Levitate was arguably one of the more popular spells in Morrowind. But then Bethesda announced that they wouldn't be adding it to Oblivion. When asked the reasons why, I think they explained that ordeal with the towns not being in the same worldspace and whatnot. Effectively, if you then used a Levitate over city walls, you would end up inside an empty city.

BUT:

For Skyrim, I'm hearing that the towns will, once again, be fully open and a natural part of the outside world. They won't be bottled up in separate worldspaces with towngate transitions. So if the reasons behind excluding "Levitate" are no longer there, then what does that say about the spell? Furthermore, what features do Skyrim have that could challenge the return of "Levitate" in other ways?

I think that "Levitate" is definintely a viable spell for Skyrim, especially wih regards of the mountainous terrain and capitalizing on that in various ways - e.g. make certain parts inaccessible (or harder to access, e.g. you need to go all the way around) unless you levitate there (minor places ofc, not main quest locations).

Dragons may prove to be an obstacle, though. Imagine fighting one of these guys while levitated. But then again, wouldn't that same problem be present if the dragons spawned at the wrong location? E.g. down in a ravine while you're standing over it and firing arrows or whatever? It's worth discussing, at least.

What other obstacles are there? Will "Levitate" now be possible again for Skyrim? What are your thoughts?

You got my hopes up...

Levitation would be extremely useful for flying over those giant mountains and the rugged terrain....

It would make a LOT of sense for it to return.
I would greatly criticize Bethesda for not returning it.
Mainly because their excuse for not having it is now GONE so if it isn't there... then there had better be a damn good reason.

Has it really been confirmed that towns are open? I mean...that one cave kinda looked open, and that town on the natural land-bridge kinda looked open as well...but have we been told straight up?

But at any rate, if the towns are indeed open then levetation will probably be added...somehow. Being that we equip a spell to a hand now, it would have to have an interesting animation, and it would have to dominate that hand while you're hovering so you couldn't be wielding a two handed weapon and fly at the same time. All rather interesting, and I hope to see it. We'll see.

Not the mention, with just tapping a button will get one effect but spamming the button may get another...will one press equal super jump/slow fall and spamming or holding the button will allow the character to fly?

The only obstacle is having the AI react appropriately to a guy levitating out of reach and shooting down on them.

I'd like to see it in the game. Mostly because I want to hear what "immersionists" would have to say about it. Pretty hard to keep it real with magic per se... even more difficult when that magic lets you give the big middle finger to the laws of physics :whistling:

I would love to be able to levitate. Hopefully, if that's in the game, they'll give us a ton of places where it would actually be handy to have the spell!

If balancing is an issue, it could just be a spell that requires both hands constantly casting, preventing any actual aerial combat by the player.

Not at large, to my knowledge. I just made the thread based on that assumption. It's an If-Else statement, basically.


Yeah, there's nothing in the way of limiting the Levitation in any number of ways. Maybe it's even one of the 20 Dragon Shouts, that'd be really neat and it'll fit the dovahzaan/dovahkiin plot too since dragons fly and you get their abilities.

No levitation in Oblivion was crap.
So my stance on it is clear, and with the new 2 hands magic it could be even better than before.

And I wouldn't mind it being a dragon shout, but it should also be a spell.
Levitation was a spell at some point, if its back in any form it would be stupid for it to not also be a spell.

I'm pretty sure cities are separate cells again, which is the reason they gave for not allowing levitation in Morrowind. I'm with everyone else on this though. Levitation was awesome, and not only was it awesome but there were portions of the game/game world which made it so awesome. I loved how you need levitation or scrolls to navigate the Telvanni towers, and i remember finding on at least an occasion a chest that could only be reached with levitation or like a super acrobatics like scroll of icarian flight.

That's a possible alternative. I really hope they have levitation in Skyrim. And if they did have levitation, they would also need slowfall. There is no reason to not have levitation. Unless, they really want to force players to only walk around.

At this point, the only thing else I want in the game is levitation.

Not only that, but the game world seems just as vertical as Morrowind's, giving levitation an actual use.

Which should also mean jump and slowfall, 2 very fun spells.

idd, I think my funniest memory of Morrowind was when that dude with the yellow "smurf hat" fell down from the sky and died because he had just used a scroll of Icarian flight (+1000 Acrobatics or something) and forgotten to cast Slowfall. Made me LMAO xD

Not gonna happen.

If cities aren't instanced anymore levitate away!

Right now, we don't know if levitation will return or not. The fact that cities are open doesn't guarentee it will return, even though it would mean it could feasibly be done, there may be other reasons Bethesda might choose not to do it, the mountainous terrain being one of them. Levitation would be extremely convenient with all the mountains, which may be a reason Bethesda might want to keep it out, as they may want mountains to serve as obstacles for the player, forcing players to either climb them or go around them. I've also seen some players argue against levitation for balance reasons, namely, the fact that it could be abused in Morrowind by levitating up to a place where enemies can't hit you.

