I don't see how everyone was complaining about random Dragon : V - Skyrim

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 11:57 am

well i just reached level 51 and fighting normal dragons is usually simple, its awesome, with the special soundtracks, the noise they make during battle, the rush that goes through my very hands while wielding daedric shield and blade, looking at the beast eye to eye, yet to take it out in a couple of hits, thats the part i dont like

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 5:53 am

Dragons spawn at certain, predetermined locations and spawn more frequently if you fast travel. Idk why, but that is just how it is.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:57 am

Dragons spawn at certain, predetermined locations and spawn more frequently if you fast travel. Idk why, but that is just how it is.

Except that I rarely fast travel. I do have mods installed, but the only one that affects Dragons is the one I downloaded because I was getting too many of them.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:41 pm

Spoiler

while dragons begin spawning as soon after you killed that first dragon they will be very rare, you can go for weeks without seeing one except on the dragonroosting /wordwalls
Dragons really start to appear more frequint AFTER you done the' blades in the dark' quest, first still rare but after a week or so you will see many more dragons appearing everywhere

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:14 pm

I see no dragons. I play without them.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:18 pm

Spoiler

while dragons begin spawning as soon after you killed that first dragon they will be very rare, you can go for weeks without seeing one except on the dragonroosting /wordwalls
Dragons really start to appear more frequint AFTER you done the' blades in the dark' quest, first still rare but after a week or so you will see many more dragons appearing everywhere

That could be why I don't see "lots" of dragons, even though I FT a lot. On all of my characters so far, I've not rushed ahead into the MQ. On my first one, I didn't even get to Solitude until in the 30's. Didn't actually buckle down and push to finish the MQ until in the high 40's/low 50's. None of my characters have been up to Hrothgar before they were in the mid 20's (the troll & snowcat are tough to beat).

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 10:37 am

Steam has said that I've played the game for 77 hours. I played about 60 or so hours everyday. Then played off and on. For about half of the 77 hours I've played with no Fast Travel.

I haven't seen that many random dragons. The whole point of me not FTing is b/c theres that extra excitement of running into a random dragon.

Out of all 77 hours I've maybe encounterred 4 or 5 random dragons.

People were complaining the first month this came out (Thats when I bought it and played it most) that the randome dragon encounters were too many.....

a random dragon spawns most of the time when you fast travel...you dont find alot of dragons because you dont fast.travel.

A random ancient dragon always spawns when i fast travel to the college

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:18 am

I get a lot of dragons, whether I fast travel or not. Once I ended up fighting three dragons at the same time. I've unlocked every word of every shout and have 15+ unused souls right now. It's pretty annoying.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:30 pm

I wouldn't mind the dragons if they were actually a different fight everytime, with challenging difficulty, randomized sets of shouts, and ai patterns. But the way it is now, its just fire or ice dragon of x color that does the same stuff as the very first dragon in the game 40+ levels ago and dies in under 10 seconds all the time.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 5:22 pm

Dragons take me a while to kill. They don't spawn so much for me but I limit fast traveling. I am happy with how they are, they used to be am annoyance but I got over it and now enjoy my scuffles with them.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:17 am

I wouldn't mind the dragons if they were actually a different fight everytime, with challenging difficulty, randomized sets of shouts, and ai patterns. But the way it is now, its just fire or ice dragon of x color that does the same stuff and dies in under 10 seconds all the time.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=13423 If you are on PC, I just solved your problem. If not, I'm sorry and I sympathize with you.

Maybe it's just me, but the places I feel like I commonly run into dragons if I fast travel are Dawnstar and Dragon's Bridge

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 7:48 pm

The farther in the main quest you are, the more frequent they show up

Spoiler

while dragons begin spawning as soon after you killed that first dragon they will be very rare, you can go for weeks without seeing one except on the dragonroosting /wordwalls
Dragons really start to appear more frequint AFTER you done the' blades in the dark' quest, first still rare but after a week or so you will see many more dragons appearing everywhere

Is this true?

