Dawnguard Vampire Attacks = Game Killer?

[dbellue1]

And I thought I was the only one. I do not load dawnguard any more because of this. It was killing quest related NPC's and shop keepers. Yes you can resurrect them, IF you find out they have died. A lot of times I would be unaware until I needed them.

[telobsidion]

I left the Companion's hall in Whiterun. I started walking down towards the circle, thinking of heading up to Dragonsreach, but I decided to head down to the Bannered Mare. As I approach the Mare, the guards suddenly become alert. I follow. I get to the gate to Whiterun and Benethor and the Adrianne are dead. I restart from my last save, sprint and windrush sprint all the way down to the gate, downing stamina potions when I need to. They're both still dead.

 

It's not that vampires are hard, but the attack is happening out of sight across town and I literally cannot get there before it kills two NPCs. I restart from the save before that and dick around less and head straight to the gate. After a dozen or so tries, I'm finally able to get my character there, through shaving off seconds running and random chance, before those two NPCs are dead.

 

If I hadn't went down in that direction. If I'd instead gone up to Dragonsreach instead of the Bannered Mare and fast traveled from there. I never would have known. Two shopkeepers and named NPCs would be dead. It's not that vampire attacks are hard. It's not that we're terrible players. Citizens were getting killed before I could even respond. That's just stupid.

 

Edit: Sorry to resurrect an old thread. I don't really post here. But I was googling this issue and this thread came up. Thought I'd contribute after reading a bunch of posts essentially saying that this can only happen through player negligence.

Edited July 26, 2014 by telobsidion

[notmyhome]

A great opportunity for cheesy roleplay here: Your Dovahkiin learning the lection that even the greatest hero cannot save everyone.

[Ceruulean]

There are mods that reduce the chances of citizen death, namely, "When Vampires Attack"

 

Also, it's not a good idea to use "resurrect" on a dead citizen because they have a script that runs when they die to send their bodies to a dump cell and some game event adds their coffin to the Hall of the Dead. Once Adrianne died, I resurrected her immediately, but she disappeared the next time I visited Whiterun. I used moveto to move to her and she was in a dump cell with other dead NPCs.

[Wazniak]

There is a way to stop vampire attacks in Whiterun - if you wonder up to the big swimming pool near the Jarls house - in the water under the bridge or there abouts is a set of vampire bones. If you pull the bones completely out of the water and move them into the sun light - the vampire attacks in Whiterun stop. Not sure if it is part of the quest at the eastern tower - the merry man who is transporting his dead mother or not. But I know this works. I have had the bones reappear after I let cicero (the merry man) go on his way. Hope this helps.

[TheVampireDante]

When Vampires Attack:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28235/?

 

 

A small mod that makes citizens in a village or city run indoors during a random vampire attack. This includes eclipse attacks as well.

 

Should help a bit with the attacks.

[LeddBate]

Yes! A big "Thank You" to Arthmoor for a common sense mod for the NPCs.

 

I bought Dawnguard and Dragonborn during the latest Steam sale. I thought I would have to manually start them and was unaware that Steam automatically activated the ESMs and put them in my load order. Suddenly Vampires start attacking inside the cities when I enter. Not every time, not even most of the time. But I was starting to lose NPCs before I could react. You can argue "game breaking" or not all day long. What you can't argue is that dead NPC merchants and quest pieces equals intense annoyance. Annoying because the freaking NPCs all try to attack a vampire! What. The. H311?!?

 

I was ready to uncheck the Dawnguard esm until I found this thread and the link to Arthmoor's excellent mod. (I'll be using the dragon one as well.)

 

I still have to roll back to the last pre-Dawnguard save due to NPC losses. *sigh*. Yeah, that was my fault that I kept playing while not understanding why I suddenly had vampires climbing up my posterior every fourth or fifth time I entered a town.

[BeastZ]

I can say out of the 3 times I've had vampire attacks in the 10 hours of gameplay I've played, having restarted my game since Dawnguard came, ALL of them were EASILY stopped by the guards, and myself, with no non-gaurd deaths.

 

Vampire attacks on towns are less frequent then Dragon attacks on towns, and are some incredibly easy fights that ANY half-decently equipped character can stop with a flick on his hand.

 

This "VAMPIRES ARE KILLING EVERYONE, THE GAME IS UNPLAYABLE" thing some like to throw around is 100% pure myth caused by the exaggerative nature of some people.

 

My reaction to vampire attacks has been "that's is?" because they are frankly nothing.

You must be kidding or playing on difficulty "Easy as f*#@". Im playing my new Mage on Legendary and this Vampires nearly wiped out 12 NPC's ! Within one assault.

At my current level (10) and like 2 Guards it takes about 30secs to take out the Master Vampire, excluded his minions and Death Hounds, which just make it more ridiculous and unplayable in my opinion.

Spent 15 Bucks on that Addon and have it disabled all the time lol.

[LeddBate]

Arthmoor's mod has helped immensely. However, one time a vampire and his minions warped in and chowed down Benethor before he could get away. What to do?

 

I ran across this mod: Dawnguard, no Vampire Attacks

 

The mod allows you to grab two new amulets while you're in Whitrerun's Hall of the Dead catacombs. One works for vampires, the other with dragons. Basically, they keep tricking the game into "resetting" the chance of a vampire (or dragon) attack to "0" every time you enter or fast travel to a city as long as you are wearing the amulets as you do so. You can wear both amulets at once and they will not displace your "regular" amulet.

 

I've played for 12 hours with the amulets on and have entered/left numerous cities and towns about two dozen times. No vampire attacks so far.

 

The mod description does mention that you can take the amulets off whenever you want there to be a chance of an attack happening.

 

So, thank you to the mod makers for (once again) correcting not-so-well-thought-out gameplay on Bethesda's part.

[Matistes]

Playing this with Invested Magic and Better Magic mods.

These mods are generally awesome, but in conjunction with dawnguard a nightmare.

At level 50, 2 master vampires lay waste to any town, are practically invincible, each conjure 1 thrall and 1 gollem while every lowlife guard attacks and gets mad when I try to help them. I use Wall of Frost, this measely guard kills me with one bow shot.

 

One giant, chaotic mess with deads all over the place, except those vampires of course. My level 50 might as well be level -20.

 

This is the downside to fixing games with mods. You fix 10 things, break 7 things, fix these 7 things while totally busting 13 other things.

Sometimes I just wish Bethesda would just make it right without me having to be a programmer and tester at the same time.