About to pick this up. I know a ton has been made about how fun the spells are and dual wielding etc. What if i still want to play a thief type character or a hunter or a combo of the two? Am I going to be missing out if I don't want to use magic that much? Is that even possible? Can you pretty much make what you want?

You can play any style of character that you like. You can ignore all the Magic, or any other Skills if you like.

And since the game is big, you'll likely play through many times, so you can do different character types each time.

Will there be advantages if you really focus on certain skills and don't use magic that much?

Or is the game made where they want you to use magic and use everything. Where it's just better that way or is the game balanced I guess is my question where if you focus on a certain type character you will be better at certain things.

say i want a hunter who is awesome with a bow. Is that hunter going to be better with a bow than a caster who also uses a bow?

Then play somebody who steals

Or play somebody that hunts

Doing what you want to do is the entire point

You don;t need to have a title associated with your character like "Fighting Mage", declare a class with that name, and then play as a mage that swings a sword. You just go do it

I'm currently level 12. The only spells I've cast are a couple of healing spells and the new VOICE talent that is central to the game.

Otherwise I'm a stealthy arrow slinging scout/rogue. Haven't done any pickpocketing yet but open a ton of chests.

The leveling system is neat but unnecessary. I always walk into an RPG with an idea of what "type" of character I'm going to be, so that was never an issue for me, that it seemed to be with many others. As Todd said, people came into Morrowind and Oblivion and the game says "What do you want to be!" And players think "I don't know! I haven't played yet!"

And the logic is sound, but it was never like that for me. In Skyrim, my thieves are thieves, my rangers are rangers and my mages are mages. Doesn't matter that the leveling is more freeform. I'm still mostly an archetype.

cool. Is the game balanced though or would it be possible to use everythign and make like a god like character that is like max everything if you play it enough. Crazy warrior, mage, thief, archer guy. Do you know what I'm saying? The way it sounds if you put time in you could possibly do that?

The closest to this is a set of special stones you find, 3 in all. Warrior, thief, and mage. You activate the stone of your destiny and it gives you bonuses to the abilities of that archtype.

Sort of. You only get 49 perks (One per level, max is 50 and you obviously don't have one at level 1)
You can continue to level things up, but you won't be able to perk them up. You can still be effective but, you'd like the "buffs" the perks give.

And being a "God of all trades" will take a very long time gameplay-wise. Play through some archetypes first and then have a "do everything" character.

Uh, please do not give false information. There are 13. The first three help with leveling and the rest give various neat little gimmicks.