That's not the complaint. The complaint is that dragons are emptying out the major cities because they level with the player while the NPC guards in those cities don't level. The problem is made worse by the fact that dragons spawn like cliff racers, which makes very little sense. It's not like there are thousands of dragons and it's not like they'd take turns to seek out the one person in the world who can kill them with relative ease. Cliff racers weren't smart but dragons are supposed to be, and if you can finish the MQ then there's maybe a dozen dragons who could possibly think they'd stand a chance if they catch you on your own and flat out zero who could think they'd stand even a remote chance when you're aided by an entire city.

What this means is that every dragon attack on a city is effectively a dragon suicide. And if those dragons wanted to die so badly then why didn't they just ask to be put down?

Thats what Dragons do unfortunately; they are not very nice creature.
If they only attacked when you were in the wilderness and never amongst npc's it would be a bit unrealistic.
I actually find it helpful when some are nearby as I let them do all the work and then claim the Dragon Sould. Mwahh ha ha ha.

I learnt a trick to deal with those. Leave the city by the main gate and the dragon will actually follow you out. That should prevent any npc casualties.

Of course it doesn't help with the minor towns and villages like Dawnstar or Riverwood, but for those you can try and move away from the area while its still circling and when it does decide to attack will hone in on you.

Well people will definitely argue about but I happen to agree. The dragons killing NPC's in and out of town is the coolest thing about the dragons. In my early playthroughs I didn't really want them to kill the NPC's but I have grown to dislike a lot of the NPC's quite a bit so I don't mind if some die. (Not the caravan merchants though!)

I don't like how they fly around ut in the middle of nowhere aggroing on fish in ponds and mudcrabs while I run about plunking arrows into them. "Hmmm the Dovakin is shooting me arrows from that really well crafted bow. I know, I'll just go breath weapon this cyrodilic spadetail in the pond here, then this wolf, maybe a bunny! Now where's that dovakin?"

I got a Dragon attack in Whiterun on my very first playthrough but since then there have been none. Hell, I wish it would happen more. Skyrim is not the Sims, people die from Dragons...thats the point. If I had the option to bring an NPC back via console(Im on xbox and dont have the option)I never would because that would kill any immersion for me. Same with companions,I've found that reloading after a companion dies feels cheap so I no longer do it.

Agreed. Believe it or not, a freakin dragon attacked Windhelm when I FINALLY got to activate the Blood on the Ice quest during one playthrough. How annoying is that. Fortunately one NPC died but I made sure looking the wiki to find out if I could just let him dead. Didn't want to risk not having Blood on the Ice start ever again.

EDIT: Can't say it happens much tough, so I can live with it. In god knows how many hours it only happened twice (Riften and Windhelm).

I've played this game a lot and I don't think I've ever seen one quest-giving NPC killed in a dragon attack. But I'd gladly have that happen if Nazeem would charge a dragon Here's what I envision happening to him.

First he'd get bitten and shaken around like a rag doll; but he'd still be alive. Then he'd get picked up by the dragon and subsequently dropped from a tremendous height like Odaving does to that one Whiterun guard. Then I'd collect his charred, twisted corpse, dress it up in Cicero's jester outfit, and display it as a an exterior wall decoration. Every time I walked out the door I would see him and say, "Hazeem, I see your trip to the Cloud District with the dragon didn't go so well. Silly you."

lol

You could have his body planted on a stick coming out of the ground at the entrance of Breezehome, like some bandits/forsworn/hargraven have at the entrance of their strongholds/caves.

All NPCs should be un-essentials and able to die.

Including those soulless little children

How do you get dragons to attack citizens in cities? With my first character I using fast travel I got dragons to show up in Dawnstar and Winterhold, but since I quit fast traveling I haven't seen it happen. With three different characters, I see very few dragons at all aside from those in the process of being ressurrected.

Haha! Nice.

Or you could just say, to his corpse: "Nazeem, do you get to the Cloud district much these days? What am I thinking, of course you don't."

I'm just always confused between what citizens/guards say and do. Everyone has this huge fear of dragons, it's evident by the insistent pvssyr you hear around the town. However when a dragon attacks women, children, and guardsmen become so zealous and starting attacking the dragon. The AI needs to be better so that random villagers and towns people don't try to attack the dragon as well.

But I digress. Honestly dragons aren't bad as I've never really lost an NPC to a dragon attack, and that's because they've rarely attack the towns. It seems like the dragon spawning is varied between playthrough because there are times when I have way too much dragon souls, and times when I have none.

Its annoying but it is realistic. I lost the smith from Riverwood in one of these attacks. I dont care about guards or those people you cant really speak to. On PC I've made all my favorite followers essential and if a dragon attacks a heavily populated area where there are a lot of shop owners and quest givers I usually open up the console and use the kill or disable command on the dragon.

Dragons like to terrorize villages. Dragons also like to eat villagers. It wouldn't make sense to have dragons that don't attack villages and eat villagers. Death happens. Take it as an incentive to be a better dragonslayer?

I see. I still see no problem with it, though. I don't know at what level this issue might become more evident, I'm level 44 and guards still defend themselves pretty decently from dragon attacks. Plus, like someone else mentioned, dragon attacks may be common, but dragon attacks in major cities are rare. In more than a hundred hours of gameplay I've only had two dragon attacks in cities or towns, and never inside. In fact, I didn't even know that could happen until I started reading people saying that they lost blacksmiths.

But either way, I think there really is some people suggesting that dragons shouldn't attack towns at all, or that some NPCs should be invincible. Then you have others next door complaining about that exact thing. Personally, I think the way Bethesda handled the situation is mostly fine. I like that certain NPCs can't die, otherwise it would be really frustrating to get into a swordfight with five Deathlords in a narrow corridor, and see how you failed a quest because there was no way in the world that any NPC could survive such match.

Then with the dragons is the opposite, knowing that they can kill anyone around is precisely what makes their attacks exciting. If it was just a fight were everyone is safe, what the heck would that matter?

LOL! I can understand your frustration, but I love it that you can encounter in the towns. I like that there's nowhere safe from the threat of dragons.

I had one ambush me right outside of Gloombound mine. He attacked the Orc stronghold. I rushed over there and killed the dragon, but it killed a couple of NPCs including the smith. She wouldn't talk to me anyway. They would keep telling me to get out, but left me alone while I was mining.