I'm clearly a new forum member and if you're reading this I'm sure you've noticed, but hear me out please.

My problem with smithing isn't how quickly I attain level 100 in said skill, it's how I just get to improve an armour I've never see or used. I agree with the way Ebony has a better base AR than Steel, that all makes sense but the part that doesn't is how if I'm wearing my Steel wandering around Skyrim and a fellow adventurer crosses my path wearing an armour better than my own I'm clearly going to slaughter him loot his corpse and never equip steel again. And this is because I'm going to fast travel back to whiterun improve my newly looted armour and steel will never come close to matching it's stats.

What would be nice is if your armour leveled along with you, for example after taking 3'000 health damage a box pops up saying maybe something like "After wearing this armour for so long you've thought of a couple ways to could improve it to further protect yourself". (This could include boosted stats/ attributes/ or a variety of buffs) Then if you have the required smithing skill you could improve it to a point until you would need to know more about it. I personaly think this might take away that factor of, "oh well daedric is better than everything else so lets just wear that".

And I guess you could just not use smithing and gimp yourself, but honestly for me an rpg is about making the best possiable character, and to me having all these armours that just have a set AR and everything is like I'm playing someone elses 'best character'. Obviously it could be abused but smithing already is, and after all, it's something I thought up in 20 minutes, maybe you guys could add something or really just give me your opinion on what ruins smithing as a skill.

P.s I'm not quite a fan of how you can create armour you haven't found before, It really kills the exploration factor because why go through 100 dungeons to find what I can make in a matter of minutes.

I like this suggestion

Aye, its a good idea. It stands to reason that the more time you spend with a particular set of armour, the more comfortable you become with it.

EDIT: Affinity bars for each kind of armour you've worn, something like that? I say bars as that seems to be the easiest representation...

Makes sense. I don't perk into smithing just because of this.

I like the idea of armour wearing out and needing repairing. But it does kind of level with you...your Heavy Armour and Light Armour skills increase as you get hit while wearing said Armour. I favoured Light Armour to start with, and now Fur gives me more protection than Ebony! (Which itself doesn't really make sense to me...how can I learn a skill to make that possible!)

I don't think smithing is ruined as a skill.

I do a lot of smithing, which means I hang out in smithies a lot and make many friends there which means I can assume that my character is picking up a lot of know-how from the proprietors. Using the trainers also helps from an RP perspective. And I don't get my smithing levels up by working only on the materials that I'm currently wearing, I work with whatever I find and what I find generally depends on my level anyway... but I almost never wear anything that I find or buy, I wear whatever I've taken the perk for and made (or acquired from a joined faction) and that's the stuff that I can improve to the greatest effect with my current skills.

Also if you look at the blacksmiths in the game, they're not able to work with better materials only because they wear them all day long. At some point you can buy or receive some high level type of armor made by a smith who apparently wears nothing but iron or steel or in many cases, no armor at all.

It levels so much as every other heavy armour levels, what I'm trying to say is you should be able to specialize I guess in a type of armour. Not to mention it's weird that I play an orc and orcish does what exactly for me? I get it's a style of armour but that's it, there's no tweaking no bonuses nothing specialized. The way Armour in Skyrim stands right now is "oooo shiny shiny me want".

Well, considering that my character is the smith for his entire clan and forges the armor to everyone, I don't like this part. If I was forced to wear the armor I gave to my fellow clan-mates, a huge part of my rp experience would be lost.

On the other hand, if you could unloock a bonus level of improvement by wearing the armor, as a reward for getting to know your armor, I'm all for it.



I also want custom-forging (designing your own weapons/armors).

I'm not rejecting the idea of being able to create these armours, I'm rejecting the fact a black smith knows more about how to impove and utilize my armour than me - The one wearing it all day. And in my humble opinion you just infact told me you don't care about looted armours due to your ability to smith.

I understand what you're saying and I agree with you but should you be able to smith an armour you've never used to the point at which it's referd to as "legendary" In my opnion no. That should come from numerous hours spent learning about your armour.

What I'm dying for in armour is customization like I said above, armour is basicly aesthetic in this game once you've taken a few choice perks.

You are wrong about this. If you have good skills in Smithing and Heavy Armor, Steel armor gives you just as good protection as Ebony. You can say that steel is better in this situation because it's lighter. There are many players who like to wear Wolf armor and never wear Ebony Armor. This is even more pronounced if the player specializes in Light Armor.

Sorry, I'm not quite sure I understand how if for example I and many other players have maxed out the smithing skill tree - steel can be improved to a further degree than ebony can? And I suppose weight may play a factor but if you're a minimalist like me I usually only bring a set of archery gear and melee gear with me and as I have 300+ stamina weight is no concern, this is also due to the perks 'Unhinderd' and 'Conditioning' that make your worn armour weightless.

I believe that a great smith would be able to forge a legendary armor without wearing it. That's a part of being a good smith.

