Isran is more obnoxious than Nazeem

[diosoth]

It's been made pretty clear by many people that Dawnguard feels woefully unfinished and rushed. I'm not going to cover all the reasons why but the actual Dawnguard faction is probably the worst of any you can join. You will ultimately do 99% of the actual work, the members you have to waste time recruiting do nothing to warrant the extra work, the rest of the faction only puts in any remote effort in the final battle- and they barely matter. And if ANY faction warranted you becoming the leader, it would be this, because Isran is dead weight. You will be named arch-mage for doing little work and learning... I think 2 spells at most for the College quest regardless of not being qualified for the role, you're suddenly the Harbinger when others in the Companions likely have the seniority to gain the title... and even if you side with the Volkihar vampires you become the new head of the castle when Harkon dies. Even when it's all over with, the entire Dawnguard stays at the fort and dumps all the smaller jobs on you whenever you show up.

 

Avarti probably covered that and a lot more in his video on the Dawnguard being idiotic.

 

That brings me to Isran. He's a narrow-minded, unstable knight templar focused on one goal and little ability to understand anything that differs from his narrow goals. He's got severe blinders on because of his past watching vampires kill his family- and while MOST vampires in the lore are bloodthirsty, evil and have one-track minds, he's not really capable of understanding that some vampires aren't like that even after witnessing evidence to the contrary. He only eventually acknowledges Serana as "different" after she assists in killing Harkon and it's clear that he only doesn't kill her when she arrives at the fort because she's got the Elder Scroll and necessary information- but calls her "it". Even most of the other Danwguard members openly dislike him. I can only imagine how enraged he'd be if he ever learned of Count Hasildor(honestly, this DLC would have been an excellent excuse to bring him back)

 

I should point out that, lore-wise, while vampires are a certified threat, it's rare they're a major threat. Harkon's plan is an uncommon instance of vampires actually trying anything on a grand scale and even on the vampire side most of them think his plan is too insane and dangerous to work right. For the most part they're no worse than bandits, Necromancers, wolves, Falmer, goblins, trolls, ogres, giants, those car-sized spiders... Isran also seems to be unconcerned with the Civil War, the Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood or the dragons, not to mention the Thalmor, who have probably done more in 100 years to harm Tamriel than vampires have in a few thousand.

 

And if, at any point, you become a vampire, he'll turn his back on you, as will the entire guild, until you get cured. No matter if you've already done the full quest, multiple radiant side quests, etc. Even if he's already somewhat accepted Serana and lets her walk around the place as a vampire, he gives you no such regard. Even if all you stick to for feeding are the bandits and necromancers that you probably already kill anyway if you're a heroic character. It's not like any of the other guilds seem to mind when you have glowing eyes, so long as you're not breaking any laws.

 

He's a poor leader that's too arrogant to see the world around him, does little actual work from the point you join and refuses to waver in his narrow views no matter what you or anyone else does to warrant better treatment. Dawnguard is in long overdue need of an overhaul mod, honestly.

[Deleted55991832User]

I am in total agreement here.. it would be nice if you could oust the cretin and take Castle Dawnguard as your own.. maybe even murder those pesky Squatters that do nothing but shoot crossbow bolts at target dummies and otherwise just get in your way ?

[MrsTaewa]

Personally I like Isran, though I certainly understand your perspective, he is everything you say he is. I have never been a Vamp fan, when it comes to beasties I'm Werewolf all the way, as such I haven't had to deal with Isran's disparity in regards to his behaviour towards DovaVamps, thus he doesn't gall me as he would do Vamp fans. But yes the whole of the Dawnguard DLC is a railroading very poorly put together addition, an extremely poor offering for a supposed RPG. Serana is the burr in my side in the Dawnguard DLC, the Whining Waifu you have to apparently befriend and immediately trust with no good reason, then babysit through most of the DLC, no matter your Role Play or side you choose. Though I do think it's a little unfair to single Isran out in regards to his lack of interest in any other going's on in Skyrim/Tamriel, as that is pretty much every NPC in Skyrim, unless they are directly involved in a particular Quest Line there is very little if any reference to anything else happening in Skyrim/Tamriel.

