I was thinking this also. Once I can make Dwarven stuff I shouldn't be getting full skill points for junk like Iron. The people who are really good at stuff aren't the ones who do the same task over and over but rather the ones who constantly challenge themselves to learn more.

This is a really good point. But, that said, you're playing a warrior who practices blacksmithing. For my own character's backstory, I'm playing a blacksmith who mines his own ore... so he's a smith first and he's forced to pick up some combat skills to support his craft. It took me 32 levels to get to 100 in smithing, and while I was power leveling, I still feel like I was doing it honestly. Frankly, I think if the skill just increased based upon the value and amount of ore per piece, it would probably balance the skill a bit more toward what you're looking for.

I think my next playthrough will be a wood-elf tanner/mountebank who crafts leather bracers and helms with minor stamina enchantments and walk from town to town peddling my wares.

Damn that was good. The dude crafted (pun intended) a pretty good paragraph long argument. You blew that sh** up with one sentence.

Sure if that was what i meant by saying obvious choices. Wich i didnt. I mean its an obvious choice to aim for the top, as in any game. If you pick blacksmithing as your main skill tree then dont you want to make the best armor then? If i get the tools to do that in the beginning part of the game then i think something is wrong. I didnt even realise at first how easy it would be until i noticed that i was getting the skill up fast just by doing regular dungeon crawling. I got my skill very high very fast without any help from vendors etc. Then i made the obvious choice of skipping some of the lesser armor and went straight for the best. Its like asking do you want to take this silver medal now, or take the gold one by spending an extra hour or so.

you're doing it wrong.

My enchanting/alchemy hit 100 before my combat skills did, and I didn't plan out some non-combat skill sprint like many do.

If anything it should be more natural for non-combat skills to level more slowly.

Smithing is ridiculous lol. Make 300 leather bracers. 1 leather 1 strap. Or Iron dagger, 1 iron 1 leather ,etc. You will have 100 in no time.

Alchemy and enchanting are decent, smithing should take longer.

They already made this game simple enough for total idiots/noobs to play I have no idea why you want it easier.

Heck I'm on your "side" on the smithing thing but I still think he blew you up with that one liner, your protests and rationale aside. No biggie, I've been lit up many a time. I just usually laugh and say "well played sir".

Try taking yourself a little less seriously.

Oh yea, im just bored out of my head while at work. I dont mean to be a troll or anything, i just like a good argument to give me something to write about. You can burn me with napalm for a dumb comment i make, but i just wanted to clear what i meant before.

You've missed the point entirely. What the OP is saying is that for smithing to be a viable skill and worth while to you, YOU MUST GRIND THROUGH hundreds of daggers and bracers. One handed or armor levels as you play but the only way for you to level your smithing skill is by churning out daggers. While that is easy enough its rather boring and pointless. The OP is saying that instead of forcing the player to grind through it they could have come up with a better system that rewarded the skill more fluidly. Allowing for smithing level ups to occur naturally through play style.

Glad to know I'm not the only one peeking at the Bethesda forum in between meetings and conference calls.

It's not pointless tho. There is currently a civil war going on, as well as a dragon running around raising more dragons and causing havoc. Those weapon and armor are needed, also they should be polished and upgraded before you sell them so they are worth more and more effective in battle. But really you should be enchanting everything you smith, your nice high level weapons and armor are quite gimped without the same high level enchants. Especially since you can put two enchants on one item per gem with 100 enchanting. Doubling it's value and worth at the same cost to craft.

So while smithing, you should be enchanting. And if you're enchanting, you need things to enchant. Thus the things you are smithing become quite worthwhile, and even more worthwhile when you sell them. And it's incredibly easy to get all the materials to do all this, free and quickly. Even more so after you've taken dwarven smithing, assuming you're just not robbing blacksmiths and waiting for them to restock. (Hint.) The only downside to this is you will level rapidly and your combat skills won't be on par, maybe. Either way, power grinding smithing is not "useless" unless you let it be.

In the famous words of Dave Chappelle "I'm rich, [censored]" It's quite worthwhile to me.

Well I don't know how people are leveling their smithing so quickly. It's costing me all my money for iron ingots etc and then I don't make much when I sell them back. I just want my bloody ebony armor though orcish armor does look good on my Breton battlemage female. Dwarven armor looked terrible.

Couple thoughts:

1) Unless you're one of those "I must be the best / I must use the most efficient, doing anything else gives me hives" people, then you don't need to "self nerf".... you just play the game. (Of course, even if you do feel like reducing your power, since you're not a "max power" player, doing so doesn't bother you either.)

