Crafting is absurd

[myrdred]

I have this mental block with games where if I feel like leveling up my sword is more important than leveling up my character I'm not having fun. It feels less heroic when the character matters less than the gear. So I'm curious: How would you fix crafting so that it doesn't blow away all other skills? As it stands you'll see much bigger increases in power if you go gather flowers, metal, etc. than if you actually play.

 

The thread isn't meant to start an argument on things, just to see what tweaks people would make to rebalance this. Because, whether you're a fan of the current state of things or not, there's no argument that the balance is not there.

[Valamyr]

I'd try a simple cap of 100% to fortification of Smithing, Alchemy and Enchantment. In other words, your potions and magic trinkets could only make your results twice as good as if you were crafting butt-naked.

 

Whilst at 100% fortification you can still create extremely powerful items, it wouldn't be an absolute no brainer anymore. Right now someone could perk up only the three crafts, work the numbers and the multipliers and one-shot everything.

 

I like powerful crafting skills, its refreshing, but it breaks too easily when you can make a suit of armor and drink a potion (made with a different specially crafted set of armor and under the effect of another potion to power up the first potion) can bring you at triple effectiveness.

 

As a plus, a 100% cap would allow you to spend a lot less time worrying about minmaxing your crafting and just doing it. Its easy to hit with one "normal" potion and two items you can find in dungeons. Crafting that way would feel liberating when compared to all the crap I have to haul around and the precise sequences I have to go through to make my potions to make the armor I'll need to be better at enchanting the actual piece of armor I wanted to make three hours ago. Thats not fun.

[sixcross]

I'd try a simple cap of 100% to fortification of Smithing, Alchemy and Enchantment. In other words, your potions and magic trinkets could only make your results twice as good as if you were crafting butt-naked.

 

Whilst at 100% fortification you can still create extremely powerful items, it wouldn't be an absolute no brainer anymore. Right now someone could perk up only the three crafts, work the numbers and the multipliers and one-shot everything.

 

I like powerful crafting skills, its refreshing, but it breaks too easily when you can make a suit of armor and drink a potion (made with a different specially crafted set of armor and under the effect of another potion to power up the first potion) can bring you at triple effectiveness.

 

As a plus, a 100% cap would allow you to spend a lot less time worrying about minmaxing your crafting and just doing it. Its easy to hit with one "normal" potion and two items you can find in dungeons. Crafting that way would feel liberating when compared to all the crap I have to haul around and the precise sequences I have to go through to make my potions to make the armor I'll need to be better at enchanting the actual piece of armor I wanted to make three hours ago. Thats not fun.

 

*cough* http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/468076-1-2-shot-absalutly-everything-on-expert-legit-play/page__p__3846360__fromsearch__1#entry3846360

yeah the crafting system is way too broken now and I can't wait till we can start rolling out some mods to fix it

Edited November 21, 2011 by sixcross

[vineyard]

nah, crafting may has some balance issues,but way off broken.

you may get ur gears up to some extreme extent at early of the game but as your skill going up ,so does ur level and your enemies,meanwhile your fighting skills would be probably as crap as hell and you get knocked down more often than normally would.so what's the point?

[dazaris]

I'd try a simple cap of 100% to fortification of Smithing, Alchemy and Enchantment. In other words, your potions and magic trinkets could only make your results twice as good as if you were crafting butt-naked.

 

Whilst at 100% fortification you can still create extremely powerful items, it wouldn't be an absolute no brainer anymore. Right now someone could perk up only the three crafts, work the numbers and the multipliers and one-shot everything.

 

I like powerful crafting skills, its refreshing, but it breaks too easily when you can make a suit of armor and drink a potion (made with a different specially crafted set of armor and under the effect of another potion to power up the first potion) can bring you at triple effectiveness.

 

As a plus, a 100% cap would allow you to spend a lot less time worrying about minmaxing your crafting and just doing it. Its easy to hit with one "normal" potion and two items you can find in dungeons. Crafting that way would feel liberating when compared to all the crap I have to haul around and the precise sequences I have to go through to make my potions to make the armor I'll need to be better at enchanting the actual piece of armor I wanted to make three hours ago. Thats not fun.

Totally agree with this. The other thing I'd like see happen is the general power of crafted/enchanted equipment to be reduced. Have crafted gear be filler gear until you find something better in the world to replace it. Something you can pump out of a forge by the dozen shouldn't be worlds better than an ancient weapon imbued with the power of a dark Daedric god.

 

EDIT: I accidentally a word

Edited November 21, 2011 by dazaris

[PsYchotic666Joker]

or ignore all 3, smithing enchanting and alchemy like i do, not wasting my time with them as they're broken/over powered w/e....i really do not want to be more tempted to cheat and if i do i might as well toggle tgm, go to the testinghall and grab whatever i need and then start fast travelling which i really hate and never do....so yea, i just ignore it all from the get go anyways

[soot00]

I'd try a simple cap of 100% to fortification of Smithing, Alchemy and Enchantment. In other words, your potions and magic trinkets could only make your results twice as good as if you were crafting butt-naked.

 

Whilst at 100% fortification you can still create extremely powerful items, it wouldn't be an absolute no brainer anymore. Right now someone could perk up only the three crafts, work the numbers and the multipliers and one-shot everything.

 

I like powerful crafting skills, its refreshing, but it breaks too easily when you can make a suit of armor and drink a potion (made with a different specially crafted set of armor and under the effect of another potion to power up the first potion) can bring you at triple effectiveness.