I have looked trough some scripts in the CS, and as far as I can tell, dragons spawning is only based a few variables.
There is a variable that determines IF random dragons spawn. (We shall call this A, for now)
There is a variable that determines how many days apart they spawn. (We shall call this B, for now)
There is a variable that determines what the next day will be that a random dragon spawns. (We shall call this C, for now)

It also doesn't seem all that random. A is set to 1 after the Whiterun dragon quest. So random dragons will spawn from that point on.
B is set to 3, so every 3 days, a random dragon spawns. I believe this also means you will get attacked by a dragon every 3 days. It doesn't just spawn anywhere on the map as far as I know.
However, each time you encounter a dragon, a new C is calculates. This would be "current day + B".
But when you encounter a dragon in the mean time (so at a world wall or other fixed location) a new C is calculated.
(I have edited B to increase time between dragons, seems to work)

This would mean that if you visit a world wall (and thus a dragon) every 2 days, you would never encounter a random dragon. (Not tested)

To me, it seems the reason random dragons spawn so much when fast traveling, is because it seems more time passes when fast traveling.
I'm not sure, but less game-time seems to pass when you take your horse, instead of fast travel or a carriage.

This is just my thought.
It would be nice if someone could shed more light on this.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:51 pm

Fast Travel does not spawn Dragons, it just uses up the time between encounters.

The game wants to throw a dragon at you after a while, so when a certain amount of time passes, the random encounter calculator-predictor starts crunching numbers and decides to spit out a dragon. If you use up that time Fast Traveling, then it seems like the game throws dragons at you after a fast travel.

Now, you can also make this work to your advantage. If the game decides that in the next 3 game hours that your getting a dragon visit, then just Fast Travel to an advantageous spot for the dragon battle. This could be a quiet out of the way place, or my favorite, near a bandit/necromancer fort. Then I battle the dragon and I am free to go on for the next few game days.

How I do this is to Save before I fast travel, then if I go somewhere and a dragon shows up (like a town) then I reload, travel somewhere else, deal with the dragon and then go on.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:07 am

How much does the OP fast travel? They almost always teleport next to me when I fast travel. I've almost never seen a dragon encounter when I haven't used fast travel first (except for the fixed dragons at the stones, the burial mounds etc)

Edit: CCNA: That does explain a lot. Easy enough to fix if they remove the time-calculation when using fast-travel.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:14 pm

To me, it seems like the only time dragons become rare is when you finally reach a high enough smithing level to take Dragon Armor. At that point they seem to dry up.

If I'm playing a character that doesn't have that perk, the things are like ants at a picnic.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:22 pm

SOLUTION FOR EVERYONE ( Which I tend to post A LOT ):

Deadly Dragons mod
You will run for your life when you'll come across them , it'll take hours to kill one , you can change the rates of spawn.
Solved.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:08 pm

SOLUTION FOR EVERYONE ( Which I tend to post A LOT ):

Deadly Dragons mod

Solution for everyone, on a PC, willing to install mods and change the behavior of dragons

Anyhow, this is not so much about a problem, as it is about understanding dragon spawns.
As CCNA pointed out, you can easily use this to your advantage.

» Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:32 pm

Okay. Some people say they see too many dragons. Some people say they see too few dragons. But neither of them mention actual numbers. It would help if you guys mention the numbers. The number of hours you played as the character is on the save file, and Dragon Souls Collected is under Magic stats.

I fast travel pretty regularly. I unlocked dragon quite early in the game but still haven't finished main quest. I played 121 hours so far and killed 16 dragons. Yes I do notice that when I fast travel, sometimes there is a dragon, but it doesn't bother me too much. I have lost a couple of town people to dragons, but no one I really miss.

I used to see random dragons all the time. Not so much anymore. My latest character is level 40 and I have played him for about 40 hours or so. No fast travel (but does ride carts) and I have seen only one random dragon during that time and I am not sure that Dragon was even random. I may have wandered too close to one of their mountaintop lairs. I have half a dozen shouts that I cannot unlock because I have no dragon souls.