Another reason I like playing Skyrim on the PC instead of my PS3. (Not because dawnguard isn't out for the PS3) But because I can use a vampire mod that keeps random attacks from happening. I saw maybe 2-3 cased of the "traveler" showing up when I fast traveled to whiterun but I got the drop on him and killed him every time. He never even had a chance to start an attack.

But I agree. I still felt like I had to rush through Dawnguard and stay away from everything and everyone so the vampires didn't attack and kill everything.

These here are the only thing's I'm really trying to say. Not that the game should completely rid itself of vampire attacks, but fix the AI of the citizens that run straight up while they're lvl 5 and the vampire is lvl 65.

The spawn generators thing seem to be the main thing bugged in dawnguard.

Some people have random monsters spawning after every fast travel in large amounts. Some have way too frequent or even large vampire attacking mobs.

The spawns should stop after dawnguard is completed, but half the time they continue making it a permanent vampire attacking situation lol.



If the AI were better people's problems with vampire attacks would disappear fast I'm sure.

I'm still mad that blacksmith in Riverwood ran up to punch a dragon in the face. There was NO way I could save him in any attempt I made. >_<

haha I had the blacksmith lady in whiterun run up to a vamprie and punch him or stab him with a dagger. Then I had like 5 guards swarm the area so I couldn't hit the vampire!

My way out? I beat the guards so they started attacking me instead, ran around while attacking the vampire, killed the vampire, then went to jail

@ Carrots

1/It's just you keep saying inaccurate things about history.

2/I'm sure most people can "handle" the attacks. People could probably "handle" a mechanic where a wolf spawned next to you every 5 seconds for the duration of your playing time - but it would become irritating and frustrating. People don't seem to think it makes the game more difficult. they find the attacks a pain in the butt.

3/You probably can't think of an appropriate historical comparison because people have a habit of not launching suicide attacks for no reason. As a suicide bomber, and they can tell you in detail why they're a suicide bomber. The vampire attacks in Skyrim have no purpose other than what the mental contortions of players ascribe to them. Ok, that's because we all know Bethesda can't write to save their lives, but it doesn't help that the attacks have no apparent purpose.
And what about the other stupid aspects? Like the guards letting the undead simply stroll into the city: All they'd need is a mage who can cast detect life stationed at the city gate. But accounting for the obvious has never been Bethesda's strong point.

4/I agree they would be better if the NPC AI wasn't so idiotic. As people have said over and over again, weak NPCs should flee danger - whether it's a vampire or something else. Why Bethesda thought it was a good idea to turn all NPCs into suicidal fanatics we can only speculate.

Let the questgivers, shopkeepers be VIP (can't be killed).

I have enjoyed the Dawnguard content with two characters, and I like the additions to the overall game. What I don't like is how much Dawnguard turns Skyrim into The Vampire Game. Keep an eye on the sky? Hell yeah, I love my forever respawning dragons. The vampire attacks quickly become tiresome, especially for characters who avoid combat and will never see the end of them. I think the fix is just to not have DG installed, since a watered-down menace would be even worse than having NPCs ignore Stage 4 vampirism. Dawnguard will eventually be done and deleted for me. Which is a shame, because I love to whack things from horseback with a dragonbone axe.

Of course if new NPCs were spawned to replace the dead, no problem. They could all be called “Nord” or “Proprietor” for all I care. That’s the improvement I would love to see.

I honestly wish there were generic NPC's in skyrim that could die and be replaced so there'd be no ghost towns ever.

Not like ghost towns make sense in this game seeing how children can never die.

That is absolutely not true, there is plenty to fix. Shopkeepers getting killed are the worst because they have finite money. It's not like in Oblivion where if the Three Brothers shop and Jensine went down, it wouldn't be the end of the world due to the other shops and infinite merchant money. With Skyrim if that happened especially in Whiterun where Adrienne gets killed pretty much every time, it's devestating. If your not vigilent, the only merchants that will be left are the Thieves Guild ones, Babette with the DB and The College Of Winterhold. The biggest problem with that is everytime I'll need to check the city to make sure that Vamps aren't attacking, that will get old real fast.

It is easily the worst design decision besides the use of the Dragon Scroll IMO, that Beth came up with for this DLC, it's a feature that was great in theory but horrific in execution. This basically forces you to play Dawnguard instead of making it optional, we have never had that in a Beth game before having to be forced to play something that should clearly be optional. Sheogorath never forced me to play Shivering Isles or gave me visions every midnight, I never had to go to Solsteim in Morrowind, or Point Lookout in Fallout 3, etc. With Skyrim though, I have to do Dawnguard otherwise I'm going to be out of essential citizens eventually and no I'm not going to alter my gameplay just for the sake of keeping the NPC's alive, I shouldn't need to do that in the 1st place. That will get repetitive very quickly.

