Like some of us have noted - all they did was make it like Alchemy... items worth more gold, give more skill. Nothing's been "nerfed", and they haven't made it so you can't grind out Smithing. No "choice" has been taken away.

yeah! Now instead of "cheating" by spamming 100 daggers you need to spam 250 Elven daggers!!!!! Hooray!!! Wait, the game just got more tedious, with no payoff.

I still spam iron daggers to get to 100 smithing XD it just takes 4 times (literally 450 daggers to over 1800) longer but selling back potions to the smiths for their irons bars I made over 100k doing it so I don't really care. I only have 2 out of 7 characters that don't have 100 smithing I only had one that I leved up post 1.5 update.

Am I the only one who was smithing on a needs basis, or at worst when I needed to get rid of some materials? Example:

I needed Elven armor to complete my character (you can hit light armor cap with it), so I had to get my smithing up. I went to the mines I owned, grabbed iron, forged some junk for Lydia (she's sworn to carry my burdens...), killed a few things, smithed a little more with junk I found (leather is great for this).

Once I had the elven perk I searched for moonstone, then decided to just buy it. Made my Elfie set and never touched the forge again.

That's playing the game.

Driving smithing up to 100, yeah I get it and that's cool, but does anyone just let smithing develop organicly while their character's needs grow?

My problem with this is that if you ever want Dragon, it forces you to grind. You get plenty of it pretty early on, but you can't make it until you max the skill - and you can't just get a blacksmith in the world to make it for you for an acceptable fee.

now how exactly do you "BE GOOD" at smithing? it was slow the honest way before, even slower now

My first character has now finally maxed out his Smithing. He is the only character I'll make that uses that skill. It was fun and I liked it, but now I'm ready to play old school style and drool with joy when I find loot that contains awesome enchanted armor again (like the Morrowind days of yore). I would never say Smithing was a mistake. I thought it was a great addition and I'm happy they added it. I just won't be using it any more. Now... enchanting... hehehe... that's next on the agenda for my future mage.

THIS

The game forces you to smith if you want good gear. That's not choice, that's not freedom. That's straight up grinding. I didn't want my toon to be a smith, but I got 100smithing because I wanted to use the dragon scales/bones. I mean, the game has dragons in it...

I didn't got Dragon Smithing perk so I cannot make Dragon armor but I have a full set of Dragon Plate and Dragonscale armor. You can get anything without smithing it. Just the chance of getting it as loot isn't high.

Exactly how does it level now? You get more experience from smithing higher level stuff? E.g. smithing ebony gear rather than iron gear?

these 2 go hand-in-hand. you can exploit/not exploit, quickly level up the trades and use/not use, whatever. i've done it every which way, lol.

and, then, you can go back and play the more old-school, organic way and enjoy that gameplay, as well.

you can definitely get dragonscale as loot at hight levels. but, it goes back to the whole difficulty balance problem, in that, by the time you get it your character is, for me, boringly powerful. as well, the rp gets jacked: my orc wants orc gear now and so you have to grind the smithing to get to orc gear or whichever.

that's why the trades should probably not have any experience associated with them and implemented with more creative methods of gameplay.

Gotcha. Well, as I said, I got my to 100 spamming the crap out of iron daggers, but this makes alot more sense. I'd like to hear more from people who are doing it the new way. I feel you should be able to improve enchanted items earlier, say perhaps level 50. That is one of the more important perks in the game (enchanted smithing). I couldn't imagine not having it.

I dont think the exploit was cheating; but it was a flaw in the mechanics of the levelling system; and I think it's a good change.

So... so much for choices and consequences huh?

Was Oghma Infinium patched by this?

Correct (according to what I read here). Which makes a hell of a lot more sense. If I read it correctly, you can still grind low level stuff like crazy if you want to, but at least now it comes with a penalty that it requires more of it. Want to grind faster? Then fight for the needed stuff and/or pay with perk points for easier access to the required material and make it yourself. It just makes sense... More consequence of our actions now, although the whiners complain about "freedom"?? Not sure what changed in this regard...

No chef I ever met got where he is by cooking tea...

wait, what ?

some people actually get angry if someone finds an exploit to their advantage in single player games ?

hahahahahahaha.

LoL. I can just spam MOAR jewelry.

How does one "BE GOOD" at smithing? One used to spam iron daggers. Now one spams leather helmets, together with a smattering of assorted jewelry, iron helmets, leather bracers, and.... iron daggers. Just many, many, many, many more of them.

If anything, the changes make smithing much easier to level up once you get far enough into the game to have access to lots of +smithing items and high-end materials. Then you can just improve the various ebony things that draugr drop for massive gains.

But in any case, you're still just selecting stuff from a menu and pressing a button.

That said, I kind of like the changes. Before, I would start a new character and skill out of the lower tier weapons so fast that I barely got any use out of them. Now it feels more like a progression. And it still levels up fast enough in the beginning that you can start making dwarven or elven really early on, both of which are quite a big upgrade from steel.

Simple. Get the Prowler's Profit perk and the Transmute spell, you can once again power level smithing. Finding dozens or even a hundred gems in a single dungeon, then transmuting Iron Ore into Gold Ore then smelting it down and making Gold Jewelry will level your Smithing fast as hell, especially Gold Diamond Necklaces.

I was doing it the "new" way even though I knew there was the dagger exploit. I deliberately only created armor first and if there were any raw materials left I'd make weapons. I always tried to be "realistic" in the amounts I made and usually would only use raw materials found while adventuring (including animal pelts). However, once I got to level 97, I could wait no longer. That was the first time I actually paid for raw materials... I still didn't use the exploit though, by then 1.5 had come out.

Yeah, I know. Sad, isn't it?

If you wanted this new way of Smithing, you could have done it before 1.5... It's called self control. Just make what you need when you need it. The game wasn't forcing you to make hundreds of iron daggers. All 1.5 has done is remove a way of playing for people. Some people wanted to get 100 smithing quickly, but Bethesda have removed that option now and in the process they are in a way removing a certain way of playing.

All in all, bad move. If you think it's good, you obviously didn't have the self control before the patch to: "smith properly".

Honestly, I have not noticed a difference. I have always smithed the most valuable item I could based on the materials I had collected in my travels, which are most commonly pelts, so I make leather armor and helmets, since those are the most valuable things you can make with pelts. Since I downloaded the 1.5 patch I have not really noticed any difference in the rate my characters smithing skill has increased. That is not to say there is not a difference, just not a difference I have noticed.

Im not glad. Smithing was a grind, and is a grind. Now it takes longer.

Those who wanted to RP blacksmiths certainly could have, those who wanted to "earn" it certainly had the option of mining and doing elegant smithing to raise their skill...

But for alot of us, smithing is a means to an end and not a joy. When it is this, its a grind, and now it is longer. Since I'm on a PC ill be conspling skill in appropriate to my level, but i would be more than slightly miffed if I didnt have that option.

I take no joy in farming.