Smithing and Enchanting are all but mandatory skills to level if I have any interest in having the best weapons and armor possible, and I suppose that should always be the rule. However, the gap between those who choose to craft and those who would prefer not to is quite wide in my opinion. Many players have advocated for a "rebalancing" of those skills, but I would suggest a different alternative: make improved weapons/armor available for purchase from blacksmith vendors, and make improvement a "for hire" service provided by them.

The first time I met Eurland Grey-Mane, he was busily sitting at his grindstone, working away. But when I asked to see his wares, there wasn't an improved weapon in sight. It is a bit immersion breaking that in this world where there are grindstones in every town and many dungeons, that the only improved weapons are the ones crafted by players. Additionally, I don't want to have to level smithing to 60 just so the awesome piece of loot I found in a dungeon can be improved. I'd prefer to drop some coin into Mr. Grey-Mane's hand and have him improve it for me.

I understand there are likely technical reasons this wasn't included in the game, and that modders will likely do this at some point (dammit crappy PC-of-mine!) but I'm just trying to suggest an out-of-the box approach rather than the player-suggested "nerf smithing and save me from myself" approach.

I agree to the suggestions, but I don't feel that being overpowered is a mandatory thing, so I don't consider smithing and enchanting mandatory skills

Does seem odd that the "greatest smith in tamriel" doesnt know how to sharpen a sword. Also, the guy at the mages guild says they do A LOT of enchanting, but just wont do it for you. There should be someone that will enchant for you considering that is their main income supposedly.

I agree that it should be a sevice you can pay for instead of doing it yourself.
But if you think Smithing and Enchanting are OP, imagine how more OP you could be by saving all the perks required to make the weapons and spending them on other perks and still getting your weapons and armour buffed right up anyway.

Definitely a good idea. Drop improved weapons and armour into the levelled lists and that's a huge problem solved. Save Legendary level equipment for Smithing users so doing it yourself is still worth it.

Morrowind style Enchanters (vendors) would be perfect for Skyrim. Supply the Gem and pay the Enchanting fee. Again, save high level stuff to the Player who levels Enchanting.

It's especially frustrating because what's-her-bucket that works the forge at Warmaiden's is talking up Eorlund and says all-to-often that "His blades are legendary". When I heard that I went straight to him with a pocket full of cash. I came away with an awesome weapon, but in the end I decided to become a master smith and take it upon myself to fulfill that need.

I'm not talking about making the best quality blacksmithing improvements available, just something to "close the gap." For example, you can find plenty of enchanted loot all over the world, and while it isn't as good as what a maxed out, perked out enchanter can craft, it's good. The same should be available for blacksmith improvements. I also wanted to again echo the sentiment that the blacksmith NPCs sit at their grindstones but apparently don't temper anything.

Hiring enchanters and smiths is a great idea. It'd be a good way to balance the broken economic system.

draugr get improved weapons

They hang around in dungeons all day with nothing constructive to do, might as well sharpen that axe up.

Would it?
Aren't smiths, enchanters and alchemists the ones who have the most cash to throw at things anyway?

It isn't like just looting ruins and selling whatever you can carry is a good cash-source right the way through to end-game... not even with practically all level-up points spent on Stamina and the Steed stone.



My suggestion?
Make "improved" weapons damageable.
Make it so those guys who have obscenely boosted smithing skillz and use it to make obscenely OP weapons.... have to periodically maintain their weapons to keep the sharpness and stop them deteriorating back to an unimproved state.
(I wouldn't even be suggesting this if I wasn't totally used to weapon repair from Oblivion)

I never made my own enchantments in Oblivion, and rarely in Morrowind. It was much easier to pay some one to make and recharge my weapons.

I would like to have the ability to pay someone to make and recharge enchantments and pay smiths to improve weapons. As for the weapons and enchantments, a character level limitation should exist so a level five character does not go out and buy Legendary for example.

Leveled list includes enemy equipment? I noticed they get things like "honed" ancient war axe. But the damage isn't really much better.

I think there is just too much of an improvement with improving. You can triple the damage or more! It's just too much for enemies, which destroys the challenge. It's like the game isn't even designed for that kind of damage and armor class. They have no chance to even harm you or stand up to you. Their weapons and armor are junk.

