I have noticed that when my smithing skill is maxed in do not smelt as many crafting metals as usual. Was this intended in the update?
Yep. Intended to keep people from never smelting ingots until they max the skill. Basically to try and balance out lower tier smithing items.
Some of the higher-end, ingot-heavy recipes had the requirment reduced by an ingot or two to compensate for this, as well. Basically, Steel is easier to smelt (Chalk is much less rare now, and is Grindable too) and you don't need as many ingots in general. Makes low-skill and low-level Crafting more useful and viable.
