voidgenesis Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Currently the game is highly unbalanced for the three crafting skills- alchemy, enchanting and smithing. Below are my observations of current problems and suggestions of possible solutions. It would be great if other people can add to the list so people considering modding these skills so they have a good source of ideas and observations. Problem- For all three skills the current set up rewards spamming of particular items such as iron daggers or slow poisons for gold and experience farming. It seems unrealistic that a vendor would buy an endless number of fear enchanted daggers at the same price. It also seems strange someone can be a master blacksmith when they have only ever made iron daggers.Solution- Make the value of a particular type of crafted item decrease to -100% as more of the item are produced. Since the skill gained from producing a potion depends on its value then this should already scale properly. Smithing and enchanting seem to only skill up based on the number of items. Both of these need to accumulate skill based on the value of the item produced to prevent spamming low level items. This means you need to craft a wide variety of item types to become a master smith etc, and makes it fun to figure out which item is the ideal one to produce at any moment. This would also help balance the overpowered nature of the transmute spell. If you make hundreds of gold rings they become common and not so valuable. This would also encourage enchanters to learn lots of different enchantments to keep their skill progressing. To offset this effect the quality of an item (potion power/enchant power/weapon damage/armor rating) could increase as you make more of them, up to a cap of +50% for example. This means if you want to use ebony swords or paralysis poisons then it is worth making many of them to perfect the art, but you wont get particularly rich from it. Another possibility- your skill in producing a particular item also depends on using it in combat. A master dagger maker should also be good at using them. For enchanting and alchemyProblem- the infinite loop of fortify enchantment potions and fortify alchemy enchants.Solution- Simply remove or cap these cross over effects. (Less overpowered alchemy and enchanting mod does this already) Problem- For smithing, work benches and grind stones are a bit boring to use. In addition low level iron items can be improved up to levels comparable to dragon and daedric with high levels of skill plus potions.Solution- Make weapons and armor degrade with use, but increase in value (but not armor/damage rating) when improved repeatedly. This makes sense since battle hardened gear is more valuable since it is tried and tested, and has some history associated with it. Remove fortify smithing potions and fortify smithing enchantments as well to fully separate the three crafting skills, but enhance bonuses in each perk tree.This would also work well with mods where sleep and food are essential. Getting to the end of a long dungeon might take several attempts, retreating back to town in between to sleep and repair your tools. It also encourages you to smith/enchant items you actually use and repair, until you can smith something better while selling off your battle hardened set for a tidy profit. For all threeProblem- selecting items from a menu and pressing craft is a bit boring.Solution- create minigames for each of these skills. The simple lockpicking minigame is quite fun (though could be a bit harder to make the perk tree worth taking) Ideas?Alchemy- The mixture is heated by turning up the boiler. The potency of the potion/poison increases gradually to a maximum, then falls rapidly. The potion has to be finished at the ideal time or it is ruined. The color of the mixture could show how the potency is developing. Potentially link alchemy minigame to using up health points (sitting there breathing noxious fumes) to limit the number of potions you can make at once. Also potentially give a small increase in base health points from extended alchemy practice (becoming more resistant to poisonous gases). Enchanting- The souls trapped in the soul gems still have a life of their own. The enchanter must be able to grab the rapidly moving soul and transfer it into the enchanted item. The interior of the soul gem is shown with the soul whizzing around. Stronger souls move more rapidly. The closer to the center you grab it, the stronger the enchantment. You can release the soul a few moments after you grab it if you wish to try again, but try too many times and the soul gem will shatter (shown as cracks spreading across the screen). The crack effect could be absent from Azura's star, adding to its value as a daedric artifact. Enchanting perks could make this minigame a bit easier. Possibly link enchanting minigame to using up magica points, limiting the number of enchants you can do at once. Potentially make extended enchanting practice increase base magica points slightly. Smithing- The item being created must be sculpted from blank metal. An outline of the item being created is shown on a field of metal. The mouse clicks the hammer to remove part of the metal. The longer the click is held, the bigger circle of metal is removed. As time goes on the metal cools down until it cannot be worked. The player must hammer around the outline