The truth hurts, I know. You'll get through it though, I promise.

Let's just stop bickering, shall we?

One of the other threads about this got closed because it descended into an all-out flame war. How about we discuss this in a civil and respectful manner, instead of just arguing over who's opinion is better?

lol okay. we need to agree to disagree anyway before we get this thread locked also.

Something needs to be done though before I play this DLC again.

thats gonna be hard to prevent im afraid, im too annoyed with the people which cant understand that its a big problem to other people and it needs to be fixed...

I'm not exaggerating when I say I had 3 separate vampire attacks spawning in Dawnstar at the same time. I had one group spawn by the Khajiit caravan, mysterious traveler spawned outside the blacksmith, and another group spawned outside the Mythic Dawn museum.

I left my dog and Lydia to save the Khajiit which turned out fine. But the boatkeeper was dead before I could even sprint across town. I can't make my character sprint any faster so there's nothing really I could have done. I hope he respawns I guess?

All of this makes me wonder if the City Guards had been purged beforehand?

I know that even on my Master difficulty game, the Guards make the Vampires look like fools before any NPC can get touched...

What's the Guard population looking like in your games?

with the amount of attacks you just had you got off lucky, im sure other people would have lost atleast the whole town with a savage assault like that

You let them wind you up though (and yes I think some are purposely doing so also), and threads start getting locked when we need them to stay open.

It depends on your level. I'm playing expert and my guards do well against vampires, but citizens die very fast. At higher levels this gets even worse, since citizens are level locked from the moment you enter their city, and the vampires scale with the player.

The guards also scale, but the vamps attack random targets, which makes saving them at higher levels more difficult.

As I posted in another thread...

To the point, an Add-On should never become a Take-Away.
I have no problem with the vamp attacks in theory. Nor do I want the game world populated with excessive essential npc's.
But I've found myself having to choose between playing Skyrim -or- Dawnguard. The two simply do not get along. To play Skyrim with Dawnguard installed jeopardizes actual gameplay. The list of broken quests has become out of control for one of my characters.

Example?
Certainly.

Shor's Stone:
1. I had never been to the hamlet nor anywhere near its game cell.
2. Walked over to pick up an item for a Riften resident. Simple enough.
3. Upon arrival, remnants of a slaughter that occurred long before I arrived.
4. Slumped dead on their stools by the fire:
- Filnjar (quest now broken)
- Sylgja (possible quest now unavailable, possible marriage now unavailable)
- Grogmar gro-Burzag (ore merchant now unavailable)
- Other bodies were 1 Vampire, 2 Death Hounds and 1 Riften Guard.
- Remaining citizenry are Odfel and a Guard.

This is just one of many settlement examples in my current Dawnguard game. The dead vamp, hounds and guard would have been sufficient to exemplify the battle presence in the Rift. But if an attack occurs before you even arrive, I can find no reason to limit gameplay by killing npc's essential for questing or bartering. Nor should these questing/bartering npc's be threatened when you are actually present for an attack. I'll fight the vamps. Or side with them as the case may be. That is not the issue. The potential for random deaths is not the issue either. They can target all the non-quest/barter npc's they want. I'll fight the vamps as best I can.

To be clear, I'm enjoying the Dawnguard gameplay. I like the quests and also the new items and areas. I feel I've gotten more than my $20 worth and thank the devs for the storyline and additions. Overall it has been fun, though I won't be purchasing it for my PC version. The additions are nice but these chaotic vamp attacks killing (what I consider) rather essential npc's have rendered the rest of the province nothing more than a hassle and journal log clutter-fest. Some basic quests cannot be finished or started, quest items are now stuck in one's inventory, and the economy is in shambles. This cannot have been the devs' intent. I'll mark it down as an oversight and await the fix. But as it stands I can play either Skyrim -or- Dawnguard, but not both.

To eliminate the availability of potential quests, break quests in progress, remove merchants from the game...
These should not be the desired effects for an Add-On. These mechanics, by their very nature, make Dawnguard a Skyrim Take-Away.

One TES player's opinion. Your questing may vary.

What needs to change is the behavior of the vampires in who they attack and the behavior of the NPC's in when and who chooses to fight or run away. The mercenaries and badasses should fight and possibly die, yes, but the merchants, royalty, and beggars should run into their homes or an inn.


