I agree with this guy quite an ingenious idea.

Yes, I want levitation.

IF you like exploration you should like the new exploration options that open up with adding the Z sphere (in addition to traditional X and Y).

And when the dev includes areas that can only be reached by levitation that shows that it is not a cheat. Adding levitation means, it should also be considered when designing areas so there is actually added value in having levitation spells (such as secret areas in caves, or the telvanni towers in Morrowind). So if they include levitation, it should have been planned from the beginning so level designers could incorporate it in their design of their dungeons.

But if you really maintain that leviatiation is a cheat or exploit, then waterbreathing and waterwalking spells would be exploits too.

Similarly we could argue that fast travel is a cheat, but it's not. Fast travel is a feature, just as levitation spells would be a feature of any game it was included in.

I like the idea of levitation but I believe it should have more limits than it did in Morrowind. I think to levitate you should have to channel the spell (i.e. no other actions can be performed while levitating) also your concentration should be disrupted after a certain amount of damage. Also please just make us float no walking in the air

I miss Levitation, not only did it add a whole level of complexity to what you could do and where you could go, but it also made traversing the land much faster. I loved how I could cast a levitation spell and get anywhere I wanted in the game. I fail to understand how levitation could ever be considered cheating like Lighter9 said, that makes no sense at all. It was built into the game and a lot of the game world was built around it so you had to use it. Even if they use interior cities again for Skyrim they can add something lore wise that says it is illegal to levitate into cities, they have a magic barrier, or better yet the guards check everyone in and out of the city. (wouldn't actually have to check in every time, that would just be annoying.)



This kind of stuff just makes me angry, why don't they listen to their fans? what gives them the right to tell us what spot is best to spend time on? We want what we want not what they want us to want. I hate how game developers promise a release date then they hurry and cut all kinds of stuff out of the game at the last minute to make the deadline, I dont understand it. There are no deadlines when you are the creator, you can take as long as you want. I am willing to wait for Skyrim.

Why should that matter? It's a single player game. The only person it will really affect is me.

Or just the fact that levitation is part of TES. Levitation needs to be in Skyrim.

It should be a constant drain weight reduction system. At increasing effects, goes something like:
* Low level, it will make you able to carry more or affect your buoyancy while swimming. Swimming in heavy outfit is not a good idea. Using spell will enable you to direct more of your motion forward than up if you want to prevent drowning.
* Next is slowfalling where you get to break your fall.
* Next would be the ability to walk on water. Your now so light you're able to walk on water.
* Finally levitation. However, nothing like Morrowind. It's still weight dependent, so if you're heavy you have to put in a lot of effort just to levitate upwards, and the magicka drain increases with height as well.
It's not done in steps, but based on skill level for the power, and magicka reserves dictates how long you're able to levitate. At max everything and no weight, you're still only able to levitate at half travel speed, so it's not a lucurative travel option but a tool to solve problems. If a battlemage needs to get to a ledge with "relative ease" to get to a chest, he may have to put off some weight in order to get there. So there is a sacrifice involved.

The original levitation was far too much of a freebie and broke the game, especially considering only players were able to use it. The only attempt on NPC flight I ever saw didn't really end too well At the same time, it would be awesome if NPCs you were after gracefully levitated to safety.

I think that Levitation could be a high level dragon shout, which one could acquire at higher levels.

Levitation is definitely alteration - and should remain the purview of mages. The problem in Morrowind is that the plot required you have access to the spell at a fairly early point, since it was the only way to speak to certain Telvanni.

Proper levitation should be restricted to moderate to high-level mages. It should require great expense, both to learn and to use. If it is, then it becomes a great reward to mages who perfect it. If Bethesda were to bring back spell failure, and put levitation out of reach of all but the most powerful mages, it would be an awesome spell, and it would answer the critics complaints about it being a "newbie cheat". Seriously, if you knew that you had 50% chance of blowing 50% of your magicka reserves, you would seriously think before pulling the trigger on a levitation spell. That, combined with necessarily short durations at lower levels, would pretty much do it.

I hope it's in, but that it's hard to obtain, and costly to use.

Actually, I believe the potion you speak of was first created in Black Marsh. IIRC, that was how they got to Umbriel in the first place.

As for levitation not fitting in with the lore, I'm not entirely sure I follow what you mean. At least two out of four games (never played Arena) in the series had levitation as a spell effect. The Infernal City, which I've heard is considered cannon, makes mention of levitation. You could even argue that Vivec himself 'levitated'. Does the representation of levitation in the gameworld not count as a part of the lore? If not, what do you define as lore?

