This would work as well, I guess...

Master Vampire? They are pathetic... The Ancient Vampires, Volkihar Vampires, and the new Nightlord Vampires are much more fearsome... Harder to kill them than a Master.. (Had to fight an Ancient, Master, and Volkihar all at once.. Master died in 6 hits. Ancient was in 15+ and Volkihar in about 12.)

This mean Riften is even more patheticer! (If that is even a word)

It is now...

It's actually not a bad idea. There are already generic NPCs that don't have any particular depth to them. But enerating new NPCs isn't just about adding new people (that's the easy part), they also have to figure out:

1. What these NPCs do
2. Where they sleep and eat (this might involve actually changing a house's designation and the ownership of all the items)
3. How the towns perceive them (making additions to factions and such)
4. Their voice acting and dialogue (especially if they're replacing shop keepers/quest givers)

Overall it would be a major over-haul to the game, and one that I seriously doubt Bethesda would undertake. There's also the fact that these attacks will inevitably become tedious. Bethesda realized the same thing happened with some Dragon attacks (which is why they have been altered slightly with different patches).

I personally like the idea of Vampire attacks (and I thought they were awesome the first time they happened). I can personally think of some different fixes:
- Make them attack the town gate instead of inside the town (so only guards are in danger). You can be alerted to this if you fast travel to a town.
- Make NPCs run for cover when vampires come in (though this may not be very reliable because if the vampire still perceives them as an enemy they can still easily kill them)
- Make the vampires specifically target the player. This can be done by initiating dialogue with the Dragonborn before attacking or something.
- No town attacks before starting Dawnguard quest line, and stopping them (but still maybe leaving some Vampire ambushes in the wilderness) after you're done.

i think it would work pretty well, if you successfully protect the town you get a reward like an ordinary misc quest, atleast that way you actually get rewarded for saving a town instead of the npc's going on like nothing happened lol

Just to play Devils Advocate here...

The you have the whole Argument about its go get this, go here, etc errands... No Autonomy... you're Prepared for the Attack... its suppose to be unsuspecting...


Now as for an alternative.... possible the NPC gets Infected(VP Bites Them(Animation) (not Guards) and the cower like followers away... now you can either cure them or kill them; maybe even better the the whole town become infected... (addition to the other suggestions thru this OP)

No. It is very cool. Now we have something to be afraid of, dragons didn't really kill citizens with much success. The vampires are a real threat to Skyrim and when they attack you should take it seriously.

I'm not adding anymore detail to my brief solution from the first page here, just coming back to support Bethesda's idea to integrate the vampire attack scenarios into the cities and towns. I, personally, think it's a brilliant feature and it's little aspects (with potentially large consequences) to a game like this that make me want to come back and play- it adds another level of dynamism to the gameplay.

For example, I was playing Skyrim today and this scenario occurred:

I ran into Solitude down towards Proudspire Manor (in the evening), by the marketplace I ran past a hooded guy and kept on going- I then suddenly realised that the guy I just sprinted past had glowing eyes, so I quickly drew my crossbow, turned around and shot him just as he started attacking- some intense, brief combat ensued leaving the Ancient Vampire (disguised simply as "Traveller") and Jorn (a Solitude NPC) dead. I actually really enjoyed this scenario and found it to be a wake-up call for city wandering- scan the city environment for strange, unfamiliar folk and then act quickly. Even if the attack occurs on the other side of town (this happened to me in Whiterun actually- which, again, I found enjoyable) it is possible to kill the vampires before they cause trouble.

Ask yourself- would you prefer to return to a city environment where wandering around obliviously is not punished? Or would you prefer to keep this excellent feature which adds a new, exciting threat and keeps you on the edge at all times? I'd always pick the latter, if you pick the former- then you need to ask yourself why you are playing an RPG; the very nature of RPGs is that things are supposed to "go wrong", important people are supposed to be murdered and scenarios are supposed to be non-perfect.

Exactly; agreed.

I agree with the idea of keeping the random vampire attacks but disagree with your idea of the "very nature of RPGs".

the attacks would be in random towns so you wouldnt be able to prepare for them. you would pick up the misc like this

player: got any news?

dawnguard: i have heard that (insert random town) has been assaulted by vampires, they need back-up

i bought dark souls for those problems, not skyrim...

lol what do you expect from a person who puts "Dawnguard beta tester" in their signature.

And what's wrong with that?

I know right?

I'd be fine with that idea. Its the NPC's leaving a hole when they die that is my main issue and too many making the cities feel more empty than usual. Though they would have to carry on quests and have replacement trainers, merchants and such somehow.

