Skyrim : loot

[siliveshere]

What level do you start getting 'interesting' equipment that makes the game a bit less of a challenge? I'm about level 7 at the moment, and definitely struggling in some places...learning to run away a lot!

[Zhaoman]

I always found Smithing too easy to level, especially after going through a dwarven ruin for the first time and coming out loaded with scrap metal to smelt. Smithing and Enchanting has always naturally been my two highest skills despite me doing nothing to try to level them.

I'd have liked Smithing to not be a skill, and to operate on a different system so some of the higher level stuff really are rare. Something along the lines of: All shops only sell Iron/Steel stuff and there's a Steel smith in every city that once you earn their respect they will smith things for you if you bring them ore (and maybe do something nice for them). And then there are various hermit smith masters in the far reaches of the land that will smith Elven/Dwarven/Orcish/Ebony/Glass and so on... that are quite hard to find and will be all but inaccessible to low level characters because of powerful monsters or the difficulty of quest. Again they will only smith stuff for you once you have gained their respect or trust through a quest or proven yourself by doing various deeds.

That way I think the player will appreciate finding loot a lot more because higher level items are much harder to obtain while Iron and Steel are the standard armour that enemies (and players) wear. They can balance this by having a Smithing skill that lets you improve and repair your weapons and armour. If they made this skill powerful enough, it would give characters a lot more (visual) individuality because if you never find an Ebony sword (the way it should be) you will have improved your Steel sword to devastating levels anyway. They should also make the it possible to improve enchantments because you get quite attached to items and don't wanna throw them away just because a numerically better one turns up!

@siliveshere: I think at around level 15 you start to be able to beat wolves around at leisure and level 25 bears should be quite comfortable. It depends what skills you level up too because if you focus on non-combat skills then you will find that enemies become much tougher. Which is again why Smithing being easy to level really bothers me...

[Macman]

Think I might be getting this at some point.... Starting to get intrigued by all the 'talk' about Skyrim...