It won't happen. With the Gamebryo engine, the current generation of hardware has trouble rendering 20 characters on-screen at once. You're not going to see real-time battles with more characters than that.

The only way large scale battles would be possible is if they moved to a new engine, greatly simplified NPCs, got rid of the clothing/armor system (everyone has a preset outfit that cannot be changed), simplified the physics, reduced the particle effects, made sure the environments were low detail, etc.

Basically, TESV would have to look like Dynasty Warriors if you want large-scale battles.

Dremora aren't seen as evil because the battles in Oblivion were too large. They're seen as evil because they pretty much always appear as enemies. Even the few cases where they do say anything to you, it's generally just to taunt you before attacking you. Morrowind wasn't so different, though. I mean, someone who threatens to [censored] your corpse doesn't exactly come off as very heroic.

Back to the subject of large scale battles, though, performance wouldn't be a problem, if Bethesda was planning for large scale battles from the start, they could program the engine to handle the large groups of characters that would be needed. The problem is not with that, but rather, with the gameplay experience the series offers. The Elder Scrolls is about you. Sure, maybe you work for someone, and in Oblivion, while Martin was the one who actually stopped Mehrunes Dagon, it was the Champion of Cyrodiil who did all the work that made this possible, you are the hero in all the games, not just a single soldier in a larger conflict. And no, this should NOT change. I play the Elder Scrolls because I want this experience, if I want to be just one of many soldiers in a larger battle, I'd play Call of Duty or something. In the Elder Scrolls series as it is now, large scale battles just don't work well, aside from the engine not being suited to render such large groups of people fighting at once, there's also the fact that the AI really doesn't behave very well in large groups. Soldiers who fightr beside you often do more to hinder you than help you. And they don't employ effective group tactics, in essence, a large battle would just become absolute chaos. And also, as has been noted, large battles would favor warrior type characters, which is not something you want in a game that makes being able to make whatever character you desire a major selling point. Even if Bethesda could overcome these problems, I could see large battles working out in three ways in the series. It could still be all about you, in essence, you get lots of people fighting, but it all doesn't matter, you're still the one who does everything, everyone else? Meaningless, in short, everyone else besides you and your targets are just for decoration. The second option is to make the player the commander of an army, so that while the common soldiers are the ones doing the fighting, you're the one making critical decisions in the battle, but if you're going to do that, you might as well just make it a full fledged strategy game. The command system would probably either be very basic and poorly implemented if it's only a small part of the game or it would become the main focus of the game and make everything else terrible. Then there's the "just one soldier" route, but I already said why that's bad.

Why would the series need large battles anyway? Because it's epic? Having large battles in the game just for the sake of being epic is just silly. It would make sense if the plot actually involved a full scale war, but if Bethesda's going to do that, they should just make a real time strategy spinoff, a war story would work better that way.

As far as battles go, Bethesda probably shouldn't go any larger than something like the Battle for Bruma.



For a short asnwer, no.

For a longer, more detailed answer. That would not go well with the Elder Scrolls. The Elder Scrolls is not a strategy game, it never has been, and while I'd be fine with it if Bethesda decided to make a real time strategy spin-off of the franchise, the main series should not go that route. In strategy games, gathering and managing resources if generally a very important part of gameplay, without whatever resources the game requires, you cannot build a strong army, and taking this part out often leads to displeased fans. However, the Elder Scrolls is not about that, and never has. Such things would just detract from the appeal the game already has and be annoying. The Nerevarine never needed an army to defeat Dagoth Ur, and the Champion of Cyrodiil was able to do all those chores for Martin and protect him at the final moments of the Oblivion Crisis on his own. Why should the series' heros start depending on others to fight their battles now?

That's why it's entertaining.

Though I know that the Dremora are enemies for that reason (and yes, I remember that lovely Dremora quite well in Morrowind), but I just saying that in such a system, anyone against the PC army will be view as "evil" and PC will fight for the "good".

