The biggest strength of TES games is its open world character. Be who you want to be and go to everywhere. Still on this board and the general consensus of the developers is that there must be a balance to everything and that the player must be confined in a lot of ways. In this single player game that says it is al about free choice I keep feeling I'm being hand held through the whole experience. Houses and chest have nothing worth while. Oh so you snuck into the castle at night. Well guess what we are nobles just by title. Of you go, shhhhh (getting rich by theft is unbalanced D:, eek).

Levitation gave the world an extra dimension in Morrowind. Especially with the prison above Vivec en the houses on the east part of the Island(forgot the name). The player had extra choices that made the game world rich and gave a lot of ways to handle your problems. It was taken out because people could abuse it and we don't want that! It is so narrow minded. It is a singleplayer game If it really ruins someone's fun that much it is their fault and their fault alone that it happened. Same for enchanting armour. I never even made on piece of armour with deflect magic on it. The game became to easy for you? Congrats you did everything to make it so. This is not a fault of the game or even a balance issue it is the player's choice and that is what can make a game exceptional instead of great.

Again I feel acrobatics and athletics where taken out because they could be "abused". You could get to places where no one could go. I had great fun alone in Oblivion to jump to get on top of all kind of places. But if you can get to places the devs didn't think of you might have an experience that wasn't intended by the devs. Of course this is an outrage and must be stopped. The game says its about freedom, but more and more choices get cut from the game. Can we only do what the devs intended? Will I again feel that I'm constantly reminded that some stuff just isn't possible. Will this game get more linear with every iteration? Will we get a game like mass effect where you cant even jump? With this I see them taking frenzy and charm out as well. I'm worried. Are you?

They took levitation out because it meant that they're able to create more interesting quests, or something like that. It's answered in the Q&A, but they have a pretty valid reason.

And no, I'm not worried, because you, like all the others, are overreacting.

i doubt it will go as far as mass effect and i think that they removed athletics and acrobatics because we shouldn't be rewarded for walking or jumping

How is it overreacting? I liked levitation magic.

The feature added to the game, and was completely optional. (Not every player even plays a mage, so not only was it optional, it was mainly for one character type.)

How is that so horribly unbalancing that it had to be removed?

How does it make for more interesting quest, when things like "Oblivion Gate" quest were annoying, I'd much rather just fly over, take the stone, and be done with it. (I am a mage after all, that's how we roll. We use magic to do stuff, ie, instead of hard work, we cast spells, and accomplish things like.... drum roll please.... MAGIC!)

It's ridiculous, if you don't like, don't use it, fast travel rule applies.

(Same with enchanting, etc,. It was optional, you were free to never make a single enchantment in Morrowind.)

If by "experience that wasn't intended by the devs", you mean "skipping past encounters guarding important things" or "going into inaccessable world areas where you might clip through the floor or end up in an empty 'interior' cell" (like the undetailed "world" versions of the walled cities")...... then, yes. There's no reason for you to be able to screw up the game and/or your character.

That's not a lack of "freedom".

"Go anywhere, do anything" does not include falling "behind the scenes" and clipping through floors.

And taking out your ability to glitch your way to a few inaccessable places of the world isn't making the game linear, except in the wildest reaches of hyperbole.


Oblivion (without levitation) and Fallout 3 (without lev or superjump) were still incredible "open world" games that would let you go all sorts of places and do all sorts of things.

Lame.

You can fall through the floors in Oblivion just by walking around, and for the record, I NEVER had this happen using both features in Morrowind. (Levitation, and Jump.)

You have to be doing something pretty stupid to have that happen, gee, let's cast 500pts of Jump in a room with an 8 foot ceiling, or, let's fly into the corner til the physics engine glitches out, and I clip through.

Regardless, that was a failure of the physics engine if anything, not levitation and jump spells.

--

Btw, do you know how many items I lost because they fell through the floor in Oblivion? We better remove the ability to remove them from your inventory..

Please, this logic fails, apply it everywhere, or nowhere.

Even in open world games, the developers still want to have some control over the "flow" of the game and the progression of the player through certain areas.

It's not taking way precious "freedom" - it's just good game design.


Edit: having some limits on movement also allows for interesting encounter design. Like, even in an "open world", there can be a blind canyon with something important at the end, with a series of interesting and dangerous encounters barring entry..... gee, or you could just levitate or superjump straight to the end.

Or... picture a dungeon. You enter into a huge cavern - in the center, you see a raised tower, atop which you can see the brightly glowing Sword Of Ultimate Doom.... but to get to it, you'll need to work your way around the surrounding tunnels and rooms, past ambushes, traps, and dangerous monsters. Until you've earned the amazing artifact you see before you. ....well, or you could just superjump onto a couple of wall details, onto the top of the tower, and grab the artifact without facing anything. Glad the devs went through all the trouble to design an interesting dungeon for you to (probably) exploit your way to a piece of gear you probably shouldn't have at your level.

