IMO less armor makes the game more fun. You actually have to dodge attacks and zigzag archers or get killed. Much more challenging than just taking it in the face and ignoring it.

This, plus the fact that if you have all the AR increasing perks(Juggernaut(5/5), Well Fitted and Matching Set) and have the armor in legendary quality(which you get from smiting) you only need an armor of steel plate to get the 80% damage reduction whih is around 568 or so. Anything above doesn't really matter.

Given a lack of a perk/stat prohibits it, the complaint has merit. IMO.

exactly, i've yet to come across these "easy" dragon fights... with my low gear... steel sword and banded iron shield, every fight is challanging, i have to use my environment in dungeons to group enemies to 1 at a time, it makes it much more enjoyable and challanging.

I think if i could 2 shot a dragon it'd be incredibily boring, so a good old 10 min duel is good stuff ^^

with the odd hiding to heal etc

I see what you're saying; to spend a perk point expecting an upgrade and instead getting something weaker that's "aesthetically different" would undoubtedly feel like a waste. If you had known you probably would've stuck with deadric and used the point on something more useful, but now you're stuck and can't respec.

It's not the end of the world but I understand why it annoys you. Just move on.

And there is nothing wrong with that, if I felt like it I could run around naked with just a dagger assassinating people. But how do you tell people, you can only get so strong. Last time I checked, you were supposed to be able to play however you wanted. That means if you somehow evolved into a god, so be it. Or you play as some timid creature that barely manages to survive, it's up to the player how they should want to play. You can't complain about a game being too easy should you be the one that set it up that way.

As mentioned countless times already, it's all about aesthetics. Would you wear a poop if it had twenty more armour points than daedric? I doubt it, because it doesn't look awesome. And for most people it's all about looking as epic as humanly possible, so dragon smithing is far from useless.

Heavy Dragonplate looks almost more evil than Daedric.

"Yeah, so I killed a dragon, ripped it's bones out and am wearing them as armor"

*Runs away screaming*

I think you'll find the cap is quite generous.

Armor rating is capped, but enemies with maces will penetrate a certain % of that armor (don't they?), so there is some use to having 1000 over 570.

The cap is at ~570 too, not 650 or w/e

See the scaling and difficulty threads for people who spent the years between oblivion and skyrim playing FotM toons in WoW.

TBH I do feel that it is a wasted perk that might have been better used elsewhere if I had really thought about things. But it is only 1 perk. And I suspect that when it becomes time to level my light armor I will be doing it in dragon scale rather than glass just because by then I will have just about finished the main quest and it will feel right. I suspect that my only gripe on my next toon (if this even turns out to be true) will be that I will have a hard time finding the stuff as I don't plan on leveling in smithing again.

I wished it looked like the Dragonbone cuirass.
Why is that NOT in the game?

I don't think enemies have perks, but I could be wrong on that. You'd need a perk to get maces to penetrate armor.

Yea I haven't done a fully controlled test or anything, but when I fought a draugr Deathlord with and ebony war hammer he seemed to hurt more than the normal ebony greatsword ones...

A mace by default does more damage on a per swing basis, and probably significantly when comparing 2h versions.

I haven't seen dragon scale yet but dragon bone looks sick, except for the helm, I coulda done with more bone on the helm.

I play 1st person, when I see what I'm wearing, it means I had an epic failure.


Edit: and I thought that dragon'plate' looked thoroughly lame compared to the ebony set. Primitive is the word.

Yes, actually I would. If Bethesda had rendered in a set of armor that was a skinned cat, sandals with socks, and a dunce hat. that had some absurd amount of armor. Yeah, I'd wear it.

People bring up, well lower level armor can reach the potential of higher level armor with enchants and blah. But what if I would rather use those perks or enchants towards other things. If my level 10 armor capped at and would have the same defense as my level 5 armor with 3 perks invested in it. But I like the level 5 armor better, I'm just [censored]. I'm taking the level10 armor and spending them 3 perks somewhere else. All people are saying is, well it's really a choice. If you invest heavily in perks, Iron armor can end up being just as good as dragon armor. Well what the [censored] is the point in there even being dragon armor for? If you're going to play this game based on everything logical about games. Better/higher level resources=higher level gear.

If people really wanted choices, they'd be talking about the lack of options in armor. Why does all Iron armor look the same, why does all steel armor look the same. Why can I not customize how my armor looks. Gear comes in progression, that's something every gamer knows and expects. If you thought otherwise, you're lying. It does not matter the reason, the top tier gear in this case regressed. And it's silly. Capped or not.

Your wording seems to suggest that you assume no one plays in 3rd person.

I personally like the look of Dragonplate a lot.

The armor cap is 587 or so, which I can reach wearing a diaper, so I don't really care that Daedric has, literally, 4 more points of armor.

Don't worry about stats so much. I pick weapons and armor based on looks. My main character is an assassin, so i lookf for equipment which looks more sinister...even if it does less damage that something else.

Basically this. That's why I still wear Leather armor.

And if you want AR, 1) get all the Fortify Smithing stuff you can find to improve your armor with at "Legendary+", 2) get armor perks and raise HA/LA to 100, 3) use the Lord stone, and 4) wear Fortify Heavy/Light armor items. I have a 524 AR out of the 567 cap with a full Leather armor only with the first three points. And I still haven't even completely improved my Leather armor via Smithing.

In my opinion its not about the defense rating. I mean, a few extra points of defense hardly does anything. Also, Dragonplate is the best looking armour in the game IMO, Daedric just looks WAY too demonic, especially for Skyrim. For this reason Daedric just seems to look retarted.

Agree with OP that the armor while, not necessarily "ugly", really only works with certain characters. My High Elf battlemage will likely stop at Ebony, as it has always been my favorite.

"I SMELL WEAKNESS!"