Not to pull away from the Discussion here... I did a Poll...

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1392031-skyrim-population-dawnguard-dlc-i-know-another-poll/

No one read my post
I'm using dragons as an example. Before Beth. patched the dragons they where very aggressive and would land to fight you at a whim, then people started to complain about how hard the dragons where and how quickly the dragon could wipe out a town. So in response to the out cry Beth fixed the dragons( both the glitch and their behavior ) and not long after people start to complain that the dragons are now to weak and not aggressive enough.

As you progress through Skyrims main quest the dragons start random and progressively worsen the further you go in the main quest, once you finish the main quest they slacken off and start to become more randomized then what it was like mid way through the main quest. Now I argue that the vampire attacks are one in the same as the dragon attacks, once you finish the quest the amount of attacks slackens off and becomes more randomized. I finished Dawnguard 3 days ago and my vampire attacks have dropped to next to never, and they only happen out in the wild.

So the point of the vampire attacks is to put a set of " blinders " on the player to focus him / her to complete the quest and stop the vampires, the further into the quest you are the more frequent the attacks, the more frequent it happens in a town. Which forces the player to go into survival mode and complete the quest, so instead of starting Dawnguard and then farting around doing what ever why not take a more " war " like attitude and just focus on the task at hand. I only entered a city / town 2 time during the whole of Dawnguard out of fear of vampire attacks due to one very unexpected attack in Solitude, which in turn saved much of the population and lessened the impact of the vampire attacks.

If Beth does fix the vampire attacks and a couple days / weeks later I hear " Da vamps be to easy... Beth needs to fix em " then all you out there now saying it's too hard will have to eat crow, because really the attacks are not all that hard, even on master I still handle the fangers with out much trouble.

Everybody from both sides of the aisle needs to read this post.

It's about as true as it gets.

If it wasn't so long, it'd be my new signature.

Well thought out, great post Carrots!

This pretty much boiled down to your last line 'because really the attacks are not that hard'.

In your experience they aren't. And in your experience they slacken after the MQ.

But, in a good amount of other's experience the attacks do not slacken. Are too often. And are not easy to deal with

I have them way too much its not even funny. To me, they are easy to due with, and if I lose a npc I reload. But, I can understand where others are coming from. I really think in some games the number of encounters are bugged. It varies vastly in people games.

It needs to be fixed, not removed. But, fixed none the less.

I dont mind it, can always reload, and it adds to the role playing effect. At night I 'patrol' the towns and escort people to their homes.
As long as the vampires only spawn in the area i'm actually in(dont want to go to another city later only to find they'd been attacked while I was away).

Yeah and then it goes the way of the dragons. They are still randomized, everyone seems to have different levels / amounts of dragon attacks but their nerfed to a really silly point in everyone's game and now everyone complains about how easy they are. Which will be the " fix " that Beth gives us, vampire NPC's that are nerfed to a very silly point, which makes them a pain not a feature.
Every game is different it seems when it come to the random encounters, but the universal part is that the encounters lessen when you complete the quest, perhaps you guys haven't done enough of the side quests for the game engine to resister the change over from frequent attacks to a more random chance attack.

So basically the point is to totally throw out how Skyrim was marketed as an open world game where you did not have to complete any quests if you did not want to. You had the choice whether or not to start the random dragon attacks or not. You had the choice to ignore an entire section of quests, and this would not negatively effect your game at all. Yet now they add a feature that FORCES you to do something that may or may not end the vampire attacks. I completed the main quest on my vampire character, I STILL GET THE ATTACKS. I have a friend who completed it for the Dawnguard, HE STILL GETS THE ATTACKS!

TES has never been a series where you are FORCED to do anything, if you require the game to FORCE you to do things...then you are seriously playing the wrong game...

I think you really not understanding. The vampires themselves are not hard. But, the amount they spawn is stupid in some games.

I went to winterhold, there was a vampire attack. I took care of them with no problem, as I finish a dragon attacks. I take care of it no problem. I would be fine at this point. But, then I hit the wait button, wait 3 hours for npcs doors to unlock, and there are vampire in front of me. This kind of stuff should not happen. It'll be like if an another dragon attacked after waiting or exiting a house, right after another one had. Which doesn't happen.

I'm not asking to nerf the vampires. But, in some games something is wrong with how much they spawn. And enough people had said they don't lessen after the MQ is done.

It needs a tweak. You're lucky, they lessened for you. But, like other issues, it doesn't happen in all games.