It doesn't take that much effort to max out smithing (which needs a mod in and of itself... you shouldn't be able to get to 100 in smithing crafting iron daggers) ...

And sadly, crafted stuff is just so much better than anything else you can find in the game. I would have liked to have believed that DawnBreaker, Ebony Blade etc, as well as semi-artifact weapons like the Nightingale weapons and Armor or Dragonbane would be better than the Ebony and Daedric weaponry that I can craft myself.

You can improve some of them via smithing. I wish you could improve them all though.

it disappoints me as well that "epic daedric artifacts" don't match random weapons you can make...but making them better than crafted would kinda remove the justification to become a master smith or enchanter..aside from role play or something.

Yeah I agree, the daedric "artifacts" is pure *beep* compared to what you can make with smithing and enchanting. Biggest problem is that most artifacts cant be upgraded nearly as much as smithed weapons, and you cant put another enchant on top of the "artifacts" which you can with smithed weapons( as in dual enchant ). So I would say we need to be able to upgrade them just as much as we can upgrade smithed weapons aswell as being to able to put another enchant on them if we have 100 in enchanting.

that's an idea. It would fix the problem of making smithing and enchanting useless end game if you could improve / further enchant all the artifacts. I gotta admit improving a "legendary weapon of a god" seems kinda blasphemous though lol.

Im not a huge fan of that either, but rather see a daedric artifact being that god-mode weapon than an iron sword

Daedric artifacts should have unique properties that make them incommensurable to regular gear. For example, the Savior's Hide should be true to lore in that it causes weakness to magic but makes the wearer invulnerable to physical attacks by any oath breaker.

Clearly, being dragonborn, you're just plain better than the gods, and can create artifacts of your own out of your pocket lent and some scrap iron.

At least, thats' the only in-lore reason I can find for it.

One thing I thought might help make Artifact weapons better is to take away the 'uses' for their enchantments. Make so they never run out. Allow their physical damage to be upgraded to the same point as regular weapons, and they finally become something special.

I had a few idea, some of them are sort of meta-game ideas, and thus break immersion, but whatever.

1. Artifacts level up with you - Level, Smithing Skill and Enchant skill... as you increase craft skills and gain levels, the arifact gets better. This stops it from being game breaking when you find it, but makes sure it is at least on par, if not better than whatever you can make.

2. Artifacts should have multiple properties. 100 Enchant allows you to give items two properties, so artifacts should have 3?

3. Enchant/Smith skill should be able to enhance artifacts in unique ways - thus making enchant and smithing still useful

I think that the "right" way to improve artifacts would involve quests tailored to that artifact or involving how you got it in the first place.

They should perhaps also require that you use the thing for some significant time.

And maybe some such quests are already in place, waiting to be discovered? If not, though, this is complex enough that it's probably best done in a mod -- it's not like bethesda does not already have enough on their plate (patch 1.2 and *cough* the creation kit, for example). [And remember that while mod authors can break most people's games bethesda has no such freedom.]

But, also, artifacts should probably be significantly better than your existing gear when you get them (assuming you use that type of gear). [Unless, of course, what makes your character special is your character's ability to create awesome gear... but if you only have a few perks from one gear enhancement tree and are nowhere near 100 in any of them? artifacts still be worthwhile then.]