This here is true and I have broken my character to try and circumvent bugs but I view that as necessary to work out a game flaw the flaw being the bug and I just pretend it never happened even tho there is this nagging feeling in the back of my mind about it. But hey anything to get my game functioning correctly, I might try a rogue build next to farther delve into switching and taking weapons.

I have always liked your demented smiley avatar by the way.

Guards reswpawn after awhile. I'm not sure the number of days....I believe it's 10. For example, on a visit to Winterhold I noticed the two patrolling Guards and the one Guard in the Jarls' long house were all female. Next Visit two male and one female.

Edit: Perhaps visitng a City/Town's cell at regular intervals will keep Guards from respawning like anything else.

Why thank you, it's a good representation of me and my attitude. Evil and conniving


I really don't know the respawn rate for city guards, as a werewolf I spend most of my days in the wild. But 10 days sounds right, it's the same as shop keeps I think which is around 10 days I think

Well in Riften for example, there are many guards. A mix of male and female. If you go through their bunk house or the training area you'll see them. Thats why some days there are female guards, the next males, and another time a mix.

But the respawn is roughly 10 days I believe to replace dead ones.

Though I've got a naked guard walking around Whiterun for about an ingame month now... heh I stole his gear when he warned me not to let him catch me with my hands in his pocket.

I am pretty sure guards are supposed to respawn in between 10-14 days that is what I think it is and I do not think they have been effected by the respawn bug at all.
Your very welcome, all of our avatars should reflect us in a meaningful way regardless how disturbing.

This was probably answered already but are simply to many topics about this to dig up all of them.

Will the vampire attacks stop after the MQ, Dawnguard side ?

I'm using a vampire repellant mod and was wondering if it's safe to remove it.

I can answer one question here.

Someone said here the attacks will stop after you complete the quest if they not stop then its a bug that has effected some player.

They stopped for me, I haven't had a city/town attack since I finished Dawnguard and it's been 30+ hours of game play since I finished it and the encounters on the map have dropped to next to nothing as well

I love the random encounters in the wilds at least those still happen tho.

There have been a few reports here that the attacks continue after the quest I guess it might be different with each new character, but it is good news your attacks have stopped and you have not suffered from the bug.

I'm positive that it has something to do with the random encounter generator, it's the same with dragons everyone has different degrees of dragon encounters. So I'm guessing that some people just have an over active random encounter generator which leads to excessive attacks, I would wager that the people who experience excessive attacks also have a high number of dragon encounters and other rare encounters as well.

It seems like my vampire encounters are spread out not to common.
My dragon encounters across all ten of my saves is one appears every 72 hours in game time its a hassle and they persist like that even after the main quest ends.
I was hoping they would be less common than they actually after the main quest concludes.

Every 72 hours holy crap!! I hardly see any dragons after I complete the main quest. This is what I mean though, I have very few random encounters with anything let alone rare encounters which is why I think it has something to do with the random encounter generator, I have few random encounters with anything and thus I have very few vampire attacks, then there's you where you experience a lot more encounters then me and thus will experience more vampire attacks.

Yet another vampire attack. Now at level 42. I visited Fort Dawnguard a little while ago. I figured since I was going to get vampire attacks whether I went there or not, I might as well go get a crossbow.

This time it was a single master vampire who spawned when I came out of Breezehome. I had to reload 3 times before there were no civilian casualties. First time he was swarmed so thick I couldn't get at him. Despite having a guard, two Alikr warriors, Olfina and Idolaf Battle-born beat on him they caused him almost no damage at all. His health bar was immobile as they all whaled on him. In that engagement both Olfina and Idolaf Battle-Born died. So I reloaded. Next time just Olfina died since I was able to intervene more effectively. I decided to reload yet again. In this last engagement, only the guard died, which was great for me since I wanted a Whiterun shield for my house.

I was very disappointed with Jenassa. I left her standing at the front gate to help out in case of an attack, yet she did nothing.

It seems to me, after watching this vampire take on 5 NPCs, including a guard, and not take any damage, that the fundamental problem with these town attacks is that the vampires are leveling with the player while the town NPCs are not. If the idea is to show that vampires are a menace because they are brazenly attacking people on the street, as the guards say, then fine, let them attack. But have the attacks be more for setting up the story line and not as a unstoppable threat to the townspeople. Keep the attacks just as they are, but don't let the vampires attacking towns level with the player. Keep them at a very low level so the townspeople are less threatened by them. The PC has plenty of high level threats to deal with out in the wilderness or in dungeons to keep the game challenging. There is no reason to make the game challenging for the NPCs who have an AI that is dumber than a two year old.

OK, now things are getting weird.

