I'd like to apologize in advanced to anyone who's seen this question asked countless times prior to this post, but I felt the need to ask myself considering I've seen different responses that often conflict and give no real definitive answer.

This is of course regarding the infamous vampire attacks that have plagued console players who can't use mods or console commands to solve this problem. This is my (hopefully) last Skyrim playthrough where I try to avoid as many glitches/bugs possible, and so far so good. In my last playthrough I sided with the vampires, then cured my vampirism as soon as I could and avoided the Dawnguard questline altogether. That stopped the attacks. However, I wanted to side with the Dawnguard this time around. I hate playing as a vampire, and to this day I've never been able to use any of the crossbows.

Are there any specific strategies I can use to avoid vampires killing half of the games NPC's if I choose to side with the Dawnguard? I'm not talking about fast traveling to certain areas at very specific times, I mean AVOIDING them all together? I've heard people say they stop if after you complete the questline, but I've heard the exact opposite from others. Honestly I would just avoid playing with Dawnguard installed, but the primary reason I want to re-install is so I can smith Dragonbone weapons and craft arrows. I honestly couldn't care less about vampire attacks if they didn't kill dozens of NPC's that I use on a daily basis for quests and buying/selling items and whatnot. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I love Bethesda and their games, but this is beyond frustrating. Why they'd include these attacks and not release the appropriate patch after the countless of complains from gamers is beyond me.

Finishing the main questline definitely stops the attacks, or at least it should. This is actually the first time I've heard they stop by just joining the vampires, the attacks are supposed to keep going until the questline is complete for both sides.

Honestly, the only sure way to avoid them altogether really is to just time when you go into cities and villages. It can be a pain, but once you get the gist of the timescale, it isn't too hard to time it right.

That doesn't surprise me, Skyrim can be pretty unpredictable and different things happen to different players I guess. It wasn't just joining the vampires that stopped the attacks, but when I cured my vampirism in the middle of the questline, it sort of halted the attacks. When you join the Dawnguard you get attacked every other fast travel and NPC's are dead left and right, but when you join the Vampires the only major attackers are the Dawnguard, but the difference is that the Dawnguard don't attack civilians, they only target you. If the vampires only attacked me, It wouldn't bother me in the slightest. I'm just wishing someone will be able to tell me about a trick and/or a workaround that is equivalent to the curing your vampirism method that I use. I mean Bethesda surely knows about this issue, right? I know they've been working on their next project for several years, not to long after Dragonborn was released I'm pretty certain, but they said they'd release the occasional patch for Skyrim. It's been several years since. It shouldn't be too hard to release a patch that stops these attacks, or at least makes the vampires stop attacking civilians.

Thank you for your reply

The attacks don't start in earnest until you start the Dawnguard quest (visit Fort Dawnguard), then you'll have vampires coming out of your ears. My current character is level 38 and I've seen only one vampire attack on Whiterun, just after the DLC kicks in at level 10. The town attacks end when you finish the DLC quest line .

I wouldn't worry too much if I were you, the guards can handle vampires quite well on their own.

True, however the townsfolk are stupid enough to also take them on and they end up dead. The only person I'm glad to have seen killed by vamps is Nazeem.

Really? Maybe it depends on the difficulty setting the player sets. But in my experience you need at least three melee guards to quell a master vampire. In Whiterun the vamp is always killed, it just depends on how many citizens get taken down. But in Rorikstead for example, even though I killed the two Deathhounds, the two guards were well outmatched and the vampire had free reign of the streets... I had to run. Also in Riverwood. A master vamp and Deathhounds can kill two or all three guards and a citizen or two. In Falkreath the Vamp comes of worst eventually due to the number of guards.

The best way to stop an attack in progress is run like the wind to leave the loaded cell. The vamp will de spawn. But you gotta be quick to save innocent lives.
OR........get badass real quick and kick vamp butt......btw, if the opportunity presents......vamps can't fly, so a well place Fus Ro Dah off a ledge will do nicely. In fact in Shriekwind it's the only way I can kill him!!!