly on the lookout for, so once a week sounds fair

There should be some sort of level scaling so that they are a challenge until your character is high level and well geared.
Their stat increases should be balanced so you don't feel like leveling your character was a waste of time, for example their stats could increase at 95% the rate of yours. At first the difference may not be felt, but as you level the difference can really be felt.

They must be powerful, not wimps. Level 20 at least for an advlt. Otherwise any NPC could slay them.

And must be common, after all it is an invasion, but not as mudcrabs. Once a day.

I'd like to point out there's a big difference between seeing dragons every day and actually fighting them everyday. I doubt a dragon would waste it's time attacking a single traveler walking from one town to the other.

I just want to fight a dragon bare handed
(if it's possible...)