Sometimes i don't feel Skyrim had the benefits of a beta stage as weapons and armors are quite unbalanced.

First weapons aren't really equal and there's a huge difference of efficiency between the improved one and the others. For example we can have in the same time a common steel sword well improved reaching 150+ damage and a unique dwemer artifact (keening) that can't be improved and reach with difficulty 20+ damage. As a non improvable item it's largely unbalanced but it also can't be affect by one handed magical bonus as a dagger (bug or not...). I don't see why a common item can do more than 7 times the damage of an unique weapon but this difference can be found in many other weapons (bugged or not).

I don't think that armors are well managed neither. Difference between light and heavy is very tedious as quickly you are capped at 560+ with one or the other. So light or heavy they protect the same way. Perhaps the main difference is situated in the weight ? With a few points in either skill weight is also quickly set to 0 (not 20% or 50%... 0) so why do i have to chose between this two types when they protect the same manner and weight the same...

I just found that the better part of Skyrim is when you just begin a new game, without too much skill you fight for your life, armors and weapons are well balanced but when you gain more and more levels you begin to remove more and more items which were useful once but no more. And at a level of 50+ you understand that a well improved common steel Blade sword can do better damage than any other weapons from this game and only cost you one skill point in smithing...

Sad.

The game isn't unbalanced, how you play it and how you spend your Perk can make it unbalanced though.

I'd imagine (by the wording of your OP) that you have a decent Smithing score, yet only ever put one Perk into Smithing, the Steel smithing that you mentioned. If you only place one Perk point into Steel, but keep Smithing items and raising the score, then it obvious that your Steel weapons and armor are going to beat out the best items in the game. It's where you placed you focus as far as Smithing goes.

For the exact same reason Keening won't be anywhere near as strong as your Steel longsword. Had you placed a Perk in Arcane Smithing and even tried to upgrade Keening, then it would be past your Steel weapon in power.

What I see, is that you purposefully worked your game like this for the argument, nothing more. The way you worked your Perks and scores, there's no doubt in my mind that your Steel weapons and Armor are vastly better than any other base item in the game, because you worked it that way by choice.

The game isn't unbalanced, you just worked your numbers for the argument.

The game is not unbalanced. It allows you to build a super strong character that can clear out dungeons with a sneeze, or a wimp character that can't handle a skeever or a character that has the level of challenge you want.

It is all in how you pick and choose your skills, perks and equipment.

This game does have serious balance issues. Everything the TC said is 100% correct. I love this game, too, but I'm not going to defend bad game design with ridiculous arguments like, "you don't have to choose perks that make your character better".

The game seemed pretty balanced to me, i've never hit the amour cap and I don't expect a weapon to be better to that of one that is made from better materials.

At it's core, Skyrim is probably the best balanced Elder Scrolls game, but there still are glaring balance issues. Crafting, while on the whole, a great addition that I hope stays in Elder Scrolls games forever, is probably two, maybe three iterations from finding a place in Elder Scrolls gameplay that doesn't make it a burning necessity, yet makes it extremely desirable. Yes, I know that the game is perfectly playable without crafting, smithing and enchanting is where 99% of horizontal character growth occur. Without NPC smithing and Enchanting options, on top of a wholly unshackled system, Crafting in Skyrim feels too essential.

I'd have less of a problem with it, if Smithing required more exploration, instead of just Shop-hopping for rare materials. Think back to Shivering Isles and Bloodmoon, how Maddness ore, Amber and Stalhrim could only be acquired in the field. High-quality materials shouldn't be available at smiths. It makes enough sense that a professional blacksmith would immediately turn over any Ebony or Glass to Armor-weapons for the incredible markup they usually charge, instead of letting assface bob raid his stash and make better armor for pennies on the dollar.

You hit the nail on the head.

But that's the glaring flaw in the OP. He did do just that. He deliberately only put a Perk into Steel smithing, then continued to usr Smithing so that the level went up but never put any more Perks into it.

Therefore, his Steel smithed Weapons and Armor are going to vastly outgun the base... glass sword that he finds during exploration. Had he put dome Perks in other slots in Smithing, then said glass Sword would [/i]vastly[/i] out do his aforementioned Steel sword.

He chose to work the numbers this way and then complain that the "game's unbalanced" as if a Steel Sword naturally has better stats than say... Glass weapons and armor.

What would/could be different? That higher level weapons like Glass should be so high of a level that even a maxed out Steel Sword should be far behind a Base level Glass Sword that even the base Glass [/i]far[/i] outstrips it?

That would be broken.

If you don't want a Steel Sword to beat out a base level Glass/Ebony/Daedric weapon, then there are really only a couple of options:

1. Put more Perks into Smithing as you are able, that way all weapons scale at the same rate.

2. Don't put perks in any part of Smithing. You can still upgrade normal weapons, but at only a fraction of what you can do when compared to someone who has the appropriate Perk.

3. Don't use Smithing. Just use whatever you find in the field, and never try to upgrade it.

I mean, really. It takes some work to get Smithing up, even if all you do is travel from city to city shopping materials.

