Somebody made a good point about Smithing on Gamefaqs. : V

» Mon May 14, 2012 7:38 pm

They were talking about how making leather armor gives you the same experience as crafting daedric armor. That seems unbalanced to me. Anyone interested in a mod that scales smithing exp. gain based on the difficulty of the item made?

» Tue May 15, 2012 5:03 am

It's entirely possible that crafting experience is hardcoded into the engine. We have to wait until the CK is released to find out for sure. If it is possible to change the amount of experience you get when crafting different items then it would be easy to create a mod to balance it. I'd be happy to do it when the time comes.

» Tue May 15, 2012 4:32 am

Leather Bracers for the win?

Does seem kinda silly. Though at the moment I'm not complaining, as I had a hard time finding Corundum Ore for making Steel (aside from buying it at vendors). Luckily I'm on to Dwarven now, and there is a TON of Dwemer scraps in their ruins.

I personally expected it the way you suggest and when I kept leveling up every other Leather Bracer I was pretty surpised.

» Tue May 15, 2012 7:22 am

You can reach 100 without ever crafting anything else than cheap stuff with low material requisite... Kinda disappointing.

» Mon May 14, 2012 5:20 pm

It's entirely possible that crafting experience is hardcoded into the engine. We have to wait until the CK is released to find out for sure. If it is possible to change the amount of experience you get when crafting different items then it would be easy to create a mod to balance it. I'd be happy to do it when the time comes.

Yeah, I thought about that situation. But you could easily overcome a hard-coding limitation with scripting. Just add x extra exp. when you craft daedric armor. The script would only have to run when the crafting window was open, so it shouldn't even hurt performance. You're right though. We just have to wait and see.

» Mon May 14, 2012 4:39 pm

You can reach 100 without ever crafting anything else than cheap stuff with low material requisite... Kinda disappointing.

Aye. What I prolly hate most about smithing is having to invest in the light armor side of the smithing tree to get access to plate.

Off-topic: Ismelda, did you ever sign up at TESAdventures? Last time I talked to you was on IRC (along with Roof and Elminster).

» Tue May 15, 2012 5:00 am

Yeah, I thought about that situation. But you could easily overcome a hard-coding limitation with scripting. Just add x extra exp. when you craft daedric armor. The script would only have to run when the crafting window was open, so it shouldn't even hurt performance. You're right though. We just have to wait and see.

Giving the player more experience for crafting Daedric armour won't change the fact that the exp required to increase your skill level is way to low. Which means that even though Daedric gives more exp you can still level the skill by creating iron daggers.

» Mon May 14, 2012 6:38 pm

I would think that after a certain skill level was attained exp gained from certain items would decrease. There is after all, only so much you can learn from something. New techniques or approaches maybe.

» Mon May 14, 2012 5:19 pm

Aye, maybe stop leveling smithing with iron and leather items once you get at 50 smithing or something.

» Mon May 14, 2012 6:13 pm

-Look I'm master Blackslmith now!
-Wow, was it hard to achieve such mastery?
-Not really. All I ever did was irons for horses and now I can craft enchanted armor and weapons with dragon bones!

@}{ellkinght: I did sign up but that was about it

» Tue May 15, 2012 7:55 am

I have no real problem with getting same exp from leather as from deadric crafting -saves from grinding skill points, ala World of Warcraft. What I worry about though, and bear in mind I'm still in early game, is whether crafting will yield better gear than what's dropping. At the moment, I can make the same crap that's dropping (iron and steel armor/weapons), so aside from making a bit of extra coin, I'm not sure what practical purpose smithing actually has.

» Mon May 14, 2012 7:57 pm

I have no real problem with getting same exp from leather as from deadric crafting -saves from grinding skill points, ala World of Warcraft. What I worry about though, and bear in mind I'm still in early game, is whether crafting will yield better gear than what's dropping. At the moment, I can make the same crap that's dropping (iron and steel armor/weapons), so aside from making a bit of extra coin, I'm not sure what practical purpose smithing actually has.

