Really? There was no reason for your character to NOT know how to make Daedric arms? It's common knowledge to your character? Really? I like, too, statements like, "well I only tanked my sithing to 60 so I could improve magic items". What? YOU as the player, stepped out of RPing and said, "Okay Jabumbo the Grand, I know you're a nerdy little mage wimp, but you're going to gain this knowledge after you make a bajillion iron daggers." Seriously? The game is broken? What? You guys are like the busted car thieves on those reality shows. "Man, but it was an Escalade, and it had the keys in it, it's not my fault I stole it."

LIMIT YOURSELF.

It's simple. Bethesda wanted to give you options. You don't have to use ALL of those options. For example:

I only join ONE guild on each character.
I make EVERY character have a MASSIVE weakness.
I do not allow ANY character to use every crafting tree.
etc.

I limited myself, to increase how much fun I have, and the replayability.

And now, let me assess your situation:

You feel that if you can't make your equipment as powerful as possible, your missing out. But in doing so, you make running dungeons pointless. As far as I can tell.

Well, if you feel that a major part of the game is pointless because of something you're doing, stop doing it. It's extremely easy to reach the armor cap, or very near it, without Smithing. With it, you can reach the armor cap wearing a sack.

And, like I said, you should get out of the mindset that dungeons are for getting gear, and instead think that dungeons are for fun, and gear is to further increase the fun.

/agree with Adebar ^_^! nuff said

No, no, you don't understand; I don't mind my gear being as powerful as possible, its that it's so EASY TO DO that bothers me. Ebony, for example, is supposed to be extremely rare. Guards actually have unique dialogue when you wear ebony armor. And yet, for some reason, shopkeepers suddenly stock 4-8 ebony ingots? That's one part of the problem.

To return to my prior point, I want my items to be as powerful as I can make them, but it removes a big part of doing dungeons if you can actually make the gear yourself. The first draugr deathlord i killed, for example, dropped an ebony sword. That would have been awesome, because it was an epic fight that took me an hour to finally win...except I already had an ebony sword. Why? Because I got ebony boots dropped a few days before, so I got the perk to improve them so they were actually better than the orcish stuff I already had. Except, once I had it, I had a bunch of ebony ingots just lying in my inventory, and a weapon that was suddenly looking very outdated, and a forge 5 feet away...

I guess the problem isn't with smithing itself, it's that the materials are too easy to get. Getting the stuff to MAKE ebony should be just as fun and challenging as getting it as a drop from a dungeon. As it is right now, it doesn't feel any different from just adding it to your player via the console.

Just like the kids in Africa do. But we are so spoiled that our fantasy doesn't work anymore and we have to get everything handed to us on a silver plate.

Seriously don't get the fuzz about this. I don't craft my own items and I'm still very happy when I discover something in a dungeon that I can use, just because I "can't" make my own stuff. It's really not that hard to restrain yourself.
It's like saying: I don't feel happy about the money I earned for working in real life, 'cause I just could go rob a bank or something. You can complain and not feel good about anything then, and die as an old sad fart.

I've been on the opposite side of this argument before, and I totally see your point...but don't you agree that all parts of the game should be fun? It just seems odd to me that to break the game, all you have to do is visit the general store. If you have to restrain yourself from something so simple and easy to have an enjoyable experience, doesn't that imply that something isn't right with the game itself, and not just the player?

Just to re-iterate, it's not even 2-3 minutes of effort to make ebony or daedric stuff. It just seems way too easy to me, even for people who want to have an easy ride. I mean, the point of the game is to make it be an epic experience, so why is getting the gear, one of the coolest parts of many RPG's, also one of the easiest parts?

I would just like it so that you can't smith the best weapons, only find them. I would've liked if Daedric couldn't be crafted and only found.

I half take it back. Be that ^ as it may, I have a hard time believing a foreign method of weapon and armour manufacturing is as common as Orc methods of manufacturing in Skyrim.

Dwemer crafting should still not be possible, or should at least be a much more costly perk than it currently is. The entire culture and technology has been lost, but somehow your character knows how to make the Dwemer's equipment?



Ehm ... I've run into bandits that use Orc, Elven, Glass and Ebony weapons and armours ... :spotted owl:

It's kind of always been that way, even in real life...

If you have 35,000 dollars, because you won the lottery...you could buy a car
If you work 5 years and earn 7,000 dollars a year, *then* buy a car, you put more work into it, and you'll still get the same stuff


Pretty much what I'm saying is that if you have the funds for it, you should be able to just essentially buy the item instead of 'wasting your time' and running dungeons

The Daedric Princes did not necessarily make their artifacts. For example, Malacath's Voldenrung was forged by the Dwemer.

Daedric artifact =/= forged by the Daedric Princes. Also, to McLovin, if you could only find the best weapons in the game, why put any points into smithing at all? The idea that you can become a master smith and forge artifact quality and armor is not out of place whatsoever in my opinion. You do have the soul of a god anyway, making incredible armor should just be a matter of practice at that point.

Question, how long would it take to get smithing up to 100 without crafting, only upgrading? Seems to me that people would still get enjoyment out of it, it would still be useful, and it would level properly.