 

You have nailed why I do not join any of the Gulids, or the College (I get my Lycanthropy from Mods). Modder's have been able to fix a few Guild issues, like 'Pentitus Oculatus', 'Destroy the Thieves Guild' and 'Enter the College of Winterhold without Joining', all of which I use for a better Game play, I think there's also one that doesn't force you to become a Werewolf with the Companions... but yes, vanilla game wise, they all have the same problems and Modder's can only do so much and there are just way too many problems with Dawnguard I think for the talented Modders to be be able to fix much at all.

[Madrias]

Sorry about the little bit of necromancy - I found this topic (and a scroll of Raise Zombie) and thought it was a bit interesting.

 

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I'm in agreement on quite a few points:

1. Dawnguard (DLC) feels rushed/incomplete
2. Dawnguard (Faction) feels underwhelming
3. Isran is one of the most annoying characters.
4. Serana is an annoyance
5. Dawnguard's guild quests all suck. In fact, I'll go semi-controversial and say that Dawnguard kinda sucks.

Let's start at the top with #1.

 

As a whole, the Dawnguard DLC feels rushed and incomplete. The quests predominantly send you to locations that already existed, with the exception of Fort Dawnguard, Castle Volkihar, and the Forgotten Vale. Through all of it, 90% of the quests are a form of vaguely-radiant fetch quest. The "exciting thing," a new variant of vampirism, is so hyped up that it's sickening, and it's very clear that the werewolves and the Dawnguard were just an afterthought when some intern said, "But... What if someone doesn't want to be a vampire?"

 

It's not even as if being a Vampire Lord is all that good, either - It's like a werewolf but with a button to push to do magic instead of melee. Everyone still hates you, you turn into this ugly half-bat-gargoyle creature that looks like an extra from a bad monster movie, and you still have to deal with the usual vampire suck-fest that is "I can't see crap because it's night, but I can't adventure by day because of the sun." (I know, mods fix this - I'm not counting mods because mods fix everything.)

 

This leads right into #2.

 

The Dawnguard Faction is so underwhelming in all aspects. Here we have an opportunity to have a diverse cast from all walks of life, a thriving collection of vampire hunters. They've been openly recruiting for long enough that the vampires found out about it... So why are the farm boy Agmaer and the Dragonborn the only two recruits? Seriously, they missed an opportunity, even if they were just side NPCs like Torvar from the Companions or the three novice students in the College of Winterhold, or all of the bloody Bard's College, to have characters with a bit of story to them.

 

Let's face it, if your initial meeting was just outside the door to the fort and you met Agmaer the farm boy, a Vigilant of Stendarr seeking revenge for the destruction of the Hall of the Vigilant, a former Stormcloak and former Empire soldier who constantly bicker and fight until the last battle, some guy in torn and ragged clothing who says he's "just here to kill vampires," and a mercenary who figures "there's got to be coin in killing monsters," you'd feel like this was a start to a guild of vampire slayers.

You could then have planned, dramatic moments for these characters during your various tasks to get the Dawnguard going. Small side-quests from each of them.

 

• The former Vigilant wants his Amulet of Stendarr from the Hall. After doing that favor, he'll pay you some gold for every Death Hound Collar you bring him. He'll also pay you for vampire robes.
• Agmaer's quest might be to help train him, where your skill with certain weapons (One-hand, two-hand, archery) guides him on a path for damage, and your choice of armor is reflected in what he chooses to wear. So my Agmaer might prefer two handed weapons and heavy armor, but your Agmaer might be using crossbows and light armor.
• The mercenary will follow you for 500 gold and acts as an additional companion, even while Serana is around.
• The ragged man wants unusual alchemy ingredients, silver ingots, and a lot of iron ingots. If you're a werewolf, he's up front and honest - he's one as well, and the ingredients let him control it, the iron ingots are to build a cage to keep his new friends safe from him, and silver ingots are so he can make silver chains to restrain him as an added precaution. If you're not a werewolf, he'll spill his secrets only once you've proven trustworthy - you returned from gathering Sorine and Gunmar and passed the sunlight trial.
• The Stormcloak and the Imperial eventually find something they can agree upon - They both hate the Thalmor. They'll pay good money for any Thalmor robes you find, money which they get by telling Isran that most of the Thalmor are vampires.

