NPC Killing is Out of Control

Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:08 pm

Not to be offensive, but I have no idea what you are talking about. I had two profiles and I did both sides of this DLC and none of my towns were ever attacked by vampires, so it must be pretty rare to have a town attacked. You must have been extremely unlucky.
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Heather Dawson
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:00 pm

Not to be offensive, but I have no idea what you are talking about. I had two profiles and I did both sides of this DLC and none of my towns were ever attacked by vampires, so it must be pretty rare to have a town attacked. You must have been extremely unlucky.

And Skyrim is the least bugged game of all time.
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Deon Knight
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 10:34 am

I think the point of a walled city/town like Whiterun is so that you can be SAFE from threats, if someone wanted to be around enemies go to ruins or in the wild. Might as well make a patch to get rid of city walls since they're now useless.
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Sylvia Luciani
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:05 am

If your really looking for a cheap fix to this problem
I think a good work around is to go to Riften and do some persuade checks; raising your speech to 70 so you can sell all types of items to any type of merchant and invest with them. This doesn't only fix the stress of loosing a particular merchant from a gameplay mechanic but also unlocks better items and higher gold for bartering. Not to mention the Riverwood trader merchant has 10000 gold after investing and a smith right outside. As far as killing quest giving npc's goes, IMO all main quest giving npc's should be essential until their quest has been completed. The randomness of these attacks still needs to be addressed by Bethesda for those having problems. If it is a bug.
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Dan Stevens
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 11:00 pm

One of the main problems is npcs attacking vampires and dragons. I wish they would tone down the frequency though. I don't even do dragon rising, because dragons just piss me off due to how much they show up. Vampires aren't as bad in my opinion, but npcs need to quit attacking them.
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Heather Stewart
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 10:35 pm


5. The Elder Scrolls games are not about vampires so they should not dominate the game and the lore.
Elder Scrolls isn't about dragons or Daedra either. We have random dragon attacks, so let vampires attack to. Okay? Good.
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Oscar Vazquez
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:59 pm

I posted this in another thread, but



I've only had to load a save once because someone I liked died, and nobody else has ever died in over 250hr of playing. Vampires have only spawned about 4 times in that amount of time and only right in front of me. The one time I did reload was because of this Mysterious traveler but it was because I walked outside of breezehome, and I attacked him but forgot that I had left all my weapons inside and he killed Adrianne Avenicci


I would also like to point out that I don't take any extra precautions, as you can see I don't even have my weapons on me at all times.
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NIloufar Emporio
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:46 am

They do scale to the player, but when you're at a decent level, your skills far surpass the skills of the vampires, and you can wipe them out, plus the guards will be able too, though even in my new saves, the guards have trashed the vampires, and myself alone, in places like Riverwood, n' I play on Master, I think some people just over exaggerate what happens with these attacks....

This. I play at Master level as a Dawnguard and have experienced 4 attacks. Each one took an NPC (Marise Aravel - Riften, Narri - Falkreath, Mulush gro-Shugurz - Markath and Azzada Lylvieve - Dragon Bridge). While my experiences may differ somewhat, I find it hard to believe that utter mayhem is ruining the game so much. None of these NPCs were really vital to game play and perhaps because I had interacted with them previously made them less necessary.

Regardless, finish the MQ and the attacks may be easier to deal with. ;)
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Esther Fernandez
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:07 pm

I have a similar problem in Riften where the street sellers are all "disappearing". No fights, no corpses just no vendors. Only Balimund is left so I don't give much for his chances.
I went into Riften and before i even knew what happened Vampires killed all my vendors!! I am at level 81 so i have all ready completed the Thieves Guild and all the new venders are in the Rat tunnels so i can still go there with my junk to sell but come on i hated to see the good vendors killed and now Riften is like a ghost town and i hate it, i like to go to Riften as i view it as my summer home, huf!!!! I hope i see new ppl take the old ppl places in Riften....
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Dominic Vaughan
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:28 pm

Elder Scrolls isn't about dragons or Daedra either. We have random dragon attacks, so let vampires attack to. Okay? Good.
Read what I wrote again but this time carefully and with understanding. I never said I don't like the idea of Vampire attacks. I do like it, however it becomes a problem when each time you visit a town, there is a chance you'll miss a Vampire killing some of the NPC's that you might still need. Those attacks should be rare events taking people by surprise but not destroying the whole city population.

Oh and btw, I'm own a PC version of Skyrim and post here only to help improve the X360 one. I could simply ignore this and wait for someone to make a mod/fix for it but I'm here trying to support the people who literally are unable to play and enjoy this game.
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Jade
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 9:26 pm

This NPC kill-spree thing by vamp attacks has to get fixed, really though, it's pretty irritating.

