Sure, it's frustrating to loose a shopkeeper or two when you show up in a town and immediately there is a Vampire attack. What I find even more frustrating is to show up to find an attack has already occurred and there are dead NPC's and Ash Piles everywhere. I've had this happen a few times, most recently in Dawnstar.

You can't defend against it if you're not there when it happens.

Kamikaze pilots have nothing to do with siege warfare. Sieges tend to be about cutting someone off in the hope their defence will collapse through starvation or disease or whatever. Because that's far easier on you than an assault which will kill lots of your people.

Kamikazes involved a pilot and his plane being able to potentially sink a whole ship. Though kamikaze pilots we know tended not to actually want to do it, but were pressured into it by not wanting to disgrace themselves and their family by saying no. The vampires, if they're lucky, take down a comparable amount of people as they attack with. Kamikazes would never have happened if they only ever killed one other guy.

I can think of no example in warfare where anyone has thought it's a good idea to march into the city of their enemy and launch random attacks against vastly superior numbers. The nearest comparison would be suicide bombers who tend to be motivated by the kind of religious and political convictions I think vampires probably lack. And they manage to have a better kill ratio than these vampires manage.
Mind you, I can't think of any example in warfare where internal security would be as lax as it is in Skyrim. They close Whiterun's gates against a dragon that can fly above the walls, yet seem unable to check if people entering the city might be undead. Something made easier since they started having silly glowing eyes as a sort of instant giveaway.

And as was said earlier, they wish to block out the sun. Suicide attacks against cities do nothing to achieve this.

Whichever way you look at it, it's a very stupid idea that has the potential to spoil the core game.

The only place where the Germans couldn't/didn't out right storm was Britian, other then that they stormed in and took what they wanted. Which is what the vampires are doing but with a splash of Kamikaze siege war fare. Yes it was a stupid idea to do it the way Beth. did but it's really not as bad as it's made out to be, I've been in several of these topics and what it all boils down too is that the player ends up caught off guard and overwhelmed with how fast things can get out of hand if your not ready for it. I would suggest that you at least try my " tedious " method of dealing with the vampire attacks but as you said.....you don't have Dawnguard. Which brings me to a new point......

If you don't have Dawnguard installed then where do you get the right to voice an opinion on something that you have not experienced? If you ask me your basing your judgement on what you've read and not out of your own experience which ultimately means that your talking out of your hat. Until you have experienced loss of life yourself then your "opinion" means nothing all because you have based it on hear say.

The Nazis invaded countries with a highly efficient military force, occupied them and began to plunder them. They didn't send a few crazy guys into Warsaw or wherever and tell them to run amok until they died. It's really not a good comparison.

And they couldn't outright storm Russia either, though they foolishly believed they could. It's too big.

And how can you have "kamikaze siege warfare"??

Anyone playing the game has only their own experience which we all know is idiosyncratic as the exact experience of attacks seems to be very variable. So by reading about it and watching it on youtube (something that strikes me as more fun than actually playing it from what I've seen) I think I'm as equipped as anyone else to comment.

I have to agree here. I was reluctant to install DG because of all the bug reports, dead NPC issues, etc. When I became infected at level 3, I thought, "might as well see what the fuss is all about," and installed it.

I completed the quest-line (avoiding all towns until I was done), and then some radiant quests, and you know what?

I've only experienced 2 graphical glitches, one of which required a reload which fixed the issue, and one freeze that required an off/on maneuver of the Xbox. I've not lost any shopkeepers, and the only attacks I've experienced have been in the wild, a mixture of Vampires and Dawnguard (much more DG than Vamps).

Might change in the next play-through, who knows? For me, this one has been nearly bug-free so far, which surprised me. Come to think of it, I've had considerably less freezes than I have in any Skyrim character so far. Guess I'm just lucky this time around!

Moral: Don't believe everything you read. Try it before deciding if it's rubbish or not.

Dawnguard forces you to adjust your playing style when starting a new character. I don't expect Beth to fix it so I just incorporated into my gameplay. What else can you do? No, I will not use mods to 'fix' it on the PC. I also play on the 360.

* I learned not to enter towns or leave a building in the middle of the night. This only applies to very early stages of Dawnguard questline.