As you progress through the quests and Fort Dawnguard gets built up, you see the changes caused by helping these new characters as well as Sorine, Gunmar, and Florentius. You see a trophy room with death hound collars and vampire robes presented in cases. A cage appears toward the back of the fort with shining chains inside it - If the player admits to being a werewolf, too, a second cage will be built "for my pack brother/sister, just in case he/she can't restrain the beast." Agmaer starts by training with the weapon type you use the most, then later is seen running laps around the fort in armor, and later is seen with his chosen type of weapon and armor, ready for battle. Potions appear near one bed in the barracks, courtesy of the werewolf, some of which do nothing (and with mods, could prevent a lunar transformation), and some which force an extra transformation at will, and others which make your werewolf form way more powerful, at the cost of needing to feed twice as much to maintain it. Thalmor robes start filling a chest hidden in the back, and eventually end up overflowing it.

 

As you have clashes with the vampires, some of these new recruits are scripted to die. The mercenary gets fed on and cast aside early on, when we retrieve the Moth Priest. The soldiers die defending the fort from vampires after we get all the Elder Scrolls. Before we go to get Auriel's Bow, the werewolf gives us the special potion recipes now that he's perfected them - One lets you take on werewolf form at will, another gives your werewolf form an "aura of peace" so that people don't attack you, and the last one makes your werewolf form highly resistant to magic. If you're not yet a werewolf from the Companions, he'll offer to turn you. Unlike the Companions rampage, you're instead instructed to meet him at the cages, where he drinks one of his potions, wolf-changes, and bites you. You black out, time passes, and you wake up in the cage with him saying, "I was wondering if you were ever going to change back." When you return with Auriel's bow, we witness his death as he tears vampires apart, his form unusually large (1.2, maybe 1.3x scale) courtesy of an experimental potion. He wins the fight, but drops dead from exhaustion.

 

This leaves us with Agmaer, who now has proper gear, the former Vigilant, and the two soldiers for additional crew leading into the final fight.

 

But, let's sidestep from this "what it could have been if Bethesda had actual writers" and instead look at problem #3 on the list.

 

Isran is an obnoxious character. I get it, he's the vampire slayer with a reason because vampires killed people close to him, blah blah blah.

 

It's craptastic writing. This more than anything else, tells me we were never intended to join the Dawnguard faction. Isran hates vampires. When Serana double-crosses her father and shows up, risking her life, I can totally understand Isran at that moment having no trust in her. When we keep coming back together and making progress, however? The least I could expect from him is a comment of, "I guess we've finally found one good vampire."

 

When we come back from the Soul Cairn, I'd rather see his outlook change a bit. I'm not saying he has to roll over and accept that you're a vampire now, but it'd be nice if he'd acknowledge this was probably a very hard decision you had to make. Perhaps a more sympathetic, "Hey, I don't know what happened out there, or why you're a vampire now, but, we do a lot of our work in the day because that's when vampires are at their weakest. Here, hand me your map. Go see my friend, Falion, out in Morthal. Take this, it's a filled black soul gem - you're going to need it. He has a cure for... This." The idea being he knows it's still you in there, even if you're a vampire at the moment.

 

At the same time, let us walk around and talk to the other Dawnguard members (and the extended cast) and have them comment on it. The Vigilant might be disgusted that you "joined the very creatures we were destroyed by," and tells you, "go get a cure, you bloodsucking fool." The two soldiers might ask you a few questions regarding what it's like, with the options to answer with a few different responses, with some being disgusted with it ("I hate drinking blood, it's disgusting!"), some being in awe of it ("I can't believe how powerful I feel all the time!"), some being neutral about it ("I can't really say I like this, but I don't exactly hate it, either."), and some being regretful about it (either "I'd rather be mortal. I only did this because I had to," or "It wasn't worth giving up my gift from Hircine."). Talking to Agmaer might get you a pep talk with, "Well, a friend of Isran has to be good, right? He's a wizard. He'll fix this and get you back on this side of the living." Talking to the werewolf gets you a couple of options. If you were a werewolf before, he offers straight up, "I can give back what you lost. It'll hurt, but I can save you a trip to Morthal." If you weren't a werewolf before, he instead offers, "If you'd like, I can help you out. Trading, well, a curse for a curse. But, it's going to hurt a lot, and you'll be a werewolf afterward." Either way lets you choose to get a free change to werewolf right there, saving your one-time-return with Aela for any other occasions of "oops."

