Your doin' it wrong.


Thats why the soft cap is 50. Yes you can go beyond 50 but you would have to "break" emersion and level unwanted skills. Also, its a lot more fun if you don't grind but to each their own.

Here's where I stopped reading. Sorry, but you've grinded everything and now you're complaining about running out of things to improve. You've made your bed, now lie in it. Either that or start a new game and DON'T grind

I take it you haven't played a TES game before.

Why on earth are you grinding? This is the worst possible thing to do. You level up way too fast, nothing is challenging and it takes away the fun.

Emm... I'd say "go play a different game", but that won't really solve your problem.
The quest itself is a reward. The adventure, the exploration, the fighting, the challenge. Leveling is not the goal, it's something that happens on its own as you go along.

You got it: you're doing it wrong. Your problem is basically that your skills are too high and there's a lot of content you want to go through. That's because you're not supposed to grind in Skyrim - if you'd leveled up naturally, your skills would be way lower, but at the same time you would still have something to train. Some fights would be more difficult, providing additional challenge that would take your attention from leveling to creatively using the scarce resources you have.

You don't necessarily have to find a different game... Just try to change your priorities while playing the game, because powerleveling breaks Skyrim. My best advice: don't pay attention to your level. In a scaled game it doesn't really matter, you could well finish the game staying at level 1. There's so much to do in Skyrim, the MQ, the guilds, side quests, exploration - that's where your focus should be. Get immersed in the world and its story.

What about other skills? What level are you for each?

Wow.

How lucky you are to get such excellent advice so early in the thread.

Not really much more to add is there?

Azrael
The Nord with the Sword

I just rolled my eyes so hard I think I injured myself.

You do realize that is an acceptable, expected, part of an RPG - or more genres in fact - where you start off poor and weak and gradually build your character up through action and the reward for that action?

It wouldn't "leave you" with a weak, poor character. It would mean a longer (usually more fulfilling) journey to becoming a strong, rich character. The game doesn't punish you for not grinding by saying "hah, you should have grinded long ago - now you will never gain those levels bwahahahah!"

What he said.

In all sincerity mrhumble1, if the increasing numbers please you more than the experience it takes to increase them, there's probably a game you would enjoy more. Perhaps you could try just playing, and not worrying about how much money, what level, and such? It would be a shame to miss out on the fun of Skyrim.

Do you need to level up some more for perks that you want? I can't think of another reason why no more leveling would be a problem.

Another interesting thing to point out is that once you hit the 'max' level (Be it a low level because you use few skills or 81) the enemy NPCs stop getting more powerful but you, with new accrual of spells / gear / companions etc, actually get more powerful. On my latest DiD character I'm pretty much only archer/sneak and I'll hit my level cap at a very low level and still be as powerful as I would be if I were a very high level.

No, you DON'T need to grind to be rewarded. You need to grind to experience immediate gratification of your "must have the best ASAP" approach. As you quest, loot becomes better, shops begin to carry better stuff, etc. The problem is, you wanted that Fireball spell at 80% cost reduction and 2x effective power to some "immediate" degree. If that's what you want, TES lets you do that, always has. Other games are more restrictive, thus "levelling" is spread out more, over time, and after x number of quests. The worlds are closed and tightly managed. The available baddies are limited (thus XP is limited, thus "level" is limited) to quests open to your current level. IF you had just gone along on the quest lines instead of grinding, you could easily be well past level 30 before realizing 100 in any one skill tree (unless you grind that skill tree). You're complaining that you're playing an open world game, not a linear one, essentially. You're asking, essentially, that you be force-limited into what you can do and when in order to manage level progression so that your cap is not reached until you've come very near to the end of questing. If that's what you want, play a "closed world" game. OR, here's a thought, start over without grinding skills.

This is what I am referring to. I will play RPGs for a great story if a great story is there. Otherwise, if the story is only ok but the world impressive, I will play to level and quest. If the story is merely ok and I can't level anymore then I don't want to play.

Also, honestly, how many people would ever level Alteration, Enchantment, Alchemy, Smithing, or some other skills "naturally" to a point where they would yield powerful results. To specialize in certain skills you have to use them over and over and that means some kind of grinding.

It sounds like I did myself a disservice by leveling some of these skills. I wasn't aware that I could play this game the wrong way but I guess I did.

