Yeah, I already knew about the triari, velites and the hastati (and don't forget the princeps (cavalry) in the flanks ). But I'm not talking about a battle SO massive. I'm saying a simple big combat: a little more than a skirmish, a little less than an epic battle. I'd be happy with that.

Yeah Mount & Blade is just fantastic. With unit size mod and 500 people battles (smooth and high frame rate but the occasional stutter evry 20-30secs) it's an amazing experience that simply has no parallel. It's sort of been my fantasy since i started gaming to be a part of that sort of giant battle but to combine it with a full on open world RPG... Well that just takes me to my happy place and i can't wait for games to go there. It can't be too far away.

That said it isn't going to be Skyrim. I think we'll be lucky to see much more than 20 fighters on screen at once given the quality of graphics in the screens. That said i'm not too bothered as long as the numbers you face vary and there's true groups of bandits or soldiers or packs of animals rather than the Oblivion style where i never really seemed to be facing large odds.

Dragon Age.

I want to see epic battles, but like between a dragon and two hill giants, where I hide to watch, like the siege in the end of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs7dscJfx0M.

Well, without a significant change in the AI (i.e. inclusion of a "collective"-mode), I fear the result will be a scaled-up Bruma battle again...

Edit, just for the heck of it

Velites - missile troops, armed with javelins

Hastati - least experienced troops, up front

Principes - Second echelon, more experienced

Triarii - Last echelon, most experienced.

lol I always found that funny. The trailer of Oblivion showed Bruma packed with guards from every town.

Yup...the part where you saved a town from an Oblivion gate and the Count was like "We're going to send men to aid Bruma. Bruma won't fall!", and then seeing they've sent 2 or 3 soldiers was to laugh....to laugh not to cry, as we say here



Off-Topic...but am I the only one that finds awfully cruel to put the least experienced troops in the vanguard of a battle?

It's effective without doubt....but it has always seemed very cruel to me....^^U

Irrelevent question, console are AT MOST DX9, as console is the main market, forget any relevant upgrade coming from DX10/DX11, so no battle and dated grafics as base that the modders if allowed will improve on.

DIfferent times, you know I believe the hastati was also usually the poorer classes.

But at least there was a possibility of falling back and leaving the fighting to the more experienced ones if they couldn't break the resistance themselves. And if they survived long enough, they would rise in the ranks and be placed further behind, allowing for some respite.

The poorer and mostly the younger, with the triari being the veterans, and the princeps mostly from the nobility, or those fortunate ones rich enough to be able to have a horse.

Aren't princeps infantry, and equites cavalry?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Legi%C3%B3n_manipular.PNG

I don't know why, I had put deeply in my head (incrustado, as we'd say here) that princeps were the name of the cavalry. I have to re-read my favourite Escipion's novels again...

Seeing a battle like that play out in Skyrim, just once, would definitely be a nice feature, even if it had to be heavily scripted to work

No, because it's not possible with current tech.

This isn't Dynsasty Warriors or Total War. Name one game with hundreds of detailed, unique character models on screen at once, all with full physics for themselves, their weapons and other in-game objects, and with lushly detailed environments.

That game doesn't exist.

There's a reason the Battle for Bruma looked bad. The tech has improved, but not THAT much. I'd rather they stick to doing what looks good than try to force in another pathetic-looking "big battle" just for sake of having an extra bullet point on the box for people that think it would be cool.

= indicates that the post isn't to be taken THAT seriously.

My opinion is clearly stated earlier in the thread, where I explained my "no"-vote.

They could do something similar to Assassin's Creed 1, you can SEE a battle - but don't actually take part and just do your own thing.

Not sure if I would like that though.

Maybe if in an endgame quest you do in fact fight in a battle; but in a sectioned off area. You are still fighting off a bunch of baddies with all your friends - the goodies, and you can still see siege works and catapults doing their worst, but you are confined to the specific area to fight in. More or less AC1 (exactly like AC1 really) but perhaps you get the option on where/who/how to fight.

Also, Bethesda seems to be more and more able to cram a large amount of NPCs in the one place without affecting FPS, in Fallout 3 places like Megaton or the Pitt had a significant amount of people in it, and when you started a fight it didn't cripple the ps3 I was using. I think Bethesda could probably manage it :celebration:

I liked Dragon Age's way of doing it. You saw the epic fight below you, but you were sectioned off to one little area.

However, you still felt you were a part of the battle.

if done right, it could be awesome (think snow-prince)
however, the elder scrolls havent ever really been built for those kinds of scenes and i dont really see it happening.

Remember Bruma?

What kind of question is that? Who doesn't want to see big battles? The question is whether technical limitiations will prevent big battles. Ususually a game with good graphics like Skyrim will be limited in big battles. Perhaps the new engine might be more efficent though and allow it.

As I pointed out before Mount and Blade (especially warband) has the ability for 100s of actors to fight - each with differing armor and stats. On terrain that is often varied.Very epic battles with many enemies on each side - puts total war to shame as well, because there is your RPG character in the mix riding through the slings and arrows.

The way they do this though is that on the battlefield there are no houses or complex models and meshes. I read an article once about games falling into the trap of the extra refrigerator. Once it is in it accounts for more overhead in the form of more things being rendered, So with Oblivion and its many many items that can be manipulated - that drains the processing power that could be dedicated to AI.more actors, etc.

But technology is on our side - this is 5 years later.

Where it is not on our side is in terms of marketing and catering to outmoded console concerns.

I now dislike this forum as with each proposed idea of how to improve or speculation of such it is met with the bitter realism approach that states that 'no consoles are the bar - nothing higher.'

F that. What a drab conversation and what a lack of proposed solutions.

They can't create scaled performance settings? where it could run on lower than DX11 but have settings for higher? Is that truly not possible?

I must say sir I whole heartedly agree with you, I posted both and Xbox 360 with it's heavy weight specialist software and graphics card and a junky old pc which is known to be very slow, only supports xp, has a very very average graphics card and only just runs oblivion a medium low graphics. Now this same pc can rum M&B warband on full graphics capability which I put alongside that of oblivion with a brilliant frame rate in even the largest battles consisting of many hundreds of men. Now if an Xbox can't handle something along the lines of M&B even with better graphics I'd be extremely surprised.

The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Arcanum and Mount And Blade Forever

Even with the new engine, I think the maximum NPCs you could have in a battle would be 30-40, unless you wanted epic lag.

Still, I would like to see however many characters in a single battle as possible, for at least 1, but no more than 4 battles.

EDIT: Just don't make it out to be more than it is. If it's got 150 people (which I will pretty much guarantee they will not have), call it the great and mighty battle to save the land of Skyrim once and for all huzzah! But if it's 20-30 people, don't make it out to be the ultimate fight, just a smallish skirmish.

Only if they do not constantly get in my line of fire, do not behave like headless chickens and do not cause the frame rate to drop so it appears Im looking at a series of still pictures.

Skyrim: Total War!
It would be fun, but I don't think even this new engine can handle that and I am afraid everyone would be killing off everyone in the end just like in OB. :laugh: :tongue: Unless they would do this in attack waves where you get attacked from multiple sides and so. Bring it on I say.

The fueds between Skyrim city states could get pretty bloody from what I hear. Of course I would love big pivotal battles. Especially with the new AI, which means no matter how well I fight, maybe the enemy's victories on the other side of the battle could mean a loss for us. Which makes me feel more anonymous on the battlefield.

That being said, not all my characters will particularly want to get involved in the politics of the Nords, so the option to remain neutral in a conflict should be there too.