 

Either way, you will have to shed your vampirism to proceed, but with Isran instead being somewhat sympathetic - he knows you probably didn't want this, but it was the best of two rotten options - it's less of a sting to go visit Falion / get bit by the Dawnguard werewolf / Go see Aela and reacquire the Gift of Hircine.

 

Once you kill Harkon, I believe Isran should step back and say, "You killed a Vampire Lord. I've never done that. The Dawnguard should be led by someone who knows how to kill all types of vampires, so I leave you as its leader. Of course, while you're out hunting, I'll hold down the fort as your second-in-command." This would give us, as with all the other factions, access to a nice room to call our own, possibly a specialized weapon or shield or armor, and yet, unlike the other factions, it's not something where we can't justify being "leader" and still adventuring. That said, the College of Winterhold, we could assume Tolfdir handles things in our absence, when he's not losing his alembic. Companions claim the Harbinger isn't truly a leader, but it'd be nice if you could tell Aela, Farkas, and Vilkas, "I know the Harbinger is traditional, but, I'm not ready to settle down just yet. Can the Circle lead in my absence?" Thieves Guild, you become the leader, but Brynjolf is your Second-in-Command. Dark Brotherhood is a bad joke, however, as The Listener, Nazir, and Babette don't make for a much of a guild of assassins. The idea here is that Isran openly admits that you're the leader, but he's second-in-command and the leader when you're not there.

 

The thing that really annoys me, though, is something that mods fixed. You'd think Isran would order a clean-up of Volkihar Castle, and then turn it into the Northern Dawnguard Outpost.

 

So, a quick side-step to issue #4: Serana is an annoyance.

 

Let's face it, she is.

 

Sure, she's one of the best AI companions made by Bethesda, but...

 

I'll just say it this way. I like the character. I hate dealing with the character.

 

Our first meeting, we know she's a vampire. I get it, kill one vampire, or learn where the nest is to wipe them all out, but my issue here is, we get lumped with a vampire just after becoming vampire hunters.

 

Want to know how I would have changed things up?

 

Have Serana be out of that confinement capsule by the time we get down there. The vampires got there before us, after all. Have them get her free from the capsule, feed an innocent to her so she doesn't look like a vampire, bring her up to speed on the basic political nature of Skyrim right now. Then have us making noise get the attention of the other vampires, who go up to investigate, die to us, and let us find Serana.

 

Serana's smart. "Help! Help! These awful beasts dragged me down here! Can you help me get back to my home?"

 

She can tell at a glance, you're a heroic-type character. Best way to get you to help, play the damsel in distress. Let the player have a couple of options that alter how Serana initially sees you.

• If you go the mercenary route and ask for septims, she tells you "My family is rich. If a reward is what you're after, get me home and I promise you will be rewarded."
• If the player is a vampire, let you see through the veil and say, "I know what you are. Don't worry, I'm one, too."
• If the player is a werewolf, let you see through the veil and say, "You're a vampire. Why should I help you?" Serana would reply, in her usual sarcastic way, "Because you're not the big bad wolf. You wouldn't be here if you were."
• If you offer to help right away, she thanks you.
• If you tell her, "Not now, but I'll come back for you when it's safe," Serana tells you she's following you anyway because, "You heroes are so forgetful at times."
• If you try to tell her, "I'm not interested in helping you," she follows up with, "Well, I'll just follow where you're going. You'll find the way out eventually anyway."
• If you ask about the Elder Scroll, she offers up most of her usual dialog regarding it.

Once outside, if she complains about the sun, it's because "It's so bright. I don't know how long I've been down there, but it was too long."

 

Volkihar Castle could do with a bit of cleaning up before we meet Harkon. I know Serana's visit is somewhat unexpected, but I'd expect a "noble house of vampires" to have class. No cattle on the tables, no blood or meat all over the place. Instead, have bottles of wine and blood at the tables, have some vampires there drinking from mugs or glasses, a place that seems inviting. It makes Harkon's reveal that they're vampires that much more shocking, potentially more inviting.

 

I'd change that butt-ugly Vampire Lord form to basically just being an enhanced natural form with the bat wings. Activate your Vamp-lord powers and float up a bit to access the blood magic, or drop to the ground and fight with claws or weapons. You still look like you, and not some monster movie stage prop.

