THIS!

The problem is, when you have no destination anymore, you cannot have a journey...

I'm with Balok and Kiralynn2000 on this one.

I take my time. I don't look up things. I don't try to rush through things. I don't even FT (haven't used it, not even once). I have never used the Wait feature. I play to survive and to have fun and to explore. I don't mass smith iron daggers because I can't imagine my characters going all Rain Man and doing that. I use smithing to improve my gear. Slowly but surely my smithing improves. I don't make batches of enchanted items to power-level enchanting and spam-sell to a vendor, because, again, I can't imagine my character actually doing that. I DE items I find that can teach me somthing new. Occasionally, if one of the enchants I have learned looks useful I'll apply it to a standard item I found out in the world. Slowly enchanting rises. Similarly, that's how I approach all my skills.

I just play. I wear what I find. I use abilities in the moment. My characters sleeps when they can, averaging about 6 or so hours a day. They eat food during downtime. They takes off their helmet in town, change into clothes for sleep. My characters never "warp" across the map with FT or carriages -- they walk or run from place to place, using caution and alertness. I don't play my characters like they're walking U-Hauls either. They focus on realistic amounts of items on-hand. The only armor they carry is what they are wearing, plus maybe some extra light clothing. Ditto weapons, though occasionally a magic item is found that is off interest, and that is tucked into the pack for later study (DE) or perhaps sale. But it's self-kept in check. This is not to say that I play better or worse than anyone else, but for me it makes the game a fun experience, and I'm glad my play style is playable within the framework of the game.

As Balok put it, and I agree, it's about the process, not the result. Because of this, I enjoy every moment I play.

I fell into the common trap in Oblivion of feeling I needed to level efficiently, looking up where to get great loot early, etc. I used FT to speed-loot dungeons and then vendor the results. It ruined an awesome game for me, because numbers are just numbers, they aren't the actual experience. They aren't the moments we remember.

What I remember fondly from Oblivion was my early times with it. Emerging from the sewers, butterflies in the air, Vilverin across the water, a world before me. I remember early fights with bandits, discovering new places, stumbling upon interesting questliness, trying out abilities for the first time wtih no preconceptions or expectations. I couldn't even begin to remember the stats on my final gear, or the amount of gold my character had, or how much damage I averaged per blow. That stuff is meaningless. I'm thankful I learned that lesson from my time with Oblivion, because its enabled me to enjoy Skyrim a lot.

And if I did look up how to power-level in Skyrim and/or if I figured out ways to harm my own experience (long-term) for short-term benefits -- I wouldn't apply them. It wouldn't make sense for my characters, and it wouldn't make sense for me as a player looking to enjoy this game for months, if not years, to come.

People power-leveling smithing via iron daggers (and enchanting and alchemy via similar means) sound, to me, like people who gorge themselves on McDonald's for a month and then complain that they have became fat and listless.

Kiralyn, I don't think anyone is disagreeing that the journey and the adventure should be the highlight - however - without character progression or any sort of challenge that journey becomes a lot less fun. Really and truly, if Skyrim did not have any gear at all, what you started with is all you got, there were no Perks, you never raised skills or leveled, do you honestly think your experience in the game would be as enjoyable? Would you seek to explore every single dungeon, ruin, etc. and complete all of the side quests? What about replay value, after you have done it would you do it over again for the same experience? Players, such as yourselves, argue this all the time but the fact is that without character progression and a challenge, that journey just is not as fun.

What you and many others have said is "slow down" or intentionally not take certain Perks or upgrades. Right there, you are acknowledging the same problem we say exists - you just feel that you have a solution for this. That's great if it works for you, however there are a lot of players who do not feel the way you do. There is this sort of elitist status amongst "casual gamers" and "RPers" that oh, TES is about lore and immersion and anyone who "breaks the game" is exploiting or - I love this one - "power gaming!" You guys say these things like it is wrong to play games this way, excuse me but I don't tell YOU how to play your game, how about you guys don't tell me how I play mine is wrong. I am very familiar with TES, RPGs, and games in general. I have played RPG video games since getting addicted to Ultima on my Apple II. I have also played numerous MMO titles including raiding with Fires of Heaven in EQ and leading raids as the Main Tank in WoW in a top 10 USA guild. My experiences are far-ranging, I have seen it all. However, this new creature, the lorenerd elitist casual hybrid-doodle has just recently been created to fall on a sword that is aimed at Bethesda, and for what? Just for the sake of arguing with something that won't adversely affect you or change anything you do, just give options for the thousands of gamers like me who get pissed off that games are so watered down and dilluted now and have such little risk v reward it is like playing a crappy Second Life clone (albeit one with less pedo furries).

So, that's my rant.

