Don't think I'm stupid...

It's just leveling up Enchanting and Alchemy (the other two crafting trees) is so more... normal. My Enchanting alone goes up rather quickly (or 'conveniently') simply by finding enchanted weapons and disenchanting them, and then later using those enchantments on new armor I get. Alchemy goes up simply by tasting new ingredients, and by making and experimenting with new potions. It's so simple.

Smithing? You can take and mine for the right ores, smelt them, and make you a full set of steel armor, and then improve it, and only get like 1-2 levels. From then on there's just no... tasks to do to level up 'conveniently' like Enchanting and Alchemy. If mining actually improved smithing and forging ingots also improved it it might be better.

Anyone share my thoughts?

higher value armors level you up more i think, i usually just spam jewlery at low levels and make dwarven bows for mid levels

A lot of iron daggers and hide bracers.

They fixed that, the skill gained is now based on the value of the item made.

Get the Transmute Mineral Ore spell, buy as much iron ore as possible, turn iron into silver and silver into gold, then make golden rings. Sell the rings to buy more ore and repeat. You'll have loads of money and level up your smithing.

Those are exploits though... I want the normal way.. the way you're intended, but it seems there isn't one.

You can't level Smithing like you can Enchanting and Alchemy.

Rexosaurus

None of you actually answered the op, read the post next time!

I stay away from smithing because of this very fact, but I suppose you could make random gear to sell, or you could get some followers and make them gear, or you could have someone train you in it.

It's not an exploit. You get better at smithing by smithing. You could just make the armor that sells for the most.

Except we told him how to level up his smithing. Next time you want to say nobody helped to OP, use your brain.

I just get training, not worth the hassle of doing all this crap

I just normally pay someone to train it. I do get a few levels from making sets of armor and weapons, though.

I'd actually like it if you had to either find armor/weapons before learning how to smith (ala Enchanting) or do a quest for an NPC to learn how to smith it. More exotic materials (say, Dwarven) would require diving around in the appropriate ruins, and Daedric would require some serious hoops to jump through.

Then you didn't read his post correctly. He stated that he knows how to level it up, it just doesn't feel normal to him and wanted to know if there was a better way.

You rule.

Agree, have 5/5 in A skill similar to enchanter/Barbarian, and then have two ways to go, to get a benifit to armor, or weopons.

(snip)

Just building a Hearthfire house and smithing the materials that you need during the construction and furnishing processes will net you a fairly large chunk of exp. Doesn't feel too "grindy" since you're working towards a different goal while leveling up.

Build a Hearthfire home from scratch, craft arrows, and don't spam rings. It'll feel more natural if your goal is something other than trying to get it to a specific level.