 

That way, when Harkon changes to Vamp-lord to convince us, it's more of a show of power that is far less likely to gross out characters. Likewise, while I know "Vampires and Werewolves hate each other" is a tired trope, as far as I know, Molag Bal and Hircine aren't enemies. I'd love if the Vampire questline could be seriously started without giving up my lycanthropy, do the first few fetch quests for the vampires, but like the Civil War, give us one last chance to change sides when we're retrieving the Moth Priest. If we bring him to Harkon, he puts Dexion under his spell, then tells us, "You can go no further with us as a wolf. Come, it's time you were rewarded properly for your service." If you accept, you wake as a vampire lord and do the tutorial you should've done before the questlines, then go listen to Dexion's scroll reading. If you refuse, Harkon makes a quip about, "The devout followers of Hircine are always the stubborn ones," then tells you, "I had hoped you would have accepted this as a gift, as payment for your service. Instead, it'll be as a warning to not defy me again." You're bitten, wake as a vamp-lord, and do the tutorial...

 

Likewise, as a vampire-sided questline, it should be possible to bring Dexion to the Dawnguard instead, and tell Isran, "I know what I am. I know you would normally hunt down and kill me. What I want is a cure for this. I offer a trade - The vampires were very interested in this moth priest, and I will leave him in your care. I would like a cure for vampirism." Isran offers to send you to Falion, mentioning, "Don't come back until you've been cured."

 

But, back on track, when we arrive at the castle, it shouldn't be immediately obvious that they're vampires. Harkon's reveal should be the dawning moment for us. We're presented our usual options - Leave and be prey, join and become a vampire - but for mortals, they get, "I'm not sure about the whole vampire thing yet. Can I stay in the castle, talk to people, and help out a bit before I decide?" which lets you do a few quests, like the above-mentioned werewolf path, before your turning, and for werewolves, it's "I'm a werewolf. I'd prefer to keep my gift, but I'm willing to help out around here."

 

Given that the Dawnguard path feels like the stapled-on story, I'll follow the DG path. So we choose exile.

 

We return to Isran, and get Sorine and Gunmar. By this time, Serana has come to the fort and risked her life to help us. Unlike before, I have little issue with how Serana acts here in the den of vampire-slayers while she's treated with open hostility.

 

What I do have issue with is how often we have to drag Serana along to other locations. Especially considering in some cases, we might have a vanilla follower acting as our pack-mule, and now we have to sideline them for Serana.

 

The big reason I have issues with Serana as a companion? She's a necromancer.

 

See, I get it, she's raising the dead to do her bidding because vampire, so it's very classic on that. My dislike of it is that either she's raising the chicken, goat, or fox that I just killed for being in my way, raising the bandit I was two seconds away from looting, or raising a creature on the other side of the doorway I need to go through.

 

This, combined with her absurdly-high use of AoE spells, means she's constantly raising garbage, and then picking fights with my mod-added followers. Which leads to me wanting to just get her part of the quests done so I can leave her behind.

 

Likewise, while I understand Serana has a lot more voice-lines than most followers... It'd be nice to hear less whining about the weather. I'm not a vampire, I'm not traveling exclusively at night when you've proven you don't burn in the daylight, so get used to the sun.

 

Same goes for her idle packages. While moving around is infinitely better than standing in place like a post, it would have been nice if she had exclusions in her sandbox routine. That way, I can use the smithing gear at Warmaidens without her banging on metal or shoveling charcoal into the smelter. Or bring her to Kodlak's funeral without her trying to use Eorlund's smithing gear... Or worrying about whether stopping to think about "Do we go this way or that way" in some locations will result in an "accidental" shove off of an edge.

 

The end result is that Serana is, as created, a great character with simultaneously too much and not enough to say, she's way too eager to jump in and use various work-stations while we're doing some crafting, is often times the reason for many characters' deaths, and then as the cherry on top, she's blessed with some of the worst combat AI I've seen. There's a bandit chief with full Nordic Carved Armor and an Orcish Greatsword on the ground, and there's a chicken that can't attack? "I think I'll raise the chicken."

 

Which then brings us to #5.

 

Skyrim is no stranger to sucky quests.

 

But Dawnguard's quests have more suck potential than an entire store full of vacuum cleaners.

 

Between the main quest being a carbon copy of the Vampire side, just we face vampires and gargoyles instead of Dawnguard and armored trolls, the lack-luster fetch quests or "go here and stealth-archer this guy" quests, and the fact that at no point do we make an effort to gather up the vampire artifacts as a "screw you" to the vampires, it's just not that good.

