Play how you want to play, don't restrict the way someone else might want to play.

If you find exploiting crafting mechanics makes your game too easy and you can't turn the difficulty up any more, don't use them.

If you find that using any armor makes your game too easy and you can't turn the difficulty up any more, don't use any.

It's the same principle, I don't understand why you need to be up in arms about it. Perhaps you need a lesson in "voluntary challenges"? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetHack#Conducts for a very classic example of this applied to Nethack.

It all depends how much the heavy armor skill, and the one-handed or two-handed affect the armor/damage rating. If brought to the extreme, lets say one have smithing at 100, one-handed at 50, heavy armor at 50, and the other have smithing at 50, one-handed at 75, heavy armour at 75..... I would guess the last one would be a stronger charecter... But then it comes to how long time it takes to level the different skills... Guess this can be discussed for a while

EDIT: In that scenario, smithing skill also would represent type of weapon/armor available...
EDIT 2: And no, I don't have any numbers for this, just a "logical" guess

Morrowind allowed some really crazy armor and weapon enchants, In fact if I remember right you could wear a full suit of armor and then a robe over it in MW.


Also, I agree Steel plate does look awesome, but so does dwarvin, the shield is really good looking.

Lol why you moaning about. Yes you can do it but your not forced to do it. Dont want super strong weapons made by you character, dont make them. Problem solved...

The way I see it, Smiting is a secondary skill (it may not appear like this in the game ) I spend some time upgrading weapons or crafting the odd item to make me more effective at my main skills and to kill stuff, I don't over do it because I don’t believe my character would, however if that is how you play your character then you should be free to make that choice. In order to get to the best smiting items you will need to invest a lot of perks into the tree and so loose out on another tree so the items you create should be powerful enough to compensate for this.

The game's scaling is kind of based on things like enchanting and smithing being as powerful as they are. The game assumes you're taking advantage of them

To a certain degree but it's not scaled to power level Smithing and Enchanting. If you do like I have been doing which is just slightly upgrade each new weapon you decide to use and throw an enchantment on it without actually putting perks into Smithing or Enchanting you still do just fine. Of course I'm taking advantage of other magic. Stacking the DB gloves double sneak attack modifier with x15 dam dagger perk allows me to one hit almost everything at level 21 on normal difficulty. Of course I have to sneak up to them but that's generally not an issue. There's a lot of ways to just become a beast in this game.

Also, to the OP, you could craft weapons in Morrowind and Oblivion that outclassed the best weapons you could find easily and much earlier because you didn't have to reach 100 in a skill to start stacking enchantments. In Oblivion stacking elemental weakness then elemental dam was brutal. Throw in magic weakness and it destroyed everything in a few hits of a fast weapon. Better yet use drain health 100 and you basically can't die. These enchantments outclassed Umbra or Goldbrand. Morrowind was even more ridiculous with the stacking.

Don't like it? Don't use it.

Don't use *any* of it. Just stay away from perk trees. You aren't forced to use any of the perk points that you get. If, on the off chance, it bothers you that other people are abusing the system, then that's *your* problem and not Bethesda's.

Me?

I use every single perk point and I try to make myself ridiculously powerful. Now that I know I can abuse the smithing system for two kinds of profit, I'm going to go do it!

Here's to hoping a mod to fix this issue comes out soon. I haven't made a character specializing in smithing yet and don't intend to, not if it's that OP.

If anyone glitches their way to a high level with the best weapons and armour available at an early stage they are just cheating themselves. Surely, those of you that it bothers have the self-control not to follow suit, it really shouldn't bother anyone as this is single player, not multi, where players would have an advantage over one another.

As to the concern about conjured weapons, they are just as powerful as crafted weapons of the corresponding tier. By that, I mean you must have the same level of conjuration, as you would need to construct a weapon of X type, in order to match its damage when conjured; excluding any additional enchantments, which cannot be applied to conjured weapons. The bonus for conjured weapons is that they have no weight and therefore do not detract from your carrying capacity, and will automatically cast absorb soul with the correct perk without requiring soul gems to recharge.

I literally don't care about this. The game is there for people to exploit if you want to - it's always been like that to some extent

It's an RPG, you play as you want. It's not like it's ruining someone else's game if you do this. It's not my cup of tea, but if someone wants to play like that then so be it, but it sounds like a pretty stupid and boring way to go about things.

In fact, I don't really get what you're complaining about? Is it that you can't stop yourself doing this? Mashing has always been possible in TES games. In the same was as what you're suggesting, could you also just spend a ton of time fighting horkers and boosting your magic skills - healing hands and destruction, easy way of doing it if you're so inclined.

If someone wants to exploit that then I don't mind at all personally

Trust me, you're not alone with your opinion! Smithing the best gear in the game is ridiculous. Mods will address it in time though, if you're a PC user as coldog mentioned.

Edit: I guess the most important point being made here is that the best equipment in the game should be found in difficult to reach places and maybe with the odd piece given as a quest reward. Unique/Legendary 'named' items should be the best equipment there is. Not a freaking Dragon Sword with fire enchantment that you knocked up in a stable in Whiterun.

No its not lol, the game scaling is based on your lvl, it doesn't metter if you have 100 smiting, if you are lvl 5 the game will give you enemy's for lvl 5 not enemy's that wear daedric or ebony armor just because you have smiting 100.

thats what I meant. -.-