The bandits and monsters you face aren't training at all. You know how I know this? I can rest for weeks and they won't improve their combat skills. If I increase some skills in only an hour, they will. You can't really bring that kind of argument to the table, the idea has so many inconsistencies and flaws. If they were all constantly training you know what I'd do? I'd just quit the game. No point, I don't want to spend 2/3rds of my time in this game just training/improving combat skills to "keep up" with bandits and trolls. Plus, while enemies might spend lots of time in combat, that doesn't mean they should be making progress through doing so. A bear doesn't learn jujitsu while you're off picking locks, you shouldn't expect enemies, wilderness animals especially, to become significantly more challenging in combat after a few days of cat burglary, that's just ridiculous.

Lol, but if you raise ur potions and speech monsterz should get 2x harder omg that makes so much sense!!!11!



Thank you. Restoration is also quite useless in combat (Arguably wards, but still. . .) In my first playthrough, I was like "awesome. I'm going to pick every lock I see. I'm going to get speech training and I'm going to heal as often as possible!" I was enthralled with making potions and poisons and finding all the effects of ingredients and I leveled my alchemy.

Big mistake. Why does this game punish players for branching out and developing non-com skills?




Yeah, if I take any interest in non-com skills, I should "sell bread". Great concept.

Do you know you can burst your "damage-output" by using smithing and enchanting to smith and enchant your gear?
Try it. You will notice something.

Its called balance. You are not increasing your skills either during this time you are waiting. Your idea is you want to have the best crafting and enchanting skills along with being able to sword play with the best of them with out spending anytime leveling that skill. That would break the game for me.

BTW bears do not get much stronger, that I can tell. I can normally kill them with ease. I could no early in the game. Same with bandits.

The bandits and monsters are training exactly like you. Sometimes they need breaks. That time you rested for a week, the bandits just made a big score and were taking it easy. When you hit the forge, they found out their cash was running low and started sparring and planning their next take.

I haven't seen any evidence that the overland creatures level up. The bears never learn jujitsu. Whether you are training weapons or picking locks, the bear will be just as strong. I haven't seen evidence it gets stronger because you level locks.

Tehcnically, yes, the bandits and monsters aren't training. What actually happens is when you discover a new area, they similate the training by assigning bandit outlaws instead of regular bandits. In discovered areas, the bandits will never become bandit outlaws.The point is, it's worse from a realism perspective to say "I should be able to pass time as a crafter/merchant without monsters in undiscovered areas becoming stronger" than it is to say "If I pass time as a crafter/merchant, I will fight like a crafter/merchant rather than a warrior and will find enemies more challenging." It's also worse from a gameplay perspective because it removes thoughtful character development.

It does not punish you. You can change the game state with the console and mods to suit your taste if the factory defaults are not to your liking. That is besides the point.


You did not branch out, you specialized. Its one thing to spend most part of your time increasing your skill but to be level 80 on smithing and level 30 on combat skill, that is not "branching out". Your premise is so full of illogical nonsense. You build a character that is great at making stuff, spending most of the time doing so, then complain because you cant fight? That make no sense from a role playing or general game play perspective.

You are suggesting your actions in game should not have consequences. That would break the game for most people.

I don't see it that way. What most people are saying is that the OP isn't properly leveraging the advantages that those support skills DO provide.

This also neglects the fact that if you're actually doing a little bit of exploring then at least some dungeons/areas should have been "locked in" to a lower level range. Why does this matter? Because if you really are feeling like you are being outmatched you should be able to find a few areas where you are still combat-effective and can use that to increase your combat skills. Assuming you didn't just run to Whiterun and do nothing but crafting, that is.

Oblivion did NOT allow you this - the whole world leveled around you - if you majored in non-combat skills (and focused on them) then you could screw yourself over completely with no chance of going back and correcting things.

Also - your under-used skills should contribute less to your overall level than the ones you had been focusing on - so theoretically you should be able to do at least a little bit of catching up.

honestly, i think it's the ability to improve items that's broken, not the ability to make them.

daedric longsword base dmg: 24
iron longsword base dmg: 10

That's a 2.4x damage increase from going from the worst weapon to the best weapon. This damage then increases with your 1h skill level.

However, "legendary" adds what, 20 or 25 extra damage?

just daedric weapons/armor with low 1h/heavy armor skills makes you handle the content at your level just slightly easier than had you gotten their without smithing and had high 1h/heavy armor skills but crappy gear. Improving your gear completely unbalances everything. You're just tearing through enemies, killing most with 1 or 2 power attacks.

Stopped reading here.

Should be obvious why.