To those of you that like it & don't care whether your Skyrim ends up looking like a version of itself without npcs': hey that's fine for you.
But those of us that don't like not knowing that apparently 3 saves ago a merchant & 3 others including a radiant quest participant got ashed, need them to fix it in some manner
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Sammygirl
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:41 pm

This NPC kill-spree thing by vamp attacks has to get fixed, really though, it's pretty irritating.

To those of you that like it & don't care whether your Skyrim ends up looking like a version of itself without npcs': hey that's fine for you.
But those of us that don't like not knowing that apparently 3 saves ago a merchant & 3 others including a radiant quest participant got ashed, need them to fix it in some manner

I understand your point, but I think that a lot of people posting the lack of attacks are just adding some balance to the discussion. I've seen other posters basically saying they aren't going to get DG because they don't want all their NPCs wiped out, as if that's a given it will happen.

Beth are in a difficult position here, really. If you leave the vamp attacks to only outside cities, then people will sure as hell complain that it's silly. If they make NPCs essential, people will complain. If they repopulate cities by replacing dead NPCs with new generic ones, people will complain about how shallow the characters are. If they leave it as it is... people are obvously (and understandably) complaining.

Btw, I'm aware that's not exhausting all the possiblitiles... :confused:
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Joie Perez
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 10:11 am

They could simply make all NPC's load in their homes and fill the streets with random generated people and Vampires + Guards. It sounds really simple...
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Melis Hristina
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 9:39 pm

They could simply make all NPC's load in their homes and fill the streets with random generated people and Vampires + Guards. It sounds really simple...
You'd be surprised how many people try to argue against something as logical as THAT. I'm going to post the same argument I always post on these threads. Here goes:

Honestly I'm getting sick of going to Whiterun and having vampires attacking my friends on the other side of town (even after the main quest they attack just as much). I explored that area of the city several (ingame) days later only to find ash piles and dead npcs. Wtf? At least with a dragon you ALWAYS know it's happening and they tend to focus on you, but this is getting rediculous......Note that this is NOT a problem for everyone, some people rarely seeing vampires attack at all, but many people find it difficult to focus on anything BUT this dlc when random encounters like these distract from everything else. Regardless, this leaves many players in an endless war of attrition, where towns will EVENTUALLY be left as ghost towns. This could have been resolved in several ways:

1. Make it so that instead of repetitive and mindless vampire killing, you can help the guards FIGHT BACK by training and upgrading them. If you're a vampire hunter, doesn't this make sense? This will decrease the liklihood of attack, make attacks happen outside of the gates with vampires TRYING to get in, and increases guard's chances of killing them quickly should they break in. If this is an "invasion of vampires" they should have gone all the way and let people REALLY fight back.
2. Make defenseless npcs run instead of fight using the system that worked in Oblivion, where every character has a level of courage and aggression that determines whether they fight or run. This is absent in skyrim apperently.
3. Make it so that, instead of making characters essential, important npcs can only be killed by the player, sparing them from dragons and vampires. Fallout New Vegas worked fine with no essentials. Skyrim needs SOME system however, because of all the random attacks on citizens. OR they could have made generic npcs be replaced by new ones. It doesn't make sense that no one ever moves back into houses or works at inns or shops after the previous owner dies.

But none of this was done. Bethesda really didn't think this aspect through. The beta testers allegedly complained about this, thinking it was a bug, but bethesda left this in.
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Kat Ives
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:00 am


1. Make it so that instead of repetitive and mindless vampire killing, you can help the guards FIGHT BACK by training and upgrading them. If you're a vampire hunter, doesn't this make sense? This will decrease the liklihood of attack, make attacks happen outside of the gates with vampires TRYING to get in, and increases guard's chances of killing them quickly should they break in. If this is an "invasion of vampires" they should have gone all the way and let people REALLY fight back.
2. Make defenseless npcs run instead of fight using the system that worked in Oblivion, where every character has a level of courage and aggression that determines whether they fight or run. This is absent in skyrim apperently.
3. Make it so that, instead of making characters essential, important npcs can only be killed by the player, sparing them from dragons and vampires. Fallout New Vegas worked fine with no essentials. Skyrim needs SOME system however, because of all the random attacks on citizens. OR they could have made generic npcs be replaced by new ones. It doesn't make sense that no one ever moves back into houses or works at inns or shops after the previous owner dies.

But none of this was done. Bethesda really didn't think this aspect through. The beta testers allegedly complained about this, thinking it was a bug, but bethesda left this in.

I like these ideas. NPCs in Skyrim also seem to have some kind of courage stat, as they do run away from you sometimes.

However, I wouldn't go as far to claim Bethesday "didn't think this through". You might be right, of course, but we don't really have any way of knowing why it was produced in this way. There could be valid reasons. Then again, there might not. But we don't know.