You can combine what makes the most powerful enchanter with what makes the most powerful warrior with what makes the most powerful assassin. Some players just want to play your basic powerful and successful warrior and have a fair challenge, and not be overwhelmed by enemies for failing to succeed in smithing and enchanting. It's not an easy system to balance.

Which is why Bethesda does not have to balance it. You are right, there are so many variables you cannot possibly apply enough difficulty settings - but - you can apply enough player driven options and parameters to create and maintain as close and balanced of an experience as possible. Sliders etc are fantastic ways of doing this. Granted in previous TES games (Oblivion) this did not work that well, but the concept is sound.

The point is, I *did* have character progression and challenge. Why? Because I didn't super-power-efficiency-skip my weapons and armor up six tiers in the first 3 hours (as you described with your bow example). And it's not because I "gimped" myself, or did lolRP..... I honestly don't know how you managed that bow example - I certainly didn't see anything above a Hunting or Imperial Bow in the first dozen hours of the game. Maybe it's just a mindset thing - I look at the Smithing perk tree and crafting recipes, and think "there's something I'll be able to do someday", not "Ok, let's get there NOW!"

Have you completed every quest in the game? Have you found every word wall, every mask, every artifact and unique weapon? Have you fully explored every location on the map? If not, then there’s still plenty to do!

You still do not grasp the point. Regardless if I think you are embellishing greatly on me "super power leveling" by going "out of my way" the point is that you have itemization and most of character advancement which is a static system. Do you know what a static system means? That means it does not scale, it is not dynamic. It caps out. YOU and OTHERS due to how YOU enjoy playing and how YOU CHOOSE to play have slowed this down. That is irreuftable, these mechanics are static, they cap out and do not scale. MANY players will run into this issue very early on, which makes the game not have anything to offer in terms of progression and the difficulty suffers greatly which ultimately dillutes the game to the point where people just don't care about exploring, or completing stupid achievements, or collecting bugs in a jar, or exploring every single cave.

If you design your game to scale, you cannot do some with one part and not with another. The itemization and difficulty should properly scale with the rest of the game. Is that really a difficult concept to grasp? Should I revert to using two syllable words only and increase the font size for you guys?

Dang it! I was enjoying this game until you just ruined it for me!

yes, it is, imo.

difficulty slider bar (already used in the past) for those that want that simple but very effective method, better a.i. mechanics (all companies should be working on this every single game) and new enemies that only appear at certain character levels. that should be a minimum for all open-world rpg/roleplaying/action-adventure games.

as well, beth messed up the combat themselves by a faulty skill/perk/leveling system.

i, too, want to be able to be godlike. however, it is up to the developer to make a game where the hardest difficulty level (which is optional) continues to remain...
DIFFICULT at the highest character levels.

it is NOT up to the developers to make the game easy and for us to come up with ways to make it harder at the highest difficulty level. gaming isn't some second-hand garage sale where i accept inferior products.

Some people should play the game long enough before claiming that imbalance is only caused by exploiting. To say that Smithing is over powered is not idle nitpicking or flame bait. It is a simple fact. The point is, it levels too fast. At level 70+ it only takes about 20 daggers to level. Iron is so cheap only a fool would not use it but sure you can use other materials.

Lets see, Orichalum (spelling)? Walk into most Orc strongholds and mine it or buy it. Dwarven? Pick a Dwemer ruin. Any one. It's lying on the floor all over the place. Ebony? The ore is scarce but at level 25 and up you can buy ingots in heaps from most black smiths.

So the only alternative is to limit yourself in using a skill so that it won't out-level your other skills. Sure, you can do that. But there is absolutely no satisfaction in it. You do not feel like you have worked for it when you get to 100 because you know you gimped yourself just so that you don't end up over powered.

And when you do reach 100 and you upgrade your gear just straight without enchanting and alchemy loops you still end up doing far too much damage. To which some silly people reply "try to lower your gear". Pray do tell, where is the satisfaction in that?

Smithing and the other crafting skills should take a lot more to level than just a few daggers every level. At level 40 or so smithing you should get 0 experience for any Iron stuff you make. At 50 you stop getting xp for Orcish stuff and so on. Which will mean that from 80 to 100 will be hard work. And upgrading stuff should be made hellishly expensive and toned down a lot.

Actually... the core experience in Skyrim is freedom and world verisimilitude. I misspoke when I said it was exploration. I don't see how they could have balanced Smithing any better - I've STILL not maxed it, despite actively trying to in my pursuit of Glass armor. In Skyrim and other TES games, itemization and loot take a back seat to the actual character - The game has to be "Balanced" enough so that those who favor the early, better-looking armors are just as capable of enjoying the game as those who enjoy the stronger armors, even if the latter have an easier time.

