OK, launched Skyrim this evening via Steam, it went into some kind of automatic download for 4 mins and then the game started OK. Played for a while, had an encounter with a very strange dragon which wouldn't attack even after I'd hit it with a number of arrows, and it kept nose-diving into the ground before taking off and flying straight up into the air until it disappeared, only to reappear again after a minute or two. Didn't worry too much. But then, got to Robbers Gorge, which I'd cleared out weeks ago, and all the bandits were back ??? and all the loot as well ??? Worried now, I fast travelled to Halted Stream camp, one of the first I ever cleared, and sure enough, all loot and the Bandit Chief were back. And as I left the dragon which attacked me returned. This is rubbish I thought, and just to be certain I fast travelled to Mount Anther and sure enough the dragon was back, (although the Word Wall hadn't regenerated, which is something I suppose). Anyway, it's completely destroyed my fun in the game, and my faith in Bethesda, unless there's a fix for this utter nonsense imminently. By the way, I'm running a completely vanilla retail version.

The dragon is one thing, but are you aware that even cleared caves respawn enemies and loot? Cleared is an indicator that you've cleared it once, for people that don't want to do the same thing over by mistake, probably an achievement for it to.

Lol, none of that was caused by 1.4

Hi,

For camps, caves and dungeons, it's perfectly normal enemies respawn after a certain amount of time (cant remember exactly how many game days)... same for dragons at world walls and more generally in their lairs. It has always been so (perhaps 1.4 did reset respawn timers for some reason, but nothing too weird).

The first issue with dragon you've described is instead quite weird...

Edit:Whoops... crossposting...

Ah right, so this is how it's supposed to work ??? i.e. it's supposedly new bandits who've taken the opportunity to move into an empty 'lair'. That would be almost convincing if not for the fact that, for example at Robbers Gorge, the Bandit Chief is in exactly the same place, wearing exactly the same attire, muttering exactly the same words. And descending through the trapdoor you find the same 'Bandit diary' that you'd taken away five weeks ago ??? To me that is just silly. If it was different NPC 'bad guys' fair enough, but to have the same ones 're-animate' is, to be honest, cr*p. And to have all the loot respawn, including all the health potions etc, makes the game so easy it's ridiculous. I've been playing on Master since the beginning and I was already thinking it was getting a bit easy, and I'm only level 33 (e.g. dragons taken down without even trying to dodge/hide, just stand there taking all they can throw and quick-fire arrows in the direction of the flame/frost), but if I've now got access to unlimited stocks of potions and loot because it all respawns after a relatively short time then maybe I'll go back to Witcher 2 after all.................

And of course, even worse, I can return to dragon lairs repeatedly, so I in effect have an inexhaustible supply of dragon souls. Where's the challenge in that - why go l searching for new dragon lairs if I can just revisit old ones on a rotation basis. Very disgruntled..............

Apparently respawned dragons aren't supposed to give you souls... That's why in the past a lot of us have come upon dragons we couldn't absorb.

Ummm... are you sure about that? I mean getting unlimited souls that way? You have always had the ability to wait for a few days, anywhere from 2-14 game days, for things to respawn, INCLUDING the dragons, but you only get a soul on the first one. At least that was how it has been up to this 1.4 patch... I can't play now at all, so I can't test exactly what you are saying, but I was previously able to revisit sites with dragons and have new dragons appear, and actually got upset when I was not gaining a soul for killing the dragon there.

Dragons that respawn at static locations (e.g. word walls) will not dissolve and will not provide you with a dragon soul. They will still have normal dragon loot, however, so scale/bone farming is an option, I guess. There's really no reason to be worried about not having enough dragon souls.

For cleared areas, it takes 30 days for them to respawn. All loot except quest loot, and some items will also respawn. Since spawn points are fixed, and dungeon levels are fixed after your first visit, the respawned enemies will always look similar , and stand in the same area no matter how many times they respawn. All bandits also share the same dialogue. Did you expect the infinite number of bandits to have their own unique dialogue?

I don't see what's wrong with a new group of bandits moving into a dungeon and calling it home.

If it makes you feel better, just don't go back into cleared dungeons. =/

Yes, that's normal.

Even if you don't go to dragon walls, there are infinite randomly spawned dragons you can encounter from normally walking around Skyrim.

Words don't respawn though because you can only earn one word per wall, and each wall is set to give a specific shout.

OK, I see I'm in a bit of a minority on this one I guess I'll just have to accept it as a game 'quirk' (aka lazy programming). And point taken re. the dragon souls, I've just checked and the respawned dragon doesn't give a soul. Which in itself is of course illogical - if it's a new dragon then why shouldn't it have a 'soul' ???? And if it's the same dragon returned it should be an undead dragon. And as for NPCs, as I stated above, it should either be ghosts of the original dead NPCs, or manifestly different new NPCs. It may be how the game is 'supposed' to work, but to me it's destroyed a big element of the feeling of being in a real 'world'. Why have respawning at all ? Is there a mod to stop it ?

Please use this thread

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1341234-unofficial-patch-14-pc-issues-thread/