Thank you for correcting him. You beat me to it.

@Son Do, a better example would be Pokemon.

As much as the various responses are basically correct, the OP does have a point. If they're not going to give you any way to see the level numbers, why did they bother calling them out in the spell descriptions? A pointlessly vague "affects weaker enemies" "affects average enemies" "affects strong enemies" would give you just as much useful information.

Time for Living Anatomy Perk.

Enemy level range is indicated by their name...

It's not rocket science.

anyway, here's most of them: http://uk.ign.com/wikis/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim/Creatures

I think they were originally going to make it harder to find an objective with the compass....my only evidence stems from the spell Clairvoyance. It is useless in-game...but if the compass had no objective markers...

Clairvoyance may seem useless to someone who played the game for 1000 hours and knows every inch of Skyrim like back of their hands, but for a new player it is a very useful spell. The compass shows which direction your destination is, but it does not show you how to get there. There could be a mountain on the way and the only way to climb the mountain may not be obvious. Clairvoyance shows which road to follow and which way is feasible.

That said Clairvoyance sometimes gets messed up and does not work for some destinations.

Actually on my 1st playthrough i used the spell once and then abandoned it because of how easy it was to find my objective without it

Then perhaps you should get your way because that sounds a lot better.

What I want to know is why most of these weapons have effect on enemies that are 10 to 15 levels below you. Can you even find lower lv enemies once you have leveled? For example, I keep getting stuff enchanted against undead... They run away in holy flame or something... but the stuff is way below my level.. who am I gonna use it on? right now all its good for is disenchanting and you can do that only once. Is it suposed to be random so it appears realistic or something?

That is my issue the all knowing compass, but I read the map in older entries in this series and did just fine without a compass at all. But the hand holding it forces on you is laughable.

Or a map, there is nothing wrong with just a map unless you fail to read one. I went threw Vvardenfell just fine without a compass. My main issue is the all knowing compass.

Go to UESP to check it. Or buy a Prima Official Guide(which also contains quite a few errors and outdated information) to check it.

Or if you are on PC, use "getlevel" command to check it.

The Morrowind map (the physical one you got with the game) was also far, far more interesting and informative than the subsequent ones. You could navigate the gameworld much more easily because the map had more landmarks etc. on it. Plus, you could look at certain things and say - "what's that? I'm going to go and find out..."

I don't really mind the quest markers too much. I'm not sure we can ever really look forward to a map like Morrowind's again, because of the amount of games solid through download these days.

Here here to that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc

Agreed Morrowinds map was truly excellent and I seldom got lost but that is part of the fun and I got lost because I misjudged locations, you are also right about landmarks you could easily identify where you are and where you need to be now that my friend was an immersive map, loaded with information for the traveler.

I also seriously doubt we get a map like that again for the reason you mentioned above and people want to b guided around by the tip of their nose to a destination or goal. The quest markers have to go, and in its place directions and that is also more immersive.

These games typically don't show things in the game world that character wouldn't actually be able to see. Information is either confined to the HUD or given through a spell or something that would have an explanation for being able to see it.
They've already got creatures sorted into those categories for the soul gem levels. Maybe black soul gems could come in different levels of petty, common, etc. as well instead of always being the highest. Then they could have level-based spells work on the same categories, and a "detect soul" spell could let you discover that information in a way that would make sense for you to be able to know.

Perhaps those of you just mindlessly bashing could actually comment on the real problem - Beth specifically called out level numbers in the spell descriptions. This is incongruous with the fact that level numbers for enemies don't appear anywhere else. Can you at least admit that this is inconsistant/poor design and that the fact that they used numbers there might make some people (who perhaps don't have your attachment to "immershunz" or a need to bash WoW/handholding/whateverinsultyourprefer) wonder why there aren't other level numbers to cross-reference the spells against?


(note: I'm not saying that monsters should show level numbers. Yes, I agree that this wouldn't fit the TES "style", just like floating damage numbers.)