One of the devs stated before release that once a character reaches Level 50, they will see all that the game has, as far as leveled loot and enemies. And, I think it is in the Strategy Guide also, but I don't have that with me.

For most people, once they have maxed their primary attack, defense and recovery skills and their support skills are buffed up they tend to be around level 50. So, how this became a Soft Cap, I am not sure. It is more like an Effective Cap in that any increases are just not that effective to the character, if they stick to the same set of skills that they have been using all along. The mathematical hard cap is 81.

So you grinded skills and now you complain? It's your own fault.

I did actually level smithing for my mage character slightly early game. I was skint and discovered (slow learner) that I could make jewelry from the silver/gold ore and gems I'd found - the combination being worth far more than the parts in many instances.

Doing this I think I got my smithing to level 40. Anyway, that was back when smithing levelling was hugely bugged in that smithing the same simple thing (dagger, bracers etc.) would always give you the same amount of experience regardless of level. I wanted to avoid that. Not sure if that's fixed now or not as I've not done smithing much since v1.1.

It IS fun to make stuff, my prior character made / upgraded weapons and armour for myself and my followers - team uniform if you will However it was slightly spoilt in v1.1 due to the bug as I felt like I'd cheated when I gained a couple of levels just from making a suit of armour and upgrading it for myself.

Scoob.

1. You CAN grind Destruction (either by spamming Parthuurnax when he becomes essential by declining the Blades) or by jumping up and down in a forge (I am serious, jumping up and down into a forge levels your destruction skill, albeit very slowly.

2. You DO get experience for questing; several people you do miscellaneous quests for give you training in a skill or sometimes multiple. ie: Ysolda teaches you speechcraft for getting her a mammoth tusk, the Windhelm Blacksmith trains you to smith after getting him Queen Freydis's Sword, another man in Windhelm that wears horned armor and a Santa Beard trains you to use heavy armor. Amren in Whiterun trains you up a Block and One-Handed level as well.

P.S. You ARE NOT forced to learn skills in this game.
You don't want to level up lockpicking? Don't open locked doors.
Don't want to Enchant or Smith, then don't; stick with average gear.
The fact that you are grinding is enough to say that it is you that is taking it upon yourself to break the leveling. Bethesda had no intentions of everyone spamming iron daggers, but they don't limit you from doing it. Your game, your choice, your MISTAKE

Why is leveling up such a focus for you?

Take a deep breath and think about this. In Skyrim, everything from monsters to men to shop inventories levels with you. You level up, the numbers get bigger, but everyone else's numbers get bigger too. Are you turned on by big numbers or by adventure, exploration, quests and just taking in the breath-taking scenery? It's not like dragons don't start showing up until you're wearing Daedric armor and casting Expert level spells. You're fighting dragons at level 1. You're fighting dragons at level 50 -- by then they have more health but you're hitting harder too, so it's all relative. You've been fooled by an illusion. Like a hamster happily galloping along on his wheel. You need to realize you're not going anywhere. Slow down and enjoy the game.

IF you apply random rules of your own making for not becoming a god prematurely, THEN the skill may be balanced if you take great care to not mak(...)
...

...

...



Why is it even an option to simply "get smithing to 90" starting at level 5 in one big grind?
(You can start at level 1, but likely you'll want to loot at least one cave before you have enough gold to reach level 90 in one go.)

It's not like summoning outside of combat, leveling conjuring -- in oblivion.
It's not like jumping up a hill, leveling acrobatics.
It's not like casting firebolts into the skies, leveling destruction.
Smithing is exactly like killing paralyzed enemies with your one-handed weapons.
Enemies that can be found in town who always respawn each day, who never go away, whom you find 100s of in a dwemer ruin and whom you can lure out of rocks and chests everywhere.
And guess what?
Killing those paralyzed defenseless enemies is the ONLY way to level one-handed.
How screwed-up would not THAT be?

...
Yet, blacksmiths gain experience from the exact same system as described above.


That is one reason smithing is borked.

Don't get me started on enchantment.

...
That's more like:
You buy a dagger for 30 gold, buy a gem for 120 gold, and sell a dagger back for 1150 gold.
The equalient would be for the paralyzed enemies to jump on top of your one-handed sword whenever you have poison it, automaticly giving you 1000 gold every time you even show your sword to those enemies with poison, raising your alchemy.
Yet that is the only reasonable way to level enchantment in the game.

Fact remains:
Smithing and enchanting IS grindwork.