It's good game design to remove an entire feature, thousands of people enjoy, because it "might" break "some" quest. ???

And, someone has obviously never played Tribunal.. (They control the flow just fine, and didn't remove levitation from the game.)

(And with Oblivion style GPS here to stay, how could you possibly miss anything?)

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Edit: ^

As far as level design, again, what part of optional, mage only power, are you missing? The dungeons you describe would work fine for any other character type, and for the mage, it would also be fine, we cast the spell for a reason, don't you think?

It's not like, whoops, I cast this spell, now the dungeon is ruined! It's more like, this dungeon svcks, I'm going to cast my spell to get over there quicker, etc,. Honestly, I don't care what the devs wanted, it was their own fault for not listening, I complained as soon as I found it was missing from Oblivion, did they think I would change my mind?

they removed levitation because not only it made things to easy for the player but like Kiralyn2000 has allready told you game design problems. and the reason you didnt get into the undetailed cities using levitation was because they werent in a seperate cell.

levitaion was stupid anyway, it made playing a mage way overpowering. compared to other classes.

Actually their reason was pretty invalid. Their reason was something along the lines of Dev one saying "WOW! We could make the player engage in this scenario"
and Dev Two saying "HAHAHA!!! Levitate away!!"

It's a valid reason, until you think "hey.. Levitation gives me no advantage if I'm in a claustophobic space where even when levitating, I'm too close to the ground to avoid being hit, or if I get mobbed by a bunch of enemies that can also fly, or even if I get mobbed by a bunch of enemies with a ranged attack. And position A is only inaccessible through levitation if I can't levitate to it, but you don't have to take away levitation to make that position inaccessible."

Now obviously there are the closed in cell issues etc. The fact is, it would be better game design if almost every single quest didn't play out in more or less exactly the same way.

I can't comment on levitation making mages overpowered. I had my first play through of Morrowind on Godmode (Because I really, truly svcked, and actually thought that was a valid play style) and in later play throughs never really used magic.

I have mixed feelings about this. I never really cared much for levitation and found it a little bit silly, so i'm not exactly sad to see it gone again, but at the same time I don't think "giving the developers more control over the player" or "preventing players from abusing it to get through quests" are really valid reasons for removing the feature. TES games aren't supposed to be linear - they're open world games. That's no.1 on the list of things I love about the series, however at the same time it means that developers have a lot less control over what the player sees and does. They should learn to work around that and just accept that players may approach the game in many different ways (including using features like levitation to find an easy way out). If they're that concerned about having control over the player to maximize the experience of quests, then maybe they should just scrap the whole nonlinear approach right now and just make a linear game like all the countless story-driven RPGs out there.

I didnt know letivation and quests were related

Levitation wasn't a "feature." It was just a spell which caused more problems than it was worth. Instead of designing interesting encounters and dungeons, why not just have the entire game be a series of platforms in the air for you to levitate to? Aw yeah, I can exaggerate too.

Being an open world is a feature.

Being able to create your character to look how you want is a feature.

Dragon shouts are a feature.

Levitation is a single spell, in the expansive magic system (which itself is a feature.)



Of course they are. Just like levitation and worldspaces themselves are related. Nix levitation and you can design more interesting encounters, which players would otherwise just levitate around and avoid. There's no point in wasting your time designing them well, if you know a ton of people won't even see them.

EDIT:

Also, saying it's only effecting one type of character is false. Between magic, alchemy and enchantment, every one of my characters, no matter what archetype, could levitate.

Same reason games don't allow you to destroy walls and skip important rooms.

The only thing when you give the player this kind of ability is that literally everything in the game has to be designed with it in mind. It takes a lot of effort as everything has to be tested from a levitation perspective and it would lead to a lot of places where things would have to be cut or changed just to keep levitation possible.

Me neither.

If I want to wuss out and float over my enemies, I should be able to. Besides...


BETHESDA, you didn't have to remove levitation to fix it, you could of gave NPCs the same option to use the spell.

It never made things too easy for me, then again, I don't spam every power I have just because I can, sounds like a personal problem.

(I had a spell that could kill every single person in a 500ft radius, doesn't mean I walked around spamming it constantly, it was there for when the urge to explode a 500ft radius hit me.)



So, you are supporting linear quest design, gee, I'm looking forward to Final Fantasy, erm, Fable 4, erm, Skyrim now.....

Edit: Oblivion had level design problems, and no levitation, what's the excuse for this one, hmm? (Those OB gate quest were stupid mazes, glad levitation got cut so I had no choice but to trudge through those awful things.)



Ah, cities in separate cells. Is that this good level design I keep hearing about? (Interesting that this feature got removed.)

Edit: I probably misread this, though, in my defense, I can barely understand you.