 

Let's start with that last point. I get it, it's "replay value" to make us play both halves to see the different minor quests. Except it isn't, because Skyrim's Radiant AI guarantees an infinite supply of fetch quests, and most of Dawnguard's quests are just fetch quests. Let's be honest, a few "after the main quest" missions for either side to get the items they're missing, along with some possible "purify/corrupt" quests to add depth to it, would be fun. Imagine as the vampires getting the Dawnguard Rune items and then getting quests to corrupt them by using Serana's blood under the effects of a blood-cursed arrow into the sun, changing them from doing extra damage to vampires into doing extra damage to non-vampires and healing the user. Imagine as the Dawnguard getting the amulets, rings, bloodstone chalice, and ancient vampire parts in various quests, and then purifying them in some way. The bloodstone chalice becoming a sunstone chalice instead, offering extra damage to vampires for 4 hours after drinking from it. Coating the ancient vampire bones in silver to prevent them ever being used in a ritual in the future. The amulets and rings are stored in a display case that we can't ever open, but that is mentioned by Florentius, "Anyone who opens it will feel the full wrath of Arkay... And the sun."

 

Then there's the million radiant fetch quests both sides do. "Go find Sorine and Gunmar at "random Dwemer Ruin" and "random Bear Cave" to send them to Fort Dawnguard." "Find crossbow schematics in dwemer ruins" "Kill a vampire." "Find these rings." "Find vampire parts" "Find the amulets."

 

It sucks. Quests that could have been genuinely interesting if someone cared enough to put the items around are instead just boring.

 

Let's face it, I'd have been way more impressed if Gunmar had been assigned a random cave, but instead of killing a generic Cave Bear like I've done 500,000 times already, we go inside and there's a bloody pack of feral werewolves. Like 4 - 8 of them. My mods did that to me once and it was awesome. And to know it was sheer coincidence that Gunmar picked a cave to spawn his stupid bear inside, the mod that put werewolves into the predator list picked that moment to spawn multiple werewolves, and through it all, it spawned enough to be an actual threat at my level.

 

But then again, the whole Dawnguard DLC is a bit of a wet fart. You can tell it's not great by the major location placements - One in the north-west corner of the map, one in the south-east corner of the map. The radiant AI is notorious for sending you all the way across the map to start with, so having both locations extra remote is just a pile of suck. There's the fact that the Forgotten Vale and the Soul Cairn don't have maps. Jiub's quest is good, but like the other infamous "no-markers-fetch-quest" called No Stone Unturned, it sucks to complete. It's painfully clear that the play-testers never tried to complete Dawnguard without fast-traveling.

 

So, that controversial hot-take I mentioned, that Dawnguard kinda sucks? Here's my reasons why.

 

1. The DLC begins very invasively without mods squelching it. I don't mind Isran recruiting. I do mind the random vampire attacks, because I'm sick of my towns looking like a group of average murderhobos marched through and killed all the non-quest-giving NPCs.
2. The map layout was designed to pad out gameplay. I'm damn sure that it's not a coincidence that I always find Sorine Jurard out in the armpit of the Reach, complaining about mudcrabs and dwarven gyros. Someone clearly chose that spot because it's across the map.
3. They used the same main quest with an enemy palette swap. While this was fine in the Civil War because the holds we were fighting over changed, here, it's the same quest. Which means there is zero replay value.
4. Vampires get all the cool new stuff. "Oh, wait, people might not like vampires? Um... I guess we could toss together a werewolf skill tree and never test the balance, and we can turn the NPC faction of the Dawnguard into a playable one." Seriously, I don't think anyone tried the werewolf skill tree out after creating it, because the "armor" doesn't stack up anywhere near enough to be useful in surviving past level 20.
5. For all of this hard work to beat the main quest, we get... One set of new armor, a shiny Aedric bow that's probably worse in stats than the one you're using now, and the ability to fire arrows at the sun to either get a massive bounty on your head, or kill everyone with vampires.
6. Beyond the DLC quests, it added very little. Dragonbone weapons. A companion that shows what Bethesda could do. Tons of vampire stuff, but if you're not a vamp-lover, you get the short end of the stick, and there's still some dookie on it. A couple micro-worldspaces that you'll never go back to.