By hamlet, do you mean an outdoor area? It was my interpretation that the wilderness of Skyrim is one big area and things can happen whether or not the main character is around. By that I mean, I don't think outdoor areas like mills and farms have cells.

its that attitude 'if im not having problems, no-one else is' which gets me. its these people which dont understand the magnitude of the problem

This. I made a new character, and I'm not leveling him past 5 in order to keep the vamps from attacking at will. Once I finish the civil war questline with him, I'm just going to store him away for later, when they fix this. Thank God that we can at least do that.

that sounds really annoying man, even though im not having those problems myself (maybe i havent noticed them) other than the vampires slaughtering idiotic merchants and the other npc's in towns, farms etc i still want them fixed

Yes there are definitely solutions to make both camps happy. Someone suggested that there should be Dawnguard who can be paid to go and protect cities and villages who get attacked. I would have no problem shelling out all my gold to pay for mercs to go help defend the npcs I like.

This solution would not affect the people who want the attacks left as they are.

I personally would really like some tweaked AI though, where vampires would prefer to attack guards and then focus on NPCs once the guards are dead, giving the player more of a chance to run over to help before citizens are oneshotted.

That solution would make for an interesting gameplay mechanic or even a quest line. Defending cities/towns with Dawnguard, perhaps even deciding where to place them; all outside the gates, some inside to gaurd key areas, defend merchants etc. The ability to alter the equipment they carry etc etc

Here is a detailed explanation:

Picture this scenario: Upon entering Whiterun, vampires spawn on the other side of the town, far away from the player. Vampires are much tougher than NPCs, and therefore will quite obviously win. NPCs seem to be unable to determine whether or not they will be able to effectively combat their enemy, and therefore will rush headlong into even the toughest of battles. Now, all NPCs near the vampires will start attacking, but the NPCs will just be cut to ribbons by the vampires which are superior in every respect. All the while this is happening while the player is unaware of it, and therefore the player eventually overwrites their save, unbeknownst to the destruction that had just occured.

But suppose that the player WAS in fact aware of the attack. Would the player be able to the NPCs in time? I'd wager a guess at no. You see, as I said just, vampires are much stronger than NPCs and generally will kill an NPC in 1-2 hits. The player could sprint, use Slow Time, or even Whirlwind Sprint: It doesn't matter. Chances are, at least one of the NPCs will go down in the fray.

For towns within the Tamriel worldspace, the player simply has to be near the town for the attacks to occur. Therefore, vampires might spawn within the town and the player would be unaware of it.

These attacks happen frequently and given the often destructive aftermath, will, over a period of time, makes the towns and cities of Skyrim devoid of all life except guards and essential NPCs, breaking immersion.

This is probably the best "middle-ground" suggestion I've read yet. I could go for this "solution".

That was my suggestion but then I realised it's not an ideal solution as it would not fix people like Nefarious One's problem with people being attacked outside.

Nearly everywhere outside with NPC's is fair game so you would need a bucket load of Dawn Guard. lol

i dont get why the vampires attack towns though. they are not there to feed because they are murdering the npc's, why are they bold enough to attack a city? it would make more sense for a vampire to attack travellers on roads in the wilderness. dont you agree?

yeah thats the easiest option or have dawnguard stationed in each town and get a vampire attack misc quest off them. that way i dont have to have attacks and people that want the attacks can have them...

Wait a moe peeps, can we get a clarification here?

To those having excessive vamp attacks; Are you a VL or DG ?

To those who think its not that bad same question; VL or DG ?

See im thinking that maybe the people who are in the dawnguard are having the most problems.

yeah

im a dawnguard and my brothers a vampire lord, we are both having this problem even though we are on different xbox's...

I don't mind if Beth modifies it, but im afraid that they would modify it to much and make it extremely easy (like having important NPC's like shopkeepers, etc, respawn if killed). And i wouldn't be suprised if Beth caved in and stopped all NPC's from dying, or at least made it so ALL NPC's (including important ones) respawned after death, because it seems that some people on this forum just don't like the idea of NPC's dying by vampire attacks.

Of course that would probably effect dragon attacks as well. After all, if beth made it so NPC's can either......

1. Not die

or

2. Die but be able to be respawn (which takes away the incentive to fight vampire attacks because you know the NPC's are never really threatened)

Then dragon attacks as well will be loss some of there touch. Who cares if a dragon attacks a villege, doesn't matter if it kills some guards or even a shopkeer, they will just come back anyways.