Smithing slow?

[Darkfaller12]

Hi all,

 

Been playing Skyrim now for what seems like forever, but have some issues with the smithing leveling, i can build dozens of bracers or armours and it only levels up a tiny bit, when i first started smithing it only took a couple of items to level.

 

Is it a bug or does it really take forever, i am after the dragon armour but need to be level 100.

 

Also certain quests are messed up, like taking the winterhold prison quest, the prisoners never leave the cells, even after i used the key.

 

Is there a way to fix these issues or must i wait for a patch or something.

 

Thanks.

[RedRavyn]

It's not a bug. Bethesda overhauled the smithing system in the 1.5 patch just so you couldn't grind smithing to get levels like that. Somewhere along the line an enterprising modder will fix this issue and make it back the way it was. Bethesda should never have done this, since the patch broke every single smithing mod. As one of my Navy senior NCOs used to say -- "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". The smithing system wasn't broken prior to 1.5. Let people play the game like they want to. If you're into power-leveling using smithing, then it's your decision to live with the consequences down the line (and there are bad consequences to this).

[jbranin]

I'm in the exact same boat. Smithing is at 93, and I've been working forever to make dragon scale. Maybe I'll try making a bunch of ebony daggers. Could get a little expensive.

[RedRavyn]

@ jbranin: From what I've seen of the few comments about the effects of the new smithing system, I think that Bethesda seriously over-compensated for their perceived "error" in making grinding possible through smithing. Now it would seem like it's necessary to specialize in Smithing, completely filling out the perk tree and spending a lot of time and effort at smithing every single thing the game will let you just to be able to put those dragon scales and dragon bones to use.

 

That said, I just use leather armor until very late in the game, anyway. Once I've been able to craft a full suit of leather armor that has accorded me quite well in previous playthoroughs all the way up until I reach a 100 in Smithing and can make my dragonscale armor. I don't like heavy armor, and I hate the glitzy look of unrealistic armor like Elven and Glass armor. Actually, Bethesda got too "cutesy" with dragon armor, too -- looks good on a mannequin, but fantasy armor is just too impractical for real life use.

[thompsonar]

I'll start by saying that I never really used smithing a lot anyway, but isn't the new patch supposed to account for the created items value when leveling smithing? That's the way I understood it, so that smithing higher tiered items gives you more progress to the next level than just churning out iron daggers (like it used to be). I've never gotten smithing anywhere near 100 so I dunno about progress once you reach the 90's.

[Darkfaller12]

Thanks thought it was just my Smithing that was busted, not to worry, i have a fairly decent set of armour at 299 rating, just wish i could get better weapons, best sword i have is only 41 damage and i cannot seem to smith it higher (Chillend blade).

 

Pretty sure Lydia keeps nicking my gear when im not home in Breezehome :)

[Brandy1123]

They spend a lot of time and effort ruining a decent game by manipulating and destroying a WORKING aspect. They should be spending their time fixng the REAL broken areas and functions starting with quests.

[billyro]

I haven't tried levelling up smithing since getting to 100, and that was before the 1.5 patch. I don't know if it still works this way, but I simply crafted hundreds of iron daggers, because they use the least materials and you get the same amount of experience as anything else. Again, I don't know if this was rectified in the 1.5 patch, so yeah.

[RedRavyn]

You can't do that any more, billyro. The 1.5 patch ties the experience you get with smithing to the price of the item you create. Iron daggers and leather bracers, formerly the mainstay of smithing grinders, don't get you diddly squat for experience, any more. This means you have to work your tail off to get to higher smithing perks so you can start creating the really nice armor and weapons in order to get justifiable experience.

 

The problem is that this is a Catch-22, because by the time you've reached a level high enough to do that, the experience you get doesn't impact your level as much as it would have at lower levels unless you're putting all your perks into smithing. If you do that, then your survivability is going to suffer because your combat skills will be too low. If you don't do that then you'll never be able to improve the best gear you can find in the game, which also negatively impacts your survivability. I'm not going to tell you where I think the devs heads were when they made this decision. I think you know the location, and the sun doesn't shine, there.

 

Bethesda has created a monster, here, from all accounts I've read. They wanted to stop grinding. What they've done is to force people to grind smithing even harder just to be able to craft good items. They should have left this alone. It was working, and it's the player's decision whether or not to grind for levels. They could have spent their time and effort better by squashing the real bugs in the game that are still plaguing us, rather than releasing patches which dodge the real issues by restructuring things which are already working and trying to pacify us with more eyecandy.