Well, too late to warn me off.
But, I have to say, the warning would have been in vain anyway.
I've already completed the vampire side of the story and am working my way through the dawnguard half.
Here's what I DO know about the DLC as far as subjectivity goes:
- Companion A.I. was broken somehow. Companions you hire who are NOT Serena somehow managed to get clunkier and even MORE braindead. The armored war trolls you can get through the dawnguard constantly get stuck on terrain, or just stand around like a moron while you get your ass ganked by 3 vampires 10 feet away. A trait common to ALL A.I. partners that dawnguard seems to have broken is their pathfinding. My god, you can jog from one of of a dungeon to the other and they'll move so slowly that by the time you finish dispatching the end boss and having quaffed all your potions as a result, the A.I. STILL hasn't shown up to help. What's the point of a companion if they can't KEEP UP?
- Crossbows offer balanced and mechanically sound alternative to bows. Although it's a little too easy to make a bee-line straight for the Enhanced Dwemer crossbow. Still, you end up with a ranged weapon that can fire elementally charged bolts and ignore 50% of an enemies armor at the expense of maneuverability (You are forced to slow down while your character reloads after every shot)
- Vampire lord form is OP. I don't understand some people here saying it's UNDER powered. The form is total cheese, especially once you upgrade the blood chalice and get a few of those rings/amulets of blood power. To be fair, almost all of the abilities of the Vampire Lord form scale off your destruction and alteration stats, so if you were a melee focused person you'll be a bit gimped in VL form. Otherwise, you basically have a spammable AoE nuke spell that refills your life, mana and stamina by draining it from anyone caught in the blast, a short range teleport, nightvision, an invulnerability form, the ability to summon one to two gargoyles at once (if you get a certain amulet) a magical health draining gravity gun spell that lets you toss people about like the ragdolls they are (all the while draining health from them) and a spell that lets you paralyze anyone you hit for 5-10 seconds, no save.
- Werewolf form is actually useful now. Although in my opinion they shoulda released the new werewolf changes for vanilla users as well, because it NEEDED this overhaul.
- Bugs ahoy! I ran in to no less than THREE gamebreaking bugs on the vampire questline. All them completely made progressing the questline impossible without much work in the console and even then the results were glitchy and immersion breaking. No word on when it'll be patched, so there's that.
- Three new shouts, one of which you earn by using another shout multiple times. All them are useful and very cool. Especially the last one you get.
But, I have to say, the warning would have been in vain anyway.
I've already completed the vampire side of the story and am working my way through the dawnguard half.
Here's what I DO know about the DLC as far as subjectivity goes:
- Companion A.I. was broken somehow. Companions you hire who are NOT Serena somehow managed to get clunkier and even MORE braindead. The armored war trolls you can get through the dawnguard constantly get stuck on terrain, or just stand around like a moron while you get your ass ganked by 3 vampires 10 feet away. A trait common to ALL A.I. partners that dawnguard seems to have broken is their pathfinding. My god, you can jog from one of of a dungeon to the other and they'll move so slowly that by the time you finish dispatching the end boss and having quaffed all your potions as a result, the A.I. STILL hasn't shown up to help. What's the point of a companion if they can't KEEP UP?
- Crossbows offer balanced and mechanically sound alternative to bows. Although it's a little too easy to make a bee-line straight for the Enhanced Dwemer crossbow. Still, you end up with a ranged weapon that can fire elementally charged bolts and ignore 50% of an enemies armor at the expense of maneuverability (You are forced to slow down while your character reloads after every shot)
- Vampire lord form is OP. I don't understand some people here saying it's UNDER powered. The form is total cheese, especially once you upgrade the blood chalice and get a few of those rings/amulets of blood power. To be fair, almost all of the abilities of the Vampire Lord form scale off your destruction and alteration stats, so if you were a melee focused person you'll be a bit gimped in VL form. Otherwise, you basically have a spammable AoE nuke spell that refills your life, mana and stamina by draining it from anyone caught in the blast, a short range teleport, nightvision, an invulnerability form, the ability to summon one to two gargoyles at once (if you get a certain amulet) a magical health draining gravity gun spell that lets you toss people about like the ragdolls they are (all the while draining health from them) and a spell that lets you paralyze anyone you hit for 5-10 seconds, no save.
- Werewolf form is actually useful now. Although in my opinion they shoulda released the new werewolf changes for vanilla users as well, because it NEEDED this overhaul.
- Bugs ahoy! I ran in to no less than THREE gamebreaking bugs on the vampire questline. All them completely made progressing the questline impossible without much work in the console and even then the results were glitchy and immersion breaking. No word on when it'll be patched, so there's that.
- Three new shouts, one of which you earn by using another shout multiple times. All them are useful and very cool. Especially the last one you get.