As I've said before, what will help is when people skilled in the CK can open up the scripts and see what happens in that area.
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jadie kell
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 10:17 pm

I like these ideas. NPCs in Skyrim also seem to have some kind of courage stat, as they do run away from you sometimes.


The problem with the "courage" thing is one or two shot kills. I saw Adrianne attack, get hit, try to run away screaming "I yeild", but it was too late. The next shot took her out. I have also seen her die in just one shot. Adrianne is simply not meant to survive DG.

I also lost Silda the Unseen in Windhelm. Didn't even know it until I went looking for her for training. Never heard a battle, and never found her body. I assume she died during an attack when I came out of my home there.

And just because this does not happen in YOUR game doesn't mean that this is not a valid complaint. If your game crashes at a certain point and mine doesn't, does that mean it shouldn't be fixed?
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Pixie
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 12:23 pm

The problem with the "courage" thing is one or two shot kills. I saw Adrianne attack, get hit, try to run away screaming "I yeild", but it was too late. The next shot took her out. I have also seen her die in just one shot. Adrianne is simply not meant to survive DG.


That's a good point and you're right it does not solve the problem, which needs some kind of proper fix.

But NPCs running away straight away can help because in the exmple you gave Adrianne had already moved into attack, so she'd then got to get away from being right in the action. If she was moving away to begin with she may not have got hit. If they leg it at the first sign of trouble, at least there's a chance they'll be far enough away for a guard to be moving in and be targeted instead. or your character.
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Anthony Diaz
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:52 pm

Hey, even the developers must agree there is something wrong. After dealing with another of the vamp attacks in Whiterun, a guard passed me and said, quote, "we need to do something about these vampire attacks." So obviously the developers of the dlc recognized there was a problem and had one of the guards let you know they thought things were messed up. :biggrin:
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Shaylee Shaw
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 10:40 am

I've only had 1 vampire attack so far and in the city of Winterhold. Not much going on there and was lucky no NPC's died. Well, I originally got the vampire mixed up with an NPC and sneak kill cam one but I reloaded. I did have a dragon attack the inside of the city of Whiterun for the first time ever.. I did notice that I can enter a major town at anytime in the middle of the night and NPC's will just random bunch load and start walking around the town like nothing is wrong and go about their daily business even though it's 3 am.
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Brιonα Renae
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 12:32 pm

Its starting to really irritate me Bandits get replaced dragons and guards also get replaced. The towns folk though dont once there dead then thats it no one new comes into town and takes there place. The end result with all the increased random attacks means some of the villages are now completely empty and the citys are getting that way. It would be quite simple for the code to generate a new person after one dies in fact its already in use for the bandits.
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Kayla Oatney
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 12:58 pm

Ive had one, ONE vamp attack when I level 12 in over 20 hours of DG play. And it was pathetic with the gaurds in Whiterun cutting down a vampire and his thralls in seconds. No-one has died and ive been in and out of all the towns many times. New character for 1.6 & dawngaurd.

Still dont see what the problem is tbh.

The problem is you have been lucky where a lot of others have not and thinking if my game is okay, so is everyone else's. HTH :wavey:
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helliehexx
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:08 pm

Its starting to really irritate me Bandits get replaced dragons and guards also get replaced. The towns folk though dont once there dead then thats it no one new comes into town and takes there place. The end result with all the increased random attacks means some of the villages are now completely empty and the citys are getting that way. It would be quite simple for the code to generate a new person after one dies in fact its already in use for the bandits.

But replacing generic characters ("Guard", "Bandit") is easy because they all basically look the same. The equivalent would be having NPCs simply called "Townsfolk".

There is likely some work around that, though. You still wouldn't be able to regain the original quests that any of them had, of course, which I know a few people are annoyed about.
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SamanthaLove
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:36 pm

I think the vampire attacks themselves is a good idea. I would like them to stay.

But, I will say I don't think they are working as intended in some games and may be bugged.

They aren't too hard to deal with when you can reload. But, in some games they happen to often - can stack with dragon attacks or other events. These things need to be fix. Stacking and spawn rate.
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Cayal
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:29 pm

But replacing generic characters ("Guard", "Bandit") is easy because they all basically look the same. The equivalent would be having NPCs simply called "Townsfolk".

There is likely some work around that, though. You still wouldn't be able to regain the original quests that any of them had, of course, which I know a few people are annoyed about.

They could easily program the code to randomly generate looks name and personality. The quests are a bit more tricky as it would feel wrong if new people handed out the same quests. Most of the quests that come from non essential NPCs are fetch me some ore or bring me 15 zillion deathbell are they that much of a loss ?.
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Logan Greenwood
 
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Post » Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:03 pm

there must be a bug that causes frequent attacks. i saw 1 when i first began dawnguard and haven't seen any since and i've put 40 hours into the DLC
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Grace Francis
 
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