Dragons are almost always a 100% win. And to give these creatures a somewhat realistic role in the elder scrolls universe is great! I really like the idea of randomly encountering a dragon while traveling through the snowy landscapes of skyrim. Add that to the overall difficulty of defeating one and you got some exciting travels ahead. Being vigilant...looking up in the sky once a while and preparing for the worst should a dragon swoop down upon you.

This is wonderfull. But I think it might also present some problems.

These random dragon encounters are much appreciated but many including me. But imagine yourself clearing out a dungeon, killing everyone and looting everything to the bare bone. Satisfied with you're winnings you set off to the nearest village or city to sell you're well earned goods. The dungeon and it's inhabitants did take a toll on you're health bar so site seeing is not really an option. Health potions are almost used up and you're blade is rusty and needs repairs. As you almost make it to the nearest village you suddenly hear a menacing RAWR. And as you look up a dragon will land and attack you without mercy.

Then you die. And you will have to start from you're last save.

As great as dragons are I think they should not be over-encountered. In situations were you really need to get somewhere, or carry valuable loot or killed this extremely powerfull enemy, A dragon can really f*** up you're mood.

Enbarking on a quest to escort someone back to a certain place and to find yourself fighting a dragon along the way can become quite a nuisance in my opinion.

Dragons should only be encounterd when you are not escorting a person of great significance to a quest and only when you are wandering the wilderness alone or with you're companion.

Discuss

It would be kinda lame for them to not attack simply because you're escorting someone. If you ask me it's way more fun if there's an element of risk that a dragon could attack out of nowhere at anytime. Just be very cautious and be prepared to run away just like Todd said. Also it happens every so often because radiant story keeps track of how long it's been since your last encounter or something so you probably won't get attacked too much although there is likely an element of randomness thrown in to make it less predictable.

Haha, "Ok [person I escorted] , we are almost into town!"
Person I Escorted: "Oh no! A Dragon! It's going to kill us! Run away!!!"
Dragon swoops down and eats Person I escorted whole.
Me: "S*it."

True! But that kinda will create a new problem in my opinion. If you haven't seen or fought a dragon in a while that will mean you will have to be very carefull when going on quests. It will likely make people go out in the wilds for having that encounter so that they can go on a quest without getting killed by a random dragon.

Experiences like that make me feel like it's real. Life isn't perfect.

Why should the enemy only attack me when I'm ready? That's no challenge and isn't smart on their end.

There are no rules in war. And you're character has effectively declared war on dragons. :toughninja:

EDIT: You remind of the kid in play sword fights that would always cry and yell "I wasn't ready yet!"

I have this image of a dialog box popping up:

"Allow dragon to attack? Y/N"

And you know what it makes me feel like?

:sick:

Nope, random encounters should be random, and if one happens when it's not convenient for you, well...too bad.

The only concern that I have about Dragons is that they're going to be just like Oblivion Gates. Except this time they fly. Hopefully Bethesda find a way to make the dragon encounters exciting, rather than tedious and annoying. I'm going to be disappointed if Dragon encounters turn into one of those things where I'm cursing at my TV screen, saying to myself, "Aw crap. Not this again."

You can always just run away. Go to the nearest dungeon or house and wait until the dragon's gone.

What happens when it chases you and eats you? You can't run away from stomach acid.

Todd said that they were lowering the number of them because at one point they were attacked by three at once. Wouldn't it be cool if you saw two or three dragons, cast frenzy on them,which is confirmed, and watch them duke it out. Dueling Dragons! Like the Roller Coster.

Then your character can go to their final rest knowing with absolute certainty that it just was not their day. And then you load a save and go on, unless you're doing a hardcoe permadeath roleplay.

Don't want to fight dragons. Play as a thief/assassin/rogue/spy/ranger, and skulk.......

I got the impression that keeping track of how long it's been since you fought a dragon is mainly used to determine if a Radiant Story quest should have you encounter one or not, but it could also be used to keep random dragon encounters from becoming too frequent, I suppose.

But anyway, how frquent dragon encounters should be was something Bethesda had still not decided on last time the subject was brought up, so we can only wait and see, I could see random dragon encounters becoming annoying if it's too frequent, but as long as Bethesda keeps it appropriately rare, I don't expect the occassional fight against a dragon to bother me, besides, all things we've heard indicate that you don't always have to kill dragons when you see them, in fact, I even read in one place that they don't always attack you on sight, so if you're not in any condition to fight dragons, attempting to avoid them is still an option.

I read that too - in OXM it mentions how you can engage a dragon by pelting them with arrows if you feel up for the fight. Maybe only some dragons will attack on sight, e.g. if it's part of a quest or they're guarding something, or maybe if you encroach on their "territory" or something like that.

Wait... Since when do dragons win almost 100% of the time? Maybe if you're absolutely [censored] at the game, but otherwise I'm fairly sure Bethesda will balance it so they don't kill you 9/10 times, otherwise it'd just be stupid and you wouldn't even be the dragonborn.

Also, I'm sure escaping is easy enough. Sure it might take time, but it's not like as soon as a dragon attacks you have to stand and fight. There's always somewhere nearby that you can take shelter in.

And if theres no other way other than fighting, maybe tell the person you're escorting to stay there while you lead it away. Dragons will probably attack the player first if it has the choice between the dragonborn and some random NPC.

Why should you even die against a dragon once ? Todd compared them to big daddys and helicopters in halflife. im aware that you shouldt take that comparison to be totally accurate, but as in those games, once u figure out how to kill them shouldt you have the upper hand.? I have never my self gotten killed by a big daddy, but i am the "be prepared guy", or hit-and-run-use-terrain-kinda-guy...

Personally I love the idea of running through the landscape because a dragon appeared out of nowhere, and I'm already on low health. Running into a forest perhaps, or taking refuge in a cave... it would be epic. However I definitely don't want them to be overly common, especially in the early game. If I start a character and don't intend to do the main quest, instead settling for a less combat orientated role such as a thief, I don't want to have to fight off dragons every time I make a trip out into the wilds. Hopefully they'll be like Oblivion gates - they don't really start to appear in numbers until later in the main quest.

"Dragons are treated just like any other creature."

Nothing more to it than that.

I think what the OP meant by that was that dragons are (100%) WIN, as in they are awesome.

I also believe it'd be hard not to notice a dragon. They'll probably be up in the mountains, high where all can be seen. Add in the fact that the devs have said you can see them flying around before you choose to fight them, and I think they'll be avoidable.

And if you REALLY can't fight them at the time, just run and hide out in a dungeon for an hour or two.

In one of the video Interviews, Todd made special mention that the draw distance is such, that you will definitely see a Dragon before it's actively hostile, if you're paying attention, and/or your field of view isn't obstructed.

I think the greatest thing about dragons is the fact that they are unscripted. It will force us te be more careful in our travels. Take your example, before leaving the dungeon with low health and no potions, we will now have to remember to wait for our health to be restored, remember to always have potions with us, repair hammers, etc. since we are never totally safe.

And you can always run away you know

Haha....me i'm looking forward to things like this.It will add funny moments and challenges along the way.How can you get fed-up with dragon's,especially since it's the first time we've seen them in the game's.

The game does tell you to save often,(usually),wise words in my book

Having to deal with unexpected attacks when you're unprepared like that could make the game more fun I think. It'd be okay as long as the escorted people are smart enough to hang back and let you handle the fight instead of trying to punch the dragon or something.

As I don't look up in games I bet they will be just annoying as the Cliff Racers.

Least with cliff racers least it good to practice on your marksmanship with the bow and arrow.