I have never seen that happen. Ever.

And since I personally haven't, I can deploy the 'logic' you're using on these threads and say it isn't, wasn't and never will be an issue any player should ever be concerned about...right?

I did notice that overall dragon frequency dropped after a month or so. But since I'm not a big fast traveller I never even had Riverwood attacked once before the spawn rate was nerfed (and I was terrified about Riverwood being wiped out)

I fast travel only when I'm in some obscure dungeon and I have to travel half of the map. Usually I prefer carriages, walking, or using a horse. Although I would fast travel to Winterhold to get dragons to spawn if I wanted to farm some souls...they always seemed to spawn the most in WInterhold for me...

College of winterhold was certainly a dragon frenzy in the first month, not so much now though. I think they must of sneaked something into a patch concerning that. Maybe they will do the same for this issue.

I don't understand the force of the hatred for the attacks.

I find them annoying myself. I'm level 61 on master and they happen quite often. Sometimes a dragon attacks while vampires attack (twice). In Riften, I had a Dragon/Vampire/Thief event trigger at the same time. And in Winterhold, I fought a vampire, then a dragon - waited a few hours for npc doors to unlock, only to have a vamp attack after the wait. (has anyone had something of these degrees happen to them or is it just me? lol)

But, I'm not like uninstalling Dawnguard or anything like that. I just deal with them, reload if someone dies, and move on.

I understand where people are coming from, just not the degree in which people are coming from. Uninstalling the dlc, which so far is great, seems odd to do.

I like my npcs alive, I reload to keep them alive. But, I like Skyrim more and have no plans or have even thought of stopping playing.

And, removing them is odd too. They feel normal to me as any other random event and I like the combat. Maybe toning it down? But, I'm not going to throw a fit about it.

I've had attacks like that on my pure mage...it was horrible.

I recently uninstalled the DLC because I plan on creating a new character, and I would like to level this character without having to worry about vampire attacks.

I've read so many funny comments here that some people are deciding to ignore so I'll post them here and explain each one of them. It's a bit longer than I hoped, but you'll get the idea once you go through it...

- "If you don't like this feature, uninstall the DLC". People who bought the DLC want to keep using it, not uninstall it. They bought it, therefore they have the right to be here and discuss the problems of what they do not like. If they feel that the current add-on is breaking the original game, they have every right to discuss and get it fixed.

- "Vampire attacks are fine, you just svck" Not everyone is born with a skill like many posters here like to brag with. Some people are casual gamers who do not take gaming seriously, plus these kind of posts are usually meant as pure provokation instead of stating something.

- "If vampire attacks are bothering you, do not use Fast Travel" Fast travel is a feature all of us are using for 8 months already. That means that after 8 months of using it , we're supposed forget it because of a feature ? I don't think so.

- "You have shouts, use them" I must bring out the fact that many people who are playing the game , don't have most of the shouts and therefore cannot use some shouts to help against Vampire attacks (Most notably , Slow time and Whirlwind Sprint)

- "I'll just stay at level 1 because I don't want to get vampire attacks" The DLC isn't supposed to force itself upon a player in such drastic manner so that a person must avoid content to actually enjoy a game. I realise your aggravation, but posting on forums will help people like him that won't level up.

- "You should of used stats/perks more wisely" Yet again, DLC should not force the player in any way to let him not choose what he wants. If the game is forcing a certain build all the time, the game is getting repetitive and therefore boring. Diablo 3 is a great example of how using 1 build all the time, makes the game terribly boring.

- "When I get into cities, I check every street and make sure there are no casulties" Nobody wants to do this. It's boring and annoying. Nobody wants a game where you have to babysit a race of warriors. Nords are proud warriors that are surely able to defend themselves... oh wait, apparently not

- "I just avoid cities or fast travel to stables" If we're supposed to not fast travel directly to cities, why is there an option to actually fast travel directly into keeps ? Answer is simple. Because it is the way the game is meant to be played.

- "I do not want vampire attacks on the city, so I uninstalled my DLC" The person purchased the DLC and therefore has every right to use it. But if the DLC is breaking the original content and changing it so drastically, the company should do something about it.

- "I like the feature, you're just complaining" As we all know, there are over 6 billion people on this planet and each one of us is different. While some people like one thing, others like the total opposite. You're supposed to accept the opinion of others and give constructive posts with arguments so you can explain why you like the feature... insulting a person because of his opinion is wrong and makes you no better than most historical kings and rulers.

- "I don't care about the NPCs dying... I kill them myself" Some people also like having NPCs alive because they love doing all the misc. quests. The DLC which added a potental threat to these kind of NPCs makes the players who love them, actually afraid of losing them and that's why they want the attacks out from the cities.

- "You are a minority, so the company won't care" History proved a lot of times that minorities made huge differences. Being a minority does not make a person less respectable that he has no right to do something. You should know that even 1 man can make all the difference. Last thread proved that a minority of 105 players prevailed against 24 that wanted vampire attacks unchanged (It ain't much, but it's something). I'd like Bethesda to announce a pool on Facebook and see how many people would actually like to keep the feature intact... until then, this minority will keep on posting on the forums.

