Since initial release, and possibly more so since the latest buff to meta event chests, I have thought that the dragons have serious flaws:
1. Uninteresting/easy fights
2. Lack global context
3. Easily farmed
However, I think there is a way to fix these problems, and it would not require much change on Arena Net’s part.
While I think everyone would love to see incredibly fluid world, this is simply not a viable option in the setting of an open world game like GW2.
One of the first problems I saw with the dragons was that players could easily kill them with standard skills. This simply does not make sense to me just comparing the size of the dragons versus the size of players. Additionally, it is not a fun way to fight a dragon, players should have to use siege weapons to take them out. I would envision the fight against a dragon to be much more like taking a tower in WvW: Set up siege weapons to take out strategic parts of the target, and have to defend their siege from being destroyed. You can wail on a wall all day with a sword in WvW, but you wont get anywhere. The same should be true for a dragon’s toe. This would make for more interesting and more dynamic fights that require more than just the players.
This leads right into the next issue: Global context and significance. As of now, the dragons are little more than an enemy which spawns every few hours to give players a chest. They don’t really effect anything around them. When a dragon arrives, whole portions of the world should suddenly be under siege. Messengers should run to major cities for help. Warriors should come running to their aid (and for loot). If the dragon fights are harder as described above, they will need more of the zone devoted to them.(Once again like WvW, supply camps are required to take towers). This will require more players and more time, so the fights will naturally have to take longer, and I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. The longer it takes, the more time it gives players to show up for the fight. But how do you get players to show up? Word can spread from player to player of course, but when a dragon spawns there should be heralds in major cities to tell players what is going on (or maybe mail sent out to currently online players). This gives the dragons more context in the world as a whole.
Wont heralds constantly yelling there are dragons up get annoying? Well, How about dragons only spawn once a day? You can only get one chest a day anyway. This would make a dragon spawn much more significant and drive more players to fight it the one time it is up. This also fixes the problem of farming. There is little stupider than players standing around saying “Dragon is up in 15 minutes.” because all spawn times are tracked by 3rd parties like the Dragon Timer. Players should react to a dragon, not predict its arrival.
But what if I miss the fight? I don’t play 24 hours a day either. It’s just one chest, it’s not the end of the world.
tl:dr
Dragons fights more like WvW
Heralds or mail to tell players when dragons are up
Spawn once a day randomly