In the end, Dawnguard was one of those DLCs that was loved because it did everything right... Compared in a vacuum to stock Skyrim.

[InDarkestNight]

You know you just necrothreaded a thread that's around 2 years old?

 

That said, honestly I find this post rather odd. From my understanding Dawnguard is the most beloved of the DLCs. Yeah, I don't see the appeal either, and I rarely bother to do it, but I don't see it as terrible. To me the only major drawback is Serana, who HAS to be the worst follower in the game. You can't stealth while she's around, she perma-kills your dead thralls if they fall in battle, she has to mess with EVERY INTERACTABLE OBJECT IN EVERY LOCATION, and to add insult to injury, you can't get rid of her for most of the questline. Quite a few times I honestly wished I could just kill her so I wouldn't have to deal with her anymore. I've even been FORCED TO ABANDON PLAYTHROUGHS BECAUSE OF HER.

 

I do agree though that Isran is an insufferable asshole. I don't get why they had to do the 'the good guys are worse than the bad guys' trope. I mean, they didn't feel inclined to give you incentive to join the TG or DB, so why the Volkihar? They should've just made the Dawnguard a paladin order, because that's sorta lacking in this game. Of course, Bethesda seems to hate all the cool parts of fantasy. They're even highly reluctant to put freaking dragons in their games, and Skyrim honestly feels like it has no monsters at all at times. You spend most of the game fighting bandits, draugr, and wild animals. Wow, how exciting.

 

As for the questline itself, honestly I have to admit I do enjoy that part. It gives you some nice new areas to see, the dungeons are actually unique and interesting, and Harkon himself is actually an interesting and unique boss fight. Alduin is fundamentally just another generic dragon, and we all know how fun THOSE are to fight. Miraak is arguably worse; he's just a spellsword that takes far longer to beat down than normal. In fact, I've fought him even less than Harkon. I've probably only done the dragonborn questline 2 or 3 times MAYBE. The new enemies on solstheim are also annoying to fight (whose idea was it to have generic enemies with the same stats as giants spawn all over the map? And don't get me started and those damned mounted rieklings which hit FAR TOO HARD FOR THEIR LEVEL, I mean those things can wipe the floor even with an end-game character, wtf?). To me the only thing Solstheim is good for are boar tusks and stalhrim, THAT'S IT. I mean, I seriously like Hearthfire more than Dragonborn (mainly because I've always preferred the hearthfire homes to the ones in the vanilla game).

 

Really, despite its flaws, I have to agree that Dawnguard is the strongest of the DLCs. Granted, that may not be saying much, but it does offer far more interesting content overall than the other two. At least there's SOME things you can say in defense of it. Honestly, I probably would like it if it wasn't for Serana. She's no doubt one of the most annoying npcs in the game, and that's saying something!

[Madrias]

Ah, missed that it was two years out of date. The thread, in my defense, was near the top of the Skyrim Spoilers thread grouping.

 

Even with all I said, I don't hate Dawnguard.

 

I dislike certain aspects of it, but at the same time, it did do good things. Just a lot of it does feel like an afterthought.

 

I think most of Dawnguard's minor problems would be easily ignored if we didn't have to drag Serana around, though. I can certainly agree there.

 

Part of it is the fact that she interacts with everything. You stop to talk to a quest NPC, she's going to find the nearest idle marker and make noise with it. Or she'll walk into your back, or walk between you and the NPC, or complain loudly about the weather or the sun while you're trying to get what little information Skyrim provides out of the NPC you're talking to. This, of course, can be disasterous with mods in place, because if the voice acting is quieter than normal, and more information is passed on by voice, and then Serana pipes up with one of her classic sun complaints, well, there's a good chance you've missed out on some information.

 

Part of it is that she's a forced companion. She's the DLC-long escort quest who breaks your stealth at all times, resurrects your thralls as her zombies so they ash out later, when she's not resurrecting wildlife to annoy you with, and the few times I've made the mistake of dismissing her or making her stay somewhere (when possible) and going ahead on a Dawnguard quest, only to soft-lock and have to drag her along and do things the hard way, it's infuriating.

 

I'm flat out honest when I say that, until Inigo (the mod) released and revived bringing a companion along, Serana was the reason I quit taking companions. Because I misremembered them as all being like Serana.

