Ideally you should read the topic before voting, but feel free to assume you understand what the poll is all about and hack away at it. I am assuming that if you want to make an informed poll choice you should have at least the patience to read the explanation of the questions.
That said, it's time for the second installment in the series. You can find all of them by searching "Voice of the gamers" in this forum.

Background: I love Skyrim. I think it's the best TES game to date. However, the community seems to be ablaze with different opinions and I myself would also like some things done a bit differently. So I'd like to go through some topics, but in a highly constructive manner. Please don't flame, complain or otherwise crap around. State your mind and do it showing respect for the developers who work their asses off for us. We are not gods here, they are. If you want to be god, go make your own damn game (or just play this one).

The purpose of all this is for Betheshda to get quality feedback about what we all want and possibly implement some of that in their future games or even in Skyrim.

On to crafting: Again, I love it, but there are some differing opinions in the community and especially console players are a bit at a loss here since mods are not available to them. To cut things short, onto the questions.

Question one: overpowered crafting
Quite honestly, I liked having 100000 intelligence in Morrowind. Together with moon sugar and levitation I was a jet fighter blazing through the skies. Joking aside, Betheshda started limiting this in Oblivion already and they were pretty strict there. Even to the point where I didn't even bother with potion making because the only potions I cared about (feather) couldn't be made strong enough. However, some players complain that smithing at 250 plus enchanting and alchemy also power-maxed are too much and that they should be limited even more. Hence question one: what should be the limit of crafting skills in your opinion.

Question two: fletching
Quite honestly, I couldn't care less since I'm a PC player. Even without creation kit, there are already mods out there that enable me to do this. However, originally there were no mods and I was absolutely stunned finding out that I can't make my own bows or arrows. I had thousands of ancient nord arrows in my inventory, but I wanted more (not in number, but in quality).

Question three: where is all that knowledge coming from?
I must admit, I found this mechanic a bit puzzling. There I was in the game, clearing out my first dungeons with all this iron and fur gear spread all over the ground. But my altmer character didn't fancy this stuff, it looked pathetic on her. Turns out all I had to do was craft a few fur bracers (fur was the easiest to loot at the time - never bought a single ingot) and voila - a perk or two and I am a master elven smith. At that point I go WTF?!? HOW did I just go from stitching fur to making elven armor?!?
I think this should not have been so easy. And I'm not talking about numbers of fur bracers that I had to make. In order to learn making elven armor I should find a master elven smith who would teach me in exchange for a gazillion prior favors. I order to learn making elven armor I should first find a book on the topic. Or something else. Not from stitching up a couple of fur bracers. Though I do understand it's rather hard to make up perks for the skill otherwise...

Question four: enchanting capacity
At this point there should be a question on alchemy, but I could not find any posts on the topic. Alchemy changed the least from TES 3 and the changes they did didn't make or break anything so I guess people are not complaining. I also looked up enchanting, but there's nothing on it except the flaming about smithing / alchemy / enchanting in tandem are too powerful. However, there is one issue that I found and raises questions at least with me: It used to be that if you had a gold-diamond necklace (Exquisite amulet), you could put max enchantment on it. If all you had was a petty wood pebble necklace (Petty amulet), you could only enchant a little. In skyrim this doesn't matter any more. Anything you go enchanting you can enchant to the limit. Be it a wooden or gold ring, with expensive rocks or without them. What's your take on this? Is it worth the effort to collect only the most valuable materials or is wood just as good as gold in this respect?

Question five: battlemage gods (joined with 4 for poll limits)
Continuing from smith / alchemy / enchant story there's one thing that I found odd in the game: The same enchantment can be placed on any apparel / weapon type, but the highest enchantments I saw were for plain mage robes. On one hand it was sensible in TES 3 to be able to place the best enchantments on daedric armor, but on the other hand this doesn't go well with logic. Mages don't come in the heaviest armors - they find said armors restricting. Skyrim just allows you to have the best armor together with the same enchantments as are possible on ordinary rags hence all armor types below dragonscale a matter of taste more than necessity. Anyway lore or not, this actually reduces replayability since the choice for my god character is obvious - there are just no drawbacks for chosing the best armor.

Question six: loot vs crafting?
Well, once I get my crafting to 100, I make my stuff better than anything I find in any dungeon. Anything that master smiths of old made. Anything that gods made. It's actually a pretty good point that Beth chose to ignore with this. There are legendary artifacts in the game, but they are nothing compared to what you yourself can craft. This was pretty much the same in previous versions of the game as well. Should we ignore it as Beth does or not?

