I've seen a lot of complaints that the game is broken in the areas of smithing/enchanting/alchemy in regards to players having the ability to power-up these skills and get wealth/power/glory too quickly. I've seen many complaints that this should be solved with a patch.

Here's what I'm not getting--it's a choice a character makes, correct? Case in point--I tried to "power-level" a couple of characters in these areas, but frankly, I became too bored. I didn't purchase Skyrim so I could spend my limited time ( I work 50+ hours per week) becoming the best blacksmith the fantasy world has ever seen. After a little while, I put down the hammer and picked-up the sword so I could go explore. It's the same with alchemy to a certain extent--I find constantly pausing to pick flowers and mushrooms a bit distracting.

That's why I don't understand why this needs to be "fixed"--I don't do these things because I get bored doing them. Now, I may not be levelling very quickly. I don't have a 1/4 million septims yet. I don't own every house in the game. I'm not "one-shotting" ancient dragons or picking master locks with a single lockpick (although I sometimes question the veracity of players who claim to do these things with such ease with the game on the highest difficulty--usually followed by an annoying "LOL"). I still go through a decent amount of health potions during a big fight. However--I'm really savoring this game, and I think I'll get a lot of play out of it.

Therefore, I don't think this needs fixing--if players want to devote the time, resources and skill-tree slots to such activities, then they should be able to choose to do so. I don't find that sort of thing very fun, so I ignore it for the most-part. Why should this require a change?

This is a new and exciting argument.

I totally agree with this!

since i play on adept i cant really feel there pain , but i also hear its the perks that make it messed up too anyone consider leveling up the skill and not using the perks? . i still cant understand why anyone would want to do it though. i tried it got to level 60 in black smith and got bored plus once i found my nightingale armor i didnt care in general i think the armor improvment system needs to be changed i made a thread on it but no one seems to care(which is there right) they just continue on about the whole power gaming thing

By the Gods, yes!

Because on it's own, even smithing makes a character a leeeeetel bit more powerful than you may expect. I levelled smithing on my orc (stopping at ebony) as I was tired of having poor equipment. I expected a moderate increase in survivability, what happened was something quite different indeed


I agree the feedback loop of stacking stuff has no real issue for complaint; but a lot of people, myself included, feel that the very act of using it AT ALL changes the dynamic more than it should.

OK, so your argument is that you don't like combat, smithing, or alchemy, and so they're not overpowered? Is your argument that you can't imagine anyone liking these game elements (so they're not overpowered), or that you don't like them so no one else should either (so they're not overpowered)?

Overpowered in a single player game where you get to choose hat you want to and do not want to level is an invalid argument. Plain and simple, if you think its OP, don't use it, if you don't care, use it.

Agreed. Min-maxing SHOULD be available to those who wish to put the (frankly dull) time and effort into doing so. It's not like it harms my gameplay if someone else is managing 30000-damage backstabs, I get on just fine. I personally wouldn't like to see the crafting exploits being nerfed, because it'd be too easy to overcompensate and make it not worthwhile to level your crafting.

His argument is that you have to go out of your way to get it uber-boosted early in the game. If you're not going out of your way, and playing the game organically, none of these issues come up. Basically, min/maxers figured out how to do it. Then people who aren't min/maxers saw that it could be done, did it, and then complained that the game was too easy.

Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim (and probably before, I don't know) -- you could always be a god if you really wanted to be one. The mechanics might have been different, but the end result was the same. I remember two-shotting Balmora with a custom-made spell. That was the kind of thing you could do. By comparison, the alchemy/enchanting/smithing combination is tame.

It's not like it's particularly hard to level smithing. All you have to do is make a ridiculous amount of leather bracers while under The Warrior sign.

http://i.imgur.com/WuSQB.png

Basically it comes down to the game lets you create pretty much whatever kind of character you want, as long as it is not a Master of All Trades which you could do in Oblivion or Fallout. You could kind of do it in Morrowind, it was just harder.

Where was I? Oh, so, the game lets you create a balanced character, a character that fits the role you want to play, or, if you want, an unbalanced character. What some people complain about is they want the game to prevent them from creating an unbalanced or overpowered character. The problem is, to do that, it would take away the freedom to create any character you wanted to.