I'm not saying I agree with those arguments, of course, I'd like levitation to return to, and in the first one, I could counter it by saying that if I can find a shortcut over obstacles, I deserve to be able to use it. This is an open world game, players are supposed to be able to go off a direct, predefined path, it's why I hated the abuse of invisible walls in New Vegas, not to say that there shouldn't be obstacles in the game, of course, but an open world game shouldn't shun away from giving players ways to get around those obstacles aside from the obvious path, it certainl shouldn't try to artificially force the player down said path when there clearly should be other ways. Thus, the fact that it allows players to circumvent obstacles is no excuse not to have levitation, and really, the abuses involving the spell were mostly the result of bad AI, if AI could respond more intelligently to players using levitation, the issue would be fixed. NPCs should be able to cast levitation as well if they know the spell, if they don't, they should use ranged attacks if they have them. If NPCs don't carry a bow but there's one in the environment nearby, they could potentially pick it up and use it (Oblivion NPCs could pick up weapons, though they'd usually only do it if they didn't have one in their inventory, for example, if they were disarmed, they knew to pick their weapons up. So if we assume the AI in Skyrim has at least all the capabilities of Oblivion's Radiant AI, NPCs should be able to pick up weapons and use them in Skyrim too. Now they just need to be able to recognize an enemy using levitation as a reason to seek out a ranged weapon, provided there's one reasonably close, of course. It would be ridiculous if NPCs would run half away across the province to retrieve a bow.) If that's not an option, maybe they could go seek out a friend, or there's always simply the option of running, or hiding under some sort of shelter that would force you to come down closer to the ground to be able to hit them. Or you can just prevent attacking while levitating, with it possibly working like invisibility in past games where actions like attacking would cancel the spell. If there are balance problems involved with a feature, I don't blame developers for wanting to fix or avoid them, but removing the feature entirely isn't necessarily the only way to do so.

If developers intend mountains to be an obstacle than fast travel also makes a slight issue.

Of course fast travel only affects it after you've discovered locations, so it should interefere with it mostly towards the middle or end game, and only in traveling.

Levitation may also present the same issue at the middle to end of the game, because it should be a very difficult spell requiring a high alteration skill. Although it could also affect certian quests, assuming there are quests that force you to follow a path in an outdoors area, much like Oblivion gates.

And yes, if I earned my skill in alteration to levitate I deserve my ability to more affectively travel. Besides, how many frail mages would be good at navigating the harsh mountains of Skyrim anyway?

But it's certainly the cheapest. :hubbahubba:

:obliviongate:

If they add levitation it needs to be limited.

it should drain magicka constantly, or something:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1162427-npcs-and-limited-levitation/

I don't really remember levitation being in Morrowind, but it sure was in Daggerfall and Arena. But really, why the hell would they have a levitation spell if they don't have a climbing skill? Screw it.

I very much disagree on that.
I dont think levitation was ever overpowered or broken. All it needs is NPC AI being able to deal with it.

Levitation allows for a very much more detailed world, where you are not just stuck on a flat surface.
I loved floating up to find some treasure in a hidden nook or cranny, I loved levitating over a pesky mountain that was in my way and the Telvanni towers were awesome.
Tel Uvirith was always my home, partly because that you had to be able to fly to get to the master bedroom. It made me feel like a powerful wizard.

In the books about the Infernal city levitation is rediscovered.
Therefore I have good hopes that at least one of the instutes of magic will teach it.

It should be balanced with a negative, but for balance's sake it shouldn't be outright removed.
But with improved bows and dragons and spells, I think there will be plenty to shoot down or take out any would be exploiters. Its not like it will be useful against dragons, and every bandit camp has at least 1 archer.

There was at least 2 other threads about this already so you should have named this one "#3" or some such thing. In those threads, a lot of people offered evidence that Levitation will NOT be coming back. It was disheartening but at the time their reasons were convincing to me, even though I didn't want to believe it. I really want Levitation to be in, it was a lot of fun to stand on the high places and just look around from a bird's eye view. I miss having that power. I have a real fear of heights, so for me, even if a videogame, the feelings being up high where I shouldn't be generate are very authentic nonetheless and I like to experience the rush. Just as I do in real life. In the city, I always go to the highest place I can find and marvel at the view as my gut tremors and shakes and sends strange dizzying sensations running up and down my spine.

On a side note, even if Levitation isn't in, there are alternatives to it that they should at least consider! You know, there are some Squirrels somewhere that have flaps under their arms and although they can't exactly fly... they can sail through the forest from tree to tree. It'd be cool at the very least to have a spell or an ability to sail down from the mountains by leaping off the cliff and taking flight down. I would hate to be way up on a mountain with the only way down being to run back down the whole mountain again, when a good jump off the side could speed things up, and be a really fun experience. If one could sail down unharmed.

Just a thought.

Exactly.

While I think constant effect levitation should be hard to impossible and speed of movement while levitated should impact rate of magicka burning what the game really needs is AI capable of fighting someone levitated.

A levitating noob should be easy prey for archers, mages able to control lightning or shoot fire, winged creatures, and, most importantly, other AI characters that have mastered fighting while levitated. :homestar: A master battle mage or magicka oriented stealth character would imo have levitation and other similar spells as part of their retinue and would be able to do some pretty awesome things with it. I envision battle mages fighting in a similar manner to Jedi. The ability to levitate and occasional quick power jumps seem to be natural fits for this type of character.