Smithing can be used to improve weapons and armours beyond their normal value. So it doesn't matter whether your gear was looted from dungeons and caves or created from ingots and other materials, you can always use smithing to improve the items.

» Tue May 15, 2012 5:22 am

Oh it does trust me! Legendary weapons (AKA thsoe improved with 100 smithing) deal a lot of damage compared to their normal variants. Elven Sword did 21 damage. Legendary Elven Sword did 41... yeah...

@ Ismelda
Don't be a stranger now

» Tue May 15, 2012 7:58 am

Ah good old Ultima Online/WoW crafting.

Make 1000 leather belts -> Legendary crafter

» Mon May 14, 2012 5:18 pm

In my opinion the biggest problem with smithing is that you can't improve unique armor/weapons making them utterly useless. Instead you can improve your plain iron sword to be better then any artifact/unique weapon you can find in game.

And yeah, also kinda svcks that you can get from 1-100 by spamming iron daggers and get access to dragon armor early in game, so you never have to worry about new armor again.

» Mon May 14, 2012 8:41 pm

After making thousands of Iron Daggers, I have become a Master Smith, greatest in the land.

» Tue May 15, 2012 12:05 am

Ah good old Ultima Online/WoW crafting.

Make 1000 leather belts -> Legendary crafter

In WoW crafting you stop gaining experience from crafting the same thing level things repeatedly. When you're crafting something difficult, you always gain experience, something moderate you sometimes gain experience, and something easy you gain nothing.

Sounds like something like that is what Skyrim crafting needs.

» Tue May 15, 2012 2:45 am

It certainly sounds like there's plenty of room for improvement in this system, if only sticking skill ceilings on the tiers so you actually need to craft Steel items to reach Dwarven and so on.

You should not be able to make a load of rusty iron daggers then immediately leapfrog to the best Dragonbone Armour and ultraweapons.

» Mon May 14, 2012 9:58 pm

I think so, hell, I leveled illusion up to level 25, by casting a SINGLE spell for each level. Then I reverted a save as I felt like a cheater. I'd hate to max out around 30 hours or so, but I think if there was a global leveling adjust some skill might take far to long to max. I know there is another leveling mod, but how much slower is that?

Giving the player more experience for crafting Daedric armour won't change the fact that the exp required to increase your skill level is way to low. Which means that even though Daedric gives more exp you can still level the skill by creating iron daggers.

» Mon May 14, 2012 9:28 pm

Oh it does trust me! Legendary weapons (AKA thsoe improved with 100 smithing) deal a lot of damage compared to their normal variants. Elven Sword did 21 damage. Legendary Elven Sword did 41... yeah...

Seconding this. Smithing would be worth it if ALL it did was improve items. With 30 skill and about 36% smithing fortify (potion and one found item enchant) my elven daggers increased from base 15 to base 25 damage. Considering I'm backstabbing with those... It's kind of overpowered, and item improvement rather than crafting is what makes it so.

» Tue May 15, 2012 2:12 am

I think a full remake would be the best way to balance it,
1. Remove the perks.
2. Learn to craft different materials from different smiths (better material still require higher skills).
3. Let it take time to craft something (just like it takes time to chop wood or mine ore)
4. Remake the upgrades. Instead of static upgrades let items have quality that reduces while using it (like: Worn, Normal, Fine, Excellent) you can repair or re-sharpen the items. If you don't it will eventually break.

» Tue May 15, 2012 2:02 am

I think a good and easy way to balance it would be to give the full XP the first time you make an item. Give a fraction of it (say 75%) the next time time you remake the same item. That way by the time you make the item the 10th time, you will only be getting 5% of the original XP, since you are not really getting any better at making the same item. This should allow you to add value to your gathered resources by converting them to tradable items, but you will only get a lot more XP if you build something new.