I never suggested a "strategy game". The idea would be that all of the quests would relate back to the fundamental goal of supporting a faction in the upcoming power struggle. The final "skirmish" would be almost irrelevant to the outcome if you had done quests for the right people, made the right choices, and "set things up" over the course of the game. The little furball at the end would just be a way of getting the char "involved", if they chose to do so. They could just as easily run away and hide (or sit back and wait) until either their own victorious allies or the victorious enemy showed up to announce the outcome. Unlike the final battle in OB, this one could ultimately be decided off-screen, based on your previous actions.

:thumbsup:

I voted Province battles, Umbra will help. plus who says it will be the huge epic battle. say every once in a while (twice a IG year) Skyrim and friends fight morrowind and friends..

I don't think Umbra would be making such a great difference with dynamic actors. True, it can do occlusion culling with dynamic objects just as well as static ones, but there are some problems.
If you are standing in front of a wall with Umbra enabled, and there is a second wall behind it of which you can just barely see a sliver (and the wall is one solid mesh), then the whole of that second wall will still be rendered, despite the fact that you can only see a few pixels of it.

If you're in a scene with tons and tons of NPC actors, they are only going to be occluded if they are completely 100% blocked from your view. And if it's other dynamic actors that are the ones standing between you and them, their animations are going to constantly create windows by which some small portion of the NPCs behind them would be seen. And the ones behind them, and behind them, and so on and so forth.

Vast open and complex world, intimate combat and missions is my vote (no battles).

Make a separate game for the multiplayer buffs to indulge in epic battles.

lol and have my Elder Scrolls turn into Dynasty Scrolls?, hah I think not.

- Only between provinces
- Only quest related

the games engine wouldnt be able to handle any more than 50-75 NPC's at once battling it out anyways before crashing.

Some of the larger-scale battles in Dragon Age were truly epic - I'd like to see such a thing implemented in TESV, but only on rare, story-related occasions.

If technological limitations weren't an issue, then I would definitely like to see an epic battle. That said, I don't see how they could pull it off within the contextual limitations of the Elder Scrolls. As others have already pointed out, fighting in an epic battle would be frustratingly difficult for any character type other than one suited for heavy melee battle, or perhaps a god-like mage. Besides, I have my doubts whether they could convincingly weave an epic battle sub-plot into the main plot, and yet, still make it optional for the player character to participate. I'm not saying it's impossible. In fact, Kovacius came up with some enticing ideas. I'm just saying that, based off of what I've seen with Oblivion, I have (strong) doubts.

The game's lore is full of medium to large scale battles that we only read about, so playing one at least once would be a good experience.

I think it would only be possible where you would see the battles, but you could not be involved in the actual fighting, such as Ostagar in Dragon Age. I don't think it would fit in TES.

I would Like to See Large scale battles. But Not scripted battles. Battles based on A.I. Free Will and NPC Skill. Which none of that is possible with what Bethesda is working with but saying it was. Battles could happen somewhere and global Change could happen with out you being the wiser. So while you could be Down in Say In Bravil. a battle between the Imperial Army and Morrowind could be taking place at the border of the two countries with out you being there. things could change. Cyrodill could get a little smaller around the Morrowind boarder and you couldnt really notice a thing. Or battles betweens Counties. Anvil could attack Skingrad or be attacked by a combined force of bandits. so on.

Good ideas, as long as it wasn't too sudden. For example, a battle between provinces should never erupt without significant tensions between them for some time.

If the Elderscrolls became a RTS, I would love some major battles and I could see them happen. However, with Gamebryo the way it is, I don't see that happening... ever. The most I could expect from gamesas for TES 5 as far as battle size is around 9 vs. 9 tops.