Until Beth fixes this feature which they probably won't, I'm not touching Dawnguard again. The easiest way to fix this feature is to only have the Vamps start attacking after you exit the Dawnguard Fortress the 1st time. Sadly I doubt that's going to happen.

Point blank...it will be the last thing I buy from Bethesda if they dont!

Agree, I won't touch the other DLC's if this feature isn't removed or at least it doesn't start until you enter Fort Dawnguard the 1st time.

Highlighted area: This DLC has sold millions of copies. Something tells me that you've got the ratio backwards...

But I agree with another poster. Why should I have to suffer through Dawnguard being made easier just because you have a difficult time killing some Vampires and their lolFollowers?

I like the attacks the way they are, tweak the AI for the townspeople. Make it so they run from danger instead of to danger. That's the tweak that needs to happen if they're to change anything.

Why does other people have to sacrifice what might be an actual challenge just because a minority of players wants the game greased down for them?

Pretty much this is all I want...

The post you quoted only mentioned AI fixes lol


Although a few other things that could be tweaked which I think may be bugs, are daytime attacks, I don't see why those happen.
And also since people get either no vampire attacks ever (There's one guy who's gotten like 1 attack in 30 levels) and other people who get attacked constantly they could make the attacks less of an open variable. Still an open variable but not such a freaking wide range. The attacks would still happen, and most people wouldn't notice a difference with that.

But none of this will happen. They won't patch a DLC.

I agree with you on every point.

And I was simply mentioning another train of thought/argument that was floating around the thread. Didn't mean to imply that you were thinking that way.

Sorry about that. lol

Don't they stop if you beat the Dawnguard quests?

Lol no problem then


They are meant to, but there are bugs that keep them going. So some people are plagued with it unless they start a new game or uninstall.

It's a designed feature, Skyrim is dangeous, things want to kill civilians, dragons, vampires, etc, go save them and be a hero, sheesh, and if you fail, oh well, you can't save everyone, move on. It gives you a sense of responsability in this game.

I don't want to be responsible for a world of mentally handicapped people as the only competent fighter in the entire game xD

It'd all be fine if the NPC's didn't run up to attack lvl 60 vampires when they're lvl 5.

They should make a level range where NPC's run from any aggressor. Say if the NPC is lvl 5 and the enemy is 8, they fight, but if they get to 10, the NPC tries to run instead.
And that could apply to all combat when it's NPC vs NPC

There's no reason for the lvl 5 shop keeper to run in bare knuckling the lvl 60 vampire lord, and then die the next second, especially after seeing that it just smacked 5 others to the floor.

They DO run in fear sometimes you know.

Whichever BGS dev thought it would be a good idea to put hostile high-level NPCs into an enclosed gamespace with low-level non-respawning unique NPCs needs to be slapped with a slaughterfish.

Teeth first, please.

Matter of fact, I'm convinced the BGS devs lack critical thinking processes. :\

They need to adjust their Intelligence rating before they leave Vault 101.

Specific NPC's do I've noticed that. They're the more generic ones. But in whiterun the NPC's that give quests and the blacksmith lady ALWAYS run up and attack. Never had them not do a thing.

I think it could probably be set up more along the lines of the Dragon attacks.

In my experience, when a Dragon attacks the Guards run towards the big lizard while the civilians (except for Blacksmiths and such) generally run away from the Dragon. Just use this as the base for the Vamp attacks and I think most everyone will be happy. Then, you'd have the guards (and apparently Blacksmiths...) rushing to take down the undead threat, whilst everyone else makes for the hills.

This way, the civilians are safe for those people who dislike the attacks, but the attacks still stay in the game (and at their unchanged frequency) for those of use who greatly enjoy the attacks (like myself).

The NPCs aggression AI is really spotty. I've seen characters run from threats they could easily take barehanded, and I've seen characters run toward threats that simply annihilate them. There are three reasons the vampire attacks svck: first, the horrible NPC AI that causes some characters to be essentially suicidal; second, the lack of a clear alternative for ensuring quest integrity without setting the relevant NPCs to be essential; and third, there is no logical in-game (or out) reason for a small gaggle of vampires to attempt to raid large settlements. While I find the attacks to be horribly designed, by far my biggest complaint is the latter issue. There is simply no reason behind the attacks. Any reason attributed to them is purely the imaginative, and often poorly developed, effort of gamers, who in their mind, are rising (unnecessarily) to the defense of Bethesda. The feature isn't the worst I've seen, but it smacks heavily of being a rushed, incomplete addition.

Spot on, when you consider they're half-bloods, not the pure-blooded Volkihar. No one's controlling them. There's no point to their attacks but force the player to "hurry-up-and-do-something-about-it." Whatever the hell that is.

Bleh.