LE Revamped Dragon Combat and Shouts

[cooltrickle]

This might be a little too ambitious. It's hard to tell at this point, but hear me out.

 

Whenever a dragon appears I try to get into a position where the dragon has as many options as possible. This makes the combat more difficult for me, but I don't want to hide behind a stone pillar and chip away with a bow, because it's not very epic, and totally unbecoming of a dragonborn. But still, I can't help finding the combat too limited.

 

My idea is why can't the player using dragon shouts to fight the dragon? If any schmo with a sword can just hack away and kill a dragon, what is so great about dragonborns? The shouts should make killing a dragon easier, but they're not that useful, mostly because of the long recharge times even with buffs, and there is no synergy between dragon shouts. For example:

 

If a dragon uses:

 

1. Fire breath, I should be able to counter with frost breath.

2. Unrelenting force*, I should be able to counter with become ethereal.

 

 

*I'm not even sure if dragons use shouts like unrelenting force; I've only encountered fire and frost, but I'm not very far into the game. If not, it should.

 

It's sort of like a rock, paper scissors mini-game, but with dragon shouts. A dragon does a fly-by and issues a shout that the player can hear before it occurs, like "FUSS-ROH-DAH". There is a little time for the player to react, if you're too slow or issue the wrong response, you take damage. The slower you are to respond correctly, the more damage you take. Also, if the dragon issues level 3 fire breath and you counter with level 2 frost breath, you will still take damage, because the dragon shouted you down, with a more powerful shout. If you counter with the correct shout and at the same level, the dragon takes a little damage. I read those plaques on the way up the 7000 steps and it sounds like humans can shout down dragons and beat them at their own game, so that's why the dragon takes damage. Humans, must inherently have more powerful shouts than dragons, at the same level.

 

Obviously, for this to be challenging the favourites menu should not pause the game. There will be a 2-3 rounds of this, and the dragon will then do it's usual stuff. If you didn't win any of the rounds, you will probably be dead. This forces you to learn the words of the shouts so you can counter in real-time, in other words, be a true dragonborn.

 

When the dragon comes into land, you should be able to freeze the ground under it causing the dragon to slide and lose it's balance for a few seconds, giving you time to run in and slash it a bit and then back off. You will need to back off, as it's melee attack should be very powerful and will kill you easily. As it should; it's a dragon! Yes, you're a dragonborn, but it's your shouts that make you special; your body is just as weak as any other mortal.

 

If you won a few shouts and slashed it a bit, the dragon should be weak. Finish it off with the freeze shout (I forget it's proper name), and unrelenting force shout combo. The force shout will be more powerful if the target is frozen beforehand. By combining shouts you create a more powerful effect. If you have played Dragon Age: Origins as a mage, you will know what I mean.

 

Optional Stuff

 

1. Basic destructible towers and pillars should be dotted about the map, which you can use as cover, but the dragon can actually knock down, if you're being too lame and hiding from it!

 

2. Ability to climb on the dragons back and damage it's wings, forcing it to land. The dragon will attempt to throw you off using reckless flying. Your stamina bar will dictate whether you are Nord enough to hang on! Puny mages should not even try this! If you fall off, a well-timed become ethereal will prevent you taking damage, as you hit the ground. You may find you are far away from where the fight started! The problem is, currently, you cannot use shouts while jumping or falling.

 

3. Re-instate the ability to roll sideways. Useful for avoiding dragon fire breath, after firing a quick arrow in it's face.

 

In summary, dragon combat should include a shouting contest between you and the dragon and shout synergy, ie, the ability to link two shouts for greater effect. Combat around small destructible ruins could be interesting.

[BlueShiftSolo]

You do get one or two more powerful shouts later in the game, which make fighting dragons a little more epic. You also find out why it HAS to be you fighting the dragons. Just hang in there.

 

That being said, a system like this would still be neat. You would need to have shouts mapped to multiple keys however. It seems like one way to implement this would be as a "Quicktime Event" (QTE, for those who played The Witcher II), but I doubt that would be in the realm of possibilities for mods.

Edited November 22, 2011 by BlueShiftSolo

[VreyAar]

god, no quick time events. die in fire!

 

OP good suggestions,

 

I would love to be able to roll sideways - but ONLY if its tied to stamina and you can roll only once or twice for the average stamina bar size/amount.

In witcher2 for example, being able to roll as much as you want made it into a overused cheat, basically.

 

 

also :

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/462158-dragon-overhall/

Edited November 22, 2011 by VreyAar

[Kairo29]

+1. I think it'd be epic to see the dragonborn and a dragon having a SHOUTING MATCH. Throwing shouts back and forth, one long shouting frost, the other fire, seeing the effects hit each other and move back and forth like a magical tug of war ( & a big magical explosion to the winner type thing that can either send the dragon flying back or rolling or the dragonborn)

[sixpak]

It's definately going to be fun when we get the dragon version of breathe fire modded to our characters.. but yeah all that really needs to be done is lowering cooldown time and removing the global shout cooldown. After that hotkey mod so you can have all your shouts ready anytime..and then add more shouts to dragons and amp up their AI to use them as well. Simpe :P Actually i doubt it can be done til construction kit out and even then it'll be awhile. Going to be fun though.

[NotCras]

i think cooldowns should be governed by your overall level, as you increase in overall power, shouldnt you be able to use the shouts more effectively?

[cooltrickle]

I would love to be able to roll sideways - but ONLY if its tied to stamina and you can roll only once or twice for the average stamina bar size/amount.

In witcher2 for example, being able to roll as much as you want made it into a overused cheat, basically.

 

It did occur to me to limit rolls by stamina but I forgot to add it earlier. Thanks for reminding me. Yep, definitely need some limits to stop rolling abuse. I want the roll to function like a block, so if you use it too soon or too late, it has no effect and the dragon nails you. So, having said that, rolling abuse won't help, anyway!

 

One thing I would like to have separated from stamina is the use of dragon shouts. In the game, it seems if you're stamina bar is empty, you can't use a shout. I can understand stopping players from spamming shield bash but it's not possible to spam dragon shouts due to the cooldowns, so why impose a stamina requirement?

 

After that hotkey mod so you can have all your shouts ready anytime..and then add more shouts to dragons and amp up their AI to use them as well.

 

Once people figure out how to give dragons more shouts, we could give everyone shouts! I'd love to play a "dragon shout melee mode", just fighting and shouting, no magic and no mages! Not everyone's cup of tea, but I hate mages, so I would like to see it done.

 

There has been a request for some kind of action bar which would display spells and shouts, a la Dragon Age, but I would be satisfied with an improved hotkey system. It's a shame developers don't make more use of voice commands in games. Players could just utter one word into a microphone and the character performs a shout. It would make games with many spells, and powers easier to command.

 

Thanks for all feedback.