It's the opposite of balance, you raise your non-combat skills and enemies get stronger in combat. That's not balance. You can do absolutely nothing instead, and enemies won't get stronger in combat. It punishes players for using non-combat skills.

It's called choice. You hvae to think through how you choose to level your character. There are so many possibilities.

Some players will choose based on role-playing or what they consider fun.

Others will attempt to min/max their characters to be as powerful as possible.

You can roll multiple characters and do it different way.

Its not really a game you win, but one you spend time with and enjoy. You don't win reading a novel. Likewise you don't really win at Skyrim.

I think the root of the problem is that some players need affirmation that they are doing it right, or that they are winning, or that they are leet, or whatever. These kinds of players will [censored] about game balance. Perhaps they should be playing fps or learn how to use the difficulty slider.

I don't know why crafting advances your true character level. I think this is a terrible game design decision. Crafting should not be tied to combat and should be more restrictive, forcing sacrifice. It should not progress nearly as fast and materials should be extremely hard to come by to craft the best gear or next tiers of gear. I think that they could then expand crafting even more and give you the ability to make truly unique pieces of gear and add interesting options such as appearance slots and unique gear (not just stock items that you then enchant. This has nothing to do with the gripe of leveling but more so it just being a shoddy system that is ripe for exploiting.

Split Crafting to "Crafting Level", split Crafting Perks to work off of "Crafting Level" which cannot ever surpass your True Level (governed by Combat Experience).

*Fixed

Well now you know guys. Level that speachcraft and hold a debate with alduin on whether or not it is appropriate to burn everything to cinders.

Except you can't. And you aren't going to kill him with lockpicking either. While you failing, go ahead and try to pick his pockets to "disarm" him.

Hell, try it on the drauger scorgelord while you're at it. He doesn't need his weapon to issue a grade A beating to your face.

Enchanting, smithing, and alchemy can be used to improve your combat skills, but those three skills that I mentioned earlier are worthless, and that leveling them helps your enemies more than yourself is a joke.

There are only three non combat skills.

Lockpicking, pickpocket, and speechcraft

I'll admit, sure, if you spec in just those, you are going to encounter some difficulty, but besides the "I'm a thief" (and all you do is B&E and fence off gear) style, its hard to make it impossible to proceed.

Crafting skills are just more tools in combat.

You're acting as if a good half of the skills will break your game if you accidentally level them. This simply isn't the case. Also, by level 20+, raising a skill from 15-16 isn't going to accidentally level you unless you're already there.

That's why I wrote "COMPARATIVELY weaker". Which is absurd : it's not because someone spent some time learning something that everyone in the world became better fighter.


That's exactly the kind of reductio ad absurdum that is annoying and often drive to agressive arguments. People spendint time to do something else than fighting don't transform them immediately into peaceful non-fighter.
One way that could be logical (but I doubt many would like) would be to make it so that if you focus a lot on a particular skill while neglecting others, they would decrease. But if the skill don't decrease, you shouldn't be in a worse situation after than before, which is what the actual system do (by making everyone else stronger).


But everyone becoming stronger in fighting because you made some iron dagger IS logical and realistic ? Yeah, right... :facepalm:
Man, next time I read a book and learn something, it means that everyone on Earth has became a more proficient fighter ! You wonder why we aren't all elite soldiers by now, considering how often someone in the world has improved in some skill.

Making some particular NPC improve with time (time, not PC's skillup) would be, actually, rather fun and immersive (if handled correctly).
Making the whole world level up because the PC learn something ? No, that's just dumb and absurd.

You are wrong. I'll use an anology:

Two 18 year old kids start life out in college. One parties non-stop and get really good at meeting people but learns nothing. One stays in and studies and learns everything. Fast Forward 10 years, today. The first one has a lot of friends and an active social life, however his economic status is a bit of problem as he can only get a job flipping burgers so he can not buy beer or afford to go to the bar with his friends. The second guy gets a great job and makes tons of money, however he has no social life and gets lonely. Moral of the story? If both exercised balance in college their current life might have of been better. What you are suggesting it a total unrealistic idea of both being able to magically develop skills to which they never practiced.




Balance essentially means equal right?

You do nothing, the enemy does nothing. You train, the enemy trains. Your suggestion, in your infinite wisdom, is you train the enemy does not train. That's not equal. That is giving the player a significant advantage, to the point of breaking it. You are basically asking the enemy to stay the same while you level up with what ever skills you want. You want no consequences for picking a particular path.