Thing is, one... I almost never reload unless a glitch forces it (that actually sounds like more of a hardship than uninstalling the dlc tbh), two... I don't mind npcs dying but not at an excessive rate... npc death with dragons is relatively rare, but sometimes it happens.
My dragonborn is at over 170 hours I've had 3-4 npcs max die in dragon attacks, I'm cool with that, it makes things dramatic and adds richness to the narrative I'm playing, if I liked them I may even haul their corpse under a tree and drop some flowers or something.

What I don't want is to have towns devoid of non essential npcs... and I don't want to have to interrupt downtime crafting or shopping or whatever to go save them.
There will be days when I really don't feel like fighting vampires in town, I go to town because in TES games and in countless rpgs since the dawn of history... Town is the Haven.

Only under exceptional circumstances should the players Haven areas be breached by hostiles (but in the right circumstances it can have great dramatic effect on the player).

It should not be breached at random with lethal force forever because depopulation is inevitable, no matter how dedicated you think you may be to fighting them off.
You can choose to avoid triggering dragons via sidestepping the quest... but if you install the dlc, it's vampire apocalypse as soon as you load up the game, that's not a stellar example of Bethesda's famous freedom of choice...

Just my opinion, my own rate of vamp attacks is quite slack but I very much feel for people wh are reporting towns being emptied of non essential npcs in attacks they sometimes don't even witness.
Nobody wants that...

Very important point which many people have overlooked.

I'm the same way in all RPGs I play. When I'm tired of killing mobs, I like to relax a bit by hanging out in a town for awhile, checking the shops etc or just looking at the scenery. Cities are one of the few places in the game you can relax and not have to stress about saving the world.

I'm with you that sometimes rarely there should be something going on just to keep you on your toes, and you're right theres a big difference between being on your toes and being stressed out to the point where you're pissed off.

this feature will constantly keep people pissed off and relaxing would be impossible because paranoia will kick in. the easiest way to fix this would be to remove the attacks on cities and increase the attacks in the wilderness

I haven't ranted much here on these forums, but I *have* removed Dawnstar from my hard drive. And right now I am playing a character that is already a Vampire, so I would really like to play the DLC. However, I am not sure I want to deal with the hassle of attacks (which at this point I have only read about, not experienced because I quickly removed the DLC). For the record, at level 50 neither has this same character triggered dragons in the world. Dragons can also kill NPCs, which is another hassle that I don't want to deal with yet.

I *hope* that Bethesda make some changes. However, I similarly *hoped* (nay, expected) that Bethesda would patch the glitch whereby enchanted Fortify Pickpocket items damage rather than improve pickpocket chances, and that expectation has remained unrealized. So, in the short-term, I cannot get too excited about actually playing and enjoying the DLC which I have purchased.

That's what people are suggesting, but those who like the feature say they don't want that , how it'll ruin the DLC for them.

the people which dont like that idea arent looking into the future of their game, if vamps continue to attack towns they will eventually get sick of it, npc's will eventually die. then everyone would want the attacks to stay in the wilderness

I get vampire attacks left and right. Npcs die, I understand. I can see how this could lead to ghost towns. I wouldn't want that, I like my Npcs alive. I am in the position of getting getting ghost towns if I didn't reload.

I can see why other people wouldn't want to reload and how its an annoyance. So, I'm not go-ho about these attacks nor do I think the problem isn't there. I experience the attacks as bad as others.

BUT

I still don't think they should be removed.

They are a feature, vampires are attacking people. It's part of the world now if you have Dawnguard faction and vampires existing in your world.

They are random events like any other.

I think they should be toned down. The rate of which they happen is too much. It's stupid how many times I'm attacked. And I don't think dragons and vampires should attack at the same time. This needs to be fixed.

Towns are safe havens? I understand that, but Skyrim itself threw that out the window with dragons. I think an attack by vampires in the city makes things interesting. It's annoying right now, but fixed it can become as normal as dragon attacks.

not really, some people can see this as a step towards a 'less static' skyrim.

maybe spawn them with 1 or 2 ( or 3 ) extra city guards next to them

I will continue to point this out, if a dragon attacks a city you can exit through the main gate and the dragon will follow you. The vampires will not, and will continue to kill people.

skyrim will always be static, if the population decreases it will never rise again, you do realise that right?

So far I've only lost Belethor, Gerdur, and Alvor.

Kind of pissed about losing Alvor, though, I need the extra source of iron ore for leveling my smithing :/

And I'm getting all kinds of inventory clutter now that the only general goods merchant I've ever used is dead.

That wasn't exactly my point.

That's the point of the vampire attacks. It makes the world more real if you aren't the only thing getting attack. I for one wouldn't want to run out of town and have the vampires gunning for me.

Towns are safe havens in most rpgs, Skyrim tried to spice it up. And then more so in the dlc. There's nothing wrong with putting real danger in the world. Why should everything be outside? No wonder guards are complaining for at least a bandit attack. It's changing things.

