Its pretty annoying, on my level 57 Nord the vampire raids are easy to combat but on my lower leveled characters they aren't which results in NPCs and shopkeepers being killed which is just annoying, on one of my characters a vampire raid happened in Solitude in the middle of the night when NPCs from the Bard's College were exiting the Winking Skeever killing about 3 to 5 NPCs, some of which as I remember were quest essential NPCs from the Bard's College.

So will Bethesda do anything about this?

I hope so... the winds say the future is bleak...

The only hope that this might change is if they want to include DG in a GOTY edition. As long as it is just an add-on, and not part of the standard game, I doubt they will do anything.

I hope so but I doubt they will, it's obviously a design decision that they're sticking to.

Like why does the red female DG armour have sleeves when the male one doesn't? Why? Why can't fem dovahkiin have the cool sleeveless armour?

There is nothing to fix, they will not do anything about it. They already gave the player plenty of options to get through a DLC challenge you chose to play, if your current character is not up to the challenge, it is up to you to adjust how you play to get the results you want. For keeping NPC's alive you would either replay your failures, till you got it right. or by avoiding the attacks completely and not going to any towns while doing the main Dawnguard questline. Or you can just uninstall the DLC if you do not want to play it. The developer having already given a way to avoid the town attacks, is not going to pay extra money to patch the DLC just to make it even easier.

So the answer is -
* Keep reloading and reloading
* Stay away from towns - keep away from large chunks of the gameworld while you rush through an add-on questline you may not wish to be doing right now and hope you're not going to get that bug where they carry on anyway.
* Uninstall the game you spent $20 on.

What an amazing feature. I can see how it really enhances the game. It's great they gave the player so many options.

I don't get why there's this persistent idea it makes the game harder. People report widely varying levels of attacks - adding a randomised NPC slaying mechanic does not make the game 'harder' - it makes it potentially irritating, contingent on how many attacks you personally get lumbered with. Some people seem to get hardly any, other people all the time.
Nobody argues random dragon attacks make the game 'harder', they just complain they get repetitive if there's too many. They could make another DLC where 20 draugr spawn inside Whiterun every time you enter it - that wouldn't make it 'harder', it would make it a pain in the butt to play.

It's very annoying...

You could try and be better at defending the town/city from the attack I have experienced varying degrees of the vampire attacks and to date have only lost a hand full of lives in the process across 4 characters thus far. The mysterious traveler never gets the drop on me now, if anything I manage to get the drop on him, the attacks by the normal vampires are rather predictable and you can be ready as long as you expect the attack. They normally happen by the main gate so when entering a town/city you just need to hang out by the main gate for a little while, once they enter your ready for them and you can keep them pinned to the gate. I play on master in clothing mostly, at most I have a 180 armor rating IF I wear my armor. My weapons are not doing anymore then 200 damage with enchantments and yet I still manage to quell the attacks before they get out of hand, they are not that bad.....
But if you are having a hard time with it then just avoid going into town as best as you can, if you must enter a town/city then be ready to defend it. Having a companion with you is a big help in the defense and if you can put up with the dogs in Skyrim having one of them with you as well will add to your defense. The vampires never attack in a group bigger then 3 so it makes sense to have 2 companions with you as well ( a human and a dog ) to counter the vampires. Just be ready / always on guard and you will not be taken by surprise by the attacks, I will usually tell my companions to wait by the main gate while I go about my business, this way if the vampires do attack my companions will delay them from pushing further into town allowing me time to engage and quell them.

the solution is simple. Make all NPCs Essential. Already halfway there, so why not?

It doesn't affect me because I haven't bought Dawnguard and don't intend to. One of the reasons being I don't want to spend money on a game and then apply a mod straight away to remedy a particularly dumb 'feature'.

I wouldn't want to spend the game babysitting NPCs in the cities. It's dumb. The occasional dragon attack is fine - that is, after all, what the game is about. Having the core story of the gameworld usurped by suicidal vampires is just really bad game design. Personally I couldn't be bothered to "hang around out by the main gate" - I'm not playing a waiting around simulator. And I don't use companions (who I find just get in the way and they don't have enough personality to make them worthwhile).
If you enjoy constantly firefighting random attacks of pointlessness just to stop NPCs dying, then I'm happy for you. I'm running populated cities that would probably present enough NPCs to give the vampires a run for their money (particularly the 'veterans') and I avoid boring old 'in my time of need' so two Alik'r are stood standing guard at the gates of Whiterun for all eternity (to remind me I must never decline a quest Bethesda wants me to do in their 'choose your own story' game). I'm sure I could cope - the point is, I don't want to have to keep watching out to see if a blacksmith or trader has been killed by vampires with a undeath wish. That's just tedious. Even if I saved every last one, it's the tedium in having to constantly babysit them. I play for fun, not tedium.

