What bothers me is that levitation has such a major impact on gameplay, Beth should know by now that it is in or out. So why not just say if it is in or out? Why all the mystery? What is the use?

Unfortunately, it did not allow you to do "all sorts of crazy stuff". I consider myself neutral for this debate.
But in my experience Levitation, aside from where it had to be used, just got me safely from one place to another. Made void by fast travel.
I could never do crazy things.

So you never levitated over water and watched an NPC drown?

Seconded



It was never broken (a spell like 100% Chameleon in Oblivion was broken).

My opinion:
Omitting levitation has only one reason: the need for closed cities (i.e. set into their own world space). It implies the Skyrim engine does not handle faraway objects well (no doubt a console limitation: years-old engines like FarCry could already deal with it perfectly).

...you say that like you think its a bad thing.


Ahem, my baisness aside, I could see it working in Skyrim. One tap and you get a super jump. Hold it down and you fly but your magicka is constantly being drained. Rapid tap the button and you store up magicka in your arms till you finally stop at which point the avatar slams the ground causing a small ripple effect sending anything not tied to the ground in an area around you into the sky only to fall back harshly to the earth, erm, Nirn.

As for the look, I'd imagine it would take both hands and either creat a bubble around or a disk under the player which then could be manipulated as long as you have the magic juice.

I liked the open world of Morrowind. Being able to levitate over city walls for instance. It's quite stupid that you have to go through the gate in Oblivion. (you can't jump off a cliff over walls either)

Not having levitation breaks my immersion.

So I can lift an object with magic, but I can't lift myself, hmmmm
So I created a kinetic shield/barrier, but I can't create one under my feet and move with it, hmmmm

Oh well... :sadvaultboy:
I guess I have to shift to hoping for jump to return...

Never liked levitation, it was a boring way to scale the land and looked unrealistic.

Todd didn't deny levitation. He was only joking around. It could still be in Skyrim.

they overhauled the magic system and still we ask for levitate..

what for !!! dragons can get you and also ranged attackers, its just pointless, it will make the new vertical environments uninteresting, why??!! because whats the point of mountains and valleys and cliffs if we can simply float up or down from them!

and we have some new awesome combat why would u want to float way from it?

want to avoid mobs, USE Invisibility

Breaking news: Levitation is confirmed!

For gamers to levitate in-game, all they need to do is open the console and type "tcl".

Todd has not said that Levitation is not in the game...

What about if levitation is part of a Dragon shout, like the shout to quickly transport behind an enemy, this would limit its use in the way that Dragon shouts need to be charged and would be beneficial when dodging dragon lunges.

I'm a Mage why do I have to see the would as some pitiful warrior or rouge. I can change the composition of matter, manipulate the forces of nature, rip holes in the very fabric of reality to pull demons from an alternate plane, I can control the minds of others, manifest nightmares; yet I'm forced to drudge around the snow like the average layman.

But its not about combat.
As I have explained earlier on this thread, artificial boundries in a sandbox game are annoying.
Wether they are invisible walls as in fallout, or insurmountable objects blocking your path a la Oblivion gates.

Artificial ways to remove the length of a players path is a terrible feature, especially in games like these, that have plagued games since I started playing them in the 1980's.
And always I would go: 'But its right there! Why cant I just jump over this rock, why must my path be made artificially longer like this?'
Then I played Daggerfall and Morrowind and I thought: 'Finally! gamemakers that understand gamers! Finally a game where I can go anywhere I want!
Finally I can see a city view from atop the highest building, finally I dont have to path around a mountain anymore! I love you Bethesda! '

And then came Oblivion.

Now it is perfectly understandable that limitations in the way the world was constructed, with cells and whatnot, made levitation unviable for that installment.
Fine. But it is not acceptable to leave it out this time around.