They happen to much and can lead to ghost towns, yes. But, I see the reason for them and I don't mind the idea.

It needs to be toned down.

A shame, I really was looking forward to buying this, but I'm not buying it unless random vampire attacks in towns are removed.

Oh you don't have to tell that to me I'm one of the main posters here who is against Random events happening in the city

I'm lvl 81, I've never had an NPC die from a dragon attack before, yet I have 3 ghost towns in only a couple of days as a result of this DLC. Why you ask? I will explain a few points.. .Slowly...

Dragons are large, very visible targets. They can be seen via compass from great distances away. Their attacks are slow and very predictable. They will attack the last thing that has attacked them, meaning more often than not, guards with bows. Music begins playing the moment they arrive and they are quite vocal about it. When a dragon attacks, it is all against one. The dragon will switch targets often, and provide long pauses between attacks while it flies about allowing NPC's time to recover.

Vampires are small, and fast and can not be seen from great distances via the compass. Their attacks are fast and powerful with intermittent summoning. They will choose targets at random, more often than not the nearest living thing. Vampires can spawn on the opposite side of a hold without any indication they are there. At higher difficulty levels they can kill non guard NPC's in a single strike, at roughly 1-2 strikes per second. These attacks can happen and be quelled all without the PC's knowledge of said attack on the other end of the city. When a Vampire attacks it is not all V.S. one. It is often 3-5 well armed targets accompanied by Death hounds and magic V.S. a number of NPC's in clothing wielding iron daggers in the midst of guards.

The problem people such as myself are having, is not the Vampire V.S. PC. It's the fact that they can spawn on the other side of the hold undetected and wreak havoc on the NPC population before you have a chance to react. One such example. I searched Riverwood for vampires. I spent a good minute looking around and found none. I then entered the tavern, did my bussiness, and when I left, I was greeted with a death hound killing Meeko (A dog follower) while the screen was still un-fading from black. He was dead before I even raised my hands to cast magic.

These attacks can not be stopped, and will happen for so long as you play Skyrim. These attacks can actually break your game removing quests, merchants, and other NPC's. This isn't a matter of skill, or "Killing them before they kill the NPC's" These attacks make the game tedious and paranoia producing. As I said before, I searched top to bottom when entering Riverwood and found no vampires. Yet they still spawned in the town after I had looked specifically for them.

Dragons are vocal, you know whether or not there is a dragon the moment they appear. Even without music, you still hear the tell tale shouting of the dragon in the background. Vampires can make no such noises, and can attack the NPC's quietly. Sometimes right under your nose. I was speaking with Adrianne at the forge of Whiterun, all the while Heimsker was getting his throat removed by a couple of lovey vampires.

After doing all of my town like bussiness, crafting selling, etc. I wandered up to Dragon's reach to boost my enchanting only to find half the town dead surrounding the Gildergreen... Reload and redo 15 minutes of selling, crafting, reorganizing etc. That is not fun, a game mechanic should not make the player paranoid and make the game itself tedious and stressful. Unless of course that is the point of the game, that is not the point of Skyrim.

I enter a town, slow time, or wirlwind sprint around searching every nook and cranny of the town for vampires, then do my business. and before leaving again, I re-search the whole town for dead bodies just in case they spawned after I had searched for them the first time. (Such as they did in Riverwood) That is not fun in any way. Being paranoid over your towns, constantly having to check on everything. This isn't Dovahsitter. It's Skyrim, your supposed to be out killing dragons, not babysitting the townguard... And that is what has me up in arms. Dragons I can deal with, not genocidal assassins in the backgrounds of my town removing my quests and other game content. DLC's are supposed to expand on the base game, not remove it....


EDIT: Oh, and I'm not against the idea, I quite like it, it just needs to be tweaked a bit. As it stands, if they wipe out your town, that's it, the town is dead, it does not repawn, new people don't move in, yet more and more Vampires still keep coming no matter what you do. That needs to be changed.

Having the main town I live in Whiterun, be dead, kind of makes the game no longer fun. Riverwood, Whiterun and Markarth are ghost towns because of this DLC. Right now my only work around is to not go to towns, or just keep searching/killing/reloading till I manage to save everything. Which could take hours. I spent at least a half hour stopping the solitude attack. They spawned near the Legion fort and started killing off the legion blacksmith/quest givers.

All I ever wanted from Dawnguard was Crossbows and Werewolf perks with Dawnguard armor, no vampire attacks... Is that too much to ask ?!

I admit it does need to be toned down. The feature is exciting but then the excitement wears off when all your merchants and blacksmiths end up dying cause you didn't know a vampire attacked. If they just have the people who can't fight worth a crap run instead of fight then maybe it wouldn't be so bad. My Lvl 81 character is going through hell right now.

yeah i have seen you post on other pages and i know that you are against this ridiculous feature, when i saw the dawnguard trailer i thought vampire attacks would be cool. but i never once thought that they should happen in towns where people go to relax