This.

The issue here is the player, not the game.

i don't use smithing. (thanx to this website)

but, if a skill in a game negates the greatness of looting and caches and treasure hunting (enemy killing loot is already less) then i have a big problem with that skill.

looting, etc. might be the top reason why i started playing video games way back when in the first place.

Wtf, level 15 and dragonbone? Your doing it wrong and you know it

This.

The issue here is the player, not the game.

Derp Derp Derp. No. The problem is that the itemization is static in Skyrim. Progression is all out of whack in the game. The only way to increase weapon damage outside of raising your skill (which caps naturally at 100) is through Smithing. Smithing, caps at 100 naturally as well. A character who does not invest in Smithing will not be able to ever get an upgraded weapon tier past Daedric. A player who only invests in Smithing will not be able to ever make anything better once they hit 100 Smithing. To advance your damage further, you must invest in Enchanting. To advance it even FURTHER you have to take up Alchemy. What this does, is essentially force characters to pick up and invest in Tradeskills to see their character progress. That is an issue.

Further, found items will always be inferior to items you can craft. That is another issue. Crafted items should NOT be better than possible found items. There should always be an incentive to dungeon crawl and open chests. In Skyrim, there is not. Weapons and Armor do not scale. Some Unique ones do, except the way they scale in most instances is awkward. Crafted items should be supberb quality, but their draw should be the fact you can obtain them at your own pace and it is not just luck that you find them. The only variance of gear in Skyrim is the level of Enchant on an item. Even that caps out, and a player will ALWAYS be able to place a superior Enchant on their item.

Leveling is underwhelming. Besides access to another Perk point, the only thing that happens is your character gets 10 HP, Magicka, or Stamina. Dinging level 2 is the same as 80. WHAT THE HECK!? Leveling skills raises your level. You reach a point where your primary skills are all 100. If you want to progress further and invest more perks, you have to USE ABILITIES THAT ARE NOT PART OF YOUR CHARACTER PATH! Perks further are GREAT ideas for specialization and progression, the problem there however is that most perks just are not unique enough. Instead, they got lazy and instead they are ranked Modifiers all over the place instead of unique abilities and spells - stuff that truly creates specialization and makes your character control differently from an unspecialized one. For alll intents and purposes, the only difference between a specialized and non-specialized character is the damage dealt or received...Usually, the difference would be what is further in your tool belt. What spells and abilities that you have that define the "custom class" you have made.

This has nothing to do with the derp squad of "don't craft 1000 iron dagger". If you do not understand why the itemization and how progression is handled is an issue, maybe you should stick to LARPing.

Rofl..how do you even get dragon armor at level 15..that takes some doing.

I can't believe you posted this as if it's a problem with the game...

This.

The issue here is the player, not the game.

You're*

but, if a skill in a game negates the greatness of looting and caches and treasure hunting (enemy killing loot is already less) then i have a big problem with that skill.

Derp Derp Derp. No. The problem is that the itemization is static in Skyrim. Progression is all out of whack in the game. The only way to increase weapon damage outside of raising your skill (which caps naturally at 100) is through Smithing. Smithing, caps at 100 naturally as well. A character who does not invest in Smithing will not be able to ever get an upgraded weapon tier past Daedric. A player who only invests in Smithing will not be able to ever make anything better once they hit 100 Smithing. To advance your damage further, you must invest in Enchanting. To advance it even FURTHER you have to take up Alchemy. What this does, is essentially force characters to pick up and invest in Tradeskills to see their character progress. That is an issue.

Did you understand what he meant? Then leave it. I have a phd and I still type your in a rush. Get over your need to feel powerful on the internet.

My Smithing is at 100 (just wanted to see what the Dragon Armor fuss was about) and my Enchanting is at 69 (can't seem to get it to 70 for that Corprus Perk). Anyway, the loot I am finding at Level 41 is better on Enchantments than what I can find but I can improve the weapons and armor with Smithing. So, if you are at mid levels and have not grinded up the skills in Crafting, then the loot you find will be better in some ways than what you can make.

However, if you grind those crafting skills early on, then Looting is pointless.

Wth is this "derp" stuff?

Anyway.

You don't need to do ANY crafting to succeed at this game. It's only power-gamers who think that they DO need to max their crafting skills. It's fine if you want to power-game, but you need to realize that not everybody does that. The game isn't going to be tuned for power-gamers... so...

i don't use smithing. (thanx to this website)

but, if a skill in a game negates the greatness of looting and caches and treasure hunting (enemy killing loot is already less) then i have a big problem with that skill.

looting, etc. might be the top reason why i started playing video games way back when in the first place.

I love looting, especially in these games. That said, I used Smithing on my first Skyrim character, and it didn't stop me from finding great loot. Of course, I only leveled it at the speed that I found & looting materials - I didn't powerlevel it. Generally, I started finding new tiers of gear (scale/elven/glass/etc) in the world before I could craft it. Only hit 100 Smithing at level 48.

And I didn't perk out my Enchanting, so I certainly couldn't craft anything that beat the magic stuff I found. I used my Smithing to make items for equipment slots that I hadn't looted something good for, and for improving the found loot I had. (ex: at one point, I was using: Hide bracers +bow damage; Elven boots +fire resist; Glass shield +frost resist; crafted Glass armor; and crafted Glass sword w/soul trap)

Never really felt that Smithing was overpowered. And always looked forward to what might be in the next chest.

Perhaps I am too confined by the MMORPG paradigm

You (obviously to have 100 by level 15) purposely grinded a craft skill to make the best armor in the game early on. That'd be your main issue.

is it the enchanting that seems to be ABUSED?

Leveling craft skills often involves grinding no matter what. Explain to me a non-grinding way to level smithing.
Every time you smith anything, it's to increase your smithing level, other than maybe one or two full sets of armor that you'll actually wear which won't contribute much to your smithing level. It's not like archery where you're actually using it to kill things, or restoration where you're using it to keep yourself alive. No, you use your smithing skill to increase the skill or to make armor. Increasing the skill until you can make the armor you want just makes sense, it's not some sort of counter-intuitive exploitative method of playing.