Would you say completely ignoring equipment and potions with fortify effects for smithing, enchanting and alchemy - would make a balanced playthrough even if you pick 2 or 3 crafting trees?

The thing that makes the items game breaking is using them to buff each other to the point you create over the top items.
Without that they are still very powerful but within the scope of the game design (though even with this it will seem easy after a while).

I would say don't go past first tier of the crafting perks.

Or just use other effects rather than stack them? What's wrong with enchanting my nice crafted armor to make me able to carry 136 extra units of weight as well as, I dunno, buffing my Stamina? And then drinking my own restore health potions?

The only use of Enchanting is not to give you free magicka, and the only use of Alchemy is not to give you higher Enchanting/Smithing.

I think they should remove the +enchanting and +smithing potions. Then I think it wouldn't be to bad, you could improve an extra 100% (4x 25% enchantments), instead of +116% (4x 29%) and 130% smithing.

People should learn that it's not the game that's broken, they're just unhappy with choices that they make. They're not used to playing a game that allows you to make bad choices. Telling them to remove this, or balance that, is simply asking them to take away your freedom to make mistakes.

using the enchanting/alchemy cycle breaks the game,but using any kind of high level enchants/smithing/alchemy also does the same without min/maxing it. Stacking same type enchants at most levels will break the game. zero cost spells allows for spell spam, stacked damage boosts means you do 100% more damage with weapons, Stacked sneak bonus means you are able to bypass most npcs or sneak attack them easily.

however, there are other abilities that when used with each other break the game. Illusion school of magic basically breaks the game at higher levels if you perk into it. Just ignoring enchanting/smithing alchemy really wont create a balanced game, especially on higher difficulty levels. the fact is that there are so many variables that the developer probably cant account for them all. Many of the perk trees for skills have gamebreaking perks somewhere in the tree.

I wouldn't call becoming godlike a bad choice, just not a really fun option, if you want some challenge in the game.

@ OP: Smithing + Enchanting combination is too powerful even on default values, without crafting the armor with +Fortify Smithing set. Game basically needs major/minor skills if we want some real balance.

Hear hear.

After reading alot of the post about using smithing and stuff to break the game I decided that I would only take up one art. So now I only do smithing and I dont perk into it. I also only use fur armor, iron axe, and hunting bow with steel arrows. I do not see how the game is unbalanced in any way... I play on expert and it definately a challange. I am sure most will agree that people who are complaining are the people who do not have self restrain or make the mistake of going into non combat schools without actual combat... What makes them think that creating a sword lets you know how to wield it?

This is essentially how i feel about it. They are given the freedom to abuse it to whichever extent they want, and this is fine because it will only effect them and no one else. Theres really no need for perfect balance in this case. I personal use both smithing and enchanting in my current build, but very very moderated. I won't get dragonscale before level 38, and more likely 40, and i won't max enchanting till after that point as well. These are choices I, myself, made. I chose not to break the game, why can't other people grasp this? Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, or even that you will like the result. Why should this game be much different? After all choices are good, so this system actually caters to all in that respect.

There's a reason those effects are in the game. Look at magika cost vs damage scaling of destro spells - you NEED those fortify effects. It's intended.

You could get pretty close to 100% fortify destruction just by shopping vendors. Pretty silly to go past ~70% in my opinion, though - it's just not really necessary.

Point is, magika costs seem to be balanced under the assumption that the player will have fortify magic school effects. Otherwise I'd be out of magika casting Paralysis or Ice Lance twice. Is that playable? ugh, no way.

You said it yourself - you didn't put perks into it. That's why the profession isn't overpowered. And the imbalance we're talking about here makes the game TOO EASY, not too hard.

It's sad for me to read all the posts about how to make the ideal character or which perks to choose. I've played all the Elder Scrolls series and have never been a true gamer who pours over details like this. I've made some bad choices, I guess, but Bethesda has made sure that pretty much no matter what I choose, I can complete (win!) the game, usually with saving all those buff items until I really need them.

Turns out, my character's cupboard is overflowing at the end.

Since some (most?) people like creating overpowering characters, I guess perks in smithing and enchanting are here to stay and use, but I find it much more fun to develop these things for my character "naturally." Yeah, in the past I've created one point healing spells or whatnot and my character practiced with them before sleeping, but once a decent level in the skill was reached, I forgot all about them. It's very easy in Bethesda games to game the system, but I don't find it very rewarding.

The thing is, if I can see at the beginning of the game that I'll be able to craft daedric and dragon armors, then why should I look forward to finding ebony or glass stuff? And to later discover that I can enchant better effects as well? It also kills the immersion, you can argue that it's ok to craft daedric for whatever reasons, but why should I know that early in the game? It could be a reward for a quest for example.

You don't need any alchemy or enchanting to reach magic/armor resistance cap. Right now it only affects DPS and health if you choose so.

Using fortify effects, even multiple ones is fine. You have to do some exploiting to actually get the crazy numbers that can break the game.

Why would you ever advocate maintaining a system in which the game eventually becomes dull due to becoming trivialized by mechanics rendered possible by specific flaws ? There is no reason not to "prevent mistakes", and as a game designer, long-term fun is objectively more interesting than short-term. There is absolutely no possible argument in favor of imbalance being made possible to the extent a dragon dies with two dagger strikes.

It's broken, whether you agree with it or not; it can't possibly have been intended, unless Bethesda's definition of "roleplay" and "strategy" implies button mashing with the mouse until the big thing dies, without any thought process whatsoever. From a roleplay perspective, even the most talented blacksmiths and enchanters can't possibly take on a dragon, a creature that's terrorized thousands for years, with three maces hits and a mead in the right hand.

The fact that people "make mistakes" or "discover gamebreakers and use them" doesn't justify the fact that we should maintain their availability. Knowing you can avoid them doesn't make them any less present; TES have always had a huge forum community with players exchanging thoughts and sharing fun occurences in their respective games. Trivializing the game content kills long-term interest and, I believe, may lessen people's incentive to "care" about it.

This isn't merely a matter of personal restriction; players always want to be as powerful as possible in any given game, as far as I've noticed. Whether it's as a thief or a mage, they want to excel at it; however, excelling at something, even in a fantastic setting, implies pushing the boundaries. Being a rag-wearing archer with a dog pet and going around slaying Dragons doesn't appeal to many, roleplaying-wise; they'd rather push the boundaries towards epicness. When the "epic" boundaries are designed so that "being the most powerful possible in that game" trivializes the whole content, you run into problems, imbalance being one of them. Being the most powerful should still leave the game challenging.

Destruction stops scaling past a certain skill level, there is no point in fortifying the skill. The difference is a joke.

Fortify Marksman x4 (4x 40%) breaks the game. Even on master. So does 4x 21% (84%) magic damage resist. With final perk in enchanting you can have both of those.

No one has to abuse the fortify effects. If you don't want to become so overpowered that the game isn't fun anymore, just don't do it. This isn't a competitive game; those who cheat are only hurting themselves.