Evidence 1: You can do it any time at any level.
Evidence 2: You have to make up personal rules to prevent overleveling.
Evidence 3: There is no natural way to do it.
Evidence 4: There is no natural stop to it; There is no such thing as "out of ore" -- it's there. It's freaking there in your inventory or smith's inventory, or in the next merchant's inventory, 60/60/24/7/365/every year for eternity
Evidence 5: You cannot make deadric gear without having created ~500 useless items you never intended to use; YOU MADE GEAR you never intended to use, and probably never intended to sell because you're rich and you just sell the items back to the smith even though his gold is at 0 just to get rid of the items.

its too bad you cant play the game how you want to like you could in previous elder scrolls games

Lemme tell you how I approached this game. Having played TES games before, I know a few things:

1. I don't HAVE to do any quests, including the main quest
2. I'm going to be weak for the first few levels
3. I'm going to be broke for the first few levels

Knowing these things, this is my general approach. I leave the starting cave and follow my guy to town- this allows me to meet his sister and get a free place to stay, and a trader that will buy all the junk I found while escaping. I also buy a pickaxe from him because I know there are minerals around. Now...off to the wilderness! I'm going to level up my combat skills on animals in the wild and collect flowers and ingredients. After about an hour of playtime I go back to town with about 12 animal skins, 6 pieces of ore, and several alchemy ingredients. You would think I'd go make leather out of those skins, no? Actually, some skins are worth far more sold as pelts, and I can level up smithing and crafting anytime. I sell everything, which basically cleans out the trader. I rest up in my free house for 8 hours (well rested bonus yeahhh) and go out again.

Now I'll hit up some starter level dungeons or mines. Just as before though, I'll clean up in the wilderness, kill absolutely every animal I come across for skill level, and head back to town after cleaning out some random bandit cave. Just as before, I sell all pelts and ore because again, I can level up smithing whenever I want. Right now, I want money.

After a couple hours playing this way, then doing the Golden Claw quest, I can hit Whiterun with enough gold to buy my first house (after completing the quest that allows me to purchase property). Honestly, earning money in this game is a breeze- your mistake has been concentrating on crafting instead of cleaning up bandit caves and whatnot. You will be skilling up your main combat attributes, which will make questing a lot more fun too. After you're at a comfortable level and have your perk trees going the way you want, then maybe start smithing. The longer you wait to skill up crafting, the less these things are contributing to your levels. Which means when you start to slow down on levelling from your main skills, you can level off of crafting. Dig?

Me, I'm at level 24 now, I've been smithing every now and again because it makes sense in my RP, but I haven't been grinding any skills out yet, because I know I'll start to slow down later and I'll need something to give me a bump. Hopefully this helps you out a little, and most of all, don't let it get to you- this is my 3rd character! Rerolling is so much fun in these games, and now with perks and random AI, you'll get a different experience each time you start over.

He probably wouldn't be if they've played the same amount of time. But all people are saying is just play the game....You can be focused on certain skill and still have fun... no need to be so call "grinding"....

I can't even begin to understand where the OP is coming from.

I mean if you just want to level and that's all you care about then you aren't doing it wrong, you're doing it right. Grinding is most likely the fastest way to level.

If you don't want to stop leveling then I don't know what to tell you, this game has a level cap at 81 so it's clearly not the game for you, but I don't know what game is right for you because every game I know has a level cap of some kind.

What happens when you hit cap? Is the game over at that point?

That's the part I'm still trying to figure out. I understand in games like WoW you rush to level because there are other players. In a confined, single player world, where (almost) every challenge scales with you...there is nothing to race towards. Nothing to gain or accomplish. Your level is just a number, pretty meaningless in the long run. You can beat the main quest at level 4 or level 40, there's no difference.

Jack of all trades - master of none. Just saying...

Let me know when being level 100 in a skill isn't considered mastering it in Elder Scrolls.

Do you consider leveling your character "the game"

If so then yes. In fact I have never come close to hitting the cap on any of my characters because I don't grind skills I'm not going to use.

Those of us on PC can get slower levelling mods, sadly our console friends don't have this option. While many may grind certain skills, it is fully possible for a specialised character to hit skill level 100 in their main skill(s) just by simply playing the game.

We all know it's possible to easily sink a couple of hundred hours into this game on a single playthrough, especially those of us who like doing all the little side quests & playing the good guy helping granny cross the road and all that. However, when you max a skill not even 20% of the time through your playthrough that's not quite right.

I think slow levelling will help those of us it can, though equally I'd like to see say level 70 be the new "master" level for unlocks with the remaining 30 just giving the usual skill bonuses...or something like that anyway.

Scoob.

I haven't seen this yet myself yet, but youtube user Nagidal146 had a very nice approach to "how to play a TES game" for Oblivion, and I would expect nothing less here. I suggest OP takes a deep look at this let's play, and dare strive away from that MMO "need to level up always" mentality. Start here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWM8SPbhSKU

Since grinding got you into this dilemma, I suspect you may be forced to grind to get out of it. Mage or no, you're going to have to grind non-magic skills to advance (or buy training, if you have the money).