Problem is they maxing 3 skills that doesn't require any form of casting, slashing, blocking taking dmg. Then completing main quest and call it easy.

it's not messed up when used to power level.

it's messed up when your alchemy is used to make a enchanting pot which is then used to make armour with a greater alchemy improve enchant on it
which is then used to make a beter improve enchanting potion which is then used to make a better improve alchemy enchant on an armour piece.
then you get this to a high level 42% i think?
and use the improved alchemy ( from enchants) to make improve your bsmithing by x% potions which then makes your legendary stuff 2x as good as "base" legendary stuff and then you use those alchemy pots to place a empowered enchant onto the item which further improves the pieces.

it's only when used in this symbiotic relationship that it becomes broken not when used individually or just at "non-potion/enchant improved levels"

i did it after lvl 25 and had smithing at 60 already i didnt see problem no one force me no one got hurt most of the people seem to be mages cuz u can combine all 3 job skills and make uber stuff i wont make potions so i wont be doin that

The controversy arises not from the fact that people can do it...

... It's that they're complaining about their actions and blaming it on the game.

Never before have I seen munchkins complaining about their munchkinism.

I'll just have to be careful not to do that by accident and all will be well with my character :celebration:

Problem I have with smithing (and possibly others) is that crafting low level items gives you the same skill xp as crafting high level items. Reaching high level smithing, crafting iron daggers shouldn't give you much xp, if at all. I don't mind "power gaming" as long as the rules are setup to make it "feel right". Currently they aren't (if I believe what others say). I leveled smithing "quickly" too, but I didn't craft iron daggers to do so. Still, I don't think that option should be available, as it just doesn't make any sense.

I think all these people should eat more pie and shut the [censored myself thanks] up!

I love you for this, very much.

I'm fine with the rate of leveling (power leveling is not an issue to me).

My problem is that the overall output of smithing/alchemy/enchanting is simply far too powerful compared to the other skills. That, in effect, I should always take smithing/alchemy/enchanting no matter what style of play I wish to enjoy. Do I want to play a stealthy archer? Craft the perfect bow and apply as many fortify stealth/fortify archery enchants as possible. Do I want to play a mage? Add as many magicka cost reduction enchants to my armour. Do I want to play a warrior? Add fortify weapon damage/resist magick enchants to the gear. The end result is an armour capped character dealing damage that far exceeds high end daedric weaponry. And this is before I start training in the actual armour/weapon skills. Simply put, maxing out the crafting skills enables me to not have to spend nearly half as many perks in the armour trees, as armour cap is blown away so easily by crafting its pathetic.

I'm fine with god-like characters. Sure, its an enjoyable side effect of putting in that effort. My issue is that it is always, no matter what, a no-brainer to train the crafting skills. That no matter what, if I want to experience a play style as effectively as possible (by having the highest output), that I must select the same 20+ perks in highly specific fields for any given character. And that failure to do this is actively choosing to play a weaker character. I shouldn't be forced to make decisions to purposely play a significantly weaker character just so that I can enjoy the many different styles of play offered by the game.

Call it a lack of willpower, that's fine. I just dislike that when I select perks, one perk is obviously worth 200 usefulness points (pinnacle enchanting perk), while another is only worth 20 usefulness points (pinnacle one handed perk). The fact that one choice is 10x superior to another bothers me. I'm fine with something smaller, maybe 2x-5x. 10x is simply too much. Obviously these are abstract numbers, but its not my job to determine what would be appropriate.

Once again, realize that my call for "balance" has nothing to do with the MMO style of "I want my character to be as powerful as his character." This is a comparison of my current character to my previous characters. Obviously, some character builds are better than others (speccing in both heavy armour and light armour is in fact, a bad idea), but a reasonably well thought out and "fluid" character build (say a heavy armour/one handed/block warrior type, or a light armour/sneak/archery ranger type) should not be 100% inferior to one that focuses on crafting.

Think of it like this, a "standard" character with 100 heavy armour, and all heavy armour perks, wearing daedric gear, does not hit armour cap.

A "master crafter" character, with only 15 heavy armour skill and no perks in heavy armour, but wearing full enchanted/smithed daedric gear, blows away the armour cap.

Same level characters, same combat styles, vastly different numerical outputs. Therefore, beyond any sort of self-enforced crappy roleplaying techniques of saying "I don't do X" (with the actual reason you don't do X is because its "too powerful"), one is simply choosing to play in a sub-par manner.

If money trees were real, would you have one planted in your back yard? If doing 5 jumping jacks a day made you immortal, would you not do so? If it happened that crafting 1000 iron daggers, mixing some slow poison potions, and practicing enchanting on those daggers made you become like a god, would you not do so? And I seriously mean this, if in a RP sense your player was informed that the path to godhood entailed making 1000 daggers (doesn't matter what their actual quality is, and heck, it hardly takes 2 seconds to actually make them), would they not do so? Choosing not to do so is basically god-rping, telling the GM he is wrong, and that his world is stupid. Its the job of the vanilla base game to function like a capable GM in an P&P game. That means telling the players "No" sometimes, and creating an environment where the players cannot "win the game" just by doing obscure, meaningless tasks.