LE Smitthing skill gains that make sense.

[mrboneguy]

Crafting a few hundred or however many leather armor pieces should not enable me to craft the best armors in the game.

 

The skill gains on smithing items should have diminishing returns. Assign smithing levels to items (not visible to the player) and if your smithing level is above it, you start getting less and less per level your smthing is above the item. Say leather gloves are level 5, if your smithing is at 10 then you only get 50% skill gain. At level 12 you get 30% and at level 15 you get 0.

 

This way you can't just spend a couple thousand for a bunch of leather and mass level your smithing skill to godliness.

 

I'm actually very surprised this isn't already in the game. And if it is already in the game then it's not nearly harsh enough.

 

Edit: I haven't tried to mass level all of the skills in the game yet, but it seems this same thing could apply to other skills too. Something like wimpy monsters not being able to level your weapon or armor skills after you're too high level in those skills.

Edited November 16, 2011 by mrboneguy

[AtlasS]

I support this greatly and hope that such a mod will be quick to the scene

[Demonmustang]

I agree this would be a great mod to see. just so I could start working on enchanted gear I bought a bunch of leather to bump it up to 60 from it's previous...43? I got there faster and it made things easier, but if things are too easy you usually tend to appreciate them less.

[stromulus28]

There's a bit of a built-in penalty against doing this, I've noticed. I worked my way up to ~lvl60 in enchantment and lvl80 in smithing pretty early on. These don't really help all that much in combat, so for a while I was getting creamed. It's not that you CAN'T quickly level up smithing, enchantment, alchemy, lockpicking, etc., but you shouldn't. It's counter-productive in the grand scheme of things.

 

Plus, while I agree it's silly that I can make badass armor because I made 500 iron daggers, I don't see how your proposed changes would make the game more fun. More realistic... maybe... but this isn't exactly a realistic game!

[mrboneguy]

There's a bit of a built-in penalty against doing this, I've noticed. I worked my way up to ~lvl60 in enchantment and lvl80 in smithing pretty early on. These don't really help all that much in combat, so for a while I was getting creamed. It's not that you CAN'T quickly level up smithing, enchantment, alchemy, lockpicking, etc., but you shouldn't. It's counter-productive in the grand scheme of things.

 

Plus, while I agree it's silly that I can make badass armor because I made 500 iron daggers, I don't see how your proposed changes would make the game more fun. More realistic... maybe... but this isn't exactly a realistic game!

 

 

It's just a matter of balance. Let's examine the extremes... You could just start with 100 smithing and not have to level up at all. Well, then it loses essence of an RPG and a layer of character building. Sure, munchkin gamers may enjoy this, but they don't really count in any case. As far as I know, the goal of the game is to be an RPG. It could also take hundreds of hours to level it up, which basically makes it not worth the time.

 

What we would have, ideally, is a balance. The perfect spot right in the middle where the player feels like the next level of gear is within reach, but that they have actually done something to earn it. Currently, blasting out 100 iron daggers and leather gloves doesn't really seem like much has been done to earn it. It's not on par with the rest of the game. There's a reason you don't give the player dragon armor right in the beginning and it's the same reason smithing shouldn't be so easy to level up.

 

 

Balance and pacing. Very important to game design. If it is done well, the game is indeed more fun.