There you have it!! Appanently it's all your own fault, you should all be aware that to play Skyrim you must include saving and reloading often - Yeah right wish you woulld stop trying to defend such a dumb idea, it might have worked if all NPC's where marked as protected (then only the player can kill them) instead of nothing for some and essential for others.

Yes that's right unistall Dawngaurd, it's nothing really you only payed money for it.

They removed LV 4 agression from player vampires which made it even easier, when there was nothing to fix. Lydia was not a marrage candidate did that need fixing? Because you can marry her now. Perhaps you would like to justify why they should do that and not touch the vampire raids.

Ok how about they fix the AI's of town folks so they don't run in fists first to attack a high level vampire, then have guard surround them so you cant hit anyone without hitting a guard?

Fix the AI and things would be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better

Man... I remember a lot of talk when the game was released related to the idea that there were too many essential NPCs and it created a lack of consequence in the world.

Now people want more essential NPCs?

True, for all the hype about the radiant AI system and it's complexities we find NPC's doing incredibly stupid things. It would be so much better if townsfolk ran for their lives and guards took the falls, you could even easily have random spawns (dare I say Adventures) in towns who would joind in the fight. In fact if they were to do this Skyrim would have more depth to it and be the better for it, I would even take my no vamp. attack amulet off, find mod that includes popcorn and sit back and watch with glee.


No, it's the mix of the Vampire attacks and the NPC's AI that's the problem. I hate the essential flag on NPC's (always seems to be attached to the most hated NPC's), I prefer the protected flag much better, then if you kill a quest NPC it's your fault they die. If all NPC's had this flag attached instead and they ran for cover they might take one or two blows before they made it to their homes but it wouldn't break immersion.

Some NPC's have a combat AI setting I think it's "Foolhardy" or something like that, which means they will attack a master vampire with a rusty dagger that level of stupidity should have a new AI level like "suicidal".

Oh I love my mod that I installed, it turn all shop keeper and quest related to be essential

There have been countless threads about this on this forum (near enough one or two everyday featured on the first page of the Dawnguard forum since DG's launch) and a lot more on other forums also and yet not one word from devs about it so far. I think there is your answer..

But your not babysitting, the only time you actually have to babysit the population of a town/city is for the duration of your time within said town/city. You don't need to plant yourself at the main gate for very long either, the attack will either spawn in with you or will trigger the second you walk about 20 feet from the main gate area so the amount of time spent watching the main gate is not worth [censored]ing about when you think about it. It all boils down to reaction time and if your quick about it you can quell an attack with minimal loss of life, at most you may loose a guard or two ( which respawn ). As I said..... master difficulty, armor rating of under 200 and a bow that's doing 200 base damage, 225 if I use dragon bone arrows which I save for those extra hairy moments, other wise I use steel arrows which only brings my bows damage up to 210 or 212 ( don't remember what the steel arrows are doing damage wise ). To date I lost a grand total of 2 NPC's with that character due to vampire attacks on Whiterun and both of which where not important NPC's so I would venture saying that the attacks are not that bad as long as your prepared, I can see mage characters having a hard time with it but any physical attack based character should handle the vampires with little problem.

I don't disbelieve that it can be hairy at moments but it's not the games fault that it caught you off guard, it's up to you to be prepared and if you visit a town/city it's on you to make the effort to stop an attack all because it can be avoided simply by NOT going into town during the night,dawn,dusk the attacks do happen during the day but they are not as numerous as those during the waning daylight. Could Beth. have done it a little differently? Yes. Could Beth. have made it so that NPC`s where either able to defend themselves better or smart enough to run when things get hairy? Yes. Did Beth. do anything or will Beth. do anything? No. So your just going to have to deal with the " tedium " and prevent the loss of life or handle it half-assed and loose some NPC's plain and simple until Beth. does something to accommodate the players that can't handle the attacks.