* Delay the DG quest as long as possible until your character is strong enough to intervened when the attacks are more frequent and deadlier as you progressed the quest. Don't even go to Dawnguard until you know can handle the attacks. It's not that much different than stalling the MQ to prevent dragon attacks when your character is still a puny weakling.

* In places where you may have a potential follower hanging about, do whatever to make them your follower, leave them with tempered and enchanted weapons when you dismissed them. It will come in handy the next time you encounter the traveler in that town.

I have only lost one important NPC's (shopkeeper in Solitude), usually in later stages of the quest, never in the early stage. I didn't care by then because I have so much gold I don't even bother selling things anymore. The biggest problem is when a NPC jumped in front of me while fighting vampires. I always make a save right before an attack to deal with that situation.

I am actually playing a character that encourages the attacks. I developed him for this purpose. I fast travel everywhere, arriving in the middle of the night looking for a fight. So far, no shopkeepers have been killed. They have been some epic battles! I am planning on keeping it at this stage for a while.

I've never experienced the notorious blood on the ice bug. Not once. That doesn't mean it never existed.
Same with lots of other bugs, glitches, random stuff. I've never experienced many dragon attacks. Does that mean I believe all the people who say they get loads are liars?

The point is, it's well established what people experiences varies widely.

What baffles me is how without ever having played it I'm able to understand that some people find it fine, other people experience dead cities. Yet people who've played it have this strange habit of thinking how it plays for them must be how it plays for everyone else. While knowing how Bethesda games can play so differently for different people.

And just to be clear, I've several reasons for not wanting it, the attacks being just one of them that can be easily modded out.

Why did you do that?

What do you think the S.S. where? They where a bunch of crazies that where given top notch equipment to invade anyone that they could, yes it is a good comparison.
But they still tried to invade Russia and they didn't do it the smart way either, they tried to rush it like they did all the other invasions, which is what the vampires are trying to do.

kamikaze siege warfare is where they run in on a suicide run to kill off as much of the population as possible which once again is exactly what the vampires are doing. If you want to bring a power to their knees then you attack the population making it hard for said power to protect their population forcing them to give up or expend their numbers in the effort to protect the population.

As for your reading and watching argument...... You have not experienced it yourself. The ones having a really hard time with it are the ones with an over active random spawn generator making the attacks more frequent and more vicious then they actually are. I would bet $1,000,000,000 smackers that the ones having/reporting large amounts of vampire attacks are as well the one who have 2 or more dragons attacking a town or have 5-6 dragon attacks within 15 minutes of each other. This does not mean that you will experience it as well, for all you know you may just have a pretty easy time at it as others have reported that they have had hardly any vampire attacks. Basing your opinion on what you saw/read from others is not a valid stand point and not grounds to argue from, until you try it yourself, until you HAVE to defend a town/city from a vampire attack you don't know what your talking about plain and simple. Just because I say driving a car is dangerous and difficult doen't mean that it's true, just means that I have a hard time driving a car and by no means is it a fact that you should base your judgement on, you have to drive a car yourself to make a solid judgement.

I didn't have any reasons to enter any towns at the time, because everything I needed was at the Castle, and I wasn't going to take any chances losing NPC's unless I was able to defend them. After starting the quest-line at level 3, well... I wasn't exactly the most powerful kid on the block. I should have waited until level 10, then perhaps I'd have taken the chance.

My strongest ability was in the VL form, and if I entered a town as one... ick. We'd have a lot more than a few NPC's dead for sure. I put everything on hold to play out the DG quest-line, since it was new and exciting to me.

The kamikaze attacks were focused on the US Navy as a desperate attempt to prevent them reaching their home islands in a last ditch attempt when the war started going badly for them, they did not target US citizens. So the comparison here is wrong miltary personel were targeted NOT civilians.

Also the Third Riech (spelling) only targeted the British citizens when the war started to go against them, they didn't send small attacks and planned larger more devistating attacks. I'm not going to comment further about this even though I could as it's bordering on no go for these forums.

Driving a car is dangerous, you don't need to drive one to know that, just go and look up the road statistics and find out for yourself.