 

And, I agree, the whole "Good guys who are worse than the bad guys" trope sucked with Dawnguard. As I said, that alone makes the whole Dawnguard-half of the questline feel like it was a panic-fix when some intern asked about players who don't want to be vampires.

 

Bethesda has a few problems when it comes to fantasy.

 

1. They shy away from common fantasy tropes that would be good. As said, the Dawnguard being a holy order of paladins here to cleanse Skyrim of the Vampire Menace would do a whole lot for combating Isran's rotten attitude.
2. Their writers are following the worst possible strategy for writing fantasy or sci-fi. Don't "dumb it down" because then you just end up with "There's nothing interesting here." People still praise Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood questline because it was good. It combined story with fun game mechanics and some plot twists on the way.
3. They jump feet-first into all the rotten fantasy tropes that should be avoided. Animals are not monsters. Wolves are smart - they'll run away from an armored warrior unless they're absolutely starving, and if you take one or two out, the pack will scatter. Bears are territorial, but you're not going to see seven of them between Windhelm and Riften on the road. Likewise, they reluctantly gave us dragons, and it took them 3 DLC to give us the ability to temporarily subjugate a dragon to ride it. Why can't we call down Odahviing any time we want to fly from Riften to Solitude? Or hitch a ride on Durnehviir to fly to Markarth?

I will admit, the dungeons are great. I loved wandering through the Forgotten Vale. The Soul Cairn was incredible and spooky in all the right ways. I wish there was more of that and not "Abuse the Radiant Quest System" like we got for most of the side-quests in the DLC.

 

The questline itself is decent. It just lacks replay value because the main quest doesn't change beyond a few words here-and-there if you join Harkon's or Isran's side. Fighting Harkon at the end is a good bit of fun.

 

When it comes to comparing it with the other DLCs...

 

Yeah, sadly, Dawnguard is the best of the 3. It did what it set out to do, giving us an "evil vampires want to black out the sun with an ancient artifact" questline, and its alternate "We're stopping the evil vampires" questline. We got a couple new locations, a few characters worth talking about, and one rotten forced follower.

 

Dragonborn gets hyped up because of Morrowind/Bloodmoon nostalgia. While I generally like Dragonborn's story better, it has several fatal flaws. The first being when you go to the Temple of Miraak the first time and have to put up with Frea as a forced follower, though at least she doesn't forcibly dismiss your current follower to tag along. The second being that someone clearly overheard all the whining about "Skyrim is too easy" and decided to make everything a bloody tank. It's gotten to the point where if I have to go to Solstheim, I kick the difficulty back from Adept to Novice because I'm not putting up with that crap. The third fatal flaw of Dragonborn is two-halves-of-the-same-whole. The Miraak fight. The Last Dragonborn against the First Dragonborn has a lot of potential for excitement. Except he's just a bandit with really high health, three instant-heals, and the ability to use a few shouts. And the other half of it? We don't even get the satisfaction of killing him, that's stolen from us by Hermaeus Mora.

 

Hearthfire, as much maligned as it is, gave a great deal for something so small. Three plots of land, upon which you can build your own home with items from the worldspace, in a few unique styles. The ability to adopt orphans to create a family. Planting rare/hard-to-find ingredients in order to have more of them for later.

 

Essentially, if I had to rank the DLCs in how much I enjoy playing them, it's Dragonborn, Dawnguard, and Hearthfire. Because Dragonborn has a more complete story, and because Hearthfire isn't really played so much as it's a side mission to the side missions.

 

If I had to rank them in how well I believe they did what was intended, it's Hearthfire, Dragonborn, and Dawnguard. Hearthfire nailed what was intended. Dragonborn feels complete. Dawnguard feels like they were in a rush, got caught by surprise, and shoved the DLC out the door without realizing there is no "patch it later" on DLC.

 

If I rank them instead in their potential for story-telling, well... Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and then Dragonborn. Dawnguard may have dropped the ball several times regarding opportunities to bring in fantasy tropes, but it has potential. Mods can fix Dawnguard. Hearthfire is nothing but story-telling potential. It's a great Skyrim "rags-to-riches" goal. Save up enough gold to buy a plot of land. Build a house there. Make it the best house you can. Dragonborn has the best story, but inherently, a great story means it has no real flexibility to say that this was intended when it wasn't written that way.

 

Am I disappointed with Dawnguard as a DLC? Yes. But it did a better job than the other two.