But how much money do you really need? You can craft your own potions, and leveling Alchemy is easy with the abundance of ingredients laying around. Everything else can easily be afforded from selling the loot you find in dungeons. I don't know what you spent all your money on, but people usually complain about having too much of it, not too little. I, for one, haven't touched smithing or enchanting on any of my characters and they're all rolling in money.

I've made three very different characters and I haven't been forced to learn jack [censored].

(Unlike earlier games in the series where just running around and jumping would cause skill increases.)

Thing is, as I was roleplaying this RPG as a mage I was getting better with my destructions spells keeping slightly aheady of the general enemy level curve. I encountered plenty of "fodder" plus some tougher characters.

Now that my destruction is maxed out, if I level based on another skill - say enchantment or I start smithing in ernest, or any other skill - I will continue to level but my primary attack (destruction magic) will be proportionally weaker against leveled foes.

We could all refuse to level up, but then we'd not get some of the more challenging foes spawn or get the nice levelled loot and quest rewards.

The game actively encourages you to level simply by playing how you wish to play. You can then compliment your play style with perks, which is great. However hitting the cap in your favourite skill does rob many people of much of the enjoyment.

I think if you got to be a master of a skill, i.e. at 100 and all perks (if you so choose) then it should still level, i.e. you become even more effective and it will contribute to your overall level, but there are no additional perks.

My first playthrough I was a bit of a jack of all trades, I started with magic, cos it was cool and effective, played a bit sneaky, hit people with axes and swords to see what happened (don't try that at home lol) so I both leveled more slowly initially and found that I was relatively weak in ALL of those skills vs. levelled foes. Once I began to focus on the bow (which I particularly enjoy) I felt quite strong again. Equally it was logical for me to invest in smithing and light armour to survive encounters where my single sneak shot wasn't enough.

My mage character, purely because I decided to focus on my chosen roleplay, leveled rather fast in destruction. I don't grind skills, nor do I use trainers, I use my skills in real situations, yet I'm at level 100 in Destruction very early purely because lots of people/creatures attack me.

The bottom line is that in the RPG you can only roleplay a chosen style to a point, then you're obliged to diversify if you wish to continue to advance. And you do need to advance in level really, else how otherwise are you going to experience what this game has to offer as your level unlocks new foes and equipment etc?

Don't get me wrong, it IS fun to try other skills too - I did a bit too much of that with my first character - it's just that you have to go out of character and often end up doing things that feel a bit grindy.. I'm trying to resist that & try to keep in-character.

I think there will be some levelling mods (if there aren't already) that will help with this. So players who wish to roleplay a more specialised character can do so without hitting a wall at level 100.

For the record we all like to play slightly differently and Bethesda have done an amazing job catering for all these different play-styles. No one is right or wrong in how they play, I know people that the first thing they do is cheat all skills to 100, give themselves loads of perk point etc. so they can created their perfect "god like" characters from the start and never need to level - they're the hero after all. They then derive their enjoyment from experiencing the plot and quests as their "hero" character who always wins. That's not for me, but if a player likes that then good for them.

It's these differences in playstyle that have meant that some of us have discovered a restriction in the game mechanic which ultimately makes us obliged to alter our play-style - or stop improving. I like the feeling of getting stronger, beating foes that previously I had to avoid. There's nothing more satisfying that beating someone who previously kicked your butt. However, if I struggle to beat someone / something (we all have different real-life skill levels) and my primary skill is already maxxed, I will potentially never beat them, and indeed am likely to loose even more convincingly if I've levelled one of my weaker skills IF the foe in question levels with me.

Scoob.

Not really playing it wrong, you set the wrong goals. The goal of the game is to quest and explore. The levels are just a way to organize your character as it grows in experience. Which is the exact opposite of most MMO's where you have to Level in order to be able to Quest.

What people are saying is if you just played the game, did the quests and explored, your levels will take care of themselves. Grinding is something you do once in a while, like if you need a couple levels in a skill so you can get a perk that you want. But to play the game to level you character is an approach that is not much fun after a while.

ONE set of QUESTIONS in OP's defense:

How do you level destruction naturally?
By casting spells on enemies.

How do you level one-handed naturally?
By hitting enemies.

How do you level armor naturally?
By getting hit... and the cheese is starting, because you can let enemies hit you.
BUT, and this is a big but(...).
Armor leveling should be based on level of the enemy hitting you and the damage dealt by the enemy.

Smithing?
SOME will say you should ONLY use ingots and ore you find. That is the wrong answer.
Merchants sell ingots and ore which you can use.
Fact is, you will never use more than 3-10% of the items you smith, no matter how you use smithing, if you upgrade to deadric.
Isn't that pretty much the definition of grinding?
Doing a chore to become more powerful without using effort or skill?