Magic is what makes the mage different, removing their magic to balance them against other classes, is stupid. (If this were an MMORPG, you may have had a valid point, but I honestly don't care about an NPC's feelings on the matter, I'll console kill them if I feel the urge. Edit: I certainly don't care what Bob from Florida thinks of my play style either.)

And again, optional, there were tons of spells, no one held you at gunpoint and made you use levitation.

Unfortunatly true. I never used levitation and don't make mage style characters, but it would be good for those who choose to do it to have the choice if it were at all possible.

As for the go anywhere do anything point.... I would rather have differnt endings to story lines MQ, faction quest lines etc and have various outcomes for all the quests in game.

For example you are given the quest by the DB to assassinate someone. Obviously you could just do it or you could take your time and find out the reasonas to why they are wanted dead. If you don't like the reason and beleive they should be allowed to live, a branch to the story should open up whereby you can help them fake their death.

Yes we will, get over it the times of freedom and choice are over! To many Players need a hand that hold them or they get lost and will curse the developers for their one stupidy.

It seems new ideas and stuff that isnt streamlined will only be developed by new no name companies which dont need to worry to much for their reputation and sales, the lower the money input in the game is, the more developers are willing to implement features which arent streamlined. :sadvaultboy:

Meanwhile, on the bridge of the USS Enterprise...


"Hyperbole detectors engaged..."

"Captain! The readings are off the scale!"

this guy is right

Posting in hyperbolic thread.

Well, I missed levitation in OB, but I got used to it. I kind of agree and disagree with their argument of why to take it out.

It is an open world so if I want to levitate my way from city to city and skip any encounters I might have exploring the world, let me do it. I can do the same with fast travel or carriages in Skyrim for the most part.

Do I think I should be able to levitate around every encounter in a quest? No, but with high enough skill I can do it pretty well with sneak or invisibility/chameleon. How about making some creatures/npc's that can levitate to or have ranged attacks like bows and spells that can counter levitation, especially in indoor locations like caves, dungeons, etc... Or maybe they can use a ranged dispel on you with a silence effect so you plummet to the ground? Or a staff of paralyzation used by an NPC so that they can either reach you by levitation to attack or fill you full of arrows or fireballs while you are helpless for a few seconds.

I can understand where they are coming from in a level/quest design standpoint, but I think in some, if not most cases they can find ways to work around it knowing levitation is in. For example, in the Oblivion gates, I don't think it would be a problem if you skipped the creatures outside by levitation. But they could have designed the towers so that you could only enter at the base and had to work your way thru. The doors to the walkways between towers would have doors that could only be unlocked by a mechanism inside, forcing you to go thru the towers and fighting those inside (which they did anyway in OB by taking out levitation). Of couse, you could try to skip those by levitating away, but again, make those inside have ranged attacks. You could pretty much do the same by running/sneaking thru if you wanted to try and avoid a fight (maybe reduce movement speed in levitation compared to walking/running, getting faster as your skill goes up.)

Better AI and creative design could help in dealing with levitation (especially in the MQ) and sometimes, just sometimes, maybe just leave it how it is and let the player decide if they want to levitate around something in this open world single player game.

But I was fine without levitation in OB and I will be just as fine with it out of Skyrim.

Levitation was taken out for the reasons stated in Kiralyn2000s post and due to the cell and zone based world. If levitation was in Oblivion I have no doubt most people would float over a city wall and see an area they werent expecting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx6W25w7sgw&feature=related

Skyrim would have similar problems. The devs would have to constantly be thinking "well what if the player levitated over that wall, better attach that area to the current cell" and before you know it performance is taking hits on consoles to stop the game being an eyesore whenever you levitate over a wall into another area.

Acrobatics and Athletics were removed because the devs wanted even balance between the three archtypes (Warrior, Rogue and Mage) and because they simply didnt work as skills due to the way skills increase in TES. Running and jumping is unavoidable for the most part so sooner or later whether you like it or not your Warrior in heavy armor is going to be doing 15 foot jumps and running 30 miles per hour.

One hour training in the hyperbolic time chamber, I'm ready for this thread.

Damn, they removed Levitation. If you were a fan, that svcks. It was great in Morrowind (Telvanni towers, secret ledges in dungeons, etc, etc, etc), and yes, Levitation is Fun Hacks, as you can float a foot above your enemy and pepper them with arrows or magic them to death. Or just walk on air for the hell of it.

But.

It has the potential to immediately nullify good game/level design due to the nature of phyics. This is a valid reason for the Dev's to remove Levitation, as they are crafting a world of adventure for us, and felt that this particular aspect was too difficult a variable for them to support with what they are doing. TES games are enormous: the number of possibilities that players are going to encounter through play is gargantuan (great word). These are not games where every possible scenario is mapped out, accounting for every permutation of playthough (ie, Mass Effect or Dragon Age), so it seems a bit steep to call BGS out for removing this.

If we consider this to be infringing on our liberty of independence in the game that seems a poor reason considering how much the game caters to our myriad possible needs.

Let it lie, as it were.