I never said " forced ", the attacks are supposed to be " blinders " to focus you on the quest, not force you. You can go about what ever you want, but then you run the risk of an attack.


Ok well if it's a spawn issue then I see where your coming from. But I really wouldn't hold my breath if I where you guys, from my understanding it's a bit of a pain to patch DLC so there's a chance that Beth. won't send out any patches for Dawnguard.

Again, we are not supposed to be "focused" on any quests we have no intention of starting on certain characters.

If Bethesda doesn't patch their DLC they're going to get even less people to buy the next one, and suffer a very big PR hit.

agreed, if this issue doesnt get fixed they can say goodbye to me as a customer. im sure im not the only one who will do this

Next DLC certainly ain't going to be a day 1 purchase for me either after this. I'll be much more wary to let hype win again. Never thought I'd ever have to say that with a TES game.

Mods will fix this. That's the good thing about Dawnguard coming out 30 days earlier for XBox, us PC players have plenty of info on what to mod and fix. There's a mod that has civilians run indoors when a Dragon attacks, and only the guards stay outside to help you fight it.

They've lost more than one here - amazing how word-of-mouth works.

Oky seriously... Wtf is with everyone else having Vampire Issues? The LAST Vampire Attack I had was when I was rescuing that Moth Priest guy... Never had one since then, and it been a while and I've been fast traveling to many cities a lot...

WTF!

How's it realistic if no one ever replaces them or moves into their old houses? Cities populated only by guards and a few essentials aren't realistic to me. The worst part is people sometimes die without any fault of the player. Vamps sometimes spawn on the other side of the city without you knowing there's an attack going on.

This is what should have happened:


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.

The lack of heightened security is also unrealistic. Why aren't guard patrols being doubled? How are vampire death squads getting into the city without notice? Why are vampires employing what are inherently brain-dead tactics?

I very seriously doubt this is going to hurt their sales.

Gonna be real fun when you have no more merchants. Right?

Somebody posted a suggestion that should allow you to recruit and customize guards to prepare for vampire attacks. A feature I would love to have. How come bethesda never thinks of stuff like that?

I ask myself the same thing.

Honestly if a patch for it isn't released I'm gonna start looking into how I can deal with this through save modification on the 360. I'm not sure if it's even possible but we'll see.

Oh, it will... This issue has been brought forward in many gaming forums; look also at Metacritic users reviews and compare them to Skyrim reception.

A good portion of TES core fanbase like TES games because they can shape the in-game world and control it the way they like, be it filling a house floor with gems, or deciding which NPCs are to live and which not. Vampires storming the towns are bringing unwanted chaos and uncertainty removing the sense of complete control over the game world. That's the same reason why a lot of TES fans are against the very idea of a multiplayer TES game.

Exactly. Even with all of the changes in Skyrim, you still basically had control over what happened (depending) in the game world.

Adding in pointless action sequences that take away that control overshadows what is a good game. Actually it just doesn't overshadow it, it tosses it out of the window...

Saying these attacks are "JUST LIKE DRAGONS! HERPA DERP!" is not what's going on here. YOU HAVE THE CHOICE on having the dragons appear! In Dawnguard simply installing the DLC gives you the vampire attacks. I'm happy some of you barely get any attacks, but that gives you no right to come into threads where people are having problems and bascially criticize them without any merit.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you need random attacks on cities to keep you interested in Skyrim, chances are you are playing the wrong game...

those people claim that they need this action to keep them entertained in skyrim should have stopped playing skyrim a long time ago, they bought this dlc because they obviously enjoyed skyrim the way it was...

I bought the DLC when it came out but have yet to play Skyrim since then. A friend of mine told me about the vampire attacks and said they can be quite annoying. Is it true that the vampire attacks start at level 10 and continue even if you complete the Dawnguard quests? That seems like a horrible decision for Bethesda to make. At least make it so you have to do something to trigger the events, or make it so the attacks stop once it is finished.