How's this for the second poll? Like it better, hate it more? Comment constructively below.

I voted to cap it at 100 but in reality I would like to simply see the following removed:

Fortify Alchemy Enchantments
Fortify Smithing Enchantments
Fortify Smithing Potion
Fortify Enchanting Potion

If you take them out you essentially have a cap of 100 anyways and newbies won't fall into a trap thinking they could push things higher because of a hidden "cap".


I'm not sure why it wasn't in the game to begin with... it's one of many extremely glaring errors in design.


I'm largely fine with it but I'd like to see more quests and other things to force the person out into the world, if you've been leveling solely of smithing you're going to need the best gear you could craft at the tme to complete these quests as your combat skills will be behind but I think would work well. At the same time however I think "upgrading" should be drastically reduced and base armor be increased to compensate. Upgrading should provide a relatively small boost(say 20% to base armor?). This way smithing isn't as required but still gives good benefits.


Enchanting should be much more restictive.

For example I don't think fortify should even be possible to enchant on light or heavy armor or it should come heavily restricted(like 50% less effective). Other such restrictions could be put in place and enchants greatly improved if they were restricted. This would encourage people to take specific armor sets for whatever role they want and not just pick arbitrarily because they all offer the same benefits.

Question six: loot vs crafting?

Artifacts should be inherently "stronger" than anything craftable. Granted you might have need of a very specialized weapon and in those cases a crafted weapon may win out due to higher amount of customization in them.

I'm not an archer, but I assume we mean really good arrows, not just steel? Because there are arrows all over.

I'd like to be able to make lockpcks.

I think found items should be special, but crafted could perhaps also be special, just less so in some respect but different.

Also, this wasn't asked, but I want more food recipes.

Either cap it or exchange additive stacking with limited stacking: 1/1*40% + 1/2*30% + 1/3*10% + 1/4*4% etc, where highest bonus gets highest effect. Makes the first bonus a pretty significant one, and lessens the desire to stack it and rather take something else instead for full bonus.

Regardless of whether or not the devs will care about balance, there will be a mod that cares to add balance. PC gamers don't need to worry about this.

So this is more for the console players.

Everything is related.

By introducing fletching, it gives blacksmiths an opportunity to level blacksmithing while playing the game normally. Under the current model, you are basically gonna have to power leveling it because there is no need for you to craft multiple pieces of armor. You craft a set once, and that's it.

I am also in favor of bringing in improvements degradation, to encourage blacksmiths to continually improve their weapons and armor, thus leveling their skill naturally.

I miss the "I should be able to make items comparable with god-made once I max smithing and enchanting" option.

Degradation of weapons/armor - if it's VERY SLOW then yes, otherwise no thanks. Also blades and arrows could be sharpened - for small degrading-with-use bonus. Having whetstone in inventory is all that you need - that's simple enough I think.

Crap, you got me here. Totally forgot about food. All I discovered about it is that it's pretty much useless without mods and better recipes so I forgot to account for it in this topic. Ran out of questions anyway though so no great harm done i guess.


I agree. Though I thing that Steam forge will work for console players as well? The esp and texture formats aren't exactly linked to one single platform (PC) AFAIK. Should this be true, us PC players will be left with crappy console UI while console players will get the only thing we had in our favor till now. Don't really know which smiley I should put here, so here goes both of them:

Everyone else: great suggestions. Too bad I didn't think of those before. Now it's kinda bad idea to modify the poll I think.

Your poll choices clearly reflects your subjectivity, it made me not to read your entire post.. however i did and you may have some points tho.
You shouldnt compare LOTR lore with TES games, clearly Elder Scrolls has its own lore, as other thounds rpg's/tabletop's/books has its own. Even if all of them originated from Tolkien novels.
Skyrim is a single player game. If you feel like they break your game dont use them or simply dont use them to an extend you'll be feeling its overpowered. Its all about self control and how you want to play your game.
Don't get me wrong, i don't like the system as it is.. and like some of your ideas. For instance; better quality items can have better enchantments like in previous TES games sounds logical.
But this wouldnt solve your problem about godlike items as mostly daedric items are enchanted anyway. True, this kills the excitement about that big chest when you defeated that uberhard boss in the dungeon cause you know that it cant drop better items.

A question: If you set the alchemy crafting cap to 100 what is the point of leveling it? Say you leveled it.. then whats the point of blacksmith/enchanting potions? You would have to ignore half the potions from the game and other usefull ones are already sold at vendors anyway.

So with what choices are we left with?
1-) Resist X potions.
2-) Poison potions.

