The player "saves the world" from Alduin ("World Eater") by defeating him in Sovngarde. When the player returns to Tamriel (Throat of the World) Paarthunax tells the player that not all the dragons are going to accept his way of thinking. This explains continued dragon attacks without contradicting the main quest.

Ok, that's fair enough. I was sure that Alduin was the one summoning the dragons himself, so if he goes, they go. I'm not that knowledgable on the Skyrim lore, so I'll check it out in the wiki later.

But lore technicalities aside, my point still stands. Its still the outcome of a generic main quest keeps the pre-MQ game and post-MQ game almost identical. Likely this is of necessity, since incorporating far reaching consequences in a post-MQ environment would essentially be the equivalent of a new game. But I was arguing that this is a major weakness of this kind of TES story structure, since nothing of note can be achieved if you want to continue playing after the ending.

Alduin is resurrecting the dragons, yes, but that doesn't mean they all die when he dies. That doesn't make any sense.

And that's not really a lore technicality. Even if bethesda decided to end the game there, the dragons would still be alive. It would likely just say that over the years you or others killed them all off. There's no reason why the dragons would just die all at once.

The real question is why the MQ had to be another tired save-the-world deal.

This happened intitially in Fallout 3.

Due to massive fan outcry at what they perceived to be in many ways an illogical ending, this was changed with a DLC.

killing alduin doesn't mean the end of dragons, not at all, sure, he can resurrect them, but if he dies, so what?

dragons are selfish, dominating creatures, they're just going to carry on doing what they do best- dominating (and burning [censored] up)

so dragons SHOULD be there after the MQ, absolutely, you could also think of it as the other dragons seeking to test your thu'um for themselves, they can't resist a challenge after all

but i agree there is generally a lack of impact for doing the MQ, but ending the game after the MQ? i couldn't disagree more