I could handle a 350 vs 350 player battle without lag on Mount and Blade...Skyrim should have no problems with 50 NPC's on a screen. The latest tech can support more npc's on a screen doing battle, just look at Kingdom Under Fire 2.

Bethseda better solve the NPC CPU lag problem. Damaging 2000 hitpoints from a single level scaled hitpoint bloat of a level 50 bandit is very dull and boring. Killing numerous bandits, summing 2000 in total hitpoints is FAR more fun and exciting. Combat in Mount & Blade is a lot more exciting. FCOM or a similar "increased spawn numbers", is a must if you want to approach the excitement of Mount and Blade. Everything in Oblivion feels like ghost towns. Even the imperial city was just a quaint little town.

And if the 360 and the PS3 can't handle the NPCs, then please give us PC users some "increased spawns" option.


And people who want to play the sneaky thief character should have to resort to diversions sometimes. No need to make ghost towns for the thieves' sake.

And btw, 100 NPC's is not 1 hour.

Honestly large scale battles aren't really the focus of Elder Scrolls games. Oblivion tried to create some convincing ones and it just felt awkward given the limited AI and framerate hits, if you ask me. What I wouldn't mind seeing however is some big battles being fought in the distance - using very condensed LOD models and more responsible use of special effects, you could have some interesting sequences. The player could be sent on missions behind enemy lines, or perhaps high overhead (watching through the windows of a fortress, as an example) but not be able to directly intervene.

It's a new engine...I'd like to see 16v16 battles with intelligent AI.

Oblivions "epic" battles (espeically Bruma) were pretty lame. Perhaps a way to improve the epicness without causing to much lag, bugs or other issues is to have the main battle further off and guide the player to battle through smaller proxy battles in an attempt to achieve the main goal, or sneak past certain groups of enemies that way there is the feel and aura of an epic battle and the player is exposed to it indirectly.

I would like to see bigger battles but depending what the enemies are. As someone said before if you fought wolves it would be cool to fight them it packs of 5-10 or so. I think that if you fought bandits it could be the same size at around 4-8 or something..

This is The elder scrolls which is kinda 1 on 1 kind of combat where as Mount and Blade Warband is the 2 hour battles with 2000+ people on the battle field.

No matter how many soldiers you manage to cram in one fight session, the result will always feel lacking and cheap. If this is really something you want them to do, then chances are that you're going to get something half done and unbelievable.


A more important subject than army size is the gameplay around it. Is the combat system suitable for multiple opponents? Will the AI charge blindly or fall in formation? If the combat is similar to previous games then 2000 NPCs will feel just like 100 NPCs to the player, except with more SPAM.

In Mount & Blade, this sort of gameplay works because horse riding is fun and chaotic and involves a lot of movement rather than holding your ground and swinging at the guy in front. But from a infantryman's point of view, teamwork and organizing is more impressive. If there is a gameplay mechanic that allows you to fight in a shield wall, or outflanking the enemy with a small team or issuing orders, then you have potential for good gameplay. But if you don't, then anything more than 20 NPCs will just feel like SPAM.

It would be cool to see long battles with more than 20 NPC characters at once on either side. Or extremely one sided battles like 10 vs 60 or so if you didn't complete certain quests. Like you build an army and then lead them to victory against another army as the underdogs. Would be very interesting.