Bethesda, I propose you make it so most people RUN from dragons when they attack, especially merchants and quest givers. Make them run to the nearest church or their homes so they have less of a chance of dying. You would still have guards to help you fight the beasts and it would be more realistic and more importantly, less aggravating when someone you don't want to die dies, and then their bodies lay where they fall FOREVER. Just a thought...

Edit: Or maybe a quicker fix is to give people strong healing potions/spells that they ONLY use for a dragon attack. That way if you get into a fight with the NPC they won't keep healing all their life so fast, because they only heal so much during a dragon attack. I don't know... Anyone else think I'm on to something here?

Dragons mostly attacks town then you fast travel or use carriage to it. Save before you go so you can reload if anybody get killed.

I do do that, but to save some time I think the weak NPCs with daggers and clothes should run not fight. I mean I think they should still be able to be killed, just not so easily as they won't be running towards the mouth of the beast.

I like the fact that Dragons kill NPCs, makes dragon attacks more epic and something to be feared. In my opinion it doesn't happen often enough.

I like it, it makes you hurry to kill it other wise if people did run away most people would just walk away and let the guards deal with it.


they should make dragon attacks a bit more rarer tho

I like it too, to an extent. I just hate when someone dies who had multiple quests associated with them, being a completionist/perfectionist/hoarder and all.

But for realism, I don't think your common merchant would run to fight a giant dragon. They would run to the church or their homes and let you and the guards deal with it. I like the attacks too and I agree they do happen a little more often then I like. I wish they wouldn't respawn so fast, especially now that we are learning from a player who got his 90mb save file down to 30 or something, by just standing in his home and letting the game run for 10 hours (real time) which would get rid of some lag, but also make the dragons spawn faster. lol... NPCs bodies seem to stick around longer than it takes for a dragon to respawn and leave another dead NPC who fought with all he had... with his dagger and clothes mind you.

Nonsense. If they would actually protect NPCs then others would complain about it just the same. They'd say that it is unrealistic and people should die from dragon attacks.

Life is hard. I think it is only realistic.

And why would you want for all quest givers to stay alive? You only want to do all available quests with a single character. This is already a false perception (and somewhat greedy on your behalf) as you cannot do all available quests. If you want to see it all then replay the game and make different choices each time.

And, if you fast travel to a settlement or town, and a dragon shows up, then the game is going to give you one no matter where you go. So, just fast travel somewhere else and the dragon will show up, you can take care of it. Then save and fast travel to the settlement. This way you control where you fight the dragon. Note, this only works if you save before you fast travel, the Autosave made after you arrive is too late.

In one situation it turned out rather funny. A dragon attacked Windhelm and the whole town was up and running about, with arrows shooting through the sky and dead bodies here and there. I managed to kill the dragon and it landed on the stairs near the entrance to the town. Just the second the dragon had died did a town guard walk up to me and asks what had happened, who butchered these people and tells me to investigate the murder...

Is it not obvious? It was a dragon!

[img]http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/7933/murderu.jpg[/img]

As it turned out, it wasn't the dragon. Somebody had used the attack to hide a murder!

I can understand this, but when NPCs (besides Guards, etc,) run up to a Dragon and try carving its eyes out with butter knives, I beg to differ.

Just because NPCs would be running away would not mean that they're not going to be killed. There would still be casualties unless we had a Fail Dragon.

Yes, they kill important NPCs that don't respawn or get replaced.

I'm saying shop owners, and blacksmiths are more important the essential "important" quest NPCs.

I think NPC's should die during a dragon attack, It's what would really happen. Though I do argee that the average person is going to run, not attack with a knife.

If I want to fast travel somewhere, I usually go for a stables, not the town itself. Thankfully I haven't had any vendor's die, Questgivers, well probably.

That's just the way it is. Chance, in RL someone may have died that could have ment a great deal to you somewhere down the road. Just because you know that that NPC is someone that is a questgiver ( because you played through before or read it or what ever) means that you know that "chance" happening isn't going to happen.

It's a game so save and reload.

If you're on a PC, you can do this with a console command to make all NPCs essential.

Don't think the OP wants essential npcs just less gun ho ones
It does get hard when you start swinging a clamore around and the locals get in the way
But ATM for me as all as the dragons attack is npcs. They show up and just circle or fly off and go after wildlife or what ever but not me, I shoot at it with boy doing a bit of damage but really needs to touch down to kill but never get the chance

Have to agree, merchants/farmers etc, if they'd just run in to the nearest building or w/e and stay there until the dragon is dead, would make perfect sense, and prevent many annoying re-loaded saves.
Keep guards and other protector/warrior NPCs around to fight since it makes sense, by all means.

Well, you are saying that you want a better AI. I cannot disagree, but there are also limits to what Bethesda can do right now. The AI will be better with the next game, and the next, and so on. It keeps improving and it has gotten better compared to the previous games. Perhaps try to see it as a progression - it is never perfect but only gets better with each game.

You can also take a closer look at the NPCs' reactions. I do not find them too unrealistic. If people, even today, would always react as they *should* (and not as they do) then we had a lot less problems in the world... They are only common folk, they are not dragonborn. They are living in a harsh world and some choose to die fighting, others beg for mercy and die just the same. If they all ran and hid then it would be certainly smart of them, but if they were this smart then they could have build ballistas, too, and just shot the dragons themselves. It rather seems that many of the people in Skyrim are still in disbelieve over the return of dragons and they act stunned when they encounter an attack. So their dumb behaviour is not too far off from reality.

Is there a way on the PC to resurrect dead NPC's?

Yes, I believe so. I think it works like this: open the console, click on the dead body (see that you get some code displayed) and enter "resurrect".

Always make a save file before you open the console. You never know what effect it may have later in the game.

You don't necessarily need to go that far. A mod could be made that changes a selected townsperson's confidence level from Average to Cowardly and they should run from danger such as a dragon.

It's fine for NPC's being killable, but when they act like complete morons and jump into the mouth of the dragon when they stand absolutely no chance, is just stupid.

Sounds exactly like something Belethor would do just to protect his shop.

NPC's in Oblivion had aggression and confidence stats that would determine whether they would start a fight and if they would run away. I would assume that Skyrim would have something like that.

When a Dragon attacks, EVERYBODY who is not a fighter should get the hell out.

One reason I stopped being a vampire was because as a stage 4 vampire, little old ladies would run up to me trying to send me to Oblivion.

That's just bad A.I.

Dragons need a powerful dismay shout or a "dismay effect" on their breath, so the NPCs would flee in front of him and the dragon would concentrate his attack on the player, improving the sense of uniqueness of being dragonborn, preventing pitiful scenes like the dragon beaten by the fisherman with the dagger and reducing the losses among NPCs. The guards can still charge against the dragon but would be cool if they had a weakness to dragons' critical attacks, so we could see more guards chewed and trown away. Same thing for the giants. Also normal animals should be non hostile to them, especially mammoths and frost trolls, because at lower levels they can dispatch a dragon like a mudcrab (frost dragon vs frost troll is a shiny example of what I'm trying to say). This would prevent also that the dragon goes after mudcrabs while the players are shouting in his face. Othewise the melee attacks of the dragons should be more powerful and faster.

Thank you that helps immensely.