What do you think today's suicide bombers are? Their today's equivalent to the Kamikaze and what do they focus on mostly? Targets of opportunity. As for the attacks on the British citizens, they started once the war started. Britain was bombed from day one and what where the bombs aimed at? Innocent civilians. Why? To force Britain to surrender by attacking those under her protection. I as well could go on but as you said it's a no fly zone in the forums, anyway I'm trying to say that the vampires are simply trying to bring Skyrim to her knees and what's the best way to that? By attacking it's civilians forcing the military ( Jarls men ) to expend man power on the defense or to force them to surrender in order to protect the civilians.

And just because it's dangerous does that mean that every one is going to stop driving? No, you learn the " rules of the road " and try your best to get from point A to point B without incident, just because some people say the vampire attacks are horrid and they are impossible to handle doesn't mean that they truely are or that you will experience the same as they have. To base your opinion on " hear say " or the opinions of others is not a good way to go through life, you need to experience it yourself in order to make a valid decision or to have a valid opinion, like I said... just because I say driving is difficult and dangerous DOES NOT MEAN that you will have the same experience, more then likely you will have a different experience for better or worse but you shouldn't take my word for it you need to make an informed decision on your own terms with your own experiences.

Thus far my experience with vampire attacks is that they are not as bad/difficult as some make them out to be, like I said more then likely the ones having a lot of attacks also have an over active random spawn generator and perhaps they are just ill equipped to deal with the attacks but that doesn't mean that everyone will have a hard time about it. My main character had next to not attacks on towns, my second play through of Dawnguard with my Khajiit has had too many to count but thanks to my combat skill I am more then able to defend and push back any thing that the vampires throw at me.

Ok before this goes on any further, the vampires involved in the attacks seem to have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with Harkon besides the gameplay mechanic that when finishing the MQ the attacks stop.

They are thin bloods, outcasted and rejected by the castle dwellers who actually send you to execute them since they are seen as mistakes.

They are not suicide bombers as they have no purpose to suicide, they're just idiots they serve no cause.



And yes not everyones experience is the same, but that can in itself be a problem.

Example, I've gotten alot of bugs that others haven't, and others have gotten bugs that I haven't.

Who's to say that these vampire attacks are going perfectly as intended for everyone's game?

I know mine didn't stop after the dawnguard was finished. Isn't that a flaw with the attacks itself? I will never be rid of the attacks?

Should we forget everthing we read in books if we haven't experianced it first hand. Apparently base jumping is dangerous but I wouldn't know right since I haven't done it, should I go and kill myself jumping before I'm justified in commenting? Just because it's dangerous doesn't stop people from doing it and doesn't stop it from being a stupid past time. People dealing or not dealing with the vampire attacks doesn't stop it from being a stupid feature either.

Would it be right or wrong of me to tell a learner driver, driving isn't dangerous? Just tell them nothing and let them have an experiance and work it out for themselves if it's dangerous or not.

Sorry if I didn't get back to you earlier but I had to drive down to Sydney and back today.

Suicide bombers are different to kamikazes. They operate from a different set of ideas. The only similarity is they kill themselves.

Suicide bombers have an actual reason for doing what they do. However flawed it may be, they have an intelligible set of political/religious motivations you can find out about if you investigate whatever particular group. There is no apparent reason for vampires killing themselves. And the cities would never surrender to vampires - vampires are bloodsvckers. It's not like they have some kind of political goal that could be accommodated.

Why do people persist in trying to make up reasons why aspects of the game that don't make sense somehow do?

And although bombing civilians was used as a means to crush the will to fight, that's not all bombing was about. It was also about attempting to cripple war industries. The Luftwaffe started bombing cities after initially targeting RAF bases in an attempt to knock them out so they could invade. And it was conducted by men in aeroplanes. Not men walking into to cities and launching crazy attacks they were 100% certain not to return from.

Who says they can't be managed? Point is they're a stupid idea happening for no reason (apart from whatever you're imagining) that make the game tedious and frustrating for many people.

Well i like the idea that npc's can be killed anyway.
Im using a mod that makes every npc in the game non-essential too, and it grants me a lot more interesting walktrough!
Guess waht, who will become jarl of Whiterun if Balgruuf is killed??? You have no chance of knowing until you make all npc's non essential

no, but they should fix those random spiders and dragons entering towns, killing npcs...

