So first of all, this is my opinion of what fun is. If you want to break the game and like the fun of breaking the game in itself, by all means ignor this thread.
I personally like the feeling of being somewhat vulnerable, as dungeon crawling become tense, knowing there are dangers make the game more immersible.

1. The problem with smithing + enchanting is obvious. As pointed out by several threads, you can achieve ridiculous stats, making you practically invulnerable.
2. This game isn't too challenging even on masters. I am wearing robes and without using alteration to boost defenses; playing on masters in this condition actually provide a bit of challenge.
3. So if you're playing on any difficulty at all, you really don't need enchanting and smithing for any reason, except to make the game incredibly easy and unfun.

Not perking any crafting trees on Master is challenging. Properly perking a single crafting tree will make you good. Two will make you great. Three will make you a god. Whichever of those combinations one finds most entertaining is entirely personal preference.

If you power level Smithing and Enchanting mid-game, you'll obviously trivialize a lot of content; many people will find that spoils the fun. I plan on perking Smithing and Enchanting (but not Alchemy) on both my Warrior and my Assassin because, as most avid RPGers do, I'm not satisified unless I have the best possible gear at the end of the game. But I plan on leveling them more slowly to keep the game interesting.

On my Mage will only be taking Enchanting, but I'll be perking it early. Playing as a pure Mage on Master would be very frustrating without at least free Destro spells.

Yea, I leveled enchanting and smithing on my first character and after I hit 100 enchanting and double-enchanted all my daedric gear everything in the game lost all semblances of a threat. After starting over without doing any of that it's a lot more enjoyable.

the main problem with enchanting is that it makes looting alot less fun, since once you hit 100, you can enchant way better gear than any that you'll find.

I have a friend who started a mage on master difficulty and he says it's ridiculously hard. You must play like a god if you feel the game is way too easy on that level. I'm still playing my first PC on adept, and I still find some enemy NPC's challenging....ie Dragon Priests or any mage for that matter. They throw Ice spike at me and that slows me down to a crawl. I'm a pure warrior and sometimes I can't even get close enough to them and if I have no more potions to pop, I'm finished. Maybe you're experiencing a bug with difficulty but I still find challenging areas.

I'll be perking smithing and enchanting so I can make the artifacts useful and kick some ass in ebony mail, the masque of Clavicus Vile, Dawnbreaker, Spellbreaker, and Ebony boots and Gauntlets. Oh Yeah, functional and sick looking.

just don't enchant clothes/armor w/ fortify dmg or put 4 fortify magic scools (jsut use 2-3) and you'll be fine on master, i don't like one shotting things so dont enchant clothes w/ that. but even once u hit armor cap u can still get hurt, i fully upgrade my blades swords or some daggers and it's still a challenge, you just have to find the balance that works for u really. I have 700 armor rating which is above the cap and still can die in two hits, my swords an daggers a up'd and enchated using the loop and still takes around 7-10 hits to kill them (or 2-3 dual power attacks)...

i tend to pick only one of smithing or enchanting. For smithing i only go for higher level sets after every 10 or so levels.

You must smith and enchant in order to reach maximum level. They are balanced if you do not perk them, complete avoidance is not necessary.

I only did smithing and enchanting. I haven't played on Master yet, but I feel it will be somewhat challenging, especially against high level mages

I'm probably going to go light on enchanting(boost magika and regeneration) and smithing(enough to make the dwemer armor I like so much), or at least wait until I've maxed out my favorite skills.

I only use smithing to upgrade my weapons and armor, i do NOT level it by any means by making daggers (cheating)!

Here's an idea: Use smithing/enchanting when you need to, and don't grind it.

And yet nobody seems to suggest that players try to avoid raising combat skills, or raid dungeons for loot, or any other normal aspect of gameplay which might be pursued to improve one's character.

It's kind of unfun for people to dictate what in game features to use and not use. In my opinion.

So you are declaring that anyone who uses the in game feature of smithing is breaking their game, and presumably we should be ashamed? And we need to follow your direction or the game will be unfun because you believe we are not as good as you?

That sounds like you have the authority to direct Bethesda to remove smithing from the game.


You mean use it as intended? That seems like it is a good idea to me!

I don't bother with enchanting too much. But Smithing is nearly a must-have for pretty much any character concept that isn't a pure mage.

My last 2 characters have only put 2 perks inot Smithing... Steel and Enchanted. This allows me to do basic upgrades on all my gear, but enforces a level-cap, since I have to buy or loot better weapons and armor. Without the need to craft, my smithing has settled at around 60 at level 40. Likewise, my Alchemy has only reach about 50 so far, from making potions and poisons that I use regularly. I put 4 perks in Alchemy, and 3 in Enchanting. IOt's not gamebreaking unless you go for the full Artificer Template.

i agree, enchating your items is part of the game, for people who don't want to use enchanted items don't enchant em, i think having tons of heavy armory and powerful heavy weapons puts you at an advantage in certain situations so you can pick on anything, bows can be too powerful, the weapons aren't too powerful they go from weak to strong as you level up, you can make better gear, for people who want to play with weak weapons and weak magic go ahead, nobody is stopping you, but to say the game needs to be patched cause its too easy for some people cause they use enchated items is kinda picking on mages, how about how strong a heavy armory dude is? thats kinda easygoing too, so the challenges depends on how you like to play, its not fair to make the game hard for everyone just cause a few people want it harder, its hard enough already, make it harder yourself, play on master difficulty and don't wear heavy armor or use overpowered weapons.

And sadly it's actually still a super incentive for mages. Once you have the right enchantment capabilities you lose nothing wearing heavy armor compared to staying with clothing AND gain superior damage reduction to Alteration spells at no cost and without wasting a lot of perks to make that viable.