There simply is no "good" way to level smithing.

You can basicly CHOOSE your smithing level yourself, as early as level ~5.
With my first warrior, I finished smithing and enchanting before even starting the main quest.

Why is that even possible?
Shouldn't you need to LEARN smithing daedric gear before you're magically able to create it?
Some limitations should obviously have been in place:
For instance, you have to craft one item of every type in a perk below the perk you want to create items from -- or you have to find a manual of "dwarven smithing", "elven smithing" et cetera.
You should not be able to craft daedric before levels 30+.
Yet my level 15 warrior had full deadric gear, improved twice as much, and the only reason he was level 15 was because I increased enchanting by the side.
Obviously, I quit the crafting character.

Being able to craft dwarven before level 10, orcish before level 15, ebony before level 25 and daedric before level 40 will completly ruin your character.
You instantly lose any and all interest in loot.
Gold?
What do you need it for really?
You won't buy anything from shops, and quest rewards will be more than enough to buy a house in each city.
Besides, you can just enchant an iron dagger with a petty soul and sell it for 1000 gold (Banish daedra).

...
I've decided to START smithing at level 40 with my current character -- because it will only take one hour ingame to reach 90 smithing when increasing the skill in the path of least resistance that is within the spirit of the game.

Encanting is almost just as bad, and worse in one aspect:
It's grinding, but the gold you spend is nothing compared to the gold you get.
I always end up selling enchanted gear to merchants who have 0 gold just to get rid of all my useless junk that I enchanted to increase the power of my enchants to benchmarks; level 20, 40, 60, 80.
It pays so well that gold never becomes an issue.

My sugestion to you is go Assassin mage... Light armour can be Enchanted as much as Robes, you can get Illussion spells to 100 EASY by just spamming Muffle spell... Use a one handed dagger to Kill the first target switch to your Destro stuff and blow them away.. Doing the Thiefes quests In riften is really fun also and you can just do it using light armour and sneaking, you get better sneaking shoes 25% and you can train on looks at the thiefs guild.. Join the dark bortherhood also, you can go an assassinate people, traning your one hand skill... also at level 75 Ilussion you can pick up the Invisibility spell from The mages college in winterhold from that dark elf.. Remeber you get more perks after level 50... Speachcraft can also be improved by selling stuff, and Intimidating people etc... Ps use the Warrior stone also... One lame Move is just finding a low level dungeon put on Heavy armour and let them hack at you while you heal yourself, if you even need to do that... I had a Low level skelleton hacking on me for about an Hour while a took a shower to boost the Heavy armour skill haha. Also use trainers for lower skills... When you get a level use A pick pocket trainer or light armour trainer.. 5 steps.. before you go do anything ells..

Just change us your play style a bit.. and keep taking perks in the skills you want to max out.. But remeber that I think enemies cap at 50... Im at level 48 myself but I have crossed trained myself into every skill in the game... and my main weapon one handed is at 75 only so I have lots of Improvment on it to do as I level up... I insta kill everything as it is now so I have started using crapier weapons that look cool, like the Nighingale blade to make enemies last a bit longer... and Improve my skill faster

Ps: drinking pick pocket potions, having pick pocket gear on, and using Invisibility spell it should not take you to long to max out those skills just traveling around the world and stealing from everyone you see...

One last thing I started out as a heavy armour dual wielder, Turned mage turned assassin, spent the first 80 hours or so, being to good guy, having a blast and Iv spent the last 80 hours doing nasty [censored].. its fun to do diffrent things, that is what makes this game great... there is just so mush [censored] you can do it never gets boring... Dont force your character into a corner,,, let him progress doing diffrent things... Nothing is holding him back from going over to the dark side.. and joining the dark brotherhood and thiefes guild.. and you get to train those skills you dont use..Normaly its win win..

To reach 100 in ALL used skills? All of them, yeah, you'd have to grind them. But only if your goal is to reach 100 in those skills and not play the game, experience the world. My thief/assassin is 100 in sneak and smithing only. He's an archer and at level 50-something, still has not reached 100 in archery (because he's dual-wielding daggers when enemies close). He's about 80 archery and 60 one-handed. Smithing got there naturally by creating sellable goods from found ore/ingots. He even enchanted (low level) found items to increase their sellable value (only), but is no more than 30 or so in enchanting. He's got a pile of flawless gems of every flavor in his safe, along with some 50k gold. His homes proudly display the unique items he's gained over time questing (whether or not he uses them). And he only topped 50 in five skill sets (light armor being the fifth). He finished DB, TG, Companions, and Mage Guild quests, as well as the two main quests. There is no need to grind anything unless standing there for hours, real time, holding your shield up to a wolf is actually fun for you.