Smithing allows gear to scale almost infinitely - the problem you're having is that you seem to think that maximizing the Smithing and Enchanting skills should not result in the same degree of power as maximizing any other two skill trees. Someone who maximizes Block early can cut through the game easily by Charging around with a Hide Shield out, taking no damage from enemy blows and knocking everyone on their ass. Someone who maximizes either weapon skill early-on doesn't have much to fear from enemies because they die as soon as they get in melee range. Someone who maximizes Armor skills can pretty much wear any armor of their type effectively while maintaining full mobility. Someone who maximizes sneak is invisible, and kills everything in one shot with Iron Daggers. Maximized Conjuration early plays the game for you. Maximized Destruction early allows you to blow everyone to pieces (Before you fall apart at higher levels).

Welcome to the concept of Skill Mastery - The game should be easy once you have a skill hit 100, and fully invested in the peark tree.

The only way that I've seen to maximize smithing is to go out of your way to level it... Where's the fun in running between merchants and a forge? I've seen only three games successfully pull this off - Dark Souls, Demon Souls, and I Want To Be The Guy. And all of them require the developers to EXCLUSIVELY focus on making the game hard.

How can they make a game have infinitely scaling itemization? Not even loot-based MMO's like World of Warcraft and Diablo II have scaling itemization. By maximizing smithing early, you are consciously giving yourself access to end-game loot earlier than you can get it. The game has multiple level caps hard-coded into it. Even making Smithing level slower wouldn't "Fix" the problem - People who grind the skill would STILL find it too fast (It takes only 100 Iron Daggers to raise the skill!) while those who use it normally (Crafting and upgrading little more than they use, as they use it) would rightfully complain about it being too slow, forcing them to grind it. Again - You're going out of your way to get extremely early access to the best stuff to make end-game gear, and complaining when you get it. Why do you need thousands of Iron Daggers and Hide Bracers anyway?

Dagger-spamming IS an exploit - It's a strictly player-generated behavior to take advantage of a game mechanic to raise a skill inordinately quickly. The game's balanced with the idea that all skills level at the same rate for the same amount of effort. You are greatly understating the effort it takes to raise Smithing - You have to go out, find or purchase Iron Ingots and Leather Strips, hang out at a forge, spend a while creating the same damn item over and over, and then find a way to dispose of the dead weight. If you stack enchanting with that, you also have to go out of your way to find souls.

On the other hand, you can powerlevel Block by eating a bowl of sout and Shield-bashing a stunlocked Draugr Death Overlord. You can powerlevel Conjuration simply by Soul-trapping a corpse, or running circles around a mudcrab with a bound weapon drawn. Crawling in a corner will get Sneak up to 100 quickly. Any weapon skill can be trained by going to a Stormcloak/Imperial camp and smacking the Commander around to 100 in either skill.

All the bandits I come across just wear fur and iron stuff.

1.) Appearance Slots - Wear whatever you want without sacrificing stats. Now, you do not need to make it to where without hardly even Perking Dwarven you can hit the Resistance cap.
2.) Tiers of armor and weapons are fine. They need to last longer to be memorable, and they should also have dynamic values meaning that 1 Steel Sword is not necessarily the same as ALL steel swords. Having the values randomized to an extent ensures there always be a carrot on a stick, always the chance of an upgrade.
3.) Smithing and Enchanting do not offer things to scale infinitely, they allow things to scale MORE than they do without them. Crafting professions specifically, should not be a method the player uses to scale their equipment. Crafting professions should be a choice to add customization to armor and weapons and as a source of potential income (in cases where materials are harvested or found not bought).
4.) The risk v reward for leveling skills is not there. Just by sheerly playing the game, I am increasing my skills. The rate in which this occurs is quite shocking. Hitting 100 skill does not take very long at all - especially with Combat skills. The Perk trees are further mostly bottom heavy, which means the best stuff is at the BOTTOM with much of the utility features at the TOP. This is inverted to how it should function.
5.) Smithing / Enchanting being player controlled in a single player game is kind of weird. Traditionally, professions are referred to as tradeskills because they are implemented in multiplayer games where players use this as a source of income and work as a community as they themselves do not have access to ALL of the tradeskills. In Skyrim, you do have access to ALL of the tradeskills. They are weighted too heavily. Want to know how to fix these? Here ya go:

1.) Smithing Perk tree REMOVED
2.) Players can still craft Armor or Weapons. You must now learn recipes by buying them, finding them, or finding an Expert to teach you.
3.) NPCs will improve your armor and weapons every level.
4.) Players can now craft stones to customize armor and weapons. (these stack with Enchants)
5.) Enchanting Perk tree REMOVED
6.) NPCs will now Enchant your items for you.
7.) You may overwrite enchantments.
8.) Disenchanting items is REMOVED, instead once you find an enchant you can give it to an NPC who will in turn learn the enchant and give you the item back.