At any rate, I agree with you on one point. If levitation is implemented in Skyrim, it needs to be be toned down from how it was in Morrowind.

Lets actually look at what we KNOW and has been CONFIRMED rather than make stuff up...

We KNOW that the new random quest system will make up quests on the fly that send you to dungeons you have never been to before... so you will find those undiscovered dungeons through natural play, wether you walk, levitate or skip through skyrim.

We KNOW Skyrim will have dragons, dragons that fly... it may be posible you will have encouters even if your 100ft in the air, maybe not, but at the end of the day, its a single player game, you cant really be "under-leveled" in a game that uses level scaling, even if only for some areas, thats just nonsense. You play the game at your own pace and if the developers get it right you have fun doing it.

We KNOW that the game will comprise of both scripted AND non-scripted gameplay. We KNOW sneaking is a skill in skyrim. We don't know about invisibility but its probably a safe bet, but sticking to what we KNOW, it will already be posible for players to reach certain places easier at least via sneaking, this is not cheating, there is no rule to say you can't avoid a trap or enemy. We also KNOW (if you have played any TES games) that Bethesda rarely intend for there to be only 1 aproach to playing, quests are designed to take into acount diverse skillsets. We KNOW in skyrim, quests will be offered to you that match your skills and abilities, so the developers can have the AI decide not to offer you a quest because you have a levitate spell that could ruin it if they really wanted to.

Now just focus on what we actually know about skyrim and then you can talk about the pros and cons of levitation in the game from a logical rather than an emotive perspective.

I think one of the reasons people overlook about levitation is that it is an ability EXCLUSIVE to one class that allows an extreme advantage over the others. Stealth and combat have no alternative to levitation and so they feel too many people would pick alteration just to have the ability to fly around. I think they are trying to avoid that feeling of 'mandatory' skills your character will HAVE to take for a complete game experience.

EDIT: Before people start spouting about stealth allowing a character to bypass enemies, it does not allow you to bypass terrain obstacles.

Bethesda Dev 1: Hey! You know what would be cool in Skyrim? Levitation! Loads of people loved in in Morrowind so we should bring it back.
Bethesda Dev 2: I like the idea but it's exclusive to the alteration skill, and we don't wanna force players to only pick to level a skill because of one benefit.
Dev 1: Oh, you're right. We won't put it in the game at all then. Thanks.
Dev 2: I know. What can you do, hey? Wait a minute, we could just...
Dev 1: We're over talking about levitation now! There was one very basic problem so we're not even going to consider using it again! Let's move on.

Yep.

Destruction also had the EXCLUSIVE advantage of being able to damage multiple enemies simultaneously; the idea that you have to limit the power of mages to be fair to everyone else has always bugged me.
They weren't unkillable gods; they just got through the dungeon faster, I see no real problem with that.

Also thieves could jump, like REALLY high.

It's when the word "balance" comes up that my teeth grate.

(If) It's a single player game why on earth are balance issues even applicable?! One of the advantages of building and advancing a character is the point where you are more powerful and skilled than your opponents, where you can get an advantage over them. Levitation did just that. Umbra in Morrowind never stood a chance, did it feel cheap? No, I was making use of a skill that I put the practice into to use.

The funneling of players into archetypes stinks as well, warrior/mage/thief. I'd get bored of being fit into a certain classification and would look to practise and make use of skills that were useful to me at the time or to experiment with things I hadn't tried previously making it just as doable to play a warrior who spent some time learning alteration to get an advantage over other warriors who hadn't. Surely that would constitute roleplaying?

Nothing in TES since Daggerfall has been exclusive to class. Anyone can learn magic. I've always played custom classes for exactly that reason. A character with no Restoration skills is a dead character pretty quickly.

Also, anyone could buy potions of Rising Force. Or go to the shrine in Vivec, make a donation, and levitate for a full day.

So that's kind of a silly argument.

Levitation messed up Morrowind a good deal:

-Enemies weren't prepared to deal with it. A ground-based melee character should take cover/run when you levitate, instead they just stood stupidly and died at range.
-Acrobatics was rendered useless by it.
-Height in terrain and dungeons became meaningless. Height-based puzzles were impossible to implement.

I was glad when they took Levitation out of Oblivion. It made the world a bit more "gripping". However, if they can re-implement Levitation in Skyrim without running into the above problems, I'll be even happier.

Balance in a single player game IS important. I want a game to have a challenge to it; that means I shouldn't stumble over a spell that renders all my other abilities obsolete and all enemies harmless. "Just don't use the godmode ability" you say, but Morrowind had like 50 abilities/tactics that were godmode, trying to "restrict" myself enough to make the game a challenge took as much effort as playing the game.