Say for example, in TES are Orcish crafted weapons are better than Elven crafted weapons in every way? Or is it just a gameplay thing.

gameplay.

In real life it doesn't take 10 hits hits to kill someone with a sword or whatever.

In older games, better quality weapons had a slight edge on to-hit and damage, so yes, orcish > elven is lore-friendly in terms of weapons.

For instance, in Daggerfall.

Elven gave +2, Dwarven +4, Mithril/Adamantium +6, Ebony +8, Orcish +10, and Daedric +12

except gameplay does not equal lore in this case, even back then. so no, it is just a game play mechanic. The only real exception to this is probably stuff like DAedric which in lore is the strongest armor and weapons thanks to having a soul of a Daedra bound to each peice or something like that.

I don't see why elven would be stronger than orcish in skyrim, if it's contradicting it's own lore. I don't understand how a gameplay mechanic would cause them to do something like this either.

There's something called armor.

By the way, topic applies to armor as well as weapons, though armor quality scale can be more versatile since it has not one but 2 categories: light and heavy, aka different strength/weaknesses. Not so with weapons.

Orcs build better bows and arrows than elves? (along with daggers, swords, axe, mace)