However, it would be kind of awesome if our character's learned to improve these armors in different ways. For example, one improvement could increase your carrying capacity, another could improve armor rating, another could make it fit better (which would e.g. increase stamina regen.)

You understand what I'm talking about completely, it's not just the ability to improve armour rating (this is slightly pointless as you reach higher levels as your AR Caps out) as you wear it but also gain specialized perks for your armour. I think a big problem was taking out class specific bonuses, I'm an orc wearing orcish, maybe I should be reiciving some sort of buff? Maybe my berserker rage last twice as long? Just the lack of specialization in skyrim turns me off.

If you are good with your hands, knowledgeable about the smithing process then the material shouldn't matter. A true craftsman can pick up any armor, study it and improve on it. I have been in and around the Construction Industry my entire life.

You would be surprised no...amazed at what some people can do with something they have never seen before.

Sorry, but It is perfectly viable. It's fine the way it is.

Pretend just for a moment you're trudging around in your iron armour and your plate-legs nip at your knees, what do you do? You go and tweak your armour to better suit you. I'm more so talking about improving your armour in such a way it benifits you ie: perks boosting certian stats, skills or attributes.

1. You armor skill does improve along with you. You gain experiene points while taking damage while wearing any armor and when you level up you can select a perk to further improve your skill in that type of armor.

2. How would a character know how to make an armor they've never seen?

A. How does the character already know how to make any armor whatsoever? And weapons too? And all characters come pre-equipped with at least one or two types of magical spells. I think everyone comes with healing. They also already come with some amount of skill in every single type of skill. It may be low, but they already possess knowledge of it somehow. The point is, it's an imaginary world and on some things you just have to make the leap and leave realism at the door. And to belabor this already bloated point, how is it that we can pump out 30 suits of Dwarven armor in about 20 game minuts (maybe even less)? Let it go.

B. Books. There are lots of books in Skyrim as well as trainers. And as mentioned above, the character already knows a certain amount about smithing anyway. If you want to say that the first suit of X armor shouldn't be of as high quality as the 5th, then maybe you're on to something... but not really. Because you can improve armor as you get more experienced.

3. Smithing doesn't level you up as fast as it used to. You can't iron-dagger your way to 100 in an hour anymore.

4. In terms of becoming an expert in a given armor, the fact has already been pointed out that you can temper steel armor to the same quality as ebony.

Smithing as a skill is fine as it is right now. Like any other crafting skill, if you grind it, it'll level you up quickly. But if you don't mine or buy and only use what you find, then Smithing can take a long damn time to progress.

Then what would be the point of Dwarven armor, since the Dwemer have all gone bye-bye? Who would get a perk for Steel, or Ebony? Those aren't really race-related as far as I can tell.

A suit of armor is what it is, "Orcish" is just a particular style no doubt named after the people who originated it, like Dwarven or Elven or anything else. There's nothing magical about Orcish armor that would make it more effective because an Orc is wearing it, if it's more effective than something else it's because the materials used (and perhaps the design itself) are better.

Clearly mentioned above this was a 20 minute thought so you should read all the posts before commenting, none the less I'll try and answer to your satisfaction

1. I'm well aware your armour skills improve when you level up light or heavy armour what I'm talking about is not just Ar alone, it's a range of perks and abilities or bonuses I think your character should pick up along the way. (In terms of a specific armour)

2. b. Good point, but as no one knows where your character has come from or read or what he actually knows beyond being able to minorly improve and create iron armour maybe as you suggested reading a book on a specific armour might allow your character to create it.

3. I clearly stated my problem was not at the pace smithing leveled up.

4. There are two types of steel armour in skyrim, one may come close to a fully upgraded ebony set and the other doesn't none the less the idea's the same even if my choice in armours wasn't to your liking.

And for your last comment there, I honestly think smithing is the worst of the skills, it destroys the point in looking for better armour. What's the point in clearing dungeons if you're going to skip by the reward chest?

As I said add to it, I gave a pretty vague idea I didn't sit down for a day and think everything through, this is more or less to get you guys thinking about what you'd like out of your armour more than aesthetics

I am too.

I'm aware that these aren't race related but look, it's an idea that adds to armour beyond "It looks pretty I'm going to wear it".

Yet you believe when you create something and use it and get to know it you won't notice flaws you might like to fix.

What?

Where do you get that idea. I said, I believe that a skilled smith should be able to make ANY improvements and create ANY armor. You are the one that has issues with the current system, not me.

"I'm more so talking about improving your armour in such a way it benifits you ie: perks boosting certian stats, skills or attributes."
My exact words, you then replied with "I am too". Which is saying you think you won't learn anything about your armour after a certain period of time wearing it. If it's not I'd love for you to explain.

And it's not the creation of armour I have a problem with it's improvments from someone either a smith or yourself that's never worn it. I beleive one would learn things that only someone who has actually used the armour for an extensive amount of time would know.

They finally fixed Smithing so you can't just cheaply powerlevel it like you can with enchanting. I think it should stay just how it is for now, they have far more pressing issues to address, like quests still being bugged and such.