of the item before the time runs out. The closer the hammering to the item outline, the higher the quality of the item. Smithing perks could potentially make this game easier too. Higher level metals could cool faster into an unworkable state to add challenge.Possibly link smithing minigame to stamina points, since all that hammering is hard work, limiting the amount of smithing you can do in one sitting, and let extended smithing practice increase your stamina points from all the exercise. Problem- For alchemy the guessing/strategy for discovering the properties for each ingredient is only interesting once, or zero times if you are tempted to look up properties online.Solution- Randomise ingredient properties for each new game. Potentially randomise the distribution of ingredients on the map as well if moddable. This would also mean you could benefit from adapting your strategy as you discover effects. If a very common ingredient combination gives a useful potion then it might be worth using it more in your playstyle. Problem- Mining is boring, other than the randomly finding gemstonesSolution- Make all ore veins random in their ore type and yield (including empty soul gems from anywhere in skyrim). Each vein would yield a particular metal or gems from one to four pieces of ore. Potentially make mining use up stamina points, so you can keep working an ore vein indefinitely but the pieces of ore come further apart the longer you mine, so at some point you run out of stamina and have to stop. This would work with a diversified smithing demand, so you would be waiting for particular ores to become available for you to use, and adds complexity to deciding which item to produce next. It would also make better use of purchasing a few final ingots from the blacksmith to finish an item earlier. Let extended mining increase stamina points slightly over time. Problem- For smithing and enchanting daedra hearts and black soul gems are a bit too easy to purchase from select vendors.Solution- Make all ingredient vendors and dungeon loot carry daedra hearts and black soul gems but at a very low probability. Makes it necessary to really shop around/treasure hunt to get enchanting/smithing done. Problem- For enchanting there is a gross imbalance of grand and black grand souls. Solution- Make grand and black soul gems equally abundant but still both rare and expensive.Possibly allow smaller soul gems to be combined with some loss into larger ones (perhaps add this power to the soul siphon perk, e.g. “Can combine the power of up to three soul gems in one enchantment”) Problem- Vendors can in general be farmed for any particular ingredientSolution- The abundance of an ingredient decreases and the price increases slightly every time you buy some. This is the flipside of depressing the price of any item by producing hundreds of them. For alchemy this can be compensated by having inn keepers/food merchants sell non-harvestable ingredients like garlic, salt piles, frost mirriam and elves ears (they are commonly hanging in inns, yet the inn keepers don't sell them!) Problem- Alchemy is imbalanced for defensive (healing potions) over offense (poisons to kill). Solution- Change one of the many useless higher perks into the ability to use a silent blow dart gun to deliver poisons, with a percent effect bonus. Problem- Lock picking is too easy (not a direct crafting issue).Solution- Make higher locks much harder but easier with lockpicks crafted from metals other than iron (expand smithing to lockpicks on all levels). Problem- Food and cooking is weak and pointless.Solution- Make eating (and sleeping) essential to prevent skills from decreasing. Link skill in alchemy to skill in cooking so that food can become as powerful as potions (probably with longer lasting effects to balance the short term strong effects of potions). This could be done through some of the useless current alchemy perks on a side tree. Problem- Chugging a healing potion while an enemy is about to hit you is unrealistic and cheesy.Solution- Using a potion uses a few moments of game time in the same way as changing your weapon does (same thing for changing apparel but even longer). There is already a mod that makes all potions take a few seconds to take full effect as well that is on the right track here. Thats more than enough to get the ideas flowing. What have you wanted changed about the crafting skills to make them more balanced and fun? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allephus Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 I haven't been able to retain any such infinite loop for Fortify Alchemy/Enchanting. For me, the maximum I could get on Fortify Smithing was like...29-30% from all armors, and 131-132% from the potions. Since the bug with the falmer helmet was fixed (I believe, in 1.3? I haven't tried it out yet.), the mathematical cap, I'm assuming is then 130%(Smithing Potion), 28%(Smithing Enchantment), 35%(Enchanting potion), and 31% (Alchemy) If I'm wrong, then please tell me, but I've tried and only experienced this. I believe the cap for the calculable fortify smithing skill becomes 350 at maximum, but I could be a little off there. That was just my observation. I do agree about the dagger thing though. Experience wise, it's kinda over-the-top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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