I agree that smithing is OP.

But OP (whoa, used two different versions of OP in a single post), I recommend you only craft gear that you can find.

If you can only find ebony gear, then only craft ebony gear for yourself.

Once you can find daedric gear, then you use daedric gear.

You can use the game's own random loot as a benchmark. This self-policing makes sense because you are following the game's rules in random loot.

I would say the real problem is that the ores are too common.

If you had to mine or randomly discover all of the ore you use for anything above steel then you'd feel accomplishment when you smith or upgrade your exceptional weapons. The fact that every mediocre merchant is selling dwarven metal so early is where the sense of accomplishment is really lost. There's few reasons seek out mines for rare metals because everyone sells them.

I don't want to lose the ability to make exceptional items, but it should just be a pursuit that takes more than 5 minutes.

I don't smith and never have and never will

Cheers

This pretty much sums up how I feel. See, If I had to fight through a mob of falmer to find dwarven blueprints to make dwarven armor, it would be wonderful, make sense, and create an excellent reward/effort system.

Players shouldnt have to not do something like smithing or enchanting not to break their game. It should remain a challenge even if you smith or enchant

:D

Unfortunately until we have modders, you could just craft and enchant gear to be only as powerful as the random loot that you find.

Smithing and enchanting alone do no break the game, what breaks the game is when you go out of your way to enchant and smith beyond 100 using potions and enchants to make gear that far exceeds normal. I tried power leveling smithing, and I had a good amount in enchanting, my game was not broken and while powerful, I still died on occasion.

Haha yeah totes. What's a CK?

Construction kit, Mods birthplace.

I meant the weapons should be rare hard to find weapons.

The personality of it isn't there because all you did was make a stock-quality sword with materials that have become common. The true personality comes out when you create something that no one else can touch by creating and tempering gear that's made of materials the world is only just starting to find, enchanting it, and naming it if that's what you feel like doing.

Different games will be different experiences. In my experience, I went around the world mining everything in sight from level 1 on, to the point where I could power level my smithing off of just the materials I had found. I had become such a high leveled blacksmith in relation to my other skills that the materials I would need to create my masterpieces were not yet available in any shop, and if they were, they were eventually sold maybe one ore at a time, which is not even enough for even a weapon. It'd take days of searching far and wide for those materials before I could create a set of armor with what I had, then top it all off with a weapon.

In my case, though, I also became a rather good Alchemist and Enchanter, and I found the Smithing enchant early on, so when it comes time for me to smith me some new equipment, it becomes a journey of hunting for Grand Soul gems to enchant my Blacksmithing gear, complete with a Blacksmith's Apron that I found in a Bandit's cave, reagents for a potion that would fortify smithing, and culminate in my gathering of the materials I would need to complete a full set of armor complete with weapon. When the time comes to finally down my potion, sharpen my sword, and temper my armor to perfection, it is the end result of a grand adventure that took many playthroughs, and you can bet your left nut that I will don my Legendary weapons and armor with pride for weeks to come.

When I find extra high-level loot, I don't see it as a new tool in my arsenal, I see it as something I can sell at a high price, since my custom-tailored equipment is far superior. I'm not yet to Ebony smithing - I'm level 26 and have 76 Smithing - but I'm within arm's reach, but I just found my first Ebony Greatsword in a loot chest. I don't use it yet because it's a dull, useless thing that's completely inferior to my Legendary, 81-damage, Grand Soul Fire-enchanted Elven Greatsword, but once I get good enough to improve it, it will be my greatest work yet.

The game IS Challenging even though I smith and enchant and create potions that enhance both. In fact, I only have my game on Expert because I'll get my butt handed to me if I go all the way to Master.

Of course, I'm also playing a Dark Knight build, where I have my combat skills split between Destruction Magic and Two-handed Weapons, and my stat increases are split evenly into Magicka, Health, and Stamina. I guess if you specialize, it becomes OP?

I don't think the issue is with smithing so much as lack of loot variation and potency outside what can be smithed.

Thank goodness for mods.

On the plus side I love the fact I can name my gear.My "Kebab Breath" battle axe is the bomb.

Yeah the crafting skills really killed spelunking for me.

I feel like they should've made them non-combat "flavor" or "RP" skills, along with pickpocket, speech, lockpicking. And separate non-combat and combat perks, so you don't feel you're wasting your combat perks putting any in speech. Then make found gear at least on par with the best you can make, or have NPC smiths/enchanters make. It's kind of stupid you can't go to an NPC smith with materials for armors and have them made. Same with enchanting or alchemy. In fact, NPCs enchant things for other NPCs, as revealed by a certain quest, just not the player.

Then, enchanting/smithing/alchemy would be on par with lockpick, speech, pickpocket, as purely monetary side skills. You make your stuff, you save gold and make some selling it. You steal, you make gold. You barter and persuade, you get better prices and rewards.

Makes little sense that they made crafting skills among the most powerful for combat. They're the main culprits when it comes to balance issues.


Splitting the skills into non-combat and combat would also make level scaling less ... bad.