They are a lot bigger threat than vampires ever were...

Well there's a simple solution to the problem of not being able to do something as simple as kill a few vampires, and that's not to buy Dawnguard.

Why should people who enjoy the threat of losing NPCs and deal with it, have a meaningful DLC turned into a meaningless one because of a few hysterical people who didn't inform themselves on what they were buying?

Hit the nail on the head.


This.


And this for the win.

No, the SS were not there to invade people. The fact they had a a separate branch that was specifically combat orientated - the Waffen SS - should tell you that. Though they did get very good equipment. It was the Wehrmacht that actually invaded people - being the army and all.
And the SS were not generally crazies. They were fanatical, but they were often rational, intelligent well educated people. Something that makes them worse.


I see. Presumably as part of some kind of siege? Can you name me some examples from history where the attackers said I'm bored with this here siege...let's go ker-a-zee! Geeeeaaahhhhh!!!!!! - ?

Why do the vampire want to 'bring a power to its knees'? I thought the big thing was to block out the sun. Otherwise why don't they, y'know, ambush travellers and drink their blood? Would that not be more sensible from a vampire's perspective/


The over active random spawn generator is a common facet of Bethesda games. Part of their charm is how random they can be. Even down to small things - you can go a whole playthrough without seeing a particular random encounter and then get it repeatedly in the next.
You have only experienced your game. You haven't played everyone else's. So why do you feel able to comment on how other people should be finding the attacks? You have an opinion. I have mine. Neither of us need to have played everyone's game to understand what they say about their experience and form an opinion.
And my opinion is it's a stupid idea leading for a stupid game mechanic.

Attacks on shopkeepers are in progress when I "pop into" a town by means of fast travel. Therefore I cannot avoid and or protect. It is late and dark and I cannot tell one person from the other. I have not even joined any quests or either side of the vampires.

This is the prompt for somebody to tell you none of their NPCs have died, it's your fault if yours have and you most definitely can do something about it.
You shouldn't fast travel, shouldn't visit the towns and night and failing that should uninstall Dawnguard.
Enjoy your game.

I do not know what the fuss is all about, do you want an easy play or a hard game, think about the game and what you do, I played to the main quest first and in all I could count the number of city attacks on one hand, so few i can hardly remember them, i dealt with them like i and you do with dragon attacks, Since completing the main quest stops them what is your issue? i think i lost about 3 NPC's, if they were essential tough, get used to the idea that some quests you cannot complete no matter how much you want to.
As for complaints from the PC brigade dont start me on that i will get banned.
Had plenty of attacks on me out in the open but so what i also get attacked by bears wolves and anything and everything else-again why is that a problem it is part of the game deal with it.
I am not sure what some people want-perfection? well that would be the first game in history then as far as i am concerned its an excellent dlc and worth the money, it gives content well in excess of what you get in some full blown games.

People bought dawnguard mostly when it came out, you don't know crap at that point...

Another thing, the people complaining seem to be greater than the people who are satisfied.

Is an AI fix so horrible?

Do your followers work perfectly?
Mine stand in doorways not letting me through, they get in the way, and hit me alot.

The NPC's in towns just run up and punch the deadly vampires and try to stab them with iron daggers.

And as for the people who already own dawnguard? They can't return it. It's a digital game.

And even if they had the option to, it's one feature that's annoying the crap out of a lot of people.



Your perfect game does not represent everyone's games.

