When the time comes will be when I decide; I may never decide to make Orcish armour, I haven't decided if I like it or not. I don't play the game to have the best equipment, never have and never will. I completed Oblivion completely kitted out as part of The Blades. I wonder, what part of anything that I have said in the thread has said that I'm for grinding?

This... is how I'm playing. I'm not grinding, and I don't appreciate being told I am. This isn't at you RoninOni, btw.

"Doing it wrong" would be a generous description, applicable in situations where the intention was correct, but the method was not. In this case, it seems the intent itself is flawed.

Leveling is NOT the point of the game; its a side effect of playing it. The main effect of leveling is to make the game harder as you get to be a better player so as to maintain challenge; the fact that you also get better gear and stats just serves to help you keep pace (and acts as pretty window dressing to keep the game world fresh) IF you level by earning skills that actually help you to complete quests.

Correction on my crafting stats.

First playthrough:
Magic Items made: 0
Weapons improved: 2
Weapons made: 36 (Yeah, I was wrong when I said 15 max, I admit that and the reason I'm correcting myself; but I have said I stopped and thought "wtf am I doing? This is robbing me of the experience." AND it was late in my playthrough, so it levelled me once, maybe twice.)

Second playthrough:
Magic items made: 0
Weapons improved: 2
Weapons made: 2
Armour improved: 2
Armour Made: 6

----------

Oh, I am so grinding. Those daggers are part of the reason I started a new game instead of coming here to complain about a problem I caused.

Since a level 20 in 1 handed does more damage with a single perk placed in the tree than a level 100 skill does without the perk... it's about perks, not about level in Skyrim. The term level doesn't mean what you think it means.

i do agree

Being required to learn skills you can't use is even worse.

If you play RPGs for no other reason than grinding and leveling up go play any mmorpg there's much more to skyrim than that, and it's just sad you can't appreciate it

You don't need to keep on going. You've maxxed out. If you want to keep going you can, but I don't feel the need to level up random junk.

How about: I'm the one who used the term "Fubar", so I'm the one who gets to decide what the "a" and "r" mean when I am using the term.


Lore does not excuse poor game design and creating Balance is a fundamental of game design. Nobody can argue that the efficacy of Magic use is balanced compared to melee. Magic is so weakened that role playing as a Mage is not possible because players will find themselves resorting to weapons a majority of the time. If you are using weapons for the majority of combat, then you are not a Mage. Bethesda neglected the fundamental game design principle of balance, that the efficacy of the Mage and the Fighter need to be on par... Bethesda has failed "Game Design 101" in this regard.

Yes, this seems totally stupid to me. You CAN power level if you want, but you DON'T have to.

You are not forced to use any skills. You are not. You are not being penalized either. And if youre complaining about no perks, mabye you should spend them wisely instead of wasting them, then complaining about how the game "FORCES" you to use other skills.

My god, someone call the police!
You play an RPG to level up? Really? "Since I play Skyrim to make gold, and i have 1 million, why would i keep playing with no reward at all???"
And because you dont like a mechanic doesnt make it a flaw in the design. It actually works beautifully.

Needing to pass on the loot in locked chests to avoid the lockpick skill from leveling up my "mage" isn't a penalty?

Why do you not want the lockpicking skill to not level up? If you use it, it will level up. Plain and simple. If its because your a "mage," then thats penalizing yourself. Not the game penalizing you. Because, chances are, there is something good in locked chests, and not picking it because you dont want too is your own fault. You dont "need" to pass on the loot.

It's cause the game relies on the linear progression of statistics to define effectiveness of action.

If one wanted the game's character progression to have the same longevity and breadth of realism, then the actions available to the player would need to be an amalgamation of many nuances the player can learn to recognize and influence as they become more familiar with each actions use.

Is hard to explain, so I'll need to think on it further.

Great for you.

You roleplay a character who doesn't care if he lives or dies and cares more about appearance than his life, and does not care if people die because of his vanity or if the world is lost to the dragon hordes and Thalmor empire.