I tend not to abuse crafting. I didn't in Morrowind (stacking Intelligence potions to make better potions to make better potions...) and I didn't in Oblivion (could you?) and thus I don't in Skyrim.
I severely dislike alchemy even though I like picking herbs, I keep my smithing just below my main damage skill and my enchanting tends to lag a quite a few levels behind that if I bother with both of them. I don't abuse the crafting loop.

So I would like to keep enhancing potions from alchemists, since they don't break my game. I also know that some people love breaking the game, and since it's single player anyway I can't see any harm in letting them do what they want to do.

Fletching would be a nice addon to be honest, not everyone plays on the PC, and you'd be surprised how large the amount of PC players is that doesn't use mods. And the more options the better in my opinion.

Artifacts should be the most powerful items in game. They are crafted by the gods, and should be simply replaced by something you threw together yourself.

What else did you ask/mention? Ah yes, different strength enchants on different items.
I have to admit I like it the way it is, nice and simple. Especially the whole LIght armor vs Heavy armor holding different enchantments is aweful. I want to chose armor based on looks and what suits my character RP wise, not what can hold the best enchantments. The same with rings and gems; not everyone wants to be decked in bling and a simple silver ring can be a far nicer option in that case.

Anyway, that's simply my 2 cents.

Is it too much to ask that people don't weight their polls with their opinions? Its not hard.. you simply take emotive statements out.

I've written so many essays on each and every part of this which I simply can't bear repeating again, but it comes down to, could do with some small tweaks, but most other alternatives restrict choice.

The main thing is this god item bit. I love how people who googled (not all, but many) the location of mines for those ebony ingots and daedra hearts early on, are annoyed the god items are so weak, when basically all they are saying is that they would have preferred googling the god item locations instead of crafting daggers.

Frankly, Gods are Gods, and generally, given most lore, do not pour ALL of their power into an item. They craft an item which rewards, and enables their follows greater ease in which to follow in their name. God crafted items have nothing to do with "crafted to god level". They are to assist their followers, not turn random passerbys into gods.

Frankly I think its beautiful, that typically, men and mer lack the wisdom to avoid creating items of immense power. Just because you CAN invent a 100% kill rate biological weapon...... typical mortal thinking. I like that this remains in the game. You created your super holy item of ultimate smiting? Hope you realise that when you die, the next person to take it may not be as responsible and use it to enslave and murder.. can you live with it?

Though often he has sought
Like Icarus, to fly too high-
And far too lonely than he ought
To kiss the sun of east and west
And hold the world at his behest-
To hold the terrible power
To whom only gods are blessed-
But me, I am just a man

question 1: I want to be able to go as far as I like. Don't like it? Don't do it. Why restrict other people, doesn't matter to you if your friends are one hitting absolutly everything does it? Or won't you be able to stroke your ego afterwards? Or perhaps modding and console commands should be dissabled too, as you could probably misuse that to the point where you don't even have to kill enemies anymore?

question 2: Don't see why not.

question 3: I'd like to see more quests or books where you get more than just 800 gold for your work. This would be a nice reward for doing said quests and also just makes sence.

question 4: Yes, let any item have any enchantment. Again, don't like it, don't do it, just don't limit what other people can do for the sake of your own enjoyment.

question 5: Honestly not sure. Although I continue with what I said for question 1 and 4 in that you shouldn't take away peoples freedoms for your own sake, I wouldn't want to have crafting if it isn't going to give me the best I could find, I could just spend my gold on something nice. Maybe got weapons should have unique properties you can't mimic so they are fun/useful in some situations but you may continue to make weapons that do more damadge e.c.t.

Is it even possible to add something like fletching after a game has been released?

Yeah sure, just add arrow items when using the anvil. Mods can add requirements like 1 wood and 1 metal, then output a bundle of arrows.

Don't really get first question, skill limit is 100, taking a potion boost possible result during few seconds but skill is still 100 ... so what's this thing with 250 skill ?

Fletching, ok, of course, a shame it is not already there. They should add weight to arrows and raise the price a little while at it.

Smithing, they should only add trivialisation (ie : no exp awarded) passed certain skill level. BUT the game is out it is too late to change this, so keep it for next game and/or mods (you knew you should buy a PC didn't you ?). And FYI, and contrary to popular belief, smithing daggers is not the easiest way to lever the skill.

Yeah enchantements should depend on material quality, but certainly not be stronger on light armor than on heavy armor. In fact it used to work like that in old TES games (and iirc Daedric was best possible gear to enchant).

