LE Shout/Dragon Overhaul

[thisfoodisfake]

I had gotten pretty excited about the whole shouting at dragons thing. Todd Howard described the dragon fights as epic shouting matches. I had envisioned shouting as an epic argument to the death.

 

now, I'm kind of disappointed with how the shouts turned out. they seem more like a gimmick than anything, they don't have any weight. they are very useless compared to some magic spells. Shouts are supposed to give you a unique and great power, thats the point of being the dragonborn, no one else can beat the dragons.

 

Speaking of dragons, arent they just terrifying? the way the fly around and tear apart anything that gets too close- wait, no? they will just sit there and let you cut their little noses till they bleed to death, without using any of the vicious natural weapons at their disposal? thats kind of anticlimactic... not to mention a frost troll would win in a fight... ive often wondered why dragons dont swoop down and grab enemies like crazy. i know they can do it, i saw it in the demo and alduin always does it at helgen to one imperial. and once they are on the ground, even if they are wounded (ie. cant fly anymore) they should be more vicious. they have like 20 tons to work with. but even for when they have just landed and can still fly, why dont they use their claws and head or tail to grab and smack you silly? heck, why dont they just eat you the moment you get too close?!?

 

i think these problems can be fixed with a few tweaks. i dont know what would be possible, but i know some of this is possible and i know someone can at least improve these things tremendously.

 

-get RID of the ridiculously long cooldown time between shouts. dragons can shout as much as they want, they dont have to wait five minutes while cowering behind a rock. unlimited shouts would be silly though, as shouting uses up vital essences (i forget exactly what it was but it was something like that). so instead of waiting between shouts, have the shouts use up equal amounts of magick, health, and stamina, your vital essences. this way, your shouting can get more powerful as you level up, and have a way of being in check. no god mode here.

 

-add new shouts focused on the fighting of dragons. shouting seems like it should be the only viable option for defeating a dragon, at least until its grounded or severely injured. shouts that will block the damage of a dragons fire barrage, or more focused, faster shouts for flying dragons etc. using dragon language like shield and arrow, for instance. shouts to keep it from grabbing you into the air, eating you, etc... maybe some shouts that only work on dragons, just so you dont run around abusing your power on other things that could use an axe to the face. shouting should be balanced and not take over, but its lacking some epic. all in all the changes should not make the overall game too easy. this may be the hardest thing to work out.

also, the Dovahkiin MUST be able to use the flamethrower and frost barrages the dragons use. if one thing is changed its that. please. :)

 

-add some of your shouts to dragons. the dragon language is their first language for crying out loud, they know more than one shout.

 

-make combat AI changes to dragons and make them much harder to kill, without shouts especially. maybe go easy on the first one since you dont really have shouts yet. but close quarter combat should not be an option before they are mortally wounded. like i said above, they should be able to fling you across the mountain with a flick of their head. the nose stabbing thing is just silly. you have to shout it to death.

 

-this one is just a bonus but maybe easier to accomplish than some of the others (for animators anyway), more finishing moves! a sword through the back of the throat in a failed attempt at eating you, cutting its legs so it cant stand then finishing it off, get creative! at least make the regular one better, i cant really tell what hes doing up there on the dragons head. maybe just a downward thrust with the sword (link, super smash bros style). would be more effective for a head mounted finishing move.

 

 

i wrote this out pretty late, so i may have missed some tweaks. but id like to hear from people what they think. would this make the game 10000 times more awesome? more like it should have been? maybe people could add to this? what are suggestions for shouts? what else could be done to make this more epic, and balanced? what about you people who have modding and scripting experience, do you think some of the more complicated stuff is possible? i really dont have the skill to do any of this, but i really want to see this done.

[Junea]

I think there is a mod to make dragons stronger and more durable, and you can set shout cool down in the console commands. :D

[JuliusM]

I love pretty much everything you suggested. I also wondered how they could justify a frost troll being way stronger than a dragon...

 

One thing I would change is the HMS cost per shout. There is no way it should drain your health, that's out of bounds :tongue: but there might be an alternative...

Edited November 28, 2011 by JuliusM

[thisfoodisfake]

maybe if they just used up stamina? i was thinking just magic and stamina but shouts arent really conventional magic. i just think using all three (with a safety somehow so you cant kill yourself) would make it really interesting. thats just me though.

 

i guess the harder dragons and no cooldown time cheat will have to work for now till some of this gets done!

[AndrewWaltfeld]

To be honest, the biggest problem is that dragons fly around too much, they don't swoop down and grab people, they don't use their shouts very often and they often don't fight on the ground. Improving that will improve dragons. Perhaps adding a stagger effect if they collide with you would be a good thing to do. As for dragon-born shouts, they seem to be just fine, if only a bit of a long cool-down.

[wdunn001]

oh for crying out loud I was so disappointed by the dragon fights. there like 1000 of these weakling dragons flying around and they are worthless. frost trolls horrified me before I got paralyze(now i just paralyze them and beat them with mehrunes razor until they die) they should be swinging the tail clawing you and YOU KNOW WHAT! they aren't dumb animals they should have shouts just like you to ice form you and all that wonderful stuff. not to mention they should be reasoned with I want some dialogue that prevents them from attacking I wannna convert them to the way of the voice. why are they all randomly attacking unimportant people like they are some random wolf. why not gather in numbers learn whos in charge and attack there. the whole thing is abnoxious at best.

[VreyAar]

There is a "simple" solution to the Dragon problem, thats very much in line with the OP.

The only problem is that we still dont know if the CS will allow such changes.

 

1. Make them much stronger then ordinary guards and wildlife in terms of physical damage and elemental damage of their breath attacks.

2. Allow them to perform their finishing moves on such lower enemies much more often. (ie bite them whole and toss around or swoop down, pick up and throw from high above)

3. Have them actually use a much wider assortment of shouts including disarm, knockback, freeze etc. (this could be scaled between weakling and stronger Dragons as needed) - both in the air, as they swoop over you, and especially when they are on the ground.

 

No need to bloat their health or damage, since that doesnt really do anything about the real issues and only makes it all last longer.

[peregrine111]

currently the only worthy shouts are:

Dragonrend

Ice Form

Unrelenting Force

Elemental Fury

Storm (absurdly long CD, but still your best bet to mut down a dragon if you are melee, at least till you get Dragonrend)

 

others just have too freaking long CDs compared to their usefulness.

 

I'd say let them be with some 5 sec CD each, just make them cost STAMINA equal to their "CD" now.

Let's say Unrelenting force:

Fus - 15sta

Fus-Do - 20sta

Fus-Do-Rah - 45sta

so the more powerful the shout is, the more stamina it uses up.

[Kairo29]

I too want dragons to be beastly. Want to see them scooping ppl up and dropping them, taking em up and biting them in half in middair so the remains fall back on guards, severely lowering morale lol. NPC reactions to dragons need to convey how serious it is when one shows up...i havent heard a blood curdling scream "Draaaaggooonnn!!" yet lol. I dont see NPCs diving behind cover or running into buildings/tents to avoid being spotted. The dragon chasing ppl down would set a more grim tone....the dragons are supposed to be Skyrims apocalypse...i dont feel that currently.

[DemonfireNinja]

I too was dissapointed by the weakness of dragons, seriously they are GIANT FLYING LIZARDS THAT BREATH FIRE AND FROST, and they are smart, they should be much stronger in general. Just a side note, I think trolls should be weaker, they arent that big. But dragons should definitely be stronger, you should have to make a decision about whether to fight the dragon or to run away and hide.Their strength should be completely independent of your level (you should see ancient dragons at level 5)