So I encountered a dragon today in Morthal and started fighting it alongside the guards, it was fighting like normal, landing on buildings and killing people all over the place, but then it just up and flew away after losing about two thirds of it's health and didn't return. I havn't seen this before and was wondering if anyone else has seen any unexpected dragon behaviour or has a particularly ineresting dragon story.

That's happened a couple times to me. Except it left after taking just a bit of damage. That or it never gives a crap and doesn't engage and just screams flying away.

dragons are remarkably pouty. if things dont go their way, they just up and leave. they are prone to seeing a mudcrab 2 miles away and going off to kill that instead. id imagine a side effect of their random hostility is.... well, random hostility. they may fight you for awhile then decide to fight something else. likewise they could be fighting guards then suddenly come after you.

Happened to me once. I was fighting a blooddragon near Whiterun,. With just 1/4 of it life left, it flew away. I tried to chase it, but saw a named dragon instead. Killed it. I don't know it its a bug or not.

My experience is that dragons will "fly away" for 2 reasons.

1) There's a dastardly mudcrab over that way that needs to be punished (or maybe a fox). This can lead to the dragon "disengaging" from the player it seems (at least you can reenter stealth and be "hidden"). I've never had it happen because I always give chase but I imagine a "disengaged" dragon that kills the horrible mudcrab that dared to look at it funny and had no other targets it wanted to go after might fly off.

2) When they get to ~40% health they need to land/crash somewhere. If you are fighting them in a place where they don't have a designated landing spot (on ground, buildings/perches don't count) then they will fly off to one (maybe the nearest?). I observed this when I was mountain climbing once and got attacked by a dragon so I was fighting a dragon while stuck on the side of a mountain. I had to travel quite a long way to find where it crashed.

I like the eccentric behaviour of Dragons (obviously flying backwards is pushing it).

If all they ever did was attack the player on sight and fight to the death they'd be a lot less interesting imo.

Besides, if you were down to a sliver of health and had no other way to survive and you could fly?

lol

You'd be doing the Superman at 30,000 feet in a second.

Self preservation is an important aspect of convincing AI imo.
Dragons should feel like individuals, they're not animals, they're highly intelligent, they hate and fear you.
They're an utterly inscrutable incredibly ancient intellect, we can barely begin to fathom their reasoning.

I want them to do the unexpected in a way that feels spontaneous and unscripted, their behaviour should suggest intention.

If that means flapping away at the last second with a tail full of arrows leaving me standing alone in a swamp with an empty quiver... good, it's a moment, it's a "thing that happened".
Smart dragon imo because I was about to go for the greatsword.

Long may the Dragons continue to troll the players I say.

I think this Boss dragon appears sometimes and is just named dragon. You even can't kill it via console, eh will just fly away.

I was out in the wilderness and there was a dragon not too far away. I was afraid it would jump me at an inopportune time so I tried to chase it. It stayed just far enough away so that I couldn't hit it with spells or arrows. It even "charged" me and breathed fire, but the fire was so far away it didn't affect me. Finally I ignored it and walked off. Weird.

I've come across dragons that refused to land or become hostile, even with that one particular shout affecting them.

Just kept circling and making noise. Eventually I just left him to his business.

some other times, I saw a dragon flying above my head. pretty close to usually engaged me in battle

but no, it just flew over my head and eventually gone from my sight.

is this what Todd said 'not every dragons are hostile'? beside paarthurnax and ohdaviing of course

Dragons not wanting to fight is a known bug. I have had experiences when they would take off in the middle of a fight. They do seem to hate mudcrabs don't they?

Lol i had this part where i had already killed a dragon; it was at zero hp, but somehow it flew up and circled for a while, then crashed down and died instantly sort of like the skyrim trailer

I'll let the video explain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smGwmuNFIRA

Dragons flying in a huge arc circle probably get everything in a 5 mile radious on their aggro table. Since encounters with them aren't scripted the dragons behavior is erratic and very unpredictable. I have noticed after the latest patch that dragons seem less likely too attack and more likely to retreat.

Does anyone have the problem where dragons named "Dragon" don't land and sometimes look as if they get pulled by an invisible thing. Then I can't kill them for they keep flying in the air and sometimes fly backwards?

yes, yes, certainly, encountered one today. It was a dragon within a quest so I thought I had to kill him.
I went to the place where the dragon was, it screamed at me, I drew my bow and shot an arrow at him, immediately it flies away backwards. Sometimes it also flew REALLY fast, just like you are saying, like a string pulled it.
Also, when it got lot health, like below 50%, it flew away, it flew as high up as possible. It was way to high up for the arrow to reach.

I tried several times, did the same thing every time, freaking annoying since it's a quest.

This is not vid but it describe it just as I had it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_QxtWN2Uv4&feature=related
I also had the same lag as the vid,

I remember one time I was in the middle of fighting one dragon, got it down to half it health.
Then all of sudden another dragon, comes out of nowhere and drops down next to the original dragon I was fighting.
Needless to say I wasn't prepare and reloaded.

I had a 2nd dragon attack me once... I was like ????ZOMG WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But then the injured one up and flew off and left me with a full health dragon to fight.

After slogging through a SECOND dragon, I finally got my soul and dragon bones for my reward... but the first 1 never came back.

Had a few fly away on me actually.... usually they'll just circle and take off after a while... but a couple times they fled the battle.

I dunno... I like the whole randomness of it.

The problem with the dragon I posted before (post #16) was fixed in patch 1.3