Now I'm thinking they didnt add magnetism for companions, just as a dumbed down auto aim feature, or somthing. Especially since we can only have one companion. With one companion, Ive never had trouble in previous ES games, hit wise. Its only when you get an entourage, stuff hits the fan.

I am not into balance at the expense of plausibility. If the balancing mechanic makes absolutely NO SENSE as anything other than a balancing mechanic, then it is a problem. If there is no LOGICAL gameworld explanation as to why your character cannot do thing A, or have thing B, and the ONLY reason that can be gleaned for the restriction is "balance" then it is just immersion breaking crap that favours the system over the player.

I thought it was more for battle scenes than companions - I know that I always have trouble with fights involving 3+ friendly NPCs, with the trouble increasing with the number of friendlies. (This is in Oblivion)



And I will generally always rank balance & gameplay over lore. Ah, well. Difference of opinion is difference of opinion.

But sometimes it goes beyond defying lore into the realm of defying logic.

I'll give an example that has come up in other threads. Telekenisis. Now, that spell in Oblivion served no constructive purpose outside of neatly arranging things in your home or living quarters. And even then, it was mainly only useful because the game didn't allow you to place things with your hands. Items just shot out of your ass when you dropped them and slid across the floor, so the telekenis let you at least put them in order.

But it could have been useful if you could have used it, say, to pull levers that were in plain sight of your character, but just out of his or her reach (say across a narrow pit, or on the other side of a set of bars). Some would say that this would make the spell overpowered and balance breaking. But any intelligent person has to ask, how is it that a spell which can lift a two-hundred pound Daedric or Ebony warhammer ten meters into the air and twirl it like a baton, is incapable of applying the 10 pounds of pressure needed to flip a switch or lever sitting ten feet away from the player/character?

The same can be said here. Why WOULDN'T a player who has become powerful and famous not be able to get a handful of followers? It strains credulity. If a restriction makes the game balanced but doesn't make ANY sense outside of a balancing argument, then it probably should not be in place.

Telekinesis in Oblivion was useful for throwing swords over White Gold Tower.

Just add some physics-based damage and magically chucking a sword at someone could be a very fun fighting style.

Who cares this isn't a squad based game.

The load times would take longer when entering a Dungeon or building with a bunch of people following you.

Honestly I dont really care,.....I probably wont bother too much with companions anyway.

A sound, lore fitting reason is given for you not being one of the gods. You don't start the game as one of them, and you aren't one. Though on the topic of becoming a god. . . well, there was that whole Shivering Isles thing.

For a powerful PC to become a cult leader, light or dark, makes perfect sense actually. I don't know how well the AI and engine could support such a thing, but it CERTAINLY would be a viable roleplaying option. It surprises me that you fail to realize this.
I don't see why you would not be able to become a Jarl, if you can muster the power to conquer their Hold and to maintain dominance.

As to the mudcrab bit. . . if there is a transfiguration spell that allows it, and you want to *cough* waste *cough* spend all of your time scuttling around as the pair of ragged claws mentioned in that T.S. Elliot poem, then I say have a wonderful time doing so.

That said, you are looking to hyperbolize. I am speaking of reasonable options, and two out of the four examples you gave don't really fall into that category. There is an enormous difference between not being able to become a god, and not being able to get two or three NPCs to follow your leadership as loyal companions.

If you are suggesting that it is fine for lots of things to be viable in the gameworld but entirely off limits to the player, maybe they should also remove the option to have swords, magic and guildmembership. And you DEFINITELY shouldn't be able to perform dragonshouts, as rare as they are supposed to be. Much more uncommon than Jarls and cult leaders.

You still don't seem to get it, so I'll distill it a little further: Just because we can, doesn't mean we should.

Don't mistake me not agreeing with you to mean that I do not understanding what you are saying.

I GET what you are saying just fine. I just recognize that your arguments have employed MASSIVE amounts of strawman arguments and hyperbole.

I find some of your postulates to be without justification. There is nothing for you to distill. You believe that certain illogical restrictions are justified in and of themselves, just because and without any good or sensible explanation.

I belive that restrictions that defy both lore and logic aught to have some damned good explanations as to their justification.