It's actually quite possible that you had the attacks, and didn't notice at all because you were not near where the attacks were going on.

exactly, all these things together are breaking peoples game whether they realise it or not, i think people are safer if they are noticing the attacks compared to people which arent
if you see the attack you have a small chance of successfully stopping it, if you dont see an attack then....you're pretty much screwed

Its the same mechanic for both. I stil get pummeled by dragons after 50% of all my fast travels, the latest being 1 revered dragon and an ancient dragon at the same time in Falkreath which killed 2 NPCs about 2 hours ago. In 28 hours of Dawnguard Ive had 2 vamp attacks in towns which were crushed by the guards immediately. Same mechanic runs both, but what each system gets hits by more varies gamer to gamer.

If it was the same mechanic for both then vampire attacks could be avoided by not fast travelling.

I cant avoid dragon attacks by not fast traveling. Happens either way. Which is why I do it. I get screwed regardless.

You have a higher chance of fighting a dragon when fast traveling than otherwise.

Never had vampire attacks in towns.

Had them in the wilderness killing mages and vililants of stendar.

They seemed to stop though when i became a vampire after one of them infected me.

You'll still get them though.

If you side with the vampires, eventually you'll have "psychic" members of the Dawnguard showing up and attacking only you. You will also receive the random vampire attacks.

If you side with the Dawnguard, you just get the random vampire attacks. If the vampires attacked Similar to how the Dawnguard do, I don't think this would be much of a problem, but since they attack any nearby NPC and can spawn at a different entrance to the city than the player it becomes a problem. Perhaps a minor annoyance at first, and then to an even larger one later on.

I know, but just like people with ridiculous amounts of vampire attacks regardless of what they do, Ive had that problem with dragons since I bought the game. Not as devastating as the vamps, except when in pairs which I get a lot for some reason, but its the same phenomenom. I have had virtually no vampire attacks, and none that resulted in NPC death. Hell, I have yet to see a wild werewolf which I spent hours wondering around looking for.

Not many have fought the werewolf yet, and honestly I couldn't care less about the werewolf.

the vampire attacks a the biggest game breaking feature i have ever seen. i have seen wild werewolves in skyrim, they are the farmers which travel the roads. two of the attacked me as werewofl vargr's not strong at all, it was cool but i dont think its right that im a werewolf and they still attack me. the werewolves arent the problem though. just the unfair vampire attacks on towns

I typically dont FT unless I'm very tired of the route back to the city and I've never had a single attack inside the city after 300 hours.

Btw your 50% rate of dragons spawning on FT is insanely high. I've never had a single attack FT or otherwise so something is messed up lol.

I have been playing dawnguard for around 20 hours now and have to admit I don't like the attacks one little bit. I'm a lvl 58 Nord and chose the Dawnguard, just finished playing the third quest. Just a few minutes after installing the dlc I had my first master vampire attack when exiting breezehome at night. With the help of some tonwguards I managed to dispatch of him quite easy. Thought it was quite fun actually. But soon the frequence and impact of the attacks started to annoy me. The moment I really had enough was when I walked into the town of Karthwasten at night. A master vampire and 2 death hounds were attacking a villager, I just managed to save the poor soul.

Anyhow, the way i've been playing since that encounter is simple, yet effective; I simply don't enter any towns or cities at night. If I approach a town or city, I just wait till around 7 AM and enter. I find the process kinda tedious, but I didn't encounter any vampire attacks since I adopted this strategy. On my game, the night really belongs to the vampy's from now on.

Yeah I've had the dawnguard scouts show up. Didn;t cause a problem though.

If the vamps do start attacking they can't be any worse than dragons. With dragons they are sort of timed and I have a good idea when an attack is due. Maybe vamps are the same.

Yeah it is. I never looked at any Skyrim forums before Dawnguard, so i thought that was normal. I have a dead dragon carcass that didnt disolve into bone laying in the the open market in Solitude thats been there for 3 game months. Yesterday I was in the plains area west of Whiterun where you can see practically forever and randomly absorbed a dragon soul. Never heard or saw anything. Had no idea what the hell was going on at first.

the vampire attacks are much worse than the dragon attacks... trust me

vampire attack in groups and will spawn anywhere in the town and slaughter npc until you get to the scene, if you dont notice the vampires in the town and leave (which can happen) say goodbye to all the npc's in that town. vampires are sneaky and can kill npc's without you even realising that they are in the town

dragons on the other hand are a single enemy which make lots of noise to make sure you know that they are they. they are easy to notice and lowering the difficulty to get rid of them and save npc's is really easy.

you dont get this luxury with vampire attacks im afraid...

And later people complain about the lack of ''impact'' that some events have in the game ._. (civil war, DB, etc...)

Bethesda gave the world some ''life'' (in the no-static sense) and then everyone wants the world to be static.


Its a battle between two factions, and the dawnguard fights because the vampires are a threat.
and they would not be much of a threat if they only stayed in caves, right?

I really undestand why some ppl complain, but removing this feature its not the right decision, and i dont say this because i like the atacks (i love them, but thats beside the point), its because thats one of the features that a world that is supposed to be alive must have, it must be able to change without you doing everything.

Keeping alive npcs that cant respawn its more satisfying than going to retrieve a random iron sword for one of them in a near cave that i already cleared a few times..... And if they dont die from vampire atacks you can go and retrieve the iron sword anyway if you want.

I like the game, but sometimes it babysitts me, an event like this that needs you to act its a step in the right direction.

Is the implementation perfect?? of course not, but saying that this is stupid or an error is just wrong, the game needs this, probably with a few changes.
--
(Maybe they should end after finishing the Dawnguard/vamp quest for those who really hate it(?))

Unfortunately, it can be worse. With the dragons you can see them coming, hear them flying over, etc. With the vampires, it can happen at a completely different spot in the town, and you may not know they are there until they have killed off one or two npcs for you.

I initially thought that, and had started plans to deal wtih it. They worked great, as long as the vampires spawned in at the same gate as I did. If they didn't, then it started to become a problem. It then becomes even more of a problem if you're not aware the vampires are actually attacking, as you can go through the city and leave without knowing some people have been killed. Meanwhile with the Dragons, you KNOW when they are attacking.

This brings up an interesting solution. Only have the vampires attack Fort Dawnguard. Then the Dawnguard have reason to fight the vampires, and people don't have to worry about lots of "important but not essential" npcs getting murdered.

I also agree that they should stop at the end of the quest.

if they wanted the world to be 'alive' npcs would be replaced by random npc's which move into towns and the npc's wouldnt be [censored] attacking enemies they are no match for...

Well hardly anyone thinks the attacks should be removed. There was a poll yesterday and 3 people voted to have em removed, 45 or so voted to have em removed from cities, 45 voted to have em toned down, and 22 voted to leave em as they are.

So it's clear a lot of people have issues with the attacks, the problem is that people are assuming this means they should be removed. Nossir, just implemented properly would be fine. And yes properly is up to Bethesda to decide, not me and not you.

If you walk around Skyrim at night there are some very well done random events that set up the whole "Vampires are attacking!" prospect.

I think the vampire attacks are great for starting off the Dawnguard expansion, I just don't think they should constantly occur if you do not want to go through the quests. Even then, there should be something that stops them from attacking until you want them to attack.

They should end once the quest is over. This is the easiest fix.

And they should not start until joining a faction imo. Nobody should be forced into completing the questline on all their characters just to keep their saves safe.

Like how you can prevent the dragons by not starting the main quest.