This really struck me when out of the blue, I suddenly realized i was on the last quest of the Dragonborn storyline. It happened really abruptly and suddenly, and I found it weird. I hadn't even been around the whole island yet! I would have thought that it would have taken me all over. It's not even that it's short, but it only takes place in 2 world spaces, Solsthiem and Apocrypha. Beyond that, the DLC does a very poor job of introducing side quests to you as you progress through the main quest, so you kind of do what you're told to do if you're a roleplayer, so your at the final quest before you know it. It was also sloppily laid out, especially in terms of Black Book placement. Like, I stumbled on to one before I had even begun the Main Quest, and it kind of messed up synchronization with the main quest in terms of dialogue. Furthermore, Mirraak....you see far too little of the title character. Granted I haven't beaten the last quest yet, I just got it, but up until now I've only run into him once. It just seems very poorly paced.

In Dawnguard, it feels like a fairly excellent and long adventure, despite the lack of optional content. You travel to a bunch of new Dungeons across Skyrim, venture into the Soul Cairn, and travel through the Forgotten Vale. And it's all very cinematic in a sense. And some of the characters are really interesting, such as Serana, or the last Snow Elves. The Vampires feel like a legitimate threat because as I progress, I get attacked by them more and more and people around Skyrim remark on it. It just felt like far ore of an epic quest, that went beyond just fighting Vampires. Dragonborn kind of doesn't, while the Apocrypha segments are phenomenal, it's Main Quest seems to be lacking in scope significantly.

I will say that Dragonborn overall is the better DLC, but as for Main Quest? I think Dawnguard easily has this.

I felt Dawnguard main storyline was better as well. I do prefer Dragonborn because of the exploration potential and the new gear.

Miraak easily surpassed Harkon as an antagoinst.

Dawnguard has a better story, but the Dragonborn story is more engaging. What I mean is that the Dawnguard story is more of personal story, whereas the Dragonborn story feels like you're actually saving the people of Solstheim.

In concept maybe? He and Harkon are equally sparsely written. If you side with the Danwguard, you deal with Harkon as little as you do Mirraak, from my experience so far.

dawnguard was longer... but dragonborn is overall better for its in depth side quests and awesome new villains

Trust me when I say that will not change.

Dawnguards mainquest was better. Dragonborns main villain was cooler (had he been expanded on more). Dragonborn gave us more exploration. Dawnguard gave us an awesome bow and vampire/werewolf skills.

DG MQ was boring and i hated it that there was up to no difference in the quest-line between the Vampire faction and the Dawnguard faction. Oh and that Emo brat that i had to drag through most of the quests was one of the most annoying npc's in the whole game.

Miraak is wayyyyyyy tougher than Harkon.. i thought Harkon went down to easily as did alduin


*i played on Adept

While I am inclined to agree, it is only because Miraak is completely bugged for me. I had to restart that mission five times just to finally finish him off and the only reason I was able to do so was because I killed all of the dragons before he could absorb them.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. I liked Dawnguard's MQ better. Slogging my way through Darkfall Cave is one of my favorite Skyrim memories.

Miraak takes some strategy..unlike Harkon and Alduin you couldn't just run in sword raised and begin hack and slash.. that's what i love about Dragonborn ..it requires thinking

Learning a shout that you actually NEED to beat Miraak&--#62;&--#62;&--#62;Finding a useless weapon that you don't need to beat Harkon.

Although I do LOVE Darkfall cave/Forgotten Vale, the story isn't really good at all. The Dragonborn story had so much more depth imo probably because it had previous lore to call upon.

Maybe so, but the single questline is really all DG had to offer to begin with.

I was going to post this, except you did it for me. I hated how having Serana follow you around wasn't optional, and how there is so little difference that I haven't brought myself to complete it as a Vampire Lord yet.