I'm not saying that it's not bugged, what I'm saying is that as a player YOUR responsible for the defense of a town/city for your duration of your stay. Do the attacks happen when the player is NOT with in a town/city? No, it's impossible for ANY event to take place without the player within the vicinity, so by entering said town/city with the knowledge that an attack is likely then it's your responsibility to quell the attack. Are the attacks as savage as some claim? I would say no, out of around 100 hours of game play with Dawnguard I have lost a total of 5-6 NPC's on master with all my gear smith and tempered well within the game parameters ( ie. no exploits ) with little to no problem. If in fact you ( not you in general ) are having problems with the attacks then it's your play style or your level of game play that's effecting your ability to handle the attacks and in that light you as a player should drop the difficulty to a level best suited to your skill level.
There is no proof that the attacks are in fact are as hard as people claim, however from reading and responding in similar threads one can gather that it's in fact the player that's making it hard on oneself by not paying attention OR the player just doesn't possess the skill to deal with the attacks. All this hub bub over the attacks COULD be solved IF the player(s) smarten up and realize that by starting Dawnguard or DL Dawnguard you are in fact entering into a war. Then they will realize that being OCD when it comes to checking every nook and cranny of a town/city will benefit them and not become a burden/tedium or they could avoid going into any town/city for the duration of the quest line, fort Dawnguard has everything you would need thus there is no need to enter ANY town/city. OR they could just not DL Dawnguard but in taking that root nullifies your right to even have a opinion all because your basing your judgement on hear say.


Yes you should warn them that they are taking their own life into their hands BUT they cannot base their opinion on YOUR word, that's just plain stupid!! They should in fact take your advice but also give it a try on their own terms to be able to make a REAL judgement, it all boils down to the old saying..... " If everyone jumped off a bridge, should you? " Of course the answer is no and thus should people who have not tried Dawnguard base their opinion on the opinions of those who have had a hard time? Of course not you have to try it out to be able to come up with an educated opinion other wise your a sheep following the flock.


Alright I'm not going into any more history lessons with you just because your only out to try and prove me wrong, lets just say your " ideas " of the differences between Kamikazes and suicide bombers are wrong they are one in the same, same reasons behind doing it etc...etc... just based around different ideas of their leaders.
Was it a stupid idea? No, all because people have been complaining that the game is too easy and once Beth. added a feature that adds a little difficulty then the complainers still complain, their damned if they do and their damned if they don't. Is it bugged out? Yes in some cases but I'm pretty positive that a lot of it is exaggeration on the part of a player who doesn't possess the skill to deal with the attacks. Just because you cannot handle them why then must a feature that I REALLY enjoy have to be changed? Why must I return to a rather easy game just because your not able to keep up? Just because I can run faster then you DOES NOT mean that UI have to slow down just so you can catch up, why not try and better your skill and become faster then me?


Once again I'm not going into a history lesson with you, as for your question...... I cannot come up with any examples off the top of my head nor will I waste time looking just to prove my point. Through out all of warfare history there have been suicide missions and why is that? Because their effective in causing turmoil, they have the potential to cause great amounts of damage and in general they just get the aggressor what they want.
I feel I have the right to comment on the way they should find the attacks all because those who are complaining are the ones that couldn't handle a little stress to begin with and as far as I'm concerned they need to " svck it up " and just learn how to deal with the attacks, in other words they need more practice playing the game. Yes I understand that in some cases the attacks are bugged and happen more often then they should but as I've stated many,many,many times before their is many things a player can do to ease the attacks....ie: don't enter towns/cities until you have completed Dawnguard or be smart about it and handle the attacks tactically.


You want the simple answer? Just don't fast travel!! It's a well know fact that fast traveling increases your chances of any encounter, thus walking/running everywhere will lesson your chances of said encounters. Or you could just ready yourself for a fight every time you fast travel.


I just did and yes it is his fault, as I just said NOT fast traveling will lesson your chances of the encounters. Being ready for a fight will also help your reaction time all because the attacks spawn in with the player and thus you should expect the attack.


No I'm all for an AI fix but not the vampires, fix the towns folk so that they don't run in head first into the heat of the battle, fix the guards so as to be better equipped to deal with the vampires, fix the spawn generator so that it's a once and a while encounter just like the werewolf encounters.




I know the spawn generator(s) are the issue, I know that some people experience large amounts of attacks but dealing with them all boils down to player skill and if you don't have the skill to deal with it then as far as I'm concerned it's on you to learn how to play better. Why must myself and others like me have to suffer an easy game just because the complainers need an easier game? We shouldn't the game should remain as is and the complainers should learn to play better, plain and simple. BUT Beth. should tweak it so that it doesn't happen more often then intended and they should tweak the AI so that the towns folk don't rush to their death or beef up the guards so as to allow a little elbow room for the player to intervene.