For instance, I play a archer with good sneak skills. I get killed quicker than a tank because i have little skill in armor or melee combat. I'm totally fine with that, why should I have the armor or mele ability of tank or villain if I choose to play a sneak archer? Your idea suggest that I should for some reason have the same level of armor or mele ability as the villains because its not fair that I be punished for not training in those skills. That would be unrealistic and total lack of real character development based on my decisions that I make. Your idea would completely eliminate the need for classes. In other words, you want an archer to have the same battle ax skill as the villain he is facing. Afterall why should the player be punished for not leveling his two hand skills? :facepalm:

Your idea that it would be more balanced if you increased your armor rating while the enemy stayed the same is not balanced. The idea you can increase your sword damage output while the enemy stays the same is not balanced. You want to be able to train in the ability to do this with no appreciable advancement by the villains. i.e. become more powerful than the bad guys Game would break do to balance issues for sure under premise.

Yawn, another user error.

this isnt even a flaw if you consider perspective. really if you look at it it makes perfect sense.

In life you put time (levels) into your work.

it takes a lot of time (levels) to become a amazing enchanter/smith

you are now a higher level, the world is tougher...but you dont know how to use a sword any better then when yous tarted because you didnt put time (levels) into it.

so in this regard it makes PERFECT sense.

now the question isnt whether this is a flawed design, because its not...the question is is this the design you think they should have for the game. which is obvious you think they shouldnt

im neutral, i find it interesting tho.

my char is twohand/alteration/smithing/enchanting/heavyarmor

those are his main points at least.

I find the game suitably challenging as those skills are somewhat even, so i didnt focus in just combat, but not just non combat skills either. which really...would be how most would do it in this world as your char. hes the dragonborn, not a farmer/trader. hes expected to kill dragons, not pick locks all day.

the people i think who are having problems with this leveling design are ones that min/maxed old designs. sitting there and smithing your heart out until your in full daedric sounds good on paper, but in actual practice...isnt.

Simple solution, stop powerlevelling blacksmith.

I'm going to set up a hotkey to reply this to every topic I see on this, and there are many.

I feel all support skills should be taken out of the level equation.

Example:
Speech levels automatically whenever you persuade/barter - no choice in the matter.
Lock-picking - you say you want to leave that chest alone after you wiped out the inhabitants of that dungeon and it so obviously must contain something good? Auto-level.
Leveling alchemy does not mean you can/will make a potion that boost your combat efficiency.
Leveling blacksmith does not mean you can/will make/upgrade a weapon/armour to boost your combat efficiency.

Now each of these won't gimp your combat much, the problem is when you add all of them together. I'm not a min/max kind of gamer - just the type that after an adventuring trip, I'll haul my loot back to the city to sell/craft. Level my crafting with materials I found and earning some money. But by doing just this, I'm experiencing the problem OP stated. It's like the game is telling me if I dare to even try crafting, I better abuse the crap out of it or don't click that level up button.

You forget that dagger is sharper than the dagger the stock villain has. Is that balanced? You think you can make sharper weapons with no appreciable compensation by the villain and create balance?




In the real world others became more proficient or degrade at when you read that book, however for the sake of video games its much simpler with less variables. A fighter gets stronger a crafter gets more skilled.




Along with the quote above it is obvious you think the world revolves around you. The idea that you should be able to get better at something while others do nothing is rather narcissistic. Balance is NOT allowing one thing to become stronger than the other. Remember your idea has your blades being sharper and armor being stronger with out any form of compensation for the other side. The balance of power, which already favored in the player side, is much more evident with your idea.



Maybe for you but to the rest of us, we enjoy the ability to make decisions that have an impact on our game. For better or worse. If I were you, I'd just hit ~ and type TGM as you have no desire to be held accountable in game for your decisions.

you save your ass in the end saying "im not a min/maxer" because this is exactly what a min/maxer would complain about, the fact that they cant without skipping content and such. I think this is a good thing since this is a single player adventure game, not a competitive esport.

however, i do basically what you do. enchanting/smithing/a little alchemy, pretty much the same way you describe...i dont appear to be having problems with the games difficulty yet, and no its not on easy

granted im a twohanded heavy armor user as well.

I am not having a problem with this new system.
So called Combat skills should not take priority.
The old system of minor and major skills worked fine, so you could do as suggested.
Apparently Bethesda did away with that because some people still didn't know how to play.

What should they do?

You seem to have trouble understanding a point.
Let me repeat : what is realistic, logical or common-sense with someone becoming stronger because someone else has forged a dagger ?

The comical part of OP "balance argument" is he/she wants to be able to wear upgraded armor and use upgraded weapons with no appreciable way for the villains to compensate for the increase in ability the player achieves with these skills. Some how he/she thinks this makes it more "balanced"