I roleplay a character who wants to use the best possible available gear, because he wants to survive, and win for the sake of justice.
He isn't selfish nor vain.
He has not died once except to bugs like no resistances in patch 1.2.

He wouldn't be able to live with himself is someone got killed because he did not use whatever means hed had available to win a battle.

He is not a powergaming character.
I have powergaming characters; They are made with metagaming and pre-planning.
I don't start powergaming before I've finished the game with my three main characters.

This character only use what HE can learn, see and experience himself in the game world, without me giving him metagaming-directions or taking meta-gaming skill-choices, following his pen and paper ideals as a soldier-type true good character.

Leveling smithing to 100 is not powergaming -- I am not going to set artificial boundaries for my character; My character's boundaries are set by the game.
I don't like to be FORCED to set boundaries for my own character's power, because that means that I have to lower his intelligence, or make up excuses for not even starting smithing -- despite this character being a soldier who would hone his weapons and tend his armor...
Just like a diplomat would train in speechcraft, a soldier trains in smithing.

Besides, you have barely touched smithing, and have barely spent a tiny fraction of the time you need to reach even 50 smithing.

I'm talking about characters who use smithing as a skill, not characters who touch smithing at some point in the game.
Characters who make their own armor or weapons, like the skill encourages players to do.
If you want to craft weapons fitting your level and level of loot, you have to grind.

Problem is, you have to set artificial non-roleplaying metagaming reasons for not improving your smithing.
Leveling smithing to 100 in two hours neither breaks roleplaying, nor is it powergaming.

Having your character become overpowered =/= powergaming.
Planning your character to become overpowered = powergaming and metagaming.
Planning your character TO NOT become overpowered = metagaming

This post doesn't make any sense to me.

My character, who I've been playing with naturally, has 73 destruction, 69 conjuration, 67 one handed. My light armor is 58, my restoration is 52. My sign has been The Ritual since I discovered that 8 hours into the game. Before that it was warrior (I dropped block in favor of conjuration because conjuration was much higher and I hadn't made any effort to use it)

Plus there are other miscellaneous skills in the 40s and late 30s, which were levelled unintentionally.

What is your point? It is ridiculously easy in this game, when playing the game naturally, to level up your skills... Without using trainers or grinding my skills at all, I have leveled three skills ~50 levels.

Likewise, I don't get your money concerns.

I now have ~5000 gold.

My total career treasury is somewhere in the region of 30,000 gold pieces. I can't actually check right now.

That isn't from crafting. It's not from finding as much loot as I can and selling it.

It's from picking up all the gold I can off drops (i.e. 8 gold drops), picking up all the jewels available to me, picking up little trinkets here and there and offloading them on merchants WHEN, and only when, I take an opportunity to do so..

Also: Higher level bounties net you more gold. I've had 800 gold bounties.

Play the game.

You really have no idea how the internet or even the English language work, do you? Of course people are going to have their own interperetation of what you mean, especially when what you said has several meanings. You also can't decide what something means, you have to just except the fact that other people are going to disagree with you. if you don't like that, then I'm afraid that the internet is not for you.


In my next playthrough, I'll play as a pure mage and I'll prove you wrong. And for your information, a spellsword is still a mage.


Really? I can't see it. I level up, I can choose to improve my affectiveness with one-handed weapons or archery or blocking or lockpicking or sneaking or... Yeah, you're really forced into levelling up certain skills.


I ran from a necromancer and his skeletons because I would have died if I didn't... yeah, I really don't care if I live of die. Yeah, I may care about how my character looks, but I'm not over in the "toggle helmet" saying I want to run around naked with all the benefits of full Daedric armour, or whatever. I do care if I live or die, and my actions are a direct result of my CHOICE to use the armour I do. I am fully aware of the AR hit I'm taking and I'm playing accordingly. Don't judge other people by your own playstyle.