So I head out of the front gate after killing the master vampire mentioned in the previous post. I'm on my way to go kill Milmunir when I see the Khajit's battling two death hounds. Could it be that the master vampire and the death hounds were together, but the master vampire followed Olfina into the city? (She was just entering when he spawned at the front gate.) That really doesn't make sense since the Khajit were in a separate cell than Whiterun. Yet that is what seems to have happened.

Any clues if this was part of the same attack or just two back-to-back attacks?

Yes every 72 hours. Now let me explain the respawn bug I am having.

I have tested the bug extensively and i have tested and searched for hundreds of hours since this bug was introduced with the 1.3 patch and I've found no solution or work around: something worth noting is the plant respawns seems to get worse the longer you put into a save. At first the plants will grow back but erratically so, they will come back at odd times some areas they will be back after the two week span, in other areas it will be 30 plus days. Then some plants will be gone in areas you have not been to, then after you rake up more time with a single character the less come back.

I created a new 1.6 character to test this and the enemy respawns and the enemy respawns have not been fully addressed with 1.6 the wildlife you fight in the wilderness does not respawn at all, same thing as with the plants they will at first but after a while they will not spawn.

Now I am noticing containers not respawning.

So as you can see I am not so sure about the rarity of attacks. The vampires hardly ever attack me but I have frequent dragon encounters, I have no clue if this is some how effected by the respawn timer, but my plant and wildlife/road respawns have been broke since 1.3 and containers broke with 1.6.

Looks like to me it might have been two different attacks.

Sounds like you got the broken respawn clock bug but that was supposed to be fixed in patch 1.5 or 1.6 I suffered from it on my main character, went months ( RL time ) with nothing respawning but it was fixed ( to an extent ) with patch 1.5 or 1.6. My new characters that I've made since the last 3 patches(1.5,1.6,1.7) have had no issues with NPC's , chests, plants not respawning. I'm stumped one of the last 3 patches should have fixed it for your main character to an extent and any new characters shouldn't have any issues at all. Might be a dumb question but did you stay off of the map for 30+ days ? In which I mean did you go to your house and wait / sleep for 31 days ? This is supposed to rest all respawns everywhere, which I'm sure your aware. Other then that I cannot think of a reason why it didn't fix for you nor can I think of another work around Next question, are you on PC or console ? If your on Xbox, did you dump the game cash ? Sometimes bugs and glitches will carry over from save file to save file and the only way to fix it is to dump ( clear ) the game cash, uninstall the game ( everything patches included ), reinstall the game and patches. This should fix things, that is if your on Xbox, if your on PC or PS then I'm not to well versed in the fixes for those 2 platforms.

Ok let me farther explain my bug testing, the respawns have been partially fixed for my brand new character I made with 1.6. Th enemies at dungeons above and below ground will respawn but enemies in the wilderness the wildlife and along the roads respawn at first but their respawns are erratic they come back at odd times its supposed to be 14 days in the wilderness but it might take several months but the longer you play they just simply will never come back.

1.6 did effect the plants somewhat but that patch was not aimed at the plants. The same thing happened with the plants that I mentioned above, the respawns are erratic and come back at odd times they will not respawn sometimes for as much as two or more months. Also if I go into a building in a city and come out all the plants will have disappeared, that is without picking anything mind you. The same thing has happened in the wilderness I stick to the roads to test respawns and I will be walking after I have waited about two months just to be safe and give a report to Gstaff directly and entire roads will not have spawned their plants back, and then eventually there will be several areas where no plants ever grow back.

The containers was broke with 1.6 the patch that was supposed to fix enemy respawns. Some containers I dump unwanted gear in also will not clean out so that can cause save game bloat thus crashing.

I know about the respawn timer I have tested this bug extensively back on 1.3 when it was not well known and nobody believed me. I know what I am talking about on this I have tested with several new characters across several months. Hundreds of hours of test time and looking into the spawns.

For now I am on X-box and I have cleared the cash moved my old saves to a flash drive. I have uninstalled the game. I have tried playing both on and off the disk and I have tried severl new characters since 1.6 and the bug effects them all.

Also for those PC uses only Beth can fix this as the Creation Kit does not allow you to directly effect the spawns in the game just play with the timers, Arthmoor the a creator of the USKP told me that himself the unofficial patch cannot fix it.

I wonder tho if this respawn bug has effected those with way to many vampire attacks, and vampire attacks after the Dawnguard quest is over.

That sounds messed up man, I feel sorry for ya and now that you mention it I do remember seeing you on the forefront of the broken respawn clock bug, don't know why I didn't clue in What did Gstaff say ? Did he get a look at you save file ( did you e-mail it to him ) ? I know the frustration that your feeling I made at least 5-6 different characters trying to work around the broken respawn bug along with not touching my favorite main character for quite some time, I do hope that either you find a fix or at the least that Gstaff is looking into it for you. I really do hope that it works out for ya, my brother as well has had a very hard time with bug and glitches so I hope you don't do what he did and just give up on the game.

