The level requirements are typically very low, only the ebony blade and ebony mail have high requirements and ebony doesn't normally drop til at least your mid 20's.
My point was you didn't have to gimp yourself against leveled enemies to gain powerful weapons, when you grind crafting you do since the improved weapons and armor aren't much better if you have very low combat skills.

This really. I love the look of everything in Skyrim, and the dungeons are no less beautiful. They are, however, pretty predictable and the complete lack of danger from traps is pretty disappointing. I think they're designed to kill lvl 2 adventurers, and then they don't scale up. At lvl 20 they barely scratch a hole in your leather armor.

I don't understand how people think Oblivion was so much more challenging than Skyrim. While i love Oblivion i never found it particularly hard, and weapons and armor i enchanted with Transedental Stones were way better than anything i found. Some Dedric artifacts i found were useful, Master Key, Azura Star, and Umbra. But the spell absorb i had on my armor and my sword that absorbed HP from enemies with every attack were what made me pretty much invincible. I don't see how thats much different from crafting in Skyrim

I agree with you and your friend OP. Exploring for better armor and finding unique things, aswell as doing quests, is pointless.

The only way to obtain that same feeling, is to not use Smithing or Enchanting at all... But even then, it's kinda lame since dungeons dont seem to scale properly with your level, making most loot you find being craptastic.....

Rushed game is rushed.

I for myself agree with my friend , but I haven't tested much the crafting because I perceived the gameplay was poorly made by beth this time , unbalancing things veryseriously ......

having to force yoruself to not become a "god" by taking advantage of the system is not a way to play , the Game shoudl be balanced so that you do not Become overpowerfull due to a lack of carefull gameplay features planning ....

the smithing is an awesome addition but has really been poorly implemented and rushed out ... (11 11 11 ) the same thing that you can stack enchantment over enchantment over potions over spells on yourself that you can craft ( even at low levels if you pump just enchantment and smithing ) allows you to create weapons and common stuff in abundance way more powerfull than any daedric artefact ...

This spoils the reason and the fun to go look for them ....

I played differently than him knowing that the game is bugged somehow and will allow you to become overpowered if you do not refrain from increasing all the stuff in smithing etc , I decided to not do at all ... but willing or not I reached 100 smithing couse I wanted the dragon armor , so I coudl forge by myself stuff that was more powerfull than daedric stuff...

and yes you can enchant pretty much all of the items with more powerfull enchantments than the daedric ... and as for the 3 spells what i need it for if I can have the whole set of armor enchanted with more powerfull stuff?

on the dungeons , they are better crafted but utterly boring , because even if they feel and look more different , they do share all the same linearity ... they placed a backdoor in "Every" dungeon" ( I actually do not dislike that much ) but as for the loot you can pretty much jump any room , go straight to tthe boss couse you will not miss anything from the dungeon ... all the important stuff is "always" in the final chest ... wich makes the game feel more like a Fable or a poor kiddy oriented game than else .... wich honestly is hironical due to the rating of the game ...

Daedric + Crafting = Even more powerful items?

That is way to high. Capping it at +50% is a lot more balanced and reasonable. If the player could hire NPCs to improve items, it would also remove the reason to grind the skill.

My character has about 30something in smithing and the elven smithing perk. Along with a few buff enchanted items, this creates a situation where improved elven is significantly better than improved ebony ...

Just yesterday did I find a Daedric Bow of Immobilizing with a chance for 4s to paralyse. My eyes popped out.

I think that these artefacts are found a lot less often in Skyrim than in Oblivion, and this is good. In Oblivion I only needed to clear a gate and I had more daedric stuff than I could carry, so much that it got boring in fact.

that's a daedric enchanted item not an artefact ...

You do not need artefacts when the drop rate for daedric weapons is a lot lower than before!

And it is not like it does not have any unique items in the game, is it? Not to mention the ability to enchant two effects onto an item and the time it takes to get the perk...

Daedric Artifacts are items that were made by the Daedric Princes. In this game, you have to do Daedric Quests to get them.

Also, not all Daedric artifacts are made from Daedric Materials.

My first character used Spellbreaker for 25+ levels, and only stopped because I started using two handed weapons. I really don't see a problem with them being underpowered.

I am well aware of the difference, just not the importance this makes. I do not need these artefacts even when I have some. They are not needed to have fun nor should there be too many of them or be abused as e-peens. The point is to worship the Daedras, and not their rewards.

200% is what it takes to reach Legendary. That's what 100 Smithing +Perk gets you. Capping at 50% is only having a Smithing skill of 50.

EDIT : How do you see grinding fitting into this?

I disagree - almost every time I see a thread with "useless" in the title, it almost always comes to the same thing "because there's something better in the game, X is useless".

See, here's the thing about Daedric Artificats - they give you the benefits of skills without having to actually train those skills (enchanting, destruction, summoning, etc).

Things created by a player who has mastered or almost mastered a skill tree, *should* be better than the things which can be found or earned by quests. That's just good RPG design. I'm not averse to the idea of having some effects which can *only* be had from Daedric artifacts, like you had in Oblivion, because that doesn't grant something the player should have achieved through skill, without having to get that skill.

But, in general, I have to disagree - the Daedric Artifacts give you the chance to get some nice enchanted weapons for non-enchanter characters. If you happen to enchant, and can craft better items, good for you, but it's nice that the game gives access to lower-level versions of some useful enchantments to players who chose not to learn enchanting.

Daedric Princes made the Daedric Artifacts. That's the importance.

Surely the point is that you can only get these unique items BY doing the Daedric Quests.

Daedric Armour and Weapons are just the stuff the Dremora carry about with them. They are not unique.

That Ebony Mail is some of the best armor in the game, pending your playstyle. You can't dupe that gear.

I like deadric stuff, azuras star is one of the most useful for at least 30 lv and its not clogging my inventory, its amazing how much weight those soul gems have

I carry Dawnbreaker, and have done since I got it some time back.

Sure, it actually deals about a 1/3 less damage than any other melee weapon I have, but it is absolutely lethal against undead, which is its role and purpose. It's a specialist item.

I meant that it should not be possible to improve an armor or weapon +50% beyond its initial stats. So if an armor has a base armor rating of 10, it could not get higher than an armor rating of 15.

Umbra had nothing going for it aside from a high base damage. It was quite easy to craft a far superior weapon at the enchanting station using a grand soul.

And why is this important?

Same question here - why is this important? Are you saying that you liked the Daedric quests? Are you saying you want more of them? Or are you saying that these were extremely difficult to master and believe to deserve a better reward, i.e. a more powerful item?

To me, if one item is better than another item then I will use the better item. There is however no need or reason for why an item needs to be better than another. It is good that not all items are just the same.

If you are saying the Daedras are powerful beings and therefore their rewards should reflect their power then I think that you need to rethink this fact. They are not as powerful as some believe or as they want you to believe. They often need the player's help and more often talk powerful crap than do something. Your view of them may be different though.

Most true. For an early game kick ass weapon, the Mace of Malog Bal is awesome.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Mace_of_Molag_Bal_(Skyrim)

They look cool and serve as good house decoration/collectable so their not totally useless. Rueful Axe is the most beautiful axe there is.

Yes, but most people didn't complete (or even start) the quest involving Umbra which meant that it remained weightless* and, therefore, could be swung faster than any dagger in the game -- think "dps". And I'm pretty sure it was impossible to create a weightless weapon via enchanting.

*[Technically, of course, this was an exploit but one many -- maybe most -- of us were guilty of.]