I completely agree OP I liked Dawnguard way more they implemented more things in the game such as crossbows a vampire morph cooler rare weapons like harkons sword, auriels bow, auriels shield, and the armor was better and more realistic the armor in dragonborn is weird to the point that i dont use it and i still want to know what those darned masks are for they unlocked a ninth mask in the vanilla game but theres nothing special about them in this one? Dawnguard might not have more quantity but it had more quality oh and the armored trolls, dogs, hell hounds and gargoyles were awesome!

While the shout concept was neat, I felt it was poorly done. You learn all of the words to it way too quickly and only because Herma-Mora has grown bored of Miraak. I felt that they could have done a lot more with this shout. Perhaps they could have even made it so that Herma-Mora had to be better convinced to change sides. I felt he was too...agreeable. There is very little development for Miraak as a villain either. Everything we learn about him is from other NPCs and we never really get to see for ourselves why he is a threat. To the extent that we do, it is because of his corruption of the Stones, which you resolve within about two hours of the main quest line. The same thing was true for Harkon.

To be honest, I'm not quite as impressed with Dragonborn as I was when I first started playing with it. Many reviewers have said it is on par with Shivering Isles, but I'm not certain that is the case anymore. The side quests are great, as is the flavor, but I kind of feel that people give it too much credit for nostalgia's sake. I sometimes wonder whether or not Dragonborn would be reviewed differently had Morrowind never happened.

well dg felt more natural since serana was more human and ingagung than the pc, since she was that stories 'main character', not us
but db is better overall without a doubt
it just adds too much to be second in my opinion

Nordic weapons, Bloodskal Blade, two unique scimitars, the armor is Elven, it's supposed to be weird, the masks are there to give you cool bonuses with their enchantments. Any more questions?

Yeah there are so many new cool items in DB and the new enchantments are pretty awesome, too bad you can't un-enchant them.

The new masks are bandages intended to resolve some of the complaints that have been directed at Destruction. Prior to their existence, the only true spell buffs came in the form of potions or the "Champion of the Night" bonus from vampirism. While it is nice that Bethesda is listening, they don't offer enough of the "oomph" that is needed.

I think it was much more hermaes based than people expected. I personally was expecting it to be more about miraak and a bit about hermaeus however I liked the way they did it aswell. Basically they made miraak a secondary character so he felt a little underdeveloped, I would have liked a couple more quests about miraak, maybe a time travel thing where you see him turn

Haven't played it (PC peasant) but I've watched a buddy play through the entire quest line. The DB story has really good build up, but it falls short as far as decisions go. You're completely helpless when Herma-mora just svcks the life out of Storn, and the whole time Frea is screaming at you to do something, but alas there's no option. The whole event feels like there should be an opportunity to save him, but there isn't. There's all this potential to learn the third word by some other means, but it's all lost because you can't do [censored]. The actual fight itself was also lost potential. You've got this Dragonborn bouncing all over the battle-ground, svcking the souls of Dragons to regain his health, when suddenly, Herma-Mora decides enough is enough and just kills him. It cheapens the whole experience of the first DB versus the last. Not only that, you become HM's new champion with no option to say 'no, [censored] you.' I guess this is inevitable considering you have to practically ride his dike throughout the quest-line just to fully learn the Bend Will shout (and you have no inherent choice with the other Daedra - besides not doing their quests).

Kind of this.

I thought Dawnguard was better written as a whole, and Harkon struck me as more evil. He's even going to sacrifice his own daughter to blot out the Sun... doesn't get much more wicked than that.

Miraak just seems like the guy who has a plan, but is really just being whipped around by a Daedric Prince. At least Molag Bal pretty much let Harkon do as he pleased. Now, I'm not saying Miraak was a poorly designed character. He is looking to enslave all of Solstheim, and then Tamriel probably after that.

I'm just saying that I felt more of a connection, like there was more at risk if Harkon succeeded in his plan.

But I enjoyed both Quest lines equally, and both Quest lines give you some kick ass abilities.