So perk up speechcraft then? That's why its there. What you feel is the penalty for not perking it up, and it makes perfect sense to me.

Skyrim economy is close to perfection and the prices are fair. I suspect that people who claim it's too easy to make money are making it by exploiting the game mechanics like waiting 48 hours outside the shops.

Even before Skyrim came out I knew that the pricing of things were going to be mediocre. TES has never been balanced or realistic in economy stuff. That's why modders ALWAYS create an "economy" mod. A bank for Skyrim will be made for sure.

There are multiple problems here.

1.) There isn't enough things to spend gold on or reasons to spend gold.
2.) Itemization is poorly done. There is little if any need to ever visit a vendor. The only variable on found or bought items are the Enchant values. Taking up Enchanting makes found Enchants completely worthless as you can Enchant things in a far far superior manner.
3.) There are no gold sinks outside of Alchemy.
4.) Vendors have a very minimal supply of gold for the most part which does not scale properly as the game progresses.
5.) Items are far too common.

These ingredients create a system where basically nothing has value or purpose.

The problem I have with buying and selling is that you get ripped of when you try to sell something at the start of the game. so you decide to keep it in storage until latter when you might get a better price. But later on in the game after you have collected loads of coins it seems pointless to sell these items that you have stored because you already have more than enough money. This is not because you abused the game, no it's only because you never got a good price at the start of the game to get you to trade rather than horde things.

It is VERY unfortunate that a game like Skyrim doesnt have something like trades. Stop giving me money in urns, stop giving me money off dead corpses, instead let me EARN my money. Would be nice to make money off of crafting items, trades, jobs, etc.

I think what they should have done is to have three types of currency. Like copper, silver and of course gold. I like how in LOTRO you need to collect 100 copper coins to make 1 silver coin and 1,000 silver coins to make 1 gold coin. This really makes you earn your money and having stacks of gold coins is really an accomplishment in LOTRO.

I think it is a bit more realistic. Your average shop keeper isn't going to have the coin laying around to buy that Godly Axe of Epic Destruction.

Far as other TES games, merchants having a small amount of coin is the norm. If you have some high priced item, you have to buy stuff from them to get their gold up, than sell your item to them. Think of it as more bartering. Instead of the mudcrab merchant or Creeper, you have perks to invest in shops.

I normally don't have trouble unloading my loot from dungeons in town. I might have to hit a couple merchants, but it all gets sold. Now if I stockpile it, I can't sell it all.

Only if you mean "max out Enchanting" when you say "take it up". My character had mid-level Enchanting just due to disenchanting everything and keeping my weapons charged, and I couldn't make anything remotely like the enchantments I found on items in dungeons. (50% fire or frost resist, for instance. Couldn't get much beyond 25% myself.)


Alchemy's a gold sink? Most "how do I make money fast?" thread has someone saying to make potions using storebought ingredients, and then sell them back.
The biggest gold sink I've found in the game is Skill Training. Above 50, training starts to get very expensive per point. And if the trainer isn't also a store clerk, you can't get that money back by selling them stuff.


But that's one of the things that makes TES games.... well, TES games. And not other games. When you kill someone, all his equipment is there. Not just 0-2 random Prefix of Suffix. Play Diablo if that's what you're looking for.....

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Personally, I love dungeon diving, looting, selling loot, and hoarding things in my house. And I see having a large gold balance later in the game as a sign of success - an indication that I'm doing things right.

Economy has never been one of the elderscrolls games strong points. Honestly, though, that is the way for every RPG. The hero goes out, wins the day, and comes back with more priceless treasure than the gods themselves. Of course that hero is going to destroy the economy, be left with unsellable items, and be unable to spend all of money acquired in transactions.

I think the game just needs less loot, cooler loot, more crafty merchants, and more things to spend your money on.

The Pricing is much better then the previous games especially Oblivion with it's infinite economy, although it's still easy to get a buttload of money, I was at 260,000 at 100 hours of playtime in Skyrim but I know for a fact that I would be over a million if not close to it in Oblivion.

1.) Enchanting will surpass found Enchantments by far. Your anecdote does nobody any good. Depending when you took up Enchanting, what your skill was with it, what Soul Gem you were using and what Perks you had makes a difference. If you put in the most obvious and basic Perk investment into Enchanting, found items become meaningless. That is an issue. Not because I chose that route, but because found items are not unique enough. What I find should always have a chance of being better than what I craft.

