Now that you mention it, I honestly think Pickpocket really is in need of an overhaul. There are ways to "minigame" it that make sense, incorporate character skill, and still involve luck. But as long as they don't have a system that just encourages save scumming.

edit: hey, wait a second. If you can search containers in real time, does that mean we can search through peoples' pockets in real time and risk getting caught?

As I recall, the PC searching a dead ghoul acted exactly like it did when searching a container.

So I would suspect it is real time now.

There's several. I can remember the Sugar Bomb poster at the top of my head. I don't mind though. It creates consistency in the series. If they added a few bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla it be a good reference to the company trying to gain market share pre war.

I'm a little disappointed that the minigames are completely identical.

But really, what's the alternative? A "connect the pipes" minigame? A Deus Ex: HR style hacking minigame?

Although I'd LIKE to see something different, I honestly can't think of anything that would be BETTER than what they're using.

If it's not broken, don't fix it. Right?

I think you are overreacting about the hacking and lockpicking. There are so many more important aspects of the game to debate about instead of a 30 second mini-game. It's definitely a step up from Oblivion's lockpicking system imo. Hopefully the hacking will return to Fallout 3's style and not New Vegas's hacking where you were forced to sit through the whole computer reboot when you exited and reattempted a hack.

As for reusing textures, this is nothing new. Even Skyrim used Fallout's V.A.T.S. for its kill cams animations. I will say though, after seeing the leaked footage, I can kind of see what VG24/7 meant about Fallout 4 looking like a Fallout 3.5. Which is not exactly a bad thing, I'm assuming Bethesda has made vast tweaks and improvements.

One thing that caught my eye, was the 'volumetric' lighting which is leagues above Skyrim's dark contrast textures where you either had to install lighting mods, or cast Candlelight in order to see your face at nighttime.

I saw some of the leaked footage. The computer terminal looked better than FO3/NV from what I could tell. The game itself looked the same though. I'd like an improved game that required some actual intelligence to win. But hey, they can tackle that next time. They took care of the major problems first. Not to mention the addition of a voiced protagonist.

Wish we could have seen a more in depth lock picking system. Electric locks, more tumblers to get past, etc.

i always disliked the hacking mini-game, i like to think i'm decent at it (i can get into an average pretty easy but hard can still take me awhile) but it just feels tedious. as for lock picking, i think i'v only ever seen 3 ways for that to be done well, all of them by beth, FO3's way, oblivion's way and morrowind's way, i prefer oblivion's way if they have to have a minigame

Oh please, don′t bring back Morrowind′s lockpicking... *

* My opinion is my own. There are many opinions like it but this one′s mine. Without me, my opinion is useless. Without my opinion, I am useless.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it," I suppose. I am however, a little more surprised by reused assets. While it makes sense from a practical perspective, given the newer engine's higher fidelity it seems rather out of place.

i wish there was an option to "auto-attempt" or give in to character skill to open terminals. The mastermind game isn't really all that hard, but i just don't like doing it. its time consuming and not really all that fun.

Mastermind game?

Referring to hacking. It was an old boardgame using pegs. P1 had a 'code' of colours, P2 guessed it. The only hints they get are little pegs: white - right colour wrong place, and black - right colour right place. The point was to guess the code before you ran out of space on the board. You could arrange the pegs to order with P2's guess, but the game is more challenging if you don't.

Anyway, the hacking is like that. The PC has a 'code' of... well, code. You guess at it, and the PC tells you how many are right. (The PC omits the white pegs, displaying only black.) You take that feedback on and keep guess until you run out of guesses.

I didn′t know about all that, thanks for explaining

I couldn't care less about reusing lockpicking and hacking minigames - they both worked well enough.

I've seen the leaked footage and the lockpicking does look very similar, but then the footage is terrible quality so you really have no idea if the texture is the same. I find it unlikely. It's possible that it was the same but was used as a placeholder for the demo build.

I just wish they would change the silly "breaking picks" mechanics. I know my view is a little different from most people because I have experience with lockpicking (as a stage magician) but it just so silly.

Instead there should be a timer that represents how long you are taking to pick the lock and then if you take too long enemies spawn behind your back.

I made mods that did this for both oblivion and fallout.

....soooo, random Magic Enemies From Nowhere, could spawn (for example) in your house, in the middle of a protected city, because you were slow trying to pick the lock on your safe?

Even ignoring that silliness, it still doesn't sound very good. (I can just imagine some of the other silly places enemies could spawn, remembering some of the locked items in FO3.... )

Fallout 3 and Skyrim's lockpicking was a damn joke and completely broken. It needs to be changed, its just lazy not to. Also, how did Skyrim having kill cams the same as reusing meshes and textures?

The lockpicking system doesn't work though and hacking was ridiculously obtuse. These need to be changed. Also the inventory system had changes made to them over the years, especially with Skyrim.

I laugh at this notion that just because Skyrim implemented kill cams and used FO3's lockpicking that we should just except major parts of game mechanics and art assets to be reused from now on. Bethesda has always hugely changed their games from iteration to iteration, and now Fallout 4 seems to be the major exception and we just except it, because I want muh fallouts. This sets a really bad precedent going forward if this goes over well in my humble opinion as a long time fan of Bethesda.

It seems like if we're talking about mini-games, or the general art direction of the game, Bethesda's a hack fraud and they're just rehashing their last Fallout game. But when they add settlement building, completely overhaul leveling, and introduce a voiced protagonist they're hack frauds that have completely dumbed down and ruined what made their last game good.

I am so tired of the FO3,FONV,Skyrim lock picking. They better copy Bioshock's auto hack tool so I don't have to unlock anything manually.

The lockpicking minigame I'm completely fine with, the hacking one however, not so much. It just doesn't mesh well with me I guess

As long as they don't force us to sit through the "log in" screen animation thing like we had to in New Vegas, I won't complain though.

What was bad about oblivion's lockpicking? I found it challenging after like journeyman level. I hope they go back to that version in the next tes.

Same here, and I liked it too

Don′t really know how to make it more interesting. After all, it′s just lock picking

I liked Oblivion's lockpicking the best, out of Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim. The "Auto-Attempt" button was great. For a roleplayer like me, it let me use character skill. But the mini-game is there for people who would rather use player skill. It was the best of both worlds.

By the time i was even 1/5 through FO3 and NV, I had like, 500 lockpicks in my inventory. And since lockpicking is basically a game of just "find the sweet spot," it becomes quite easy very quickly.

If anything, it should be more like Skyrim than Fallout 3/NV.

In Skyrim, you could try your luck with ANY lock, no matter how high the difficulty. But a "master" level lock would be incredibly difficult to pick, and you could conceivably run out of picks before you cracked it open.

In FO3/NV, you can't even access high-difficulty locks until you yourself are a master of picking them. So basically, the difficulty remains the same throughout the whole game, and the easier locks become a tedious chore.