Only, instead of decreasing in power to be easy, albeit annoying, kills upon gaining a few levels, they take increasingly longer to whittle down in order to complete the fight as they fly about upon player level increasing, despite not actually offering greater challenge. And like the cliffracers, they know you are there seemingly despite your rank in sneaking -- if they are going to fight, there is little chance to avoid the annoyance.

I apologize for the topic as Im sure it has been done before. Ive started playing again recently with the intent of actually finishing a playthru. Its just, Id take 3x the Morrowind cliffracer encounters to the level-scaled, random, dragon encounters. It just stinks when an encounter with a bandit chief is a tougher challenge, meaning Ive a greater chance of dying to one, than an ancient dragon.

Disclaimers:

1) Im playing on the difficulty level just below hardest. Im sure the dragons are more difficult stepping it up a notch, but so will be everything else. My complaint is more towards the frequency of encounters with relatively easy (especially the fire, ice, blood, etc. varieties), unavoidable, dragons.

2) Been playing TES since '99, started with Daggerfall. Not that this matters, mind.

3) Ive both a ton of praise and a ton of negativity toward Skyrim. Im sure its all been said before; Ive no desire to wax nostalgic about the good points of the older games (except Oblivion; Ill not say anything good about that one).

Thanks fer listening to my venting; Im sure in the grand scheme of things it doesnt matter a bit.

When I first started the game and killed a dragon at around level 5, I knew from then on that they would be a disappointment.

Yeah dragons are the new cliff racers and every 72 hours of them appearing is very irritating. The dragons have the same motions and offer nothing new to the table for each variant of the dragons they are all the same and repetitive and one dimensional like many things in this game. It would be far better if they do not appear as common. They should appear once a month or so that would be fine with me.

they should start at the strength of frost dragons(for low levels) then get up to the "holyfriggincrap" range as they use "supermegafireblastofincredibleawesomeness".

once a month? in real time or game time? and isn't skyrim about dragons coming back and invading?if anything there should be alot more of them.

They should each have individualized shouts and powers for each dragon. As they are they follow the same flight patterns and land on the same spots on roofs. Their landings are predictable and they have only their breath, they should have had more shouts in the base game to make them more dangerous and spontaneous in the encounters with them.

In game time obviously. At first in the main quest its understandble that they appear so often and then when Alduin falls should they really be so frequent they could disperse somewhat. Every three days is far to frequent to encounter one I fight them more than I fight mudcrabs one of Tamriels most common creatures.

I don't know what you mean. I wear all iron gear (and weapons, and only use restoration) and my level 14 character has little chance against a dragon on adept (that's one notch below you'r difficulty level). Of course if you're decked out in the legendary Dragon Scale Armor with an ultra enchanted Daedric Warhammer and armed with the deadliest spells, they won't be a challenge. Nothing will. If you expect the game to have realism, you have to play realistically.

your right dragons should be more unique, one idea I had is when they fly over you, you get rag dolled like you've just been FUS RO DAHed.

That is an excellent idea it would probably be suited best for the more powerful dragons like I would say Elder and above or mage just the Ancient and Legendary types.

Looking at the shout list, there aren't really any shout that would work with a dragon besides breath. If anything, the higher level dragons should use both fire and frost, Alduin is the only one who does this if I recall.

If I get caught in an Ancient Dragon's fire breath, even with an elemental protection shield raised, I'll die, unless I drink an ultimate potion.

I was thinking that, sure would make fighting on a hill svck.
Another idea of mine is smaller weaker dragons that attack in packs of 3-(omg!) 7.

Every dragon can shout its their language their power. They all can use the voice Alduin is just the most powerful.

I will post a link explaining more on this let me load my laptop on a phone here.

Dragons with more shouts can be done as shown http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3829 with the deadly dragons mod. I think more effects should have been added to the base game.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/essay-dragon-language is some details on the dragon language they are words of immense power.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Voice it details that dragons in general were the only ones that harness the power of the Thu'um in the Mythic Era and now other can and so on. These are interesting article on ES lore read on.

This reminds me of a couple other gripes* about them, but Ill not go into it. My character is currently in scaled armor using a skyforge steel sword. Sure Ive got some levels on the guy as I too have been trying to roleplay a character, but all that has happened over the course of the playthru is that the fights take increasingly longer to finish without actually offering up a challenge.

*The biggest gripe involves story progression. The main quest takes your character to Whiterun just about immediately. Not only does the dialog with NPCs nudge the character in that direction, the location is the next logical place for a character to travel. So you are pushed towards Whiterun where EVERYTHING further pushes you towards your first dragon encounter (guards at the gate, little side quests pointing you towards Dragonsreach like the sword for Proventus, etc. that invariably end up with a quest for the dragon nonsense). The beginning of the main quest with the knowing of pretty damn near exactly what is going on was my main gripe with Oblivion, as well. I hate to wax nostalgic about Morrowing, but the thing about the main quest there was that you really did not kow what was going on for quite a while and you were not thrust into fightig [level-scaled] main-plot NPCs until later in the questline (whereas Skyrim pushes you towards a dragon encounter just about immediately). Furthermore, the Blades questgiver there in Balmora would actually have you go out and ADVENTURE upon completing a quest or two -- hed suggest you werent ready to coninue and he needed to figure some stuff out, not once but a couple times, which was IC incentive to see the world. I just dont feel this incentive in Skyrim.

