» Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:50 pm I never did go out on the forum back in the day to find out why they had removed this awesome experience with all its mystical values, but always assumed that the company had put a more mainstream approach with their last success, that usually sort of happens when a company in the entertainment business gets to play with with a bigger ball on ther court at the stockmarket.
Anyways... I did a nefty search on the Skyrim forum and compiled a thread with both positive and negative quotes from various threads along with some possible solutions and opinions about the whole thing.
Oblivion:Levitation Act
In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, players had access to (and at some places, such as Tel Branora and Tel Fyr, required) a "Levitation" spell. In Oblivion, Levitation spells have been removed. The reason levitation was removed, according to the developers, is that, unlike in Morrowind, cities are located in separate cells from the rest of the world. Since the cities aren't fully rendered until you enter them, it wouldn't look right if you were to fly over the walls. Levitation also was sometimes used as an exploit in previous games of the series, so it was removed to preserve game balance. However, by climbing on roof tops one can exit towns and see the unrendered world.
Two NPC conversations that you can overhear in the Imperial City mention that Dovyn Aren has been discouraged by the passage of the "Levitation Act." This is presumably an effort to establish continuity with Morrowind. The specific quotes are: He still teaches, though he lost his passion for it after the Levitation Act was passed. Can't say I blame him. He's getting older, but he can still teach a bit about Alteration. He's been teaching it since before the Levitation Act of 421. Also, one of M'aiq the Liar's quotes is about levitation: Levitation is for fools. Why would we want to levitate? Once you are up high, there is nowhere to go but down.
Several areas incorporate this limitation into their level design. The planes of Oblivion, including the tower, is one notable example. In many multi-level dungeons, there is also often a door at the end of the last level which leads back to a walkway above and near the entrance, which the player can jump down from for a quick exit. Having a levitation spell available would eliminate the need to traverse much of these areas..
In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, players had access to (and at some places, such as Tel Branora and Tel Fyr, required) a "Levitation" spell. In Oblivion, Levitation spells have been removed. The reason levitation was removed, according to the developers, is that, unlike in Morrowind, cities are located in separate cells from the rest of the world. Since the cities aren't fully rendered until you enter them, it wouldn't look right if you were to fly over the walls. Levitation also was sometimes used as an exploit in previous games of the series, so it was removed to preserve game balance. However, by climbing on roof tops one can exit towns and see the unrendered world.
Two NPC conversations that you can overhear in the Imperial City mention that Dovyn Aren has been discouraged by the passage of the "Levitation Act." This is presumably an effort to establish continuity with Morrowind. The specific quotes are: He still teaches, though he lost his passion for it after the Levitation Act was passed. Can't say I blame him. He's getting older, but he can still teach a bit about Alteration. He's been teaching it since before the Levitation Act of 421. Also, one of M'aiq the Liar's quotes is about levitation: Levitation is for fools. Why would we want to levitate? Once you are up high, there is nowhere to go but down.
Several areas incorporate this limitation into their level design. The planes of Oblivion, including the tower, is one notable example. In many multi-level dungeons, there is also often a door at the end of the last level which leads back to a walkway above and near the entrance, which the player can jump down from for a quick exit. Having a levitation spell available would eliminate the need to traverse much of these areas..
Some threads about levitation.
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1162427-npcs-and-limited-levitation/page__view__findpost__p__17070941__hl__levitation__fromsearch__1
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1160548-if-levitation-is-in-this-game/page__view__findpost__p__17028359__hl__levitation__fromsearch__1
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1160488-levitation-in-or-out/page__view__findpost__p__17026623__hl__levitation__fromsearch__1
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1148716-levitation/page__view__findpost__p__16794780__hl__levitation__fromsearch__1
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1158425-levitation/page__view__findpost__p__16980248__hl__levitation__fromsearch__1
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1158061-levitation/page__view__findpost__p__16971397__hl__levitation__fromsearch__1
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1154145-levitation-and-flying/page__view__findpost__p__16891631__hl__levitation__fromsearch__1
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1149247-please-bring-back-levitation/page__view__findpost__p__16805426__hl__levitation__fromsearch__1
Positive
Levitation was awesome. It created so many memorable game-play moments.
Levitation was one of the things that made Morrowind into the most free-form game for me, and its absence in Oblivion made me disappointed. I didn't care much for the interiorized cities, so if they would decide to let those go, I'd be happy. Even if this was at the expense of polygon count or texture quality.
Levitation was one of the outstanding features of MW, and I felt cheated when they removed it in OB. I understand the technical reasoning behind what they did, but I don't like it. In MW, when I first had a character successfully cast it, and managed to get to the top of a small hill that obstructed his way and shortened his trip by half, it was a revelation. From that moment on, hills, buildings, walls, and other obstructions were no longer "barriers", merely minor inconveniences to be overcome. It totally changed the way I viewed the game. When I visited the Telvanni in their mushroom towers, I could only nod in admiration that "these are true masters of their environment, who know how to make use of the tools available to them". Simply put, 3 dimensions is just better than 2.