Or you could just uninstall Dawnguard if you purchased it already or just avoid it until it's fixed ( which I have my doubts it will be fixed )

It would totally wreck the atmosphere of a deadly vampire menace in Skyrim. It's not just 'a feature', but the whole theme of the plot.

How else would they be able to portray a deadly vampire menace, if the vampires aren't deadly? Huh?

You need to stop being hysterical about NPCs dying as well. If an NPC dies then it is because they are not essential. If they have a quest that you lose when they die, then that quest is also not essential.

All killable quest givers' rewards are 1 point skill increases and levelled loot. Their quests take you to random locations that aren't locked by their deaths. Nothing important can be lost to the vampire menace.

You need to get a grip or uninstall the game

Given the amount of complaints I'd say it is really more a problem since, there seems to be quite a few people against losing all their NPC's and non essential quests.

Non essential or not, a quest is a quest. And some people literally want to do 100% of the quests.


Vampire attacks seem to be worse than dragon attacks as they're harder to notice, more numbers, and smaller making it hard to hit when the NPC's with dumb AI start to swarm them. There can be a decent amount of issues.

Are you against fixing the player AI's so they run away? Does someone running from a vampire break immersion?

If the vampires were such a deadly menace I'd run lol.

I guess you missed the part where I said "I haven't bought Dawnguard and don't intend to".

You say it's not babysitting NPCs...then give a detailed description of how you babysit NPCs. Because of course it's for the 'duration of your time within said town/city' - because that's where the vendor and quest giving NPCs are concentrated. That's the whole issue. Nobody is complaining about vampires outside of towns and cities. They're complaining about them in them. Because they have to babysit them. Or they die.

Dragons are supposed to be a deadlier menace. They should therefore be killing more NPCs than the vampires do...right?

The real question is, why did a deadly vampire menace have to suddenly appear from nowhere? On top of the deadly dragon menace and the civil war.
Personally I suspect it's the deadly Bethesda running out of ideas menace.

Also it is of course not just quests (which people may wish to do because they like doing quests - doing quests being the whole theme of the game, more so than deadly vampire menaces will ever be). Vendors may die so people can't trade and people don't like empty cities - they're too empty to begin with.

Um I thought the whole plot of Dawnguard was to stop the vampires from blotting out the sun permanently. How does vampires attacking towns achieve their plan to do this? "Hey we are about to do something really nasty and blot out the sun lets go and attack towns folk so we don't draw any attention to what we're planning." This and all the other faults in the storyline you have holes big enough to drive a bus through and your worried about the vampires not attacking the towns wrecking it. Also we have vampire attacks out in the country side or have you forgotten?

I think people are not only upset about the quest givers dying but the shop keepers, Skyrim is hard enough off loading loot. It gets really boring travelling to each vendor so you can sell one of your 30 items and eat out their entire available gold per item.

They launch pointless suicide attacks because they're a deadly vampire menace and that's the kind of thing deadly vampire menaces do.

When I enter a town/city I stand and wait at the main gate for around 5-10 minutes ( in game ) which translates into seconds real time, I then post a companion or two at the main gate to " hold the fort " as I carry on my business so as to defend it in my absence. As I make my way to the venders that I need to visit I plan my root around the town/city so as to pass by the main gate every time, in doing this I ensure that my followers and the posted guards are not left unattended for any length of time. ( that's for regular attacks )

I also keep an eye out for the Mysterious traveler as I make my rounds to the venders, I'll even make an extra lap around the town/city just to make sure I didn't miss a shadowy corner or anything. IF I do spot the Mysterious traveler I DO NOT out right engage, instead I'll sneak up on him so as to dispatch him silently. In doing this it keeps him from summoning his Gargoyle or attack the towns folk. IF I'm forced to engage the Mysterious traveler in open combat then I'll focus my attack entirely on him ignoring any summons he casts, in doing this you have a better chance of stopping both him and his summons at the same time and not allow him time to conjure another Gargoyle.

It all boils down to preparation, reaction time and some tactical thinking. Once you master the combination of all three you will have no problem dealing with the attacks UNLESS the spawn count goes through the roof and your out numbered 4-1.

It's called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Siege_warfare tactics. The best way to bring an opponent to their knees is through the population, you can either cut off all support starving them out or you pummel the population making it next to impossible to defend it. Look to the Japanese kamikaze pilots, yes it was a suicide run but it caused massive amounts of damage in the process, it's the same principle with the vampire attacks.