THIS. also don't use trainers. you're ruining the game!

I have to agree that grinding levels was a mistake on your part. That said, you have a lot of skills you could still level in a "mage" way.

Speech: Buy and Sell stuff (when you actually play the game and don't grind this happens)
One Hand: Conjure Sword (if you hadn't grinded you might have used this because of magicka issues early)
Two Hand: Conjure Battleaxe (see above)
Archery: Conjure Bow (see above)
Lockpick: The fact yours is only level 35 really shows your grinding. Success in picking locks doesn't keep your lockpicking that low when you actually play the game without grinding.
Pickpocket: Just grind it if you have no problem grinding. With the Thief stone and Well Rested you can get this to 100 just by emptying the pockets of Riverton and Whiterun most likely.
Restoration: You are a mage right?
Illusion: Mage?
Sneak: Even a mage (supposedly an intelligent class) should understand the use of sneaking around in a dungeon before throwing that first fireball.

As for the armor skills if you wanted you could just pay trainers to take you up to level 90 in each (though you would have had to start earlier than where you are now, also pickpocketing the money back for training up to 50 gets you more levels).

You got it. Go play Lord of the Rings online. It's a much better role-playing game. A dictionary of content, and a game that never ends.

You can grind until the cows come home.

When you're bored with that one, go play Age of Conan and grind out some more.

Both of those games are better than this porridge. (With all due respect to the Skyrim artists)

If you approach Smithing so that you level it one or two times per character level, then it works out just fine. By the time you are Level 30, you will be 60 to 70 in Smithing and making/improving the armor that you need to have to deal with what the game throws at you when it gets thrown at you. Then, since you are so high in levels once you are level 30 to 35, if you do want to grind on it a couple of times to get the rest of the skills/perks, it won't throw your character leveling off.

Except that there is no "soft" cap. There is nothing special about 50. In case you were unfamiliar with how the system works:

Each time a skill raises you get experience points equal in number to the new level of the skill. The number of experience points required to reach the next level is current level * 25 + 75. So for example, getting from level 1 to level 2 requires 100 XP (1 * 25 + 75), and getting from level 25 to 26 is 700, 50 to 51 is 1325, and so on. It's the same formula from 1 to 2 as it is from 20 to 21, 50 to 51, and 75 to 76.

There can't be any soft cap, because not everyone plays the same- using the same number of skills. A thief might use Light Armor, Sneak, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, archery, illusion, and one handed, while using nothing else. He may also decide to use all 3 crafting skills. Once he is "maxed out", which would be at a fairly high level given all the skills he is concurrently using, he'd have to start using skills that aren't part of his play style to continue leveling. A warrior might have heavy armor, two handed, block and archery, and be "soft" capped at a much lower level, almost certainly before level 50.

I'm not sure where the idea of a soft cap at 50 came from- perhaps it's close to "average" for most play styles, but more likely, someone just made it up, and other people started believing it. However, it has absolutely no basis in the actual mechanics of the leveling system.

My original statement still stands: It's very likely that you won't NEED to continue leveling in order to "beat" the game in your chosen play styles- unless of course your chosen play style utilizes very few skills, which I'm sure some people's do- but there are some people that have as one their goals to reach max level. They don't WANT to power-level to do so, they want to get there "honestly", but with the way the system is set up now, they pretty much have to power level in order to actually achieve that. There is no way to do so without either power leveling certain skills, OR at some point (more than once) completely changing your play style from warrior to mage to thief, though not necessarily in that order.

/say Oh here we go....


Look, the game is what it is. If you've leveled up all you can, then um, so be it. I cannot for the life of me figure out why people take the way this game works 'personally'. It's as if it was coded this way to stick it to 'you'. As far as I can tell things scale up with you, so even if the level cap were 20.... all that means is you don't level up again... you still play the game and experience it. Right?

I should just stop reading threads that have "Dissapointed" and "Flaw" in the title. You shouldn't be and It's not.

_{Do you not want to play Halo, Call of Duty or Gears of War because you don't get XP or loot by finishing levels? Play it for the fun of it.}