This is really the primary issue. If this is what you play these type of games for, TES may honestly not be for you - leveling really does tend to be secondary, due to the whole "gain skill & levels by doing" + open world thing.

You quest and explore, to quest and explore. Levels come from that.

(at least for many of us)


And this is where you really lose me. I had plenty of money (well, not swimming in it like some people complained, at least until upper levels).... from looting enemies and dungeons. It certainly never occurred to me to do a craft to earn cash. Because there's always more junk lying around in dungeons to sell.


Again, I think it's really a case of completely different viewpoints/approaches. The "worth" of questing & exploring locations is.... the fun of exploring. Plus, while doing this questing/exploring, you're using your skills (which gets you skill points and eventually levels) and gets you loot (cash and equipment).



---------
Just as a point of reference.... my first character: didn't get a skill to 100 until level 48. Didn't hit level 50 until around 70-80 hours of play. Was able to buy the $5k house in Whiterun in the low teens, a dungeon or two after doing the first quest dragon. Except for the need to get that first house, never really lacked for money in the game - but that's mostly because I rarely buy anything. I get the majority of my gear in these games by finding it in dungeons, or by making it.

I also have no issues with being at level caps in games that have them - I was perfectly fine with the original lv20 cap in Fallout 3. My first character hit it in under 20 hours. I played that character for around 75 hours. Certainly don't like the cap being increased to 30, it screwed up the game something horrible.

In the old days (Paper and Pen), there was no such thing as levels. You ended the game as you started, though usually richer (or dead - usually dead) . The whole point of the game was the adventure. Perhaps people are too fixated on levelling to enjoy the adventure.

In Skyrim, there isn't much point in having too much money. There isn't much challenge once you are enclosed in daedric armour. Really, levelling is just simulating a lifespan for your character. Eventually you'll kill him off due to uberness. If you judge your enjoyment of a game based on the number of levels you can achieve, the Asian role playing games are probably going to suit you better.

(As an aside, those of you who think modern RPG's are being dumbed down, you really want to try playing Dungeons & Dragons as it was in 1974)

Edit: Couldn't remember the name of the game I originality played so defaulted on D&D. After a quick search, found it. Thanks Internet

Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tékumel to see how far we've come (gameplay wise).

I've noticed that you don't half talk some drivel. You're not forced to stop roleplaying your way because you stop levelling. It's not like it locks your saved game so you can't carry on. Just because you don't level up further in that particular skill, doesn't mean the game's over.


Actually, you're that one that's wrong. Grinding does not mean smithing Daedric Armour. Grinding Smithing is done through spamming daggers until you reach 100.

A good way to level Smithing is to only smith what you need. (you don't need Daedric armour right away, why bother with it until you do?)


I actually play all of them, and even removed Skyrim from my Xbox to do so *shock horror* I almost passed out from the effort of forcing myself to do so


Having a skill level of 100 in Archery because you've spammed arrows is the not considered mastering the skill.

If you play on the PC, you could always try Elys Uncapper. It allows skills to advance past 100 so you can keep leveling.

Yo, OP, where's your tl;dr synopsis?


People don't wanna read a novel of tears.

You went out of your way to grind a bunch of skills up to 100 before (from what I can discern) setting out on any storyline, and now you're annoyed cause the storyline won't further advance your mechanical skills?

It seems a bit contradictory that you've put yourself into your own problem. Theres not even more then one or two boss fights in any questline that would really require that sort of effort (Although the penultimate boss of the Mage line can be a bit troublesome if you specialize in Alteration or Illusion magic)

This. Just from looting dungeons while question, I netted myself almost 15k in an hour or three, and that was without selling the loot I found (I hoard, so shoot me). No doubt, it I sell all the loot I've found, I'd be able to afford to buy and fully decorate most of the houses in Skyrim.


I actually could've left that one in with the other quote, but nevermind. This is what I did, save for the selling and smithing. My first play through I didn't smith, apart from spam 10-15 daggers and thought "wtf am I doing? This is just going to rob me of my experience of the game" that's several levels I won't get back.



This is flawed, in itself... your point about Asian RPGs, I mean. I play them for their stories, not levelling (FFVII is still one of my favourite games, in spite of the distinct lack of graphics, now). I play Skyrim for the immersion, not the levelling or story.

You are forced into leveling up through the fact that all skills raise experience. It is the drawback of not having major SKILLS. A mage should not have to abstain from sneaking to avoid it raising their level. Sneaking is a fun game mechanic, but if you are required to raise your level from it then Sneaking creates an imbalance in spell skills. With Bethesda total fubar of magic, this just exacerbates the problems for magic users. Melee doesn't have big issues about being underpowered, so this shouldn't be an issue with fighters.