Watching the GC video's of Dragon Commander, I can't help but disagree with the strategic camera mode <-> dragon mode. The jetpack was supposed to create a "wow I'm superfast!" feeling, flying in the sky in an accelerating rush!

But as long as you're in strategic mode, you can move your (virtual) position even faster. Makes the dragon look like a very slow unit, even if it's not. Despite the jetpack on his back, a dragon can never achieve the same speed as the camera's. And because the dragon is not a 'superunit', as explained in the video, why would I even consider going into dragon mode? Why would I consider having a dragon?

Sorry guys but the supercamera doesn't fit in the rocketing dragon game. I guess it's still kind of an experimental combination (strategy + action). I hope someone at Larian will agree.

Obviously some limitations will be necessary to avoid a "teleporting dragon", and I don't see any in the demonstration videos.

Coming more from a RTS background where multi-tasking is a fundamental skill, I can see myself shifting between strategic and dragon mode every 10-20 seconds which could make the meta-game really trippy if you can freely redeploy the dragon every time you shift.

I agree, the whole camera-dragon system just doesn't work yet. Perhaps a more primitive camera control, and dragons only able to spawn near friendly units should do the trick.

The possibility of one player commanding the dragon and the otherone the strategic view would solve the problems mention above as well.

We have a mechanic to solve the spawn anywhere with camera in the works, but it's still experimental

I watched the videos as well. I think there should definitely be a very short range where you can spawn the dragon, like basically right next to one of your units, not a quarter of the way across the map from one of them, and when you switch away from Dragon mode to RTS mode, maybe a 10 to 15 second Cooldown before you can spawn the dragon back in again? But if you actually die in Dragon form, that should have a pretty big cooldown penalty, anything less than 60 seconds wouldn't feel like enough. EDIT: The buy-in penalty mechanic from the NEW video actually looks like a it might work better, especially since it acts as both a cash penalty and a cooldown as well.

On the note of dying, perhaps when the Dragon's HP hits zero, instead of dying, there's a teleport animation. (The rationalization for the penalty is getting healed up from severe wounds in the medical bay.)