When I was early in the game I avoided them like the plague. However, so far none have been much of a challenge. For example, I took two direct, point blank hits from a blood dragon and it hardly decreased my health. I was using no resist fire potions and light armor. I am level 25, but I thought creatures leveled with you? Is it because the guards were pelting it with arrows also?

Ha, try turning up the difficulty... problem solved.
-Loth

Ugh... it would be horrible if creatures leveled with you like they did in Oblivion. >_>

Anyway, how about you rise the difficulty before making a thread?

When you reach level 45-50+ the Ancient Dragons are a lot harder to kill.

Good idea.

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3829

Actually I saw a frost dragon storm an imperial fort the other day. It managed to kill 9 out of 12 imperial soldiers. A respectable kill ratio if I might add.

yeah well, wait to the elder and ancient dragons starts comming after you hit lvl 30, play on master nuff said

They kind of messed up dragons in my opinion. Even the absolute weakest dragon, should have been a city/village destroying monster that would need a small army or more to defeat it.

I agree. They should be the top boss, yet a cave bear is more of a challenge (at least in my progress in the game).

Ancient Dragons on Expert or Master are pretty difficult.

Ancient Dragons on Masters are frustrating unless you are a Destro mage with impact and 100% reduction. Then its just a cake walk.

according to the blades the Dovakin is the greatest dragon slayer and is naturally skilled in killing them. plus you get their tasty soul after the kill

mobs don't level up with you, but more powerful ones appear when they were not there before, so the end result is not that much different. I wish there were areas of the game heavily populated by high level creatures that would truly prevent a person from entering before they got powerful. But as it stands I can wander to most places on the map at level 1 with no problem. The enemy density is too low for me at least. Plan to fix that with mods.

I thought everyone playing the game was a dragonborn?

If you make normal dragons unstoppable monsters then Ancient Dragons would be impossible to kill.
If anything, normal dragons need to be smaller and less impressive, more in line with their actual power...

Anyway, on Master they're always challenging, but they pale in comparison with bears/sabretooths and giants till lvl 25-30....then Frost Dragons and then Elders/Ancients start to appear. And they hurt. A lot.

So I'm just encountering the babies now.

Have you ever seen a period rendering of the famed St. George and his dragon? If there's any historic basis to them, he was probably fighting a crocodile or large snake that strayed from its normal habitat. So there's a good basis in fantasy lore for dragons not being THAT powerful.

IMO, they made the dragons to BIG, not to weak. If they were half the current size, nobody would be expecting them to be flying battleships capable of leveling cities. It seems a simple "setScale" should be able to handle the job, but maybe that messes up how the animations line up to elements of the environment (as happens with my character @ size = 1.3).

Of course, the other problem is that some animals are so $%&* badass, they make dragons look like pansies...

Blood dragons are weaklings. When you encounter Elder/Ancients, then talk, while on master difficulty.

Negative. The in-game lore and story says that dragons enslaved the world with their power, and were killing people by the hundreds, even thousands. Nobody stood any chance against them until people learned to shout. Common animals, and regular guardsmen have no business slaying dragons, and our dragonborn character should only be able to kill them with great effort.

And that's true for Ancients...and for Elders to some extent.
I've made some tests on the pc version, spawning the various types of dragons in giant camps and cities, on master difficulty.
The only city able to withstand an Ancient Dragon attack without too many casualties was Solitude, because there are near 20 guards...add another Ancient and guards start to die like flies...
One Ancient is enough to kill every guard and every killable npc in Whiterun/Riften...smaller settlements like Riverwood, Rorikstead or Dragon bridge just don't stand a chance...

As for giant camps...a Frost Dragon can emerge victorious, but badly wounded and crippled to the ground...Elders and Ancients wipe the camps.

So, the dragon race IS powerful enought to take over cities and to enslave the survivors even in game. The only problem is that basic dragons are too big and impressive so when you meet them you EXPECT them to be powerful...but they're the weakest of their race.

As such even a single downed elder or ancient would possibly cripple them if they are all so weak, when it is quite clear from the narrative, and general npc reactions...that even the first, weak dragon at Whiterun should have required a small army to beat with heavy casualties...when it can clearly be soloed by the player, rendering the aid we get as overkill.

Even the weakest of their race ought to be greater than the strongest of other lesser beings, otherwise it makes no sense. Technically they are not an infinite resource, they as a race...at least as far as we know do not breed at all as they are the mono-gendered semi-divine offspring of a deity.

These dragons are meant to inspire terror and awe, they are meant to be a terrible threat, yet in the end they are a non event, which utterly ruins their credibility and any sense of danger the narrative tries to present as even their leader Alduin is a nonissue gameplay wise.

I don't think the game ever implies that ALL dragons are meant to be city-destroying terrors. After you + Whiterun guards defeat the one at Western Watchtower, you get reactions from guards in other towns such as, "If the Whiterun guards can defeat a dragon, then so can we" or close to that.

The only thing that makes Dovahkiin special, is that you can absorb the slain dragon's soul and kill it forever. I don't see it as having anything to do with superor battle prowess, not accounting for shouts in general, or Dragonrend in particular.

Elder and Ancient dragons WILL kick the crap out of stuff. Including you, if you don't fight carefully.

Alduin, a nonissue? I don't think so. It takes Dragonrend to kick him off of the mortal plane, for one. And he's got that raining magma- blob shout; that's how he reduced Helgen to a smoldering heap. He'll also use it during your other encounters, and it can ruin your day.

because your dragons were deemed 2 difficult so bethesda neutered them 4 u specificy turn up difficultly

If that is the case, who do all the hatched eggs you find in some dungeons and areas belong to?