And the OP wants to bring up hitting the armor cap? Do you realize that the armor cap can only be reached by exploiting potions, enchantments, and having at least three Skills maxed out at 100?

IIRC, even then Heavy Armor will still protect better than Light Armor.

But you have to use an exploit to get the items to that maximum. How is that broken? You are choosing to use an exploit, something that bends the rules of the game almost to breaking. It's your choice that you placed your Perks and used your Skills in such a way that Steel weapons are so strong when compared to other weapons. In my game, my Daedric Greatsword is almost fully 5x's stronger than any Steel sword I could make. Because I used Perks to keep them scaling at the same level.

The game isn't broken. You used exploits and tried to pass it off as the way the game "naturally" behaves so that you'd have something to talk about.

The game scales/plays just fine, it isn't broken, and it won't be broken unless you are the one breaking it.

So people are upset because we have too much freedom in the game.

Whenever I read a complaint post, I try to decide whether it's a real complaint, or just bragging disguised as complaint. A lot of "this game is so easy and unbalanced and broken" posts are just people trying to say "look at me! look how awesome I am"

While many complaint threads have there merits, most of the time it boils down to "Not sure if trolling, or just stupid."

Lolwut? First off, the armor cap is 80% damage reduction, which can be easily achieved with a much lower armor rating than my 789 base armor in my full Daedric suit. Secondly, that armor and equipment has no enchants, and the only time I fortify Heavy Armor is with a potion, which brings it to ~815.

So, for one, it is completely false that you have to exploit anything to get the armor cap, or to go above it. I do both with just Heavy Armor and Smithing perks.

Also, you do make a good point about heavy armor, because my Orc that has maxed heavy armor has an armor rating of 789, whilst my Khajiit who maxed light armor is at 589 (Nightingale armor).

So they certainly do not become equal in armor rating(despite the 80% cap). The only way they become equal is when they both become weightless through perks. Other than that, HA and LA are aesthetically different, have different protection ratings, and have perks that grant MANY special unique abilities to each (i.e. HA has reflect melee damage and LA has avoid melee damge and a boost to stamina regen, etc.).

Problem is that you get that super strong character by just playing the game normally

Keening can't be improved and as a dagger doesn't benefit from any magical one handed enhancement. So if an unique powerful artifact can do no more than 20 damage when i can do more than 150 with a common sword... I think that the only arguments that are not well worked for the argument are yours...
I've taken other kind of smith with other characters but i found no interest of having daedric weapons that are not so powerful when i compared it to common blade sword (only steel by the way).

By the way is it normal to be unable to kill anybody with such a dagger at high level ? And how many blows do i have to achieve to kill a high level dragon with such weapon when two or three hits from another weapon can do the same work faster. With some ease at high level one can do more than 250-300+ damage in one hit...

And you want the Dragonborn to be just another average joe? Being uber-powerful in the late-game phase is what every game on the market is about.

You're the Dragonborn... you're supposed to be powerful. Just like the CoC was powerful in late-game play, and the Nerevarine before that in Morrowind.

Absolutely Right.

I've tried to play softly in avoiding most of the high end optimization but it's hard to not get strong....
And i don't use enchantment no more, it's way too unbalanced combined with high smith level. No more +200% weapon etc.

An average joe that can kill any high end dragon with 2 hits....

I don't see any argument here.

By the way you don't know this game very well. I max my armor light and heavy with no potion at all, no enchantment and not so much skill points neither...

Hes saying the dragonborn IS NOT an average joe.

i know Keening can't be improved, but you used it as an example, so I repeated the example. The point of my argument is that there are Daedric artifacts that can be improved with Arcane Smithing, but you want to complain that a Steel Sword can be more powerful than a base artifact. There's a pretty descent "well duh" argument there. If you don't take the Perks to improve Magical weapons and armament, then of course a lower quality Sword will out distance them.

And should you take the Daedric Smithing Perk, you'll find that unless you use exploits, the Daedric longsword is vastly superior in damage to a Steel longsword.

Why should a Glass Dagger do more damage to a Dragon than an Iron Dagger? Better materials. Simple as that.

If you find that Daedric Weapons (with other characters, as you brought up) are no more powerful than their lesser counterparts, then you have really done a bad job of applying Perks and improvements. Every character I've had, without exploits, has had Daedric weapons far, far better in every category than their Steel counterparts.

Thanks for the psychological trial but it's only a statement i did on a game i really enjoy, even with frustration. I only hope one day some things working weirdly will be enhanced.

I'm going to call you a liar right here.

There's no way to hit the damage/defense cap unless one of two things happening;

1. You use exploits.

2. You have all of the necessary Perks in place and those appropriate Skills very close to 100.

If one of those two things above doesn't apply, then you're nowhere near the damage/defense cap.

Arguments can be treacherous.

You tell me.

You're the one who first brought it up as if lack of Perks were keeping you from making it better. I've refuted every single point you have, yet you only repeat/quote the parts that you want and out of context.

So you tell me how treacherous they can be.

Try a powerful hit with some 300+ damage weapons and count the number of hits required.
Perhaps more hits are needed to kill a millenium dragon, but not so much to kill the less powerful ones.

I've read all of your arguments but i still prefer mine.