NeKllte Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 A friend and I were making a mod add some tribes to Skyrim when we got skimmed by a dragon we thought we'd disabled while testing. My friend's character ran up and in a few swipes down the thing. It then occurred to us... Dragons are a completely disappointing enemy. We were intending to use them as part of the faction for our tribes as a object of cult worship and sacrifices could be made to things. The problem... these giant annoying lizards just aren't worthy of the title 'dragon.' We got out on the Workshop looking for some mods to fix this but eventually realized there really isn't a good mod out there. Here's some conclusions we reached: - A dragon's attack, no matter where it hits you is nearly always going to be lethal. If you doubt this I submit my friend's Irish sheep-hound vs. the deer it regularly kills if it gets outside. This dog is the size of a bear. Literally, if is sitting down it is nearly looking you in the eye standing up. And it's not slow or stupid. Now... this summer has had a lot of rabbits about. The dog's solution to rabbits is to go into the garden and sit perfectly still. Then you hear some terrifying growling and ravaging every so often. Rabbits 0... Dog 17, wounds 0. The point.. a human being compared to the size of a dragon and it's rather abundant armored skin = rabbit. Dragon = bear-dog. - Dragon bites need to be fatal unless you have a shield/good block. Period. - When a dragon bites there should be at least 68% chance that when it bites it completes the bite with a finishing move such as throwing you... as a reminder that it IS bear-dog and you are rabbit. The occasional flying deer would fit this analogy too. Dog touches rabbit, rabbit dies. Dragon touches you, you die. Death comes from having arms, legs, or huge chucks of flesh being variously removed or relocated. Or it comes from the crippling shock and pain that leaves you open for the kill shot thereafter. In any case, the bite was death, the rest is drama. - Fire. Go stand in front of a flame thrower with a shield such as those in Skyrim. Really, if you can do that and live for the length of a dragon's blast then you get to claim dragon's breath can be shield-blocked. If you aren't willing to commit to this experiment then I suggest that dragon's breath is lethal. - Wing and Tail swipes.... bone crushing. Go kick a rooster. If you don't understand why I meant this you don't understand how painful being gouged by a bird can be. Now... instead of the claw gouging you being the size of a rooster's... it's the size of your foot on a finger the size of your leg. That's how much force is being that little swipe dragon's do. ...A crocodile can out swim police helicopters and for quite a sustained period as it turns out. This was documented on video by to the Science Channel. That gives you some idea of the muscle strength of a 12 to 16 foot animal whose tail is between 6 and 5 feet. The dragons in Skyrim not only have large tails but have tails that are slender and weighted on one end with complicated series of variously shaped spikes. A simple turn of its body is the same force, give or take, as that of a falling tree. Now add to that, muscle strength and aim... Lastly... dragons should be on the ground unless they decide to attack something. The attacks should be powerful enough to kill anything except for another dragon or the player in 1 to 5 hits MAX. Otherwise they are just irritating birds/flies. And, Dragons should largely be disinterested in the player unless the player either attacks them or comes within a fairly short distance. They should be faster on the ground too. A dragon attack should feel like a localized Armageddon. A pulsing fear attack would go a long ways in helping them be convincing too. These things are ancient alpha predators. This is a bored, immortal creature that things of you as a rather rebellious resource (at best). It frankly shouldn't regard you at all except as the rabbit, and only that because you are large enough to register as a happy-meal barely satisfying a day's meal. You're living because you might be breeding and you're allowed to do either because that helps produce more food. These are lizards. Not warm blooded. They're going to horde themselves into a nice warm place...sit and then mess anything up that gets on its nerves or just not bother and move away. Summary... all dragon mods to date have focused on scaling the Dragons or Improving their AI features. While both of these are necessary components neither address the facts above. - Dragon attacks need to be LETHAL to barely survival. Three strikes you're out.- Dragons behave like overly aggressive flies, not like immortal creatures that could easily cough you to a cinder without having even realized you were there. We'd do the changes ourselves but we're engaged in this other project. We just thought it worth mentioning that future mods having to do with dragons need to consider tackling the above issue. We haven't had a chance to dig into the dragon attacks to see how much they can be modded yet. Probably won't before next year. Work work work.. Hope this helps someone,Good luck on your respective mods Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huntsman2310 Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 This would be fantastically realistic. But that's kind of the problem I think. Since Dragons are so common in Skyrim, particularly as you level up to a higher level, that means you can get wiped out just walking down the road in Falkreath forest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackninja50 Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 Thats all well and good but how the hell do you kill a dragon then? Save for getting resist fire 100%, Legendary dadric armor (with a shield) and shout cool down 80% so you can Spam dragonrend and other shouts? (there is a bug that lets you spam shouts with only shout cool down 80%). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts