What to Expect from Dawnguard?

[Soviet Heavy]

So I just bought Dawnguard on the PC, downloading as I type this out. What can I expect from the DLC? I've heard good things about the new area and the Crossbows sound fun. However, I've also heard that it makes an insane amount of Vampire assaults across the towns in Skyrim. How much of a deterrent can this be, and what other things might I want to look out for?

 

[Rose and Thorn]

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrimawnguard

You can see the basics of this expansion pack here.

 

[Gone Rampant]

If you're worried about the Vampire assaults, since you're on PC I'd just say use a console command or a mod to make everyone immortal/disable the attacks.

I, however, have been attacked by Vampires more times in the wilderness then there's been attacks on towns.

Still, like you said, it's a great DLC, and should keep you going until Dragonborn ships for PC.

 

[Mister Six]

If you're worried about the Vampire assaults, since you're on PC I'd just say use a console command or a mod to make everyone immortal/disable the attacks.

I, however, have been attacked by Vampires more times in the wilderness then there's been attacks on towns.

Still, like you said, it's a great DLC, and should keep you going until Dragonborn ships for PC.

I've noticed that to be a bit of a variable, cause on my first toon I couldn't go to a place with 3 or more NPCs without some Vamps popping out, while on my second one I only had to deal with a handful of vamp attacks.

 

[Valen_Starwalker]

So I just bought Dawnguard on the PC, downloading as I type this out. What can I expect from the DLC? I've heard good things about the new area and the Crossbows sound fun. However, I've also heard that it makes an insane amount of Vampire assaults across the towns in Skyrim. How much of a deterrent can this be, and what other things might I want to look out for?

You can always mod this vampire attacks out of the game.

Truthfully Dawnguard isn't worth 20 dollars. It's not a real DLC as they claim they were making.
All they did was add two new forts, a new small area, and updated how Vampire, and werewolves works. They also added a new wapon. Either than that.. it's a very short shitty dlc I think.

Now Dragonborn that looks like it's going to be good though.

I saw Dragonborn, and read a little.. and it really puts Dawnguard to shame.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

************.

I just had to jump the gun didn't I? If I had waited just a few more hours this goddamn morning, I could have saved six bucks with the Thanksgiving Sale, but nooooo, I had to go ahead and buy it at twenty.

 

[SajuukKhar]

When you beat the DLC the vampire attacks stop, so you can just install Dawnguard, do the questline, and finish it, before even one vampire attack happens.

 

[Danceofmasks]

I shouldn't have played it with a high level character, 'cos I roflstomped everything and went "meh."
The most entertaining part is being able to switch between werewolf, vampire lord, and human - pretty much at will.
yes, it's casual and not a "life changing" decision like it was previously, but entertaining.

The lost valley is nice, but the other new zones are a bit meh.

I didn't really care about vampire attacks .. NPCs died - if they're so dumb as to walk around at midnight they probably deserved it.

Actually, the most hilarious thing is to plan a route, change into a werewolf once, and get every perk before it expires.
Om nom nom.

 

[Tdoodle]

************.

I just had to jump the gun didn't I? If I had waited just a few more hours this goddamn morning, I could have saved six bucks with the Thanksgiving Sale, but nooooo, I had to go ahead and buy it at twenty.

Come on man, you should have known better than to buy on Steam outside a sale. Rookie mistake.

OT, I think it's a good DLC. I've certainly got my moneys worth, I've played the main questline twice and maxed out a Vampire Lord but I've barely touched the rest of it. I've still got Lost To The Ages, werewolf perks and a bit more in the Forgotten Veil to do, and there are a few new Radiant quests from both factions which have kept me busy too.

Dragonborn looks like it'll be even better, so hyped for that.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Expect an interesting story with some good characters that starts off fairly simple but eventually explores some very unexpected content (hint I'm not talking about the Soul Cairn).

I haven't really had any problems with the vampire attacks. I can usually kill them before anyone dies. However, this becomes harder to do on higher difficulty since the vampire are very strong. Also, do both sides because you get some very unique things from both of them.

PS. Vampire Lord is a beast.

 

[jthm]

So I just bought Dawnguard on the PC, downloading as I type this out. What can I expect from the DLC? I've heard good things about the new area and the Crossbows sound fun. However, I've also heard that it makes an insane amount of Vampire assaults across the towns in Skyrim. How much of a deterrent can this be, and what other things might I want to look out for?

You can always mod this vampire attacks out of the game.

Truthfully Dawnguard isn't worth 20 dollars. It's not a real DLC as they claim they were making.
All they did was add two new forts, a new small area, and updated how Vampire, and werewolves works. They also added a new wapon. Either than that.. it's a very short shitty dlc I think.

Now Dragonborn that looks like it's going to be good though.

I saw Dragonborn, and read a little.. and it really puts Dawnguard to shame.

SPOILER WARNING.



They added more than that. Vampire and Werewolf Talent trees were welcome. Did you do the dwarven quests for the rare mineral to create a unique item? Also, darkwater cave, the soul cairn and the falmer temple where you get Auriel's bow. Also, Auriel's bow can be used to change gameplay a bit. Honestly, depending how you choose to play a vampire lord, it can change the way you choose to play the game.

That said, I do have to agree that $20 is a bit steep. But I got it on sale for $15 and have been pretty well satisfied.

 

[Jabberwock King]

The Vale is worth any amount of money you pay for it. Seriously, it's a damn good expansion before you get there, but once you realise just what that place is...

Wow. Just wow.

I prefer Blackreach over the The Vale.

 

[Coach Morrison]

Be ready to open the console constantly and not having anything working.

At least that's what my experience was like.

 

[MrBenSampson]

The werewolf perks make wolf form an awesome means for traveling long distance in a hurry, if you don't like using the fast travel system like me. The main thing that sold Dawnguard for me was the ability to forge my own arrows, but I can't imagine why that was excluded from the vanilla game. I went from having 8 daedric arrows to having over 1600.

The vampire assaults are easy to deal with. There are a few moments when the vampires are not hostile, and it's almost impossible to not notice them, so I've been able to kill them before they attacked anyone.

If you have Serana as your follower, give her the staff of Magnus, as well as any other staff you have. I gave her 2 staffs of paralysis, the staff of Magnus, Sanguine's Rose and every staff I've collected from falmer, mages and dragon priests. She can now take on giants by herself. Dragon Scale armour is also a good idea for her.

Dwarven crossbows are better than dragonbone bows, especially if it's the enhanced version. Mine does more than twice the amount of damage necessary to kill a town guard in a single shot. That might be a bit much. The only skills I mastered are smithing, enchanting and archery, but I didn't expect it to break the game so badly. This is my first character.

 

[Valen_Starwalker]

So I just bought Dawnguard on the PC, downloading as I type this out. What can I expect from the DLC? I've heard good things about the new area and the Crossbows sound fun. However, I've also heard that it makes an insane amount of Vampire assaults across the towns in Skyrim. How much of a deterrent can this be, and what other things might I want to look out for?

You can always mod this vampire attacks out of the game.

Truthfully Dawnguard isn't worth 20 dollars. It's not a real DLC as they claim they were making.
All they did was add two new forts, a new small area, and updated how Vampire, and werewolves works. They also added a new wapon. Either than that.. it's a very short shitty dlc I think.

Now Dragonborn that looks like it's going to be good though.

I saw Dragonborn, and read a little.. and it really puts Dawnguard to shame.

SPOILER WARNING.



They added more than that. Vampire and Werewolf Talent trees were welcome. Did you do the dwarven quests for the rare mineral to create a unique item? Also, darkwater cave, the soul cairn and the falmer temple where you get Auriel's bow. Also, Auriel's bow can be used to change gameplay a bit. Honestly, depending how you choose to play a vampire lord, it can change the way you choose to play the game.

That said, I do have to agree that $20 is a bit steep. But I got it on sale for $15 and have been pretty well satisfied.

CORRECTING WARNING.

All they really did in Dawnguard was add the new places on the opposite of the map every time so in reality you have 10% game play, and 90% of walking to the quest.

This DLC was not worth 20 dollars. It isn't even worth 15.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

So I just bought Dawnguard on the PC, downloading as I type this out. What can I expect from the DLC? I've heard good things about the new area and the Crossbows sound fun. However, I've also heard that it makes an insane amount of Vampire assaults across the towns in Skyrim. How much of a deterrent can this be, and what other things might I want to look out for?

The vampire attacks can be a pain in the arse as they can easily kill NPCs who would otherwise provide services/training/quests but you should be ok. First and foremost they're vampires so they only attack at night and all you really need to do is not fast travel into a settlement when it will be dark. Secondly since you're running the PC version you can always console command any killed NPCs right back into your game (a solution I don't have, dirty 360 using Luddite that I am). Put it this way, it's really easy to work around the vampire attacks even without console commands, so you should be fine. If you're starting a new character for the expansion, they don't begin until around level 10 either.

Other things to look out for: The Vale adds a great amount of lore, although I'll not go into which particular group this affects. Smithing is tweaked so that now the value of the created item affects how much your smithing skill increases (no more spamming iron daggers). There are new lines in non-humanoid companions, horseback combat is now a thing although the controls are somewhat clumsy and both werewolves and vampires now have skill trees that are advanced by eating corpses and killing enemies via Drain spells respectively. One point of order on the vampire skill trees: a 'kill' counts as whoever gets the final blow so it is best to do these without a companion - the number of times my vampire character has whittled down an opponents health with vampiric drain only to have their targets last vestige of health hacked away by a well meaning support character is not even funny.

That's all that springs to mind at the moment, although I've probably missed a fair bit. Anyway have fun with it, it's a fairly meaty addon to the vanilla game. Just remember to fully explore the Vale!

 

[jthm]

So I just bought Dawnguard on the PC, downloading as I type this out. What can I expect from the DLC? I've heard good things about the new area and the Crossbows sound fun. However, I've also heard that it makes an insane amount of Vampire assaults across the towns in Skyrim. How much of a deterrent can this be, and what other things might I want to look out for?

You can always mod this vampire attacks out of the game.

Truthfully Dawnguard isn't worth 20 dollars. It's not a real DLC as they claim they were making.
All they did was add two new forts, a new small area, and updated how Vampire, and werewolves works. They also added a new wapon. Either than that.. it's a very short shitty dlc I think.

Now Dragonborn that looks like it's going to be good though.

I saw Dragonborn, and read a little.. and it really puts Dawnguard to shame.

SPOILER WARNING.



They added more than that. Vampire and Werewolf Talent trees were welcome. Did you do the dwarven quests for the rare mineral to create a unique item? Also, darkwater cave, the soul cairn and the falmer temple where you get Auriel's bow. Also, Auriel's bow can be used to change gameplay a bit. Honestly, depending how you choose to play a vampire lord, it can change the way you choose to play the game.

That said, I do have to agree that $20 is a bit steep. But I got it on sale for $15 and have been pretty well satisfied.

CORRECTING WARNING.

All they really did in Dawnguard was add the new places on the opposite of the map every time so in reality you have 10% game play, and 90% of walking to the quest.

This DLC was not worth 20 dollars. It isn't even worth 15.

COMMON SENSE ALERT!

Or you could, I dunno... fast travel? It's still a good 10 hours of gameplay. I pay 10 bucks for a 2 hour movie, I don't think 15 for ten hours of game is unreasonable.

 

[Valen_Starwalker]

So I just bought Dawnguard on the PC, downloading as I type this out. What can I expect from the DLC? I've heard good things about the new area and the Crossbows sound fun. However, I've also heard that it makes an insane amount of Vampire assaults across the towns in Skyrim. How much of a deterrent can this be, and what other things might I want to look out for?

You can always mod this vampire attacks out of the game.

Truthfully Dawnguard isn't worth 20 dollars. It's not a real DLC as they claim they were making.
All they did was add two new forts, a new small area, and updated how Vampire, and werewolves works. They also added a new wapon. Either than that.. it's a very short shitty dlc I think.

Now Dragonborn that looks like it's going to be good though.

I saw Dragonborn, and read a little.. and it really puts Dawnguard to shame.

SPOILER WARNING.



They added more than that. Vampire and Werewolf Talent trees were welcome. Did you do the dwarven quests for the rare mineral to create a unique item? Also, darkwater cave, the soul cairn and the falmer temple where you get Auriel's bow. Also, Auriel's bow can be used to change gameplay a bit. Honestly, depending how you choose to play a vampire lord, it can change the way you choose to play the game.

That said, I do have to agree that $20 is a bit steep. But I got it on sale for $15 and have been pretty well satisfied.

CORRECTING WARNING.

All they really did in Dawnguard was add the new places on the opposite of the map every time so in reality you have 10% game play, and 90% of walking to the quest.

This DLC was not worth 20 dollars. It isn't even worth 15.

COMMON SENSE ALERT!

Or you could, I dunno... fast travel? It's still a good 10 hours of gameplay. I pay 10 bucks for a 2 hour movie, I don't think 15 for ten hours of game is unreasonable.

Hahahahaha.

No, Dawnguard is not 10 hours of gameplay, and suggesting fast travel is a wrong way to handle things.

Bethesda promised us good dlc, and Dawnguard isn't it. Dragonborn is the DLC that we should have gotten.

I can beat Dawnguard in just a few hours of gameplay. (Maybe like.. 2, or 3) if I sit there, and played it, and finish it.

If you don't believe. I'll start it all over again, and time when I start, and finish it.

EDIT: I also don't count walking to the next quest/cave/tower/whatever/etc extra content. If I wanted more walking in Skyrim. I would just start a riften, and walk all the way to Markarth. I would save 20 dollars.

The amount of things that could have been done with dawnguard, and the simply for me did not deliver. First of.. Why can't I control the castles? Fix up the garden make it look pretty, or clean out Dawnguard Fort, getting rid of all those spider webs.
Etc. etc. A lot more could have been done to that dlc.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

Dawnguard is easily 10+ hours without fast travel.

The only way to beat Dawnguard in 2-3 hours, is to literally skip every bit of dialog, fast travel, and probably never fight anything just run past it.

Not to mention all the side content of
-Lost to the Ages
-The Falmer books quest
-The Paragon's quest
-The Crossbow upgrade quests
-The Legendary Dawnguard relic quests
-The Vampire ring/Amulets quests
-Collecting the parts of the ancient Vampire to upgrade the bloodstone chalice quests.

 

[Coach Morrison]

snip

Dawnguard is easily 10+ hours without fast travel.

The only way to beat Dawnguard in 2-3 hours, is to literally skip every bit of dialog, fast travel, and probably never fight anything just run past it.

Not to mention all the side content of
-Lost to the Ages
-The Falmer books quest
-The Paragon's quest
-The Crossbow upgrade quests
-The Legendary Dawnguard relic quests
-The Vampire ring/Amulets quests
-Collecting the parts of the ancient Vampire to upgrade the bloodstone chalice quests.

Yeah 2-3 hours seems like an exaggeration, I remember when it first came out everyone was saying it was at least 7-8 to go through one side, without accounting for side quests.