Gstaff asked for my saves before 1.6 came around at first he would say he would pass along the information.
Then he asked for my saves and I sent four effected at the time this was some time ago I think it was during 1.4 when I sent my saves. He told me the team could not replicate my respawn bug, (or the recurrent ash piles for that matter) but then later on with 1.6 they tried to fix the enemy respawns and they have fixed it halfway not the plants but the enemies anyways they respawn at their dungeons now which has made the game more playable but the respawns in the wilds and the roads are still dead, I feel like I am walking threw the lifeless world of Cyrodiil if you remember that game there was nothing in the wilds at all its now how I feel in Skyrim, but its worse because the plants are effected.

When they mentioned the 1.6 patch would fix enemies I messaged Gstaff again and thanked Bethesda that at the very least the bug was getting acknowledged at the very least.
He responded saying these things take time basically.

I have since messaged him about it several times with each patch I tell him how they are effected I create a new character every patch and play test this bug into the dozens to hundreds of hours so I can give good feedback to the devs. But now he does not respond to my respawn reports but I still send them they need to be made aware.

There is no work around as far as I know only Beth can fix the spawns its something bad in their code. The only thing I can do is continue to look into building a PC like I am and get a mod that will add more creatures to the wilds or the game, that is the only option I can think of that could even be considered a work around because Arthmoors USKP can not fix it.

Oh I refuse to give up on this series I am here as an advocate to the community and the people here, I will continue to observe and report bugs as I want the very best for TES as its my favorite game series and I want the best for these games and the us the fan base. I joined these forums in 09 with this thought in mind and it been my motto here ever since. I may be stern and persistent but that is because that is just me and I want the best for these games as a loyal fan.

Also I will continue to be on the very front of the respawn bug until its fixed, even if I stand there alone: I will not shut up about it believe me.

The industry needs more fans like you, if there where more like you this whole trend of making a game pretty but lack luster would be squashed. I applaud you my friend not too many people would go the lengths that you have

Well thanks friend I stand strong and firm by what I want and believe and I will continue to help this community anyway I can by making the games better and advocating for the people here.

Cheers to that.

My first character Braggen had a severe dragon problem before Dawnguard, every single time he fast travelled outside of a walled town he would get a dragon. He also managed to get dragons twice in walled towns, by going to the stables first then through the gates. His high rate of random encounters also continued for Dawnguard and vampire attacks, he decreased them by joining the vampires. After Dawnguard was finished, all his random encounters were decreased, he hardly ever gets random dragons now, which is a relief. I was sick of having him chased all over Skyrim by dragons.

Town attacks after the main quest stopped for him except when he went near a town in VL form. Not wanting vampire attacks I never tested the arrows and currently neither of my characters who finished Dawnguard are doing side quests from the DLC. But it would not surprise me if doing side quests in towns could cause a vampire attack. My second character got a high rate of vampire attacks because she had not done much else the game could give her as a random event, and she joined the Dawnguard to have the most fun killing vampires. She still gets random attacks in the wilds, none in the towns since finishing. She cannot be bothered with side quests at the moment and rarely gets out to explore these days.

Aussie's dead guard seemed to respawn in less than 10 days, but the body remained there for about 10 days. If they had not respawned faster she could have run out of guards in Windhelm, although she only lost 1. Every time she went to Windhelm she got an attack till she went after the bow. Her dead guard was replaced on her next visit, which I am pretty sure was the next day. I was curious at the time about how long it took the guards to respawn.

play it save and keep the amulet on. Thats what I'm doing. Didn't have random attacks other then the Traveler. Haven't seen him since completing the MQ for Dawnguard. Since the amulet doesn't take any slots I'm not concerned. It remains equipted if I transform to werewolf form which is cool heh. Every character I have has picked up the amulet.

For me its one dragon every 72 hours and its that way across about ten characters its hair pulling to be sure. Its very frustrating I have a few characters that avoid the main quest because the dragon are so common.

The vampires on the other hand appear every once in a while but there spells are devastating to any NPC they come into contact with. So I am not sure if the dragons and vampires are assigned to the same respawn timer as the dragons are very frequent and the vamps are moderately common.

I have not got around to finishing off the Dawnguard main quest yet been busy so I cannot comment on the frequency or if the vampires attack after the conclusion of the quest. If they do I will report it as its not supposed to happen after the quest is done.

All respawns are supposed to be back roughly after 14 days but 30 days in cleared areas if you do not have the respawn bug mentioned heavily by me above. Also if you go into a cell such as a city it takes longer for the bodies to clean up.