Talk:Drake/@comment-86.20.144.144-20130910174310/@comment-98.196.62.134-20131008035713

Having watched the behaviors of the dragonkin, I can make a few statements. One is that it appears to me that the old behavior (in the original game) of dragons flying out over the water and drowning was replaced by the dragons flying "away" in Dark Arisen. I recently watched a wyvern post-game fly out and "land" on the sea, but it didn't register as dead. I think they just "corrected" the game so that instead of counting as a kill, it simply forces a quest failure. You can also see this in the Drake early in the game - it flies towards the ocean when it flies away.

It does look like a purposeful behavior, and not a glitch. The dragons (and griffins, for that matter) will automatically shake you off before they fly away, no matter how well attached you are. They'll also fly away even if you've already crippled their wings - their wings seem to magically regain their lift. Given all this, it strikes me that this is a scripted "flee" event that comes up randomly. Obnoxiously, it can happen just as soon as the ambush quest triggers.

Like I said, this could happen with any flying boss-type creature. Fortunately, it only happens on the overworld. Any dragon (or other flying creature) on a map that isn't the main overworld map won't fly off (or at least they haven't for me yet, not counting).