I want an open world. I want to go wherever I want. I play bioware games because sometimes they make nice stories that grip me.
But I hate, hate, hate how they always use a character movement style that does not include jumping, coupled with obstacles in the worldmap that force you to pathfind long windy trails. Its like bleedin 1980's platform games in that respect.

Spellmaking, levitation are core features that attracted me to TES in the first place. Freedom as a gamer to play in the world how I want.
Not how they figured I should play while making the game. Thats linear, its restrictive and boring after the first playthrough.

I thought Bethesda understood this. I hope they still do.

Oh please. You're over exaggerating things. You're acting like a mage is the equivalent of a god, that if you're able to perform one action, you should be able to do every action. By that logic, I can jump, I should be able to fly. We've never been able to create forcefields, just "shields" with huge quotation marks, because all they do is lessen physical damage. We can use telekinesis to lift small objects, never whole tables or beds or houses, and it shouldn't work that way on ones self.

It should not break immersion at all unless you're obsessed with the idea for some odd reason. I never understood why it was ever even so popular except to use it to cheat in Morrowind and hang above everyone's head where no one could hit you, and then what's even the point of playing?

... even though, games have to have some kind of limitation. That's for sure, game mechanics, you know. And, I must say, I didn't find Oblivion boring after the first "playthrough" at all. It's a very, beautiful world. I can live without exploring it from the sky.

:bowdown: LMAO greatest response ever.

Ask to Gandalf. He did as well. As every other mage I can think about right now.

Some limitations, sure.
One other wonderful thing about Bethesda is the construction set so even those dont have to be an issue if you really dont want to.

But I am talking about core freedom here. Levitation in Morrowind was not only fantastic for gliding over a mountain or ghostfence, it also allowed for wonderful world and dungeon construction, where 3d was incorporated from the get go.
Another boring thing about Oblivion was that the very absence of levitation made dungeons linear and everything I described in my post you quoted.
A lot of 'argh argh argh' moments, and very 2d. very much like a 1980's game in its design, only with better graphics.

Levitation needs to be in from the start to allow for a 3d world in wich I can roam freely.

Don't give me that, Gandalf drudging around in the snow was for the sake of story telling. If he really wanted to he could call an eagle to fly around. Hey Eagle fly this Hobbit to Mt. Doom, doesn't make for compelling story telling.

Yeah after 3 movies I watched as giant eagles came and scooped up Sam and Frodo only to sit there wonder...well why the hell didn't Gandalf just LEAD with that bit of magic then? Would have saved everyone a hell of a lot of trouble.

And besides, Gandalf was about the worst wizard ever. Guys, look, I can make a shiny light with me stick!

I won't refuse the idea of a good made Levitation, because it could be a lot of fun. Although at the time of making dungeons... remember that they're not doing them only for mages.

The problem is that in Morrowind Levitation was actually overpowered, because enemies didn't know how to react. When people asks for Levitation I'm not against it (although it's not something that would break my game), but I think they should change it a lot (one of the things that should be changed, although the least important one for me is the animation... LOOK I'M WALKING IN THE AIR). Though I think that something as Levitation would make the harsh land of Skyrim... much less harsh, just going over the mountains (Imagine to fly to High Hrothgar...).



And here it's for the sake of a coherent, believable world, not populated by omnipotent flying Mages (Though, as I have said, I'm not againts Levitation itself, but it would have to be revised).

What? That argument doesn't even make sense. Oblivion dungeons were linear? They were not. I can't even think of a single Oblivion dungeon that was linear. They all had branching paths or wrapped around or had top sides and down sides or all of the above. And what does 3D or 2D have to do with anything? That's just irrelevant.

They probably don't want to say 'no we don't have this feature from Oblivion, or this feature from Morrowind, or this, or that' etc. constantly in interviews, because then they'd be focusing way too much on what the game doesn't have, instead of what it does.

If Levitation was in it needed to be gimped. Like the higher you want to go, the more powerful the spell needs to be.



Finally someone not jumping to conclusions, and you got buried by the bickering anyway.