system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Elder Scrolls] I heard that during the Third Era, people were forced to constantly repair their equipment, possibly even during the heat of battle. What advancements happened between then and now where I never have to repair my equipment after I first craft it?
gpt
Metallurgy has advanced a fair bit since the third era. The big break through happened not long after the oblivion crisis when scholars translated a recently discovered Dwemer manual on smithing and rediscovered the lost art of crucible steel. Previously steel was produced from a bloomery and had a high concentration of impurities. This made steel brittle and also expensive. During the war against the Elves, crucible steel became more and more common in the empire as smiths from all over cyrodil and skyrim were contracted to provide weapons and armor for the Legions. Crucible steel has many advantages over bloom steel due to its purer nature such as greater strength and toughness, more flexibility and better edge holding qualities. 

The better weapons and armor helped reduce the strain on legion blacksmiths who before spent most of their time repairing weapons and armor. It also allowed a much higher overall combat capability in the Legions since fewer units were waiting on repaired or replacement equipment. It was one of the major factors that helped with the empire's victories late in the war that prevented an overall victory by the Aldmeri dominion. 

An interesting side note is that the Aldmeri forces had a hard time accepting the new weapons. For quite awhile they were convinced that they were the result of mass enchantments (impossible given the cost and scale required) or a pact with one of the Deadra (unlikely due to the imperial's worship of Talos and their new found animosity for the Deadra). Their opinion of human craftsmanship was so low that they refused to accept they could make equipment of such quality.