Bending the rules of the game within the limits of the game, within the game itself, is more fun than editing and giving yourself god powers. At least to me. Because there's no "effort" in dropping all those items into a barrel.

The alchemy+enchanting+smithing thing seems super involved to me, still. Plus, if you don't cheat to get them, you need to get all the ingredients, enchant all the gear (like 3 separate sets), invest like 20 or so levels into just that... Like, it'd be nice to have some caps on it so it'd feel more "Intended", but regardless of how crazy it is, only those who actually put in the effort are going to ever see that kind of stuff (like armor capped / damage cap).



Part of it seems intended, since you simply CAN'T make a Legendary Daedric item with ONLY 100 smithing. You NEED to stack alchemy and enchantments with +smithing to do so. Apart from that though, like said, it becomes an issue with "when do you stop?" - and caps are a good way to ensure such.

You only need around 80-90 smithing skill to make a legendary item of any item type if you also know how to craft items of the same type, easily achievable as a proper smith.

Basically you need an effective smithing skill of like 160... 180 to make a legendary item. But if you are trained in the crafting of a given item you get a x2 bonus to upgrades to items of that type. So if you know how to craft daedric, then you get x2 bonus to your smithing score. In contrast if you were not trained in smithing, you'd need 100 skill +60-80?% bonus from potions or items to get a legendary item.

It seems poll was so against op view he just deleted it, way to go.

You need to craft to survive in master dificulty, and you dont need to exploit potion loops to, crafting is fine, if people decide to abuse the loop exploit its theire game, if I want to be god mode I just press tgm on console and save me the time.

FYI: the exact numbers are 91 smithing to improve to legendary if you have the appropriate smithing perk and 168 without the proper smithing perk. And there are hundreds of additional levels of legendary above the "first" legendary. Add roughly 17 to the number above for perked material to find the next level and the one above that, and so on -- and add roughly 34 for each new level of unperked material.

Perked smithing improvement progression: 91, 108, 125, 143, etc.
unPerked smithing improvement progression: 168, 203, 237, etc.

Each new level of improvement will add a flat number to the effectiveness of armor/weapons that scales with your weapon/armor skills and perks.
-Loth

exploits are over rated...reducing magic cost to zero or near zero for particular field is a game mechanic..in the same way you can shoot one arrow right after the other or how you can swing a melee weapons over and over...the game is designed so you can achieve a super hero kinda experience if you want...its fun leveling up...but once i'm level 50 plus, i don't want to have to worry about running out of magic every fight,,,in the same way it would svck if you ran out of arrows every fight if you were an archer..or if your sword only did 3 points of damage per strike...no such thing as cheating in an elder scrolls game...if you choose to exploit something and it takes the fun out of it for you, thats your own fault...some people like god mode so they should be able to play like that if they want...its not for me to tell someone else how to play theur elder scrolls game.

I was going to revoke that statement, but now I think of it you have a valid point - given how magic does NOT scale, a top end destruction spell per hit does less damage than a top end martial weapon at end-game. Therefore destruction has to be as spammable as a martial weapon and the only way to achieve that is fortify enchantments

I deleted the poll because of the responses people were posting, and oddly since deleting it the discussion has become a little more civil so *shrug*

Maybe I just don't find crafting as fun/interesting as some people, probably due to having a job and gathering/making things seeming too similar to work. I've crafted in other games but never because it was enjoyable, it was always to either make gear I needed or to enhance gear I had. I see the CK as a serious shortcut to that end, whether I drop them in a bucket somewhere or add them to a "master smith" vendor who will sell them to me for a pretty penny. Not only does it save me a ton of time by not having to gather materials and grind the skill up, it saves me about 12+ levels worth of perk points that I can use for skills that I am actually interested in and provide a more tangible benefit, rather than only being useful for the moment I want to craft something.

As for crafting being necessary to survive in master difficulty, isn't the point of the slider to make it difficult? If you make it difficult, then use a game mechanic to reduce that difficulty, doesn't that kinda defeat the point?

Now if you throw in mods that allow you to craft things that you can't get in the game, or change item colors or what not, that could be interesting and may make it worth doing. Then again if we're going with mods, I could (again) just make it in the CK and not spend the perk points to get there.

I guess if there's any argument to be made for crafting vs CK, aside from it being enjoyable/RP, it's that you'll have to sacrifice those perk points to get that gear instead of just generating it.

If this game didn't had a dificulty slider, and if artifacts were the best gear possible, then crafting wouldnt be needed, but that isnt the case.

I guess my big question would be this:

Why would the Creation Kit negate the experience of actually playing the game? How could the game experience be heightened if you don't take the time to level it up yourself? By using the CK in the manner that the OP suggests, why even play it at all? Half the thrill of an Elder Scrolls game is the risk that you could die/fail in any given endeavor. Not to knock walking around as an incarnate deity, but I think that an Elder Scrolls game begs you to earn that all-powerful-character status, not Console Command your way to the top.

Where's the fun, the challenge, if you start out in Riverwood as a God?

This is the thing that confuses me about relating it to difficulty:

Step 1 - play game on Adept, ok but could be harder.
Step 2 - raise difficulty to Master, now game is too hard.
Step 3 - use smithing/enchanting to get the best gear in-game, now game is ok but could be harder

Why even have step 2 and 3 in that scenario?

Also, it's somewhat frustrating that people associate using the CK with making everything God-like, does everything have to be taken to the extreme? Is it that hard to imagine that someone would use it to create items roughly equivalent to things you could use in-game mechanics to make? Is it hard to imagine that to get those items it may take a quest or other such interesting achievement other than standing in front of a forge for hours?

Really, I wish they had put some stuff in the game that is better than stuff you could make by yourself. It does seem silly that after several hours I can make something that's more powerful than anything else in the game, but whatever.

Rastinon, my friend, you are trolling again. Maybe you don't mean to... in which case I will reply simply:

Try the game on master. You do not start out with so-called God items, and crafting is essential to survival now. You must earn those abilities to make awesome stuff, and ready death is lurking around every corner. See that pack of wolves when you get out of Helgen? Yeah... they can actually kill you now (if you're not paying attention), and you'll have to fight your ass off to survive.

It's a different game experience, because you are so unfairly gimped in stats compared to the rest of the world. Your step 3 doesn't happen until much later in the game when you have overcome tall obstacles.
-Loth

That's the beauty of Skyrim. You can make it as challenging as you want it to be; it just takes some self-restraint.


If crafted gear wasn't superior to quest reward gear, there'd be little point in crafting beyond RP.

If the game is too easy, change the difficulty setting. If it's too hard without crafted gear, then craft your gear. If crafting is a boring grind for you, then use the console to level it instantly. If you resent having to "waste" perk points on crafting, then address it via the console.

I don't see why you need the CK to fix your "problem", unless creating some set of unique uber-gear that drops off Alduin is the only way you could possibly enjoy the game.

what is ck?
i'm still new to skyrim

In multi-player games it is call Custom Kick.

Over at these parts it is called Creation Kit.

thanks for telling me that.