No reason to feed...

This new way these vampires deal with the sun makes no sense to me. They should've done it like Oblivion, which was 0/2/4/8 sun damage IIRC. Meaning you can still enjoy Skyrim's beauty during the day if you recently fed. Having stunted attributes at all levels feels quite a bit less dynamic.

What still annoys me is that your powers get stronger as you fail to feed. I always felt you should be stronger the more well-fed you are.

I actually feel though that a better feature would have been for you to change as you became more blood-starved and make it over the course of 10 days instead of 4 days with a new stage every second day with 5 stages.

Stage 1 - you look exactly as you were before being turned and your fangs retract outside of combat. Sunlight has no effect. You are also able to use the facechanger at this stage as you are "almost alive" from the fresh blood coursing through your system.

Stage 2 - your skin grows deathly pale and sunlight weakens you (when outside during the day, stamina, health and magicka regenerate at half speed) also regardless of your original eye colour, your eyes now take on an amber/yellow/red colour depending on your race and gender.

Stage 3 - your eyes glow and your fangs no longer retract outside of combat. You gain a certain level of cold resistance and vampires out in the world no longer attack you.

Stage 4 - No real changes physically but health, magicka and stamina do not regenerate at all when outside during the day. Fire now does double damage and while you are on fire regardless of where you are your health will not regenerate until the burning stops, stamina and magicka remain unaffected by the fire.

Stage 5 - you take on the monster/batlike features of the vampires found in castle volkihar and sunlight causes you 2 points of burning damage until reaching 50% health at which point it goes on to do 5 points of damage per second until death or you find shelter or the sun goes down. However, your health and stamina regenerate at 30% faster than normal when sunlight (or fire) are not involved (being indoors or out at night).

Also at stage 5 you should be attacked on sight BUT if you are wearing something that completely covers your face you should be safe from attack as no one can actually see your monstrous features.

Another thing would be that at stage 5, sun damage is doubled if you are naked

This.

This is a roleplaying game. Bethesda's problem is they like to please the kiddies who can't take manageable difficulty in their game.

What the hell? How did I not notice this? I've just been feeding normally so I don't get ganked on fast travel.

So there's seriously ZERO downside now? Jesus-tap-dancing christ.

Just give us an "I Win" button.

Krizt's plan sounds so much better.

I just want them to reverse feeding so we get stronger as we feed. Then there will be a reason to still feed.

People got sick of the random vampire attacks so they decided to accept vampires in hopes that the attacks stop.

Im Ok with stage 4 not being KOS, but youre right on feeding being pointless. IMO this should be fixed by inverting the stages. Strongest at stage 1 (freshly fed) and downgrades all the way to stage 4 (hungry/weaker)

I remember seeing this load screen quote too.

I'm also well pleased with the DLC as a whole and I really don't have much negative to say about it (now).

On the issue of the lack of "level 4 aggression", my pov is that the people of Skyrim as a whole must not really "know" the some-what subtle signs of vampirism, or they just don't care. Note that the people of Skyrim are different (socially and culturally) from those of Cyrodill. For the most part their ideology is also different, or at least I'd imagine that it would be...I honestly have no hard evidence to back up those claims aside from 100+ hours of game play observation. Only if your caught feeding is it fairly obvious what you are, and the act is treated like any other "attack". If you're running around in VL form then you're obviously a monster and treated thus.

...but that's just my pov.

As far as the fire damage goes, I think it's more than fair. I'm not sure what level you're at and how that affects the out come, but I'm 46. Fire mages kill me like nothing during the day. Fire dragons (usually ancient dragons for me atm) frequently kill me with one breath, and sometimes in one bite. At night or in dungeons I fare better but not by much. Only by virtue of Serana's awesomeness and my "sneaky bastard" bow skills have I survived many of these encounters.