Well done for cheating yourself out of the experience. What's the point in playing a game if you remove the risk of death? The game is easy enough as it is, once you get going, there is no reason to make it easy by getting the best weapons and armour quickly.


Yet, you have the best equipment...


And evidentally you then start judging other players



Yeah it is. If you get smithing up to 100 early in the game, you can do it as early as level 11, then enemies will be harder sooner and later on you won't have smithing to help you level. It doesn't mean you have to lower his intelligence, if anything you'll have to raise it because you'll have to work that much harder to get something done. Coincidentally, this is what I'm doing, save for the fact that I'm not powerlevelling Smithing. I'm making what I need (a set of armour and a sword) at the time and going out hunting and gathering as I go through the Imperial quests for the war. No matter how you look at it, getting smithing up to level 100 early is exploiting it.


Your point is? So I won't have as good a weapon as you, I won't have the best armour like you. I don't care, I'm not playing the game for to become all-powerful


I am using it as a skill, but I'm not abusing my skill, either.

LOL WUT

RE the "boo-hoo picking locks forces my level to increase faster than I'd like" this point is very wrong. You can hold off levelling up entirely until you can choose the perk you wanted, as all accrued xp whilst waiting counts towards your next level anyway OR you can simply not immediately spunk away your perk point.

This is explained quite clearly in the game manual and in-game. This example of 'bad game design' is evidently caused by a severe case of sue your local education boarditis.

Why? Because Magic is under powered as it is. If I level up due to increases in magic related experiences, then at least my magic abilities are keeping pace with enemies somewhat. When I level up due to things like lockpicking, then enemies are getting tougher due to my lockpicking while my magic damage output has remained the same... making my offensive spells more ineffectual against enemies.

So magic isn't killing enemies quick enough because they've leveled beyond what my magic skills are. If Major Skills existed, lockpicking would not be leveling me up, which would help keep the enemy's improvement from out pacing my own.


...and then it spirals with more skills:

Because I sell the loot I find and everything levels me up, my selling good are making enemies tougher for me as well. So now enemies are tougher because I picked locks and buy & sell goods, but my magic skills are not keeping up because only part of my level increases are due to increases in magic. Unfortunately, magic is weak so mages are really treading water to begin with.

Now those enemies then inflict more damage due to my lockpicking and shopping so I need armor because my magic skills are being outpaced, then my armor skill goes up because magic is under powered and not keeping up and therefore enemies are coming in and landing more blows. Since magic isn't killing enemies in a timely manner and they're right on top of me, I have to switch to melee weapons, then my weapon skills go up and level enemies higher. Now the enemies are leveling from picking locks and shopping and weapon use my mage would prefer not to need in the first place and magic skills are getting further and further behind the curve.

...eventually, my poor mage comes to the realization that she's not a mage anymore and it all started to go downhill when she picked a lock.

[...or was it when she bought the lockpick?]

I'm sorry mr square, did you just completely disregard my post above? Your argument is null and void my friend. Even if I was rather facetious in pointing out so.

I'm doing what i want to do.
If I want to quest -I quest.
If I want to make a bunch of armour - I make a bunch of armour.
What happens happens.

Levels and skill % are simply a by-product of my doing what I want, there are not a goal in themselves.

At some point I will have done enough stuff to hit the skill caps, and the soft and hard level caps.
If I still have stuff to do I will do it capped or not.
The quests, the game, the doing stuff is what I'm here for - not stats and %'s.
If I do a quest and get zero skill ups and hence zero towards levelling, no problem here - as long as I enjoyed the questing (which I have so far) I'm happy.

Conjuration... just conjure up bound weapons and level up that way.

You're still using magic, and you can level up with three entire weapon catagories.

1-Magic perks are mostly crap.
2-Even if I held off until I could spend perks optimally, when I do spend them the mage will still be under powered and everything I said would hold true because lockpicking and buying/selling would still be deciding enemy strength when I do level up.
3-"Don't use the leveling system" is not a fix for the leveling system. Just as "use more melee" is not really a solution to fix the magic system.