EDIT: Looks like I lied; I wet into it.

Of course, but I mean from a gameplay perspective some shouts just don't work when used against the player.
I'm not going to make a list but let's think of Unrelenting Force. Being shouted across a barrow by some draugr is one thing but many dragons reside on mountain peaks and you know where I'm going with this.

The animal command shouts could work but what if it was used on a group of Mammoths?

There's actually voice-overs for various shouts that dragons would use but they were cut off, listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0i4sO_b0jo

Yes I am saying more thought should have been put into the dragons and the shouts they are all supposed to use the words of power and be fluent in what they speak and the power they unleash. I expected simply more than the traditional breath attacks when the shouts was first mentioned. Things in game like mark for death, and whirlwind sprint and even become ethereal could be used against us and then there could have been other shouts added in something like a magical barrier or a small wind storm something like that.

Nice shouts by the way.

Its really irritating to run around chasing them and keep expecting them to land and nope still flying in circles and roaring at you but not gonna land....... and then after they're done circling they just disappear into the horizon like they got bored....

The reason Skyrim pushes you to at least get to the first dragon encounter is because dragons only start appearing AFTER that. Obviously the folks at Beth thought everyone would have fun being harassed by the annoying creatures (I can't even fight back 80% as I don't have a bow). This makes no sense, we should be able to fight dragons without finding out we're the Dragonborn, and we should be the ones to have to seek out the Greybeards instead of them calling on you. So yeah, the MQ is pretty much force fed with every quest having a sense of urgency (you have to tell the Jarl that Rirverwood's in danger so you aren't an ass, then the dragon's there and you pretty much have to fight it, THEN the Greybeards call you and after all there is NO refusing as you'd be disrespecting them etc.) but this shouldn't discourage players from exploring the world.

Dragons are hardly any more like Cliffracers than Skeevers are, the only thing in common that they both fly...

Ralof/Haddvar clearly says "we should split up" after you get out of the Helgen cave, you're actually encouraged to explore the world.

It's more of an anology if anything but I am sure you already knew that.

Low level Dragons are weak, high level ones are not. We are just usually stronger at higher levels.

TES games have never been focused on combat. Instead, you immerse your character in a world where combat exists. Some or most of the time, combat can be avoided or minimized, if you choose to. If you want to focus on combat, it is better to have a mid level character just for the record. Some of us like to build a high level character so we don't have to worry about combat for some character's, like my Explorer. Fights are just an obstacle to him, not challenge. But, I digress.

I agree the dragons are not as much a fight as they could have been. Sure, some dragons would be push overs, but some would remind just how fearsome they are. Problem is, having one of these uber dragons spawn in a town. That could be disastrous to some quests, or just doing business. So, maybe a few hand placed uber dragons that we have to go find.

After all the feedback about how common and overused they are, as well as being too easy it's amazing nothing has been done about them. I guess there are some things they are just so pleased with themselves about they can't bring themselves to change no matter how much people hate it. Another example would be the way NPCs reapeat their lines when you get close to them. Watching that Conan Obrien video made it really apparent to me just how silly that is. But would they change it? No. "Oh look what we've done! Aren't we just so clever! What, take it out? Never!"

I started a thread about how to improve dragons and make fights with them have a bit more substance. Here's an updated reposting of that information:

The first thing I think should be done is increase the amount of shouts the dragons can use. Fire and Frost Breath are all well and good, but they really aren't that powerful of attacks compared to others. The following is the list of shouts I think would be reasonable for the dragons to use and what dragons should be able to use them:

Dragon: Fire or Frost Breath, and Dismay
Blood Dragon: Fire or Frost Breath, Dismay and Disarm
Frost Dragon: Frost Breath, Dismay, Disarm, and Ice Form
Elder Dragon: Fire or Frost Breath, Dismay, Disarm, Ice Form, and Unrelenting Force
Ancient Dragon: Fire or Frost Breath, Dismay, Disarm, Ice Form, Unrelenting Force, and Marked for Death

As for those just added by Dawnguard:

One other thing is instead of the standard bite, left wing, right wing, tail slam attacks, I think the dragons should also have at least one more physical attack: a tail sweep that can knock you to the ground (Maybe like an Unrelenting Force shout?) and isn't a just a straight up and down attack. That way you can't just stay off to one side behind them to remain safe from their attacks. They should also have more behaviors, including the diving ability we saw in the Dawnguard trailer being incorporated in more areas, as well as them strafing you, which would could also knock you down (they could also use Whirlwind Sprint when flying). It'd also be cool if they swooped down and picked you up in their claws and threw you more often, especially if the attack wasn't just a finishing move.

They are a lot alike...

1. They troll you across vast expanses.
2. They are fairly common(I sometimes fight 2-3 on route to one dungeon depending on where it is).
3. They take up a lot of the player's time when you do fight them and they decide to fly around and shoot fire/ice at you(Cliff racers take 2 minutes to get down to you until you decide to draw a bow).

All of these are reasons why people didn't like cliff racers in Morrowind.