Id rather not see Elder Scrolls Become an RTS My Ideal Massive scale battles are what you hear of in old texts books.two or more massive armies clashing into into a sea of people leaving little to know elbow room as you cut away your enemies. Archers and mages raining down and on bombarding the enemy from above with spells and arrows leaving body counts in the hundreds as the battle finally ends as the last warrior is defeated or retreats.But none of these battles mandatory to attend. For those of us who prefer stealth theres no need. to take part even if one does they dont need to be on the front lines when they can be on the rooftop sniping the unsuspecting enemies with airs and bolts.

Well they could always make battles into a mini-game like lockpicking and persuasion - have the screen switch to an RTS type mode for the duration of the battle. Granted, that would really break the immersion.

I actually don't think this would be a good idea, just because TES games aren't great when it comes down to controlling and managing friendly NPCs. Giving the player an indirect role in a large battle (such as having to get behind enemy lines or fire off siege artillery) would be kind of cool, though.

Wasn't Daggerfall going to have city sieges and stuff? Things like the missions in Guild Wars would be nice - defending an outpost or manning artillery or sneaking behind an army. It'd be quite thrilling without having the obvious drawbacks of just entering combat with a few hundred NPCs.

(This is an older post by myself from an earlier thread that discussed a similar thing, it's http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1034789&st=0&p=14991446 for those interested.)

See Right there. Good example of what non combat Oriented Characters can do.(Dont see how Siege Artillery would fit into Tamriel Unless it was Magical Or Dwermer Like,The Giant Stationary crossbow firing spears instead of Bolts Like what were found in some of Morrowinds Dwemer Ruins if i remember correctly.)Even stealth characters can take part. If not on the battle field then behind the scenes. stealing enemy battle plans. or killing off an enemy lead officer. Or hell a twist of betrayal by working for the enemy and doing the aforementioned things under the cover of working for the winning army.

While i still don't like them very much, i think large scale battles could very well be possible, even if the engine doesn't change very much. They could even be possible trough mods.



The biggest problem is of course the massive number of fighters. But not all fighters are important for the player. Only about a dozen fighters that are closest to the player are actually real NPCs, the others are simulated in different ways.
Fighters near you have more simplified stats and AI routines. They act like NPCs in battle, have hitpoints, basic skills, tactics and moral values, but for example lack inventories.

All fighters in the distance are only background actors without stats, they use randomized attacks and die in one hit. They have no real AI, but are controlled by a group AI, that determines what each actor does. Each of those AI groups with all its fighters will try to engage another group and simulate tactics and morals. They also would keep track of their units roles, knights, archers, mages, leaders, and base their tactics on them.

At very large distances, you don't even need to have interacting actors and different groups. The battle would be controlled by a complex and somewhat randomized script, and the fighters have only minimalistic meshes and perform random combat animations. Much more is not necessary if you only see a battle from afar.

Details of distant fighters are drastically reduced and can be further obscured by environmental effects like fog, rain or dust.


This system would need a special predefined battlefield with lots of different waypoints and zones for the group AIs to reduce the need of processing power for AI pathfinding. Open field battles are easier, fights involving fortifications, settlements or difficult terrain require more work. If the game uses cells, the cells containing the battlefield would need to have a different priority than standard cells.


You could interact with the AI controlled groups, pick a leader with a ranged attack to cause disorganization, or command a group of your archers to rain arrows on a specific group or position, but you don't have to fight directly.
If you get closer to an AI controlled group, it's fighters get turned into simulated NPCs, and into real NPCs if you fight them directly.



The battle itself will happen with or without the player, though the event should be at least instigated by your actions, so you can wait until you are ready, or manipulate the different sides to your advantage. Once the armies are marching, you don't have much influence about what happens.

After the battle dies down, different soldiers are spawnd randomly near the battlefield for a while, similar to groups of bandits.

FO3 did some good large scale battle thing with Operation Anchorage. Doing something along those lines, and diversifying the missions to suit playstyles would work, if there are going to be large scale battles. Though my teammates usually ended up dead, except that one guy in the beginning.

It would have been awesome, but most computers would lag on high graphics.