In MW, levitation was too easy to get in a form that could be abused. If the maintainance cost over time was higher, as opposed to the base cost, it would be relatively easy to make short "hops", but harder to just float there and spam arrows and spells on a helpless foe beneath you. Not that you couldn't do it, but the cost and difficulty would make it prohibitive for all but the most powerful or rich. Just make the duration's magicka cost exponential, and you suddenly limit spell durations to 5-30 seconds, except for the most powerful wizards, who might stay aloft for a whole minute, or the absolutely money-saturated characters who could afford the insanely priced potions or enchantments to do it.
A few opponents could also throw an occasional Dispel at you when you're airborne, which would be a pretty effective way of ruining your whole day, and would make aerial combat a potentially dangerous maneuver.
In MW, levitation was too easy to get in a form that could be abused. If the maintainance cost over time was higher, as opposed to the base cost, it would be relatively easy to make short "hops", but harder to just float there and spam arrows and spells on a helpless foe beneath you. Not that you couldn't do it, but the cost and difficulty would make it prohibitive for all but the most powerful or rich. Just make the duration's magicka cost exponential, and you suddenly limit spell durations to 5-30 seconds, except for the most powerful wizards, who might stay aloft for a whole minute, or the absolutely money-saturated characters who could afford the insanely priced potions or enchantments to do it.
A few opponents could also throw an occasional Dispel at you when you're airborne, which would be a pretty effective way of ruining your whole day, and would make aerial combat a potentially dangerous maneuver.
One of my few disapointments with TES:IV was the removal of the alteration spell levitation. Having played all the primary TES games since Arena, I loved the ability to float up to hidden chambers in Morrowind dungeons.
When Oblivion came out with its next gen engine, I was sadened to see that dungeons had lost much of their cavernous feel, and levitation in all forms, be it spells or potions, was gone.
When Oblivion came out with its next gen engine, I was sadened to see that dungeons had lost much of their cavernous feel, and levitation in all forms, be it spells or potions, was gone.
Stacking enchantments in Morrowind cost an unnatural amount of gold, an amulet that healed you at 1HP per second for instance (CE) would cost around 100,000 drakes if not more and pre-made items that held constant effect enchantments were few and far between, and at that, they were generally extremely difficult to acquire. Levitation still had a cost and on top of that was a fairly advanced alteration skill, not to mention it actually added to the difficulty and fun of the game as it provided another outlet for dungeon exploration and puzzle solving, wheras Oblivion's method simply revolved around running through each slightly different dungeon, pressing buttons on the wall and killing monsters and enemies indiscriminately (with the exception of a few specific quests). Beside that, the only real reason they removed levitation was because of the nature of the towns (what with being contained in separate, isolated cells) and for the sake of simplifying dungeons.
Levatation might have been broken, but it could've been fixed without being completely removed. And I think the reason that most people here liked levatation was because it allowed the developers to design dungeons vertically. I mean, in Morrowind there was so much hidden loot that was stored in some little nook on the ceiling of some random dungeon that you wouldn't have if not for levatation. That's why people (or at least, that's why I) enjoyed levatation. It allowed variety. Yes, it did need improvement, but totally removing it wasn't the answer.
They have [censored] a lot of new ideas that turned out to be hand holding, and removed the challenge and novelty of the game, or reduced my enjoyment from an aspect that I liked in Morrowind, you might call that RPGing or not, but it was a viable aspect that went bad in Oblivion:
- Removing levitation and 3d dungeon design, grottoes and under water dungeons: The need to look in all direction in dungeons not to miss some nice surprise, gone, immense variety of the dungeon design and ideas, gone.
Yep. Nothing says depth like bypassing the entire game and killing everything by floating above them and pummeling them with spells.... Levitation, like spears and extra armor slots in Morrowind, were exploited easily. I'd be fine with Levitation coming back if it constantly and rapidly drains your magicka so that you can only get about 50-70 feet in the air and 30 feet in any direction. This would allow you to get to certain ledges you normally couldn't get to but would let you abuse it like in Morrowind to bypass any chance of combat or just levitating and killing enemies with magic from up in the air or shooting arrows at them. Levitation shouldn't allow you to fly as high as you want and forever, it should be a very limited levitation that will allow you to get to the next ledge and nothing more.
Again...it's a single player game. How is levitating out of range of an enemy and shooting spells at them not a legitimate combat tactic in a single player game? We have to be fair to the poor NPCs? And if you choose to bypass the game with levitation...isn't that your fault? Honestly, what's the argument here?
I do think levitation should be high magicka cost spell...but then the most powerful versions of it were in Morrowind so that's not really any different. /shrug.
There's no legitimate reason not to have levitation other than it forces the developers to design the world with it in mind. :poke:
I do think levitation should be high magicka cost spell...but then the most powerful versions of it were in Morrowind so that's not really any different. /shrug.
There's no legitimate reason not to have levitation other than it forces the developers to design the world with it in mind. :poke:
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