First post here, love the game apart from the smithing/enchanting elements.

I dont want to 'grind' out hundreds of daggers to 'cheat' my way to 100 smithing by level 20.

I would rather find my upgrades during my quests, it adds to the fun. However so far I have never found anything other than basic armour/weapon types, nothing improved even to 'fine' quality.

Smithing is so easy in the game and the benefits are so great why is nobody else in the whole world improving their weapons & armour?

Perhaps I am not far enough into the game and I stand to be corrected.

Why cant I commission one of the higly skilled smiths in the game to improve my armour for me, say 10,000 gold for a full set so its not too easy.

Levelling smithing feels like cheating (levelling smithing by 20, and your character by 4 levels without even leaving a town WTF?) but it seems like there is no viable alternative to this at the moment??

Any thoughts anyone?

For smithing you have to control yourself. I only smith new items when I have enough stuff to make them, actively search out for the ingredients and only upgrade weapons and armor I actually use, so no power leveling for me. Which makes it a lot harder for smithing to increase and level 100 is still a very long away for my current char.

As to why nobody else does it? I have no idea, it's stupid but they don't.

I began seeing NPCs with upgraded weapons and armor at about level 40+.

probably they dunno how to perk smithing

I only take the steel and arcane smithing perks, then I level smithing naturally.

I honestly think enemies should have better/improved armor as you level, rather than stick to the same crap with tons of health. Most bandit camps have forges and grindstones anyway.

I smithed naturally too, I smithed hundreds of iron daggers to equip the Imperial army for their war agaisnt the stormcloaks

So it does happen then. Thats good news.

Smithing question: If I only take the first perk and the arcane smithing perk, does that mean I can augment any weapon (daedric, ebony, etc. and the other types I'm not perked for) by double, once it's enchanted?

Players griped uncontrollably about bandit and marauder gear in Oblivion getting better and better. We thought it extremely unrealistic and immersion-breaking that bandits and marauders own anything but junk. If you're looking for a reason why no one else in the world is upgrading armor and weapons, then start there. We begged for NPCs to be even stupider than they already were, and we didn't even know it.

Hiring smiths to make and improve things for you, and hiring alchemists to brew things for you or enchanters to enchant things for you, would be nice. I think most of us gain more satisfaction from using gold well than we do from simply hoarding it.

The problem in Oblivion wasn't upgrading, the problem was that normal bandits would walk around in Elven, Orcish, Ebony or even Daedric gear. When especially the later two sets could buy you half a city. It made absolutely no sense for them to have stuff like that.

It would be like somebody stealing a Ferrari and instead of selling it for 300.000 dollars going to one gas station after another to steal five dollars until he can make 300.000 dollars like that. Just didn't make sense.

No, that would make the other perks worthless.

Yeah, everyone and their dog wearing high level armors was the #1 thing that ruined oblivion for me. Skyrim is much better in that regard, though personally I still wish that high level materials were much rarer. Good idea stopping at steel + enchantments and only leveling off of materials you find in the world. I did that in my last game, and it worked out very well, with smithing staying in around 3rd place in my highest skills (which I'd say was near perfect, balance-wise)

What I'd like to see is upgraded gear within the loot tables, but there would be a drawback if they did.

It wouldn't hurt to see a Bandit or a treasure chest with some armor and/or weapons that's been smithed to fine, superior, exquisite (etc) when you loot them. It's fesible to do so but Bethesda choosed not to. This is because it would add hundereds, if not thousands, of more item ID's within the database... and Lord knows if the single CD disk that came within the box could have held that much info.

Although not having such npcs isn't realistic, or rather isn't verisimilitudinous, it's a question of character balance. You get limited perks, and have to decide to take crafting skills over more combat or thieving related perks. Why would anyone take a few perks in crafting when they could get someone else to do it, and put those points into hitting harder? The entire point of the perk system is you have to choose which benefits your character has access to, and the game world sometimes has to take a hit for those choices to be meaningful.

You think of the horned axes and sword, they are just an better version of faction equipment, most can be upgraded more and is nice it you like the style.

Upgraded gear had been an nice way to 1) give enemies better gear while avoiding the bandits in daeric problem in Oblivion 2) give all players access to upgraded gear,

How rare do you want them to be?! The materials needed for making Daedric armor and weapons are rare. At level 60 have I still only found enough to craft 20 Daedric items. That is just enough for a couple of sets of armor and weapons to equip me and my follower. And of course one needs to get the perk for Daedric smithing first (90 in Smithing). Daedric items then still do not drop very often for me and I am happy about a find each time.

Any rarer and people will flood the forum with the question of where to find them. I think it is good the way it is. You do not want to miss them, do you?

They have the same issue with enchanted gear today, yes this would add an extra dimension elven axe (fine) of 10 fire damage.
The master list is just used to build up loot tables.

Yes I agree, I don't like smithing much at all. I use it to improve weapons but I don't make any because I think it's silly that you don't need plans or blueprints. And like you I find it more enjoyable to find things in the world or at merchants than making them, that's why I don't use enchant either. Another reason I don't use smithing or enchanting is I prefer slower levelling so I use as few skills as possible. I do enjoy upgrading items though.

I think it would be great if there were NPCs who would do these things for you and charge you money. Also recharging enchanted weapons.

If they had legendary smithed weapons, it would defeat the purpose of using smithing, thats why its not gonna happen, and thts why they just get bloated health, cuz that is about the equivalent to them having legendary gear that blocks 80 percent o damage.

Read the first sentence of the post you are replying to.

A good way of leveling smithing would have been repairing your character's armor and weapons, and made the whole skill more important than just for making awesome armor at low levels, but since they took item degradation out...

I did. Are you now saying you did not write it?

well... draugr get improved weapons. the though ones of them are the only real enemies anyways. bandits, dragons and animals are only toys.