OP ive been meaning to post something like this but yah beat me to it,

i was thinking that for ever idk 5 levels you adavance you could commission a smith to improve your weapon or armor one tier higher, the same with commissioning them to craft something out of a new material for your every so many levels you advance. the only draw back to doing it this way is sence your not making it yourself right then and there is that im pretty sure that the smiths are busy already as is so you would have to wait for a courier to come along and give you a note that would go something like "your (insert item name) is ready for you to be picked up from (insert name)"

the same should work with getting potions made and items enchanted

it annoyed me that i had to raise smithing on my thief/archer just to get my hunting bow on par with an ebony bow legendary (with the help of blacksmith elixer), im a thief not a smith

But this "gap" you are talking about is all relative. Exactly what would be the right amount of "gap" to have? Betcha many would disagree. I think the need for enchanting and crafting services would exist if we didnt have those tables sitting everywhere always available to us. Those are the "vendors" IMO. You want it better than the "vendors/tables" can do? Perk it to fit your flavor.

I would have liked vendors instead of a billion arcane tables all over the place, but its the same difference.

Narrowing this gap or providing alternatives on par or near par with the perks just lessen the perks effect, I really don't want another lockpick tree (god they never do lockpicking right!)

The thing about the obscenely powered smithing skills, is that those players broke the game for themselves, and what they did shouldn't affect the rest of us.

What I'm suggesting is for players who choose not to go down the rabbit hole of smithing/enchanting to have some way to acquire improved weapons/armor. Implementation could be as simple as "NPCs in dungeons with grindstones now carry improved weapons" or "Blacksmith vendors now will sell improved weapons" with smiths like Eurland charging exorbitant rates for epic level tempering. The next level could involve a pay-to-improve system where NPC smiths and enchanters would improve your gear for coin, all the way to what you suggest with a system where weapons dull with use.

Even easier: Sigil Stones. Varla Stones. Duplicate. Use.





Oh... so what you're suggesting is that you officially want a way to get those weapons without working for them?
Y'know... that is what glitches / exploits are for.
And here I thought the issue was that smiths get their advantage too easily... ;

I think the Loot should be left alone. The enchanted items that we can find be at the levels they are now and scaled the way they are now. No armor or weapons that are found are improved, same with NPC armor. So, all that would be the same.

Then, make it so most smiths can improve armor the first 3 levels, but only one can go to Legendary as the game alludes to now. Or, maybe different smiths can go to different levels up to Epic. Only one Enchanter can add the most powerful enchantments all the rest are limited to what the game has now as loot. And, both of them you need to do quest for before they will work with you. Maybe put a character level limitation on doing business with them, in addition to the quests.

Gold sinks wont really work with a broken static economy, especially in a game where you can carry 20 suits of armor 50 miles back to town to sell.

PPS: to general- careful not to let personal opinions of game-breaking or cheapness seep into this thread, lest it fall into pages of pointless arguments over how one should play and flames.

The other perspective is from the RP or immersion side. Why do all of these tables/grindstones exist if the player is the only one using them? I don't want to get obscenely powerful gear from a vendor, but the idea that Eurland Grey-mane sells unimproved skyforge steel swords is off-putting to me.

The problem isn't so much that "durnit, if I wanna be overpowered, I have to go for smithing and enchanting!" The problem is that there are skills that are poorly balanced to begin with. Having overpowered weapons for sale would simply make it easier for people to become overpowered, when for the sake of having a properly balanced GAME, they need to make it impossible to become truly overpowered.

Note I said "overpowered", and not "powerful". My Nord Warrior is powerful; he can take on four Thalmor in glass armor and kill them all. What he isn't, is overpowered; he couldn't take on a dragon and fifteen Thalmor in glass armor and three Thalmor master mages and proceed to one-shot all nineteen opponents.

Which is what the smithing-enchanting-alchemy loop apparently does: let you one-shot anything in the game, including leveled opponents and dragons.

Takes quite a bit of character-shaping to be able to pull that kinda long-haul off though.
And while I tend to make most of my characters into pack-mules... I expect some folk prefer to just make them better in combat.

Well, NPCs do use them, but it's purely cosmetic. They aren't actually improving anything, any more than they're actually smithing anything when they're "using" the forge.

I thought Smithing was mandatory, until i found the Atronach Forge and got Dragon armor from chests. Smithing made things too easy imo, and took away from the dungeon exploring experience, so i stopped getting it.

I don't think those who want smithing and enchanting changing generally want it changes to the skills to affect anyone else thogh, least from what I've read (not read every single post, so may be wrong to an extent). From what I can tell is they want the items made or improved by those skills to be no better than those items that can be found or bought from npc's.

So if the best weapon found in a dungeon does say 400 damage, then the best wepon made through over powered crafting will do 400 damage, and the best weapon that can be bought will do 400 damage as well. Therefore if your not a crafter you won't lose anything, and if you are you won't end up being better off than anyone else. The only possibly difference would be those who craft their own items may get them earlier than those that don't, but by the time each character is level 40-50 they'll be equal no matter the route they have taken.