Agree .. and not Deadric items are not all crafted by parent Daedra "God", it is clearly stated in the lore (and loading screens) that some were forged by mortals like Volendrung by Dwemer.

Don't. Encourage. Beth.

Sorry, just a lame attempt at funny poll questions. I should not have added it, I admit, but I honestly just thought I was being funny.


I agree 100%. I even mentioned in the OP that I liked having no limits in TES 3. However in these polls I try to capture the spirit of debate on a particular topic. And there is a lot of debate on being able to create super-items.
This is even reflected in poll results for question 1 and 5. Quite honestly far from what I would want in the next TES game or this one for that matter.

Perhaps I should not be saying this since voting is far from over, but I really enjoyed being able to do whatever I wanted in TES 3. Those things I wouldn't be bothered with I just skipped easily using a potion or two and what was challenging / fun for me, I left intact. TES 4 totally broke that for me since I practically couldn't make neither a potion nor a spell that would take away the boring stuff. TES 5 again loosens those restrictions a bit and I would like this to continue.
However, this doesn't seem to be the popular opinion. I always thought that I was playing a god in TES games. Heck, in one of the expansions for TES 3 I even fought and killed one. Got a super-powerful soul to top it off too. Hence I would like this to continue. I AM god and I may make my own decision whether to create an item more powerful than Molag Bal once had.

]removed[

Smithing

• base skill allows for crafting armor only; player has to spend a perk to unlock blades, another to unlock fletching, etc.; this forces the player to invest more perks to create a complete armament, thus making it more difficult to exploit
  
• players have to learn how to work new materials from teachers and can only do it after spending the perk (like learning words and then needing dragon souls to use them); to convince a teacher to teach them, they have to complete quests; the player has to unlock these skills
  
• players have to find or buy molds or patterns for each item in each material (eg. leather armor, iron boots, steel gloves, glass daggers, etc.); makes the process more expensive and time-consuming
  
• when a player crafts an item, there is a chance it will fail depending on their skill; this chance increases for every item they make until they sleep until well rested; a failed attempt results in wasted materials or defective items that have reduced stats and are worth less than the materials; makes smithing much more expensive without affecting the price of materials
  
• player receives less experience each time he crafts the same item; eventually, crafting that item will provide only a very small minimum of experience and they will be forced to craft other items; in other words: player will be forced to spend perks to unlock other item types, buy molds, and find teachers

All of these devices just make smithing more expensive, either gold-wise, time-wise or perk-wise and will discourage people from maxing them out unless they're very dedicated. Only very dedicated smiths will be able to craft a wide range of items using expensive materials and only after a lot of training. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Enchanting

• beyond just learning an enchantment, players have to spend perks to enchant items for specific types (eg. a perk to use fire enchantments, another to use frost, etc.)
  
• players can only learn different types of enchantments from other teachers; not only do they have to destroy an item to get the essence of an enchantment, they have to be shown how to use that knowledge (again, like dragon shouts)
  
• increasing chance of failure based on skill, just like in smithing; player has to rest to return to full strength
  
• less experience each time they craft the same item, just like smithing

Alchemy

• players have to spend perks to unlock different types of potions, eg. poisons, restoration, fortifies, resistances, etc.; players can start out knowing how to make restoration potions, for example, but have to spend a perk to make fortify potions
  
• players can only learn different types of potions from either teachers, or alchemy books;
  
• increasing chance of failure based on skill, just like in smithing, though allowing for a greater number of items/day
  
• less experience each time they craft the same item, just like smithing

As far as fortifying alchemy/smithing/enchantment, I think it should be possible (otherwise there is a weird gap in the 'logic' of magic) but using a fortify should have a chance of producing a strong, random, undesirable result. Example: using a fortify, I am able to exceed my base chance, but now there is a significant chance that something bad will happen to me because of it; maybe I will end up cursing myself, or adding a penalty to the enchanted object, or summoning a random daedra that attacks me, or 'tainting' all of the potions of a certain type in my inventory so they now do something different, etc.

These are just random ideas floating around in my head, and I'm sure there are problems associated with many of them, but I think you can 'solve' the problem of exploiting these skills just making making them very hard to master. Only someone who spends ALL of their perks in crafting is going to be able to create items that are on par with god items.

Incidentally, I don't see any reason why gods always make items that are more powerful than other items. They probably only make them as powerful as they deem necessary. Why would you make them more powerful than you had to? They should still be worth a lot more, because they have been 'signed' by a god, but they don't have to be the most powerful objects in the game.