When i play a game, i like to milk it like a cow til the last drop.

What happens when i milk skyrim ? I encounter many many flaws.

That's why putting limits is good.

And to the guy who said mage isn't the most op thing around, i can tell you it is.

Why call on nerf on blacksmithing when its enchanting and your weapon skills that puts insane damage mods on the weapon? Improving your weapon gives you some 20% maybe (pulling the number out of my ass) but enchants and weapon perks adds more then 200% to that.

You guys forgetting that you can just max perk sneak tree and it makes you OP without any alchemy/smith/enchant.

Sneak is the easiest thing to max skill and the skill it gives: silent running without making any noice, can dissaper if you stand then crouch, and get x6 stealth crit for one-hand and x15 for daggers.

If you max sneak skill only you will have enought perks from that to max perk the tree and still be on lvl 15-18 with all your other skills at base values. Just buy the best daggers or one-hands for dual wielding, best armor you want to use and you are litteratly in god more. All your upgrades go to health so you are a tank, you dont need stamina or magic. You can restore health with basic health spells (non-perked), you have enought protection from your heavy armor and you can one hit kill with normal dual attacks if needed you can power attack.

The most overpowerd thing about this build is you are noiseles and hard to detect, and invisible all the time in shadows. If you are detected you can just stand up and crouch and stealth kill the one guy your closest too. If you want to loose 10 guards in a city attackig you just repat stand and crouch till you are somewere when they cant see you and wait for them to get calm. This is game breaking easy not the alchemy/smith/enchant combo.

In the FF7 example though, it really isn't as strong of a RPG though. All your characters have roughly the same "build" each playthrough. Your only real options lie in accessory style gear, and materia selection. Which obviously should be used to greatest effect. Some decisions are indeed superior to others, sure. In Skyrim though, we're offered 18 different skills to focus in, and recommended that we focus on as few as possible.

Oh no, I'm quite happy with my first playthrough, in fact I stumbled upon how powerful crafting can be naturally. At first I smithed for the fun of it really, and then after dabbling in enchanting (and realizing I wanted that dual effect perk), quickly realized that I could enchant +smithing, and it went downhill from there. I find that enchanting +alchemy gear for the sake of making +enchanting potions, so that you can loop that to achieve perfect +enchanting, and +smithing potions, to be excessive. The end result is, in my opinion, not cheating, but it most certainly is world shattering.

My issue is that now I know, that when I play again, if I want to be the best archer, I am simply best off improving my artifice skills as a means of achieving that goal. Not only will I end up with something stronger than had I focused solely on my own archery skill, but I would also have the room to improve that archery skill when I was finished.

And no, if I am RP playing an archer, then it would be a matter of coming to the realization that crafting is simply a better means of becoming a greater archer. That having the coolest toys actually does make you a better person.

Exactly
If you just make the armor (armor you can find in the game) and you improve it with 100 Smithing it is not game breaking.
I have 100 crafting and Dragon Heavy Armor and an improved Daedric One Handed Axe. It has not been game breaking. I am strong but the game is not broken.

Maxing Alchemy and Enchanting, Enchanting the strongest +Alchemy gear, then crafting +Enchanting potions to make stronger +Alchemy gear and folding over and over until you get the absolute maximum, then crafting the strongest +Smithing gear and improving your armor and weapons to astronomical levels is not something a normal person does. But normal people didn't hunt down Knights of the Round Table in FF7 either. If you went to the epic levels to make something stronger than anything you can find you deserve it.

If you're crying because your friend made epic items and took perks to make it happen and you decided to just playthrough the game using what you find and leveling Destruction, Lockpicking, Pickpocket and Speech I have no sympathy for you. Tell your friends to shut up and try something more challenging if it bothers you that much.

But then you're the issue then. Not an aspect of the game. You might be better off but you're not forced to.
If you keep taking S/E/A you keep playing an Artificer. You keep choosing to do the same thing every time because it's easier so it's your own fault.