I realize some may like this feature, but I don't like the idea of places potentially being ghost towns. I often hate seeing NPC die during a dragon attack, but it is fairly rare. Plus I can ignore the MQ if I want. If true that vampire attacks start just by being level 10, that makes it actually more of a dominating factor in the game than either the Main Quest or the Civil War. Towns with just guards and children would seem a bit strange. Would feel like a Children of the Corn movie every time I went into a city. It doesn't seem logical that weak merchants and civilians would rush and attack a strong vampire.

I will be playing it soon. Usually I love the DLC Bethesda makes.(okay, except for the alien one in Fallout 3) Hopefully I don't regret spending 20 bucks.

No, that was just a fact. Mods, and mods Dawnguard will make possible make me feel better about having to wait

I epspecially have high hopes for what the crossbow animations will make possible

The last point doesnt make sense (fact)

If someone was playing skyrim before the dlc, then of course that they like the game.
The atacks add some ''inmersion'' that was welcome for some people, and it wasnt for others

And that about a world where you can control everything you have a point (about the choice of letting the vampires start atacking, they should spawn when you visit the dawnguard at least)

But you cant say ''this is a game where you are supposed to do what you like how you want'' (not need to say it literally, but correct me if wrong)
I know that thats how bethesda sold his game, it was their favorite phrase for a long time, but saying that this game lets you do everything how you want in an ''open world'' or in a world that its supposed to be 'alive' its a contradiction.

It cant be an open world if it depends only in your actions, it needs events that happen even if you dont want to (obviously not always, but sometimes)
And it must give you a chance to stop those events, or allow them.
You are part of the world, you are not an all powerfull god, you might be the dragonborn or something, but you still living around humans.


TL:DR : For reasons just as good as yours, a lot of people dont like the fact that the world moves around them.

Neither is wrong

Here's a suggestion I posted in the other vamp attack thread that I think might help:

Since NPCs are the vampires' food source, maybe they should feed and put them into a blood-loss coma instead of killing them altogether. In terms of gameplay implementation, via a 24-hour paralyze effect, for example. So a vampire attack would result in:

1) Dead guards - vampires target dangerous respawning NPCs actively and kill them, making subsequent attacks easier if the return before the respawn schedule kicks in. You can throw in some generic Vigilants and Dawnguard every now and then to keep things interesting.

2) Comatose NPCs - the defenseless civilians are fed on (via a script?) and then left to lie where they fell until they recover 24 hours later.

This creates corpses (the guards) which makes subsequent attacks easier until they respawn.

The NPCs are put out of commission but not permanently killed, creating a real inconvenience for the player (no merchants, quest-givers, etc. until they wake up) without breaking their game and no need to eliminate the attacks.

The stakes aren't quite as high as perma-death, but there's a real motivation to thwart the vampire attacks, and they can go on ad-infinitum without breaking anyone's game.

After all in-cell civilians are disabled and all guards are dead, the attack ends with a vampire victory and they leave. If instead the vampires are killed by guards or the DVK, then the attack is considered a defeat and it takes longer for the vampires to return.

This also makes sense in terms of lore - the vampires won't lose their food source and exterminate every civilian in Skyrim, but they will effectively subjugate them if the attacks go unchecked.


Thoughts?

I have to agree this is annoying and because of it my character lost his good friend balimund. One strategy I use ,when there is an all out battle between vamps and npc, is the Vampires bane spell as it only damages vampires and not living beings. Base sun damage is 40 in a 15 foot target area. Not alot but I use fortify restoration potions and the fortify restoration exploit to make really strong fortify restoration potions so I can easily kill vamps fighting npcs without harming the npcs.

Another strategy I read on here was to continuously use the healing spell that heals everyone around and let the npcs take care of the vamps but keep healing them. Never tried this one.

No one is forcing you to start anything, no one is forcing you to buy or play the DLC. You do not like it just delete it and go back to playing Skyrim the usual way.

Ok....send me my $20 refund and I will......