2.a ) Those other games you list have much less freedom to do things - this makes them easier to balance. (i.e, even with all the optional sidequests, your average Final Fantasy game is pretty linear and constrained.)
..... and, remembering back, in those Final Fantasy games, if you did all the sidequests, ground out all the extra levels, and found all the Ultimate Weapons, you tended to steamroller the opposition just as much as you can min/maxing in Skyrim.

2.b ) Even in those "more balanced" games, there are still people who decide they're "too easy" and embark on self-limited playthroughs. ("Naked" Diablo 2 runs, for instance.) And they also typically brag about it, not complain. Because they're demonstrating How Awesome They Are?. ("I'm so cool, I can play with one hand tied behind my back!")



In the end, the TES games aren't great for min/max powerplayers (or at least the ones who get depressed when they succeed) - Bethesda would rather give you lots of options (including the option to overpower yourself) than carefully pen you in so that you will be guaranteed "challenge" no matter what you do.

Smithing was pretty easy - got to 100 without concentrating too much on it by level 38 or so. Enchanting is 60, not focusing on it as much. Alchemy seems pretty daunting so I haven't even started it and probably won't (my character is level 41 now). Not enough ingredients around and it levels so slowly what little I did of it. I think I'm just spoiled by Oblivion's alchemy which was so easy to level (and a huge money maker).

Hmmm I saw these things as fairly well balanced, when you think about the 'time' spent to level say destruction magic, you can level something like enchanting even quicker. But, I kinda see enchanting and smithing as 'career' choices in the game, you do it because you enjoy it, enjoy the experimentation and in the end use that time to sell your goods to other people. My problem is actually selling all of the stuff I've collected, made, enchanted... NPC's don't carry enough cash lol.

I get what the OP is saying and agree. It's too hard to level smithing and enchanting in a "natural" way through game progression. Why would you ever smith hundreds of iron daggers? What would be cool is if what you smithed determined how much the skill improved with some amount of diminishing returns over time. So you craft Daedric Armor, you level up more than when you craft an iron dagger. Also after you craft X number of iron daggers you get some very minimal amount of experience. It's fine the way it is but it could certainly be improved upon.

For anyone used to multiplayer games the skills will seem ridiculously easy to level lol.

Given how powerful the effects of these skills are they certinaly don't feel too easy to me. Enchanting actually felt considerably too easy, alchemy about right, possibly a tad too easy.

dont even mention it. I hate it already.

I agree with everyting you said. Im definetly not someone looking to max out everything. I play very causally. So far smithing is the only thing i have maxed and i find the difficulty in this game just fine. The only thing i protest about is the fact that its too easy to get the best weapons and armor. As apposed to some other game titles that can make that quite challenging. Im still enjoying this game immensly and i find no reason to nerf anything i do. Finding the best weapon and armor is just something i have always strived to do in any game, sience the first time i took a Nintendo 8-bit controller in my hand and started to play Zelda or Megaman. It shouldnt make a difference if the game is linear or completely free to explore. I expect there to be a big fat reward in the end, not at the beginning.

alchemy i completely agree with. i cant even find a way to powerlevel alchemy outside of console commands. i completely disagree with smithing and enchanting though. one of my sources of ingame income is i mine and collect ingots and i keep the pelts form bears and wolves. with those items i make amor and weapons and then enchant them with as many common/lesser soulgems i managed to fill during my journeys (i keep most of the great and grand for my weapons obviously). im not buying anything from the vendor except for when i might have to upgrade mine or my companions gear and even then i usually just go to my house and grab one of my ingots i keep on reserve. through normal gameply of finding resources and making/enchanting equipment and selling it for money i can easily attain high levels of smithing and enchanting before level 30. its broken and way to easy.

if anyone has any tips on how to increase alchemy a bit faster im interested. im trying to avoid looking that stuff up on the interwebz incase i spoil something.

I think it's WAY too hard to level up your Firewood Chopping Skill. I have chopped down half of Skyrim and I am still level one. So if any skill needs to be made easier to level it should be this one. :tops:

Is your char an archer? Kill things, take their pelts, convert them to leather and make boots and helmets. You could even argue that this is more legitimate than pure "power leveling" since you would in fact be turning a profit.

My characters do this, and you'd be surprised at how quickly your money supply starts ballooning once you have a decent Speech skill from all the sales. Eventually I am able to afford bulk lots of the better ingots, at which point each weapon or piece of armor is generating sizable returns; this money gets reinvested, in the form of Soul Gems and Alchemy supplies (and a house to keep it all in), and turned into even more money, which in turn gets invested into additional Archery training in order to bring the skill back in line with where it should be.

It does take a while to get going at first, since the early bows aren't very good, but once it does it just takes off.