Only if by "fixing" you mean the same way I "fixed" my Tomcat.

To say that these are neutered is hardly true. Smithing and Enchanting should support the itemization found in the open world, not replace it. This gives a gold sink to vendors and allows items to scale off level (which will always continue) and is now easier to balance as players are no longer able to jack up their weapons to absurd levels before entering into a dungeon, it will be more paced. It allows Smithing and Enchanting to work BETTER than they currently do. To be honest, I think Alchemy should receive basically the same treatment. Build the effectiveness in the recipe combinations and ingredients and not a separate Perk tree. Replace these trees that allows for more utility and tools in combat. This does not stop you from crafting weapons or armor. Personally, crafting in this respect should merely serve as a visual to create armor and weapons you are visually pleased with. This goes back to my comment on appearance slots.

I disagree here, and find nothing wrong with the current system, and it's far better than the PoS you suggested, especially because all suggestions go against the core idea - the freedom - of TES.

The only problem with Enchanting is the limitations on the system, such as slot-restricted effects.

Lol why? What I suggested is that the system move from Perks and player driven to NPC driven. Instead of say being able to take an item and increase it over 350% of its value off the bat, you are increasing it 350% spread out over the levels. This is called scaling. This gives a purpose to found items as crafted items do not greatly overshadow found loot. To offset losing Extra Effect, now you have Smithing stones you can combine with enchants to customize gear more. Once you find gear you like the appearance of you no longer have to trash it because you find an upgrade...It is an infinitely better system. Do you honeslty not see the flaws inherent in the current one?

There's only one problem with this.... your experiences are all about the Heavy side of the tree, which may even work the way you say. The light side of things? Sure, leather is everywhere. But Malachite and Moonstone? There aren't convenient piles of it lying around like Dwarven and Orcish metal. At least not that I found on my first character. The distribution and availability of resources would have to be completely overhauled if the system were switched so that you needed to 1) grind up more at 50+, and 2) only use the higher materials. There aren't nearly enough sources of high-end ingredients for the system you propose.

(Note: I'm not considering vendors as a source. I'm talking only about finding it "in the wild". On my first character, I only bought one or two bars of metal.... and that was quicksilver, because I still hadn't found any by the time I could craft Elven weapons. Which was several levels after Elven gear had started showing up in the world.)

On the light side of the tree, if Iron and Leather gear hadn't still worked to level off of, I would never have gotten the skill above 40 or 50. Period. Which is probably why they allowed low-end gear to work all the way to the top.

You just summed up everything wrong with your suggestion in the first sentence - You're moving everything from Player-driven to NPC-driven, and removing Player Agency - The entire POINT of this game.

You still need to find items for Enchanting, but for smithing, there's really no problem - At least no problems your suggestions wouldn't make worse.
Malachite and Refined Moonstone are even difficult and prohibitively hard to find from a vendor - You're lucky if you find them with 5-7 pieces in stock.

I guess I am a bit confused (outside of appearance or RP reasons) you would go the Left Side (Light Armor) of Smithing as it is inferior to Heavy. You miss out on the best weapons (Daedric). That is neither here nor there, the way the Smithing tree is set up the "tiers" of Perks only serve as Pre-requisites until you make/find the highest tier of item. It doesn't matter that I can improve Elven double. By the time naturally playing you can craft a whole set of Elven or have Elven, you probably have found better anyways or can craft something superior. I found an Elven Cuirass and some Gauntlets extremely quickly and had a Forsworn Bow that was a step up past the Elven. Even being able to improve the Elven more, my Forsworn just improved once was better. Most of my other gear slots had Enchants on them that were superior to the Light Armor stuff. It isn't like Dragon materials are hard to get either. The effect of Smithing is SO minimal through progression stages early on, it is all about end tier as you will be spending WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more time there, than previous ones.

It does not belong with the player. Professions are Tradeskills. Tradeskills, are used for trading. How it is envisioned and what it does in the game, would be accomplished and controlled better on NPCs. Instead, I would like to see Spell Crafting put back into the game. Also, I don't understand what your point is about Malachite and Refined Moonstone? You don't need many in stock, just enough to improve or craft your gear and you are done. Leveling Smithing, is better done with Iron Daggers and Hide Bracers.

Same for me, even the bandit chiefs rarely have anything better than steel.

I think the only ones with high level armor are the other "adventurers" which randomly spawn. Like the ones named Thief (wearing glass at higher levels), Mercenary (can have ebony), Khajiit, Imperial, Breton, and so on.

Generic bandits bosses don't usually have anything higher than steel plate.