Its not a matter of comparing the game to friends. Its a matter that knowing all of my future playthroughs of Skyrim will include me cheesing out alchemy/enchanting/smithing, because yes, I have tasted the fruit of what it can do. And its absolutely insane. Yes, Knights of the Round is powerful in FF7, and it takes a good bit of work to get to it (and alot more work to get it to the truly cheesed awesomeness it can pull off), however, once again, one did not "build" their characters in the same manner in FF7; the characters abilities/maximum output are comparatively static given the options we see in Skyrim.

Any time you gain a perk in Skyrim, you have what, over 20 options of where can assign it? Yet once again, crafting perks, when combined and used together, create a total output that surpasses many of the other perks..

if you think the game is too easy on master just play a destruction-mage. It's like dark souls all over again!

I understand. But nerfing Smithing for everyone who uses it as it's intended because you can't control yourself is silly. And nerfing it for people who haven't figured it out yet because they don't read the forums and because you feel compelled to play a certain way is silly too. The problem is not that the items exist or there is a means to acquire them. The problem is you refuse to go without them.

To me, the point of adventuring in games like this is to aquire gear as loot drops.

The only argument I have against this smithing debacle is that if you can craft the best gear by a huge margin, suddenly the wow factor is gone from the drops you'd get adventuring. In fantasy games, generally, the very best gear are artifacts you have to aquire by defeating tough foes, or delving deep into horror infested dungeons...not from whacking a piece of metal you bought over an anvil a few times.

I think blacksmiths should certainly be able to craft really good gear, but the very best gear should be rewards from adventuring itself.

Blacksmith: "Hey, where are you guys going? You guys look geared to the teeth!"
Adventurer: "We have found the map of Zon! We are heading into Dreaddeep Dungeon to seek the legendary Sword of Zon...the very sword he defeated Dire Morgana the Monstrous with two thousand years ago!"
Blacksmith: "Wait a sec. You may as well save yourself the trouble." Tap tap tap tap "Here. This is the Super Mega Sword of Pain, I learned how to craft it from this week's edition of "Blacksmith's Are Cool"...The Sword of Zon won't even come close to this!"
Adventurer: ...

And you can still have fun collecting items in the game. It doesn't stop you. You can still find all the same items you can craft.
You just can't enhance them to epic levels.
You're choosing not to do it so you can have a more fulfilling yet challenging experience acquiring your own gear.
Like in Oblivion, if you chose to use stock spells instead of making your own it will be more challenging but you might find it more fulfilling.

And you don't even really need Enchanting/Alchemy perks to fold epic crafting gear. You can still keep folding pretty far without them. You really only need 5 points in Smithing after that.
You can get something like 100 perks through quests and max level. You could do this at the very end of the game after you've found everything there is to be found.

You're just fighting with your urge to get the best items through the easiest method.
Self control is a [censored].

If you dont want to go enchant/alchemy/smithing you can still have awsome gear. You cant make your own gear without perks in smithing but you can upgrade any lot in game without smithing perks they just wont get the 100% bonus without the perk in for that type of armor.

You can make better upgrades to gear if you buy the 60% enchant potion from a vendor and that means you dont need to have perks in alchemy.

You can make better upgrades to gear if you enchant your smithing gear with the normaly avaible enchants or using already custom generated enchanted gear without having perked the enchanting tree.

Combine looted gear with looted smithing gear with smithing enchant/potions avaible from your vendors and you got quite the overpowered custom made items without investing even 1 perk in alchemy/enchanting/smithing.

This is the same thing that led to spellmaking being removed. If you don't want to break the game by "abusing" a mechanic then use self control. Also stop asking for the destruction of others playstyles. I know I'll get spellmaking back in a mod some day, but people complaining about this type of thing need to just keep thier enjoyment in their sights and keep in mind that you can still craft with out abusing the mechanics.

You can play an archer with archery, heavy armor, enchanting, smithing, and alchemy. Your bow and armor will be strong, but if you were to pick restoration, conjuration, and sneak... You gain a whole set of benefits you would miss out on. Having two big HP pools running about to tank for you may heavily outweight the benefit of having that beefed up bow. That is assuming your not abusing the % loop.