Levitation has its ups and downs . From a design perspective when you add a power like levitation you have to account for how it could affect virtually every area of the game. Could a player skip over an important scripted sequence? Avoid a necessary battle? Hide out of reach of an enemy but still be able to throw spells or shoot missile weapons at them? On the other side it adds a lot of room for new content via vertical exploration.

There are ways to balance out some of the issues, of course. One could set it as a constant drain spell, set it to break if the player tries to attack or cast a spell, etc. That way it's basically relegated to being an exploration tool rather than a combat exploit. It still means level designers have to account for how it could break or circumvent segments of the game though.

I really missed levitation in Oblivion. Sure, it made some bits of Morrowind waaaay too easy, but it was still a really nice spell to have and made some pretty interesting parts in the game. Divayth's tower, for example. Also, in the bits below Mournhold you could levitate up to get a nice view of all that subterranean vista.

It should definitely come back, even if with some heavy limits to it. Which I still couldn't really stand by completely, but I'd definitely understand.

Also, while we're on it, I want my lock spell back. Y'know, now that it would actually be useful.

I like this.
How about implenting a system where casting levitation would trigger the effect until you cast another spell or made an attack?
that way we would still be able to go wherever we'd like to while not feeling OP in combat.

perhaps it could slowly drain your magicka while active and you could see some blueish magicka stream flowing out of your hands meanwhile.

I sure hope so . The plains of Cyrodiil may have been an excuse not to allow it, but now we're back in mountains. Fingers crossed :thumbsup:

i was complaining about whether or not there would be open cities and someone posted that the cities are now open. its not %100 guaranteed yet but supposedly its looking good.

I have a feeling levitation (and perhaps climbing) will be in the game. Somewhere in the GI article, someone said "If you can see it, you can go there." That, to me, indicates (because of all the mountainy landscape) some sort of travel other than walking/jumping.

Would love for some ninja tools like Kunai or something, to help climb, I always wanted to do a ninja character for sneak and stuff.

Well, I doubt anything like that. (Plus, they'd use Shuko to climb, silly.)

Buuuut, some climbing gear would be pretty snazzy.
I like having mundane ways of doing things usually solved by magic.

Oh lord I hope so, I don't even think that it will be unfair on the AI (if they make going up in the air a slow start), Archers can shoot you down and another caster can also shoot you down, its not being unbalanced its being smart. What else is going to level the playing field against me and a huge Nord barbarian?

A summoned Daedroth :rolleyes:

What about 2 Nord barbarians? What about a barbarian warlord? What if my conjuration skill is not high enough

I hope so, by the looks of some of the environments in the Game Infromer magazine. It looks like some of the areas will need that Levitation skill. Couldn't hurt to have the Slowfall spell either .

This is a great idea, skill in levitation should effect how high you can go. I'm hoping it is in skyrim, I mean it's in the freakin book which takes place between the Oblivion crisis and the Skyrim crisis.

Then its time for a bigger Axe :shrug:

Im a mage! I cant use axes! i'm like toilet paper to the Nords!

It's not that necessary. In Morrowind it was useful because there was no fast-travel, the open gameworld allowed it and it didn't look silly compared to the rest of Morrowind's animations.

For Skyrim I think that the world boundaries will be towering mountains and some of the larger cities will be in their own cells, preventing levitation.

What I would prefer that they work on is new environmental traversal animations, maybe like Mirror's Edge (vault, ledge grab, crouch under objects).

Please give us Levitation back...please...and Jump too!

Make Levitation an extension of Telekinesis. At low power you can only levitate and move small objects. A little more power and you can use it to slow your descent (a less effective version of Slowfall) when falling, and use it to boost your jumping (rocket jumps without the rocket). A little more and you can levitate up to ledges for short distances and do a proper slowfall.

Make it an active spell that drains magicka and occupies one of your hands whenever being cast.

You'd eventually get all the needed utility but with practically no ability to exploit it.

Like I said in a thread before this one... If you can come up with an animation that doesn't look stupid, you've got my vote.

Just realized something.

If levitation's back in.
Knowing that spells take one hand, but can be cast to greater effect with both...

Two hands with levitation.
Can I freakin' fly?

I hope levitation is back, but like others have said before, I hope there are some limitations on it, like a magicka drain, or encumbrance being an issue. I don't think there should be a limit to how high one can levitate, but that it should be partially determined by level and/or ranks in the related magic skills. A level one mage shouldn't be able to fly a mile in the sky and all day, but an ancient archmage who has studied magic for a long time should be able to do some fun flying things.

And, even though it might not happen, I do think it'd be awesome to duke it out with a dragon in the sky...

And, given Skyrim's very vertical nature (all those tall mountains and cliffs) it makes sense to me that levitation would be an option, if for no other reason than to access otherwise inaccessible (or almost impossible to access) places. Think...a smart dragon would probably pick his lair to be as high up and difficult for a ground-dweller to get to to protect his hoard/life.

And also, since meleers seem to be getting a lot of love with Skyrim (finishing moves, diversified weapons etc.) I don't see why spellcasters shouldn't get a little love by getting levitation back.

Levitation was fun. It would be fun, if it comes back.

That's a great idea Showler. Levitation is a powerful spell that should require a remarkable amount of skill. In MW and DF, levitation was virtually impossbile for low-level characters and once it was learned it made it easier to escape trouble...despite the hideous cliff racers in MW.

I wouldnt mind encumberance being a factor on levitation.

I dont know why people are always going on about levitation being overpowered, it really wasnt.
On morrowind it wasnt a cheap spell and it wasnt that easy to cast, lvl 50 for reliably casting the store spell, I believe, wich made you float very slow too.
You had to be a serious mage to be able to use it more than three times in a row.
Yes, if you designed your whole character to take advantage of levitation, or if you forked over enough money and chose to make a custom enchantment, you could.

But why go through all the trouble of tweaking your gameplay just to take advantage of levitation, and then complain its overpowered?
My warriors almost never used levitation. it was a 45 pt. spell and I only had 100 total. My warriors also would not make an enchant or use anything other than mazte or a potion of fools luck.

My mages were another story.

But, yes, encumberance a factor on levitation. Ok, if I can simultaniously cast feather to reduce my encumberance, fine.
If its anything as expensive as Morrowind, I would need close to 100 spell points for a 30 sec. levitation + 30 sec high feather. And an alteration level of about 60 should be good, I guess.

Handy for mage types, not really useful for anyone else, so hardly exploitable.

I hope not as it encourages easy broken gameplay like Invisibilty.