 

As a plus, a 100% cap would allow you to spend a lot less time worrying about minmaxing your crafting and just doing it. Its easy to hit with one "normal" potion and two items you can find in dungeons. Crafting that way would feel liberating when compared to all the crap I have to haul around and the precise sequences I have to go through to make my potions to make the armor I'll need to be better at enchanting the actual piece of armor I wanted to make three hours ago. Thats not fun.

 

*cough* http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/468076-1-2-shot-absalutly-everything-on-expert-legit-play/page__p__3846360__fromsearch__1#entry3846360

yeah the crafting system is way too broken now and I can't wait till we can start rolling out some mods to fix it

 

It's only broken for the powergamers exploiting the feature. Mods will fix it but the powergamers simply won't install the mods.

[ogridum]

Crafting is a source of POWER.

A source of power due to ARMOR and WEAPONS.

 

 

This source of power has to be balanced with other sources of POWER. Such as enemies and dungeons/treasure chests and VENDORS that also provide.. ARMOR and WEAPONS.

 

The current imbalance is that, the blacksmith crafting provides EASIER, CHEAPER and GREATER power than the other sources. While greatly benefiting from VENDORS.

 

To fix that, one must increase one, or decrease the other.

 

 

Remove level scaling from affecting vendor sell tabbles and loot tabbles on dungeons/enemies.

 

So we have a static rarity tabble for all sources.

 

After that, we balance the easyness of access to POWER on VENDORS. How?

Increasing the cost of their raw materials that directly affect blacksmithing grinding.

If materials are hard to come by, they have to be expensive. The time to get resources manually should be equivalent to the time to acquire the currency to acquire the same resources from the blacksmith, so that one doesnt prevails greatly over the other.

 

So we remove level scaling. Make it so finding things manually in dungeons is more common than finding them on Blacksmiths. Increase prices of raw materials.

 

Their loot tabble restock every 36-48 hours, with new stuff out of thin air. To balance that, we increase the prices of everything and tweak the rarity of the restocked weapons/armors/ raw materials.

 

Make it so rare things are actually rare.

Make it so going to dungeons is easier than finding something on vendors after many restocks routines.

Make it so prices on vendors are high enough, so that hunting and mining are encouraged due to their new found worthiness.

 

Now that we level the source of power.

We tweak Blacksmith itself. The second step.

 

Make it so crafting each item takes a realistic minimum time and gives a realistic experience.

If we cant tweak time to slow down progress to a realistic progression. "One does not become a master in a day". Then we make it so takes more craftings to give the same experience. Ultimatelly reaching the same goal: slow down progression, increase the amount of time and effort required to progress to a realistic balanced level.

 

I propose making blacksmith take 10 times more crafitngs. From 500 daggers to 5000 daggers. This will require more investment in time and money. It will ultimatelly prevent one to craft 5000 daggers in a sit, due to weight limitations, restock limitations, raw materials limitations, resources to actually get the materials to make these 5000 daggers. Thats the idea.

 

The actual power benefit provided at end game would be balanced and justified by the time and effort spent. Wich is the current issue. To cheap, too fast, to easy.

 

 

So its not about just blackmithing.

But vendors and loot tabbles. Prices and XP rates.

I really would like to see a LIMITATION TO : MINIMUM TIME BETWEEN CRAFTS.

 

One blacksmith cannot REASONABLY craft more than X swords/daggers per day. Or in the game, a few clicks are a few minutes. This bugs me greatly.

 

 

People want everything NOW!!! This was delivered by Bethesda. The feeling of accomplishing became guilty. The compromise for a clean conscience is time and effort. S.L.O.W.T.H.E F.U.C.K.D.O.W.N and enjoy the journey. Or just open console and cheat everything.

 

If you want to play "exploity" within a balanced set of rules. Then we mod it so it atleast takes way more materials to improve the skill and that its way harder to get the materials and raw materials to make the awesome weapons and armor and so that they have durability, since everything restock.

 

Right now, once one gets to a certain level, they find a glass/ebony weapon and thats about it, they dont ever need one again, its very hardy to upgrade from that. Blacksmithing become a bee line race grind to 100. Materials are cheaply bought and acquired from vendors. It sucks.

 

 

Once one gets to 100 blacksmith, 100 enchant and 100 alchemy. Even without any combat abilities, they are now able to wield more power than they will ever need. Just 100 blacksmithing itself already has that pronounced effect. You cannot argue that people are compromising their other skills because enemies level up with them. By having 100, 100, 100 nothing the game can throw at you can keep up. Stacking potions, stacking enchantments, insane damage multipliers, resists, damage mitigation caps. Even without weapon perks and skill the weapons will likelly kill things too fast despite just having 20 points on each combat skill.

Edited November 21, 2011 by ogridum

[PsYchotic666Joker]

^This

 

I would love to see something like that as an overhaul or something :)

[Scorpio9]

All 3 skills (smiting, alchemy, enchantment) are overpowered.

 

1. Player can't craft (make weapons/armor/enchant/potions...) in unlimited number per day.

This is crucial in balancing the whole thing, imagine your self creating 100 daggers in less than a day - It's ridiculous.

 

2. Crafting depends on stamina!

Simple, you can't run forever, why could you craft forever?

It might seem that this is same as 1. but it's not, 1. has to do with time, 2. has to do with player physical abilities.

 

2. Player must pay certain % of crafted item value to one who owns workbench/alchemy/enchantment table...

Example 10%, but this number should be different and it should depend on how much owner likes you (quest stuff).

 

3. Potions have no effect on your crafting abilities.

 

4. There is allot of noncraftable weapons and armors, so there should be a way to make them in to recipes.

Items would be destroyed in process, but player could craft them. This must be perk since player would need some knowledge to do this.

 

I'm sure that this could be expanded much more.

Maybe we should organize/unify our ideas and find someone who would be willing to make mod.