Cold take, but Smithing 3 is weirdly hard to find

[Blerrger19]

Call me crazy, but this has always bugged me, and it seems to me like there's something wrong with the game when I'm picking up Smithing 5 in the same place where you find the bell that lets you buy 3 & 4

It seems like they always give you the bell AFTER it's needed. Maybe just me, but I'd be a lot more comfortable with a +9 BEFORE leaving Liurnia. It's damn hard farming those 3's and I have a lot of weapons I want to upgrade. Then I always feel like my weapon is subpar by the time I finish capital and ofc you don't get the bell for 5 & 6 until you reach Mountaintops (tbf it's pretty much the first thing you find upon arrival, but still). Not to mention it's weird being able to shoot from +6 straight to +12 before even entering capital, and even weirder shooting from +12 all the way to +18 on the doorstep of Mountaintops (with enough runes ofc). The last bell as a reward for Godskin Duo is just...wtf. I'm glad I have it for Maliketh and everything after I just wonder if they couldn't have given it to us sooner. Maybe at the start of the area instead of the end, you know just to keep the trend going if nothing else...?

I realize it's much less of a problem when you're married to only a single weapon, but the problem becomes glaringly obvious as soon as you start upgrading 2-3 weapons (i.e. if you're trying to dual wield anything). Also, there's plenty of 3's and 4's if you know where to look (i.e. Siofra River or the mines in Caelid), but you're never required to go there and the main path takes you through Liurnia and then capital (never mind Altus because you don't actually need to explore any of the plateau besides capital). Consider that you get plenty of 1's and 2's by the time you reach the academy, but only a handful of 3's from the mine in Liurnia. Then, if you take the path suggested by Rya--through the Ravine--instead of taking the lift you'll pick up 4's on your way to Makar (conspicuously skipping 3??). Weird.

It's weird to me because 3 did an excellent job placing upgrade materials and gave you plenty through fixed drops, at least that's the way it seemed to me, and this seems like a step backwards.

tl;dr smithing stone bells are in weird places, idk, I would rather have them before clearing an area than after...? I realize that would trivialize the game tho. Still, hard to upgrade more than one weapon (myself a caster who likes dual-wielding)