2.) Alchemy is a gold sink in as much as you can buy ingredients. I did not mean that the profession itself consumes more gold than it makes selling potions back to the vendor. It is the only consumable system in requiring expenditure by the player. For example, there is no weapon or armor degradation or upkeep or tax system.

3.) You do not get what I am saying. Due to the fact that TES has chosen weapons and equipment to drop, something I like, it means that it is very very very easy to make money. Simply loot everything and sell it. Done.

Your personal goals are noted, however in terms of character progression - the game falls short. There is no reason outside of personal satisfaction to explore dungeons or open chests. When loot does not matter and gold does not matter, the game does not matter. That might not be YOUR opinion, but I can assure you it is a lot of people's. I do not play the game only to keep getting upgrades and seeing progression, but it reinforces the game that is for sure.

^ what carrotfeets said.

Skyrim is way better than Oblivion. You have to go to several vendors to unload your loot at least. In Oblivion I'd feather enchant my gear, down feather potions and cast feather spells after clearing rockmilk cave for 40k worth of glass armor from the bandits I killed, sell it all at one vendor, wait 3 days and it respawns, go do it again. That's 80k in about an hour of actual play time. It took me a lot of discipline to save 100k in Skyrim and a lot of time. It wasn't hard but it still took quite a while playing how I play.

THen consider how horrible the store bought magic items in Oblivion were. Priced at 20-35k and they had negative effects! Like a mace of burning but it lowered your intelligence to use it. BS useless crap for sale.

Some money sink ideas:
What they need to so is make some things impossible to find out in the wild. Like the best ingredients for potions should only grow in one little spot where most people never find so you have to buy it.
Make it so enemies never have decent arrows and the player can smith his own arrows from glass, ebony etc then it would cost quite a bit to make some decent arrows.
Increase the cost of houses.
Have to pay mercenaries something reasonable or they leave your service.
Have some more expensive taverns to stay at.
Make food and drink required for survival so there are some fixed expenses to existing.
Make a bank with a safety deposit box you rent to store your crap until you can afford a house. Borrow money from them at high interest and penalties if you don't pay on time.
Pay to use smithing, enchanting stations and alchemy stations. Who lets wanderers use their tools? Any self respecting professional doesn't loan their equipment out to novices or strangers without some kind of consideration at least.

The biggest issue is everything can be had for free. I stopped hurting for gold in Skyrim when I realized I didn't HAVE to spend a nickel, anywhere. The only thing you have to buy is a house and even that is optional. There are places in the wild you can stay at and your stuff is fine as long as you go home frequently so it never respawns.

I see more mentions of investing in shops but no it's how to do it?

I ask this with every RPG I play. Even Borderlands has this issue. You have no money to buy what you need at low levels because you are not skilled and need better equipment. But, at higher levels, you do not need the equipment, but I have more money than I know what to do with. No game economy has ever really worked. The reason is, they have to make it hard to amass money in the beginning, or everyone would buy their way up. Then they have to give you expensive loot you can't sell in the end so you think it is worthwhile to go into the dungeon.

I have solved this by consoling in a 1,000,000 in the beginning of the game, then I can ignore the economy. I do not use the money to power level or anything, I just don't have to worry about making money or selling anything.

In games where I can't spawn the money, or I don't want to, I just use the expensive items to trade for other expensive items that I need. Otherwise, they stay in a chest somewhere.

@madmole, I am not necessarily against the removal of arbitrary forms of upkeep. The best gold sink that no one has mention thus far is a gambling system. Items obtained through the gambling system would be completely unique as well as trinkets and armor/weapons with higher values than can be found or smithed. Items with higher values than standard grade would be labeled as Rare to clue the player into the fact these items can be improved to a higher standard than a regular tier of item. For example: My Daedric Bow is the top quality Bow I can possibly find. Through the gambling system, I would be able to obtain Rare Daedric Bows. These bows would have a higher Base value than a standard Daedric bow and would have varying levels of quality.

Tada! Now I have an incentive to go dungeon crawl after I have the best items from crafting or adventuring and something to blow my money on.