no also because it requires just a little too much hand an eye coordination then I have and would near to ruin the game for me, I have bad arthritis in my hands and am slow at that type so it would just about kill the fun for me, so I would have to auto pick and that would be expensive as hell for my charecter, and I never like a time limit on such things anyway they didnt have time limit locks in ancient times lol that is a stupid system

Mind = blown :biggrin:

I hated the lock picking game in OB. I really hope they come up with something brand new.

Oblivion's lock picking was an arbitrary puzzle. It didn't resemble real lock picking in any way except that you used a lock pick and the locks had tumblers. Fallout 3 was much better.

I liked Oblivion's system, it felt like picking a lock. However, I found an exploit that allowed me, on the 360, to pick any difficulty of lock with ease. What I would do is send the tumbler up and pause when it was about halfway up, then unpause and hit A to instantly lock it into place. It made the game easier, true, but it sort of took away from my experience, and, if possible, this should be removed

I like Oblivion's mini-game until I got good at it. Then the skill seemed pointless.


This gives me the impression the new lockpicking 'mini-game' will be significantly different. I imagine something on the order of the new dialog 'mini-game'.

Fair enough.

I hated the Oblivion lockpicking minigame, and disliked the Fallout 3 minigame. The way the time magically froze just took out the stealth element, and had the rather unfortunate effect that using alteration to open a lock were not illegal either. You could pick a lock and break into a house in broad daylight with a guard standing right next to you :blink: It just broke my immersion.

The minigame were not that interesting either. I simply lost patience and started using the auto attempt button. But then I discovered that the auto attempt were extremely expensive in lockpicks (it did not "save" opened tumblers from one attempt to the next), annoying me even more. I ended up making a mod similar to Morrowind and the Fallout series where lockpicks could be equipped and used on a lock, and success were determined by skill and chance. Which is my preference: Realtime and based on character skill.

A real-time minigame will definately be an improvement if it means that you can get caught. With the more intuitive minigame of Fallout 3 it may even become tolerable.

Nobody has mentioned Morrowind style lockpicking? I think it would be nice to be able to pick locks realtime. Otherwise, I don't really mind which system they are gonna use this time.

Keep the Oblivion lock picking system and add more tumblers on the harder locks. It would also be more difficult if it's in real time.



Because Morrowind's lockpicking is horrible.

We did, it's the one I call "try and reload until you succeed" minigame.

Although OB's was a bit tricky if you were picking a very hard lock on novice level ( ) it felt realistic, as such I don't mind if it's not changed.

Make the "minigame" (if you call it that) better, and less of a minigame IMO. Keep it in standard first person, and have the character actually stick the lockpick in the lock, and feel around for the sweet spot or something (vibrate would be beneficial) but that's it. no lockpicking window, or anything IMO.

I would like it if some locks you could bash open though. Not all, but some.

Also, if some locks were combination locks it would be cool. Still pickable, but a non-lockpicker might find the combo if he snoops around some.. or if he intimidates the person into telling him.

you say minigame and i think of DA2

I thought that the lockpicking in Fallout 3 was far superior to that of Oblivion.

In Oblivion it was pretty much a game of chance until you got better and the pins moved slower to allow you more room to "hit it" at the right time. But then suddenly you got the Skeleton Key and all lockpicking was just auto-success regardless of your skill.

In Fallout 3, however, you had torque and could properly "feel" whether you were doing it wrong or not before the lockpick even broke, allowing a very careful player to pick locks without losing even a single lockpick. This was much more realistic and the bad player still used more time on the lock before opening it.

If they can make something similar to Fallout 3 but in real-time, so that you often need to time it according to patrols, trap effects or whatever may be affecting the surrounding area, then I think Bethesda will have hit the jackpot. Imagine being in a gas-filled room and you need to unlock a door, real-time, before you're choked to death.

They need just need a bypass option(like OB) but make the % chance a little higher. FO3 did have a better mini game, but the thing I like is your skill mattered unlike OB, so Beth learned from there mistake.

And I like mini games just not the stupid skill ones Beth uses in there games.

Anything is alright, as long as there is a skeleton key

If you reread my earlier comment (just above yours), it is pretty much that (general) system that I prefer. The main difference in my implementation is that lockpicks do not degrade with usage unless you fumble.


Oh, I thought that refered to the minigame ...

Well, yes you can do that too in the Oblivion minigame too, but you can at least do something about succeeding on the first try, in Morrowind you can just hope you roll a high enough number.

... also the Oblivion minigame is instantaneous and lockpicking is legal, so the main reason to reload (getting caught) is void anyways.

I much prefer Morrowind lockpicking over Oblivion, because in Morrowind it relies on character skill and in Oblivion it relies largely on player skill.
I think that in an RPG character skill > player skill. This is not a platform where expert button mashing is needed.
A lot of people say Oblivion locks were too easy to pick. For me, because it required real life skills I do not possess, lockpicking is almost impossible until I get the skeleton key.
I play RPG's to pretend to be another character with other skillsets than my own for a while.
I do not wish to be constantly reminded of my real life limitations.

So no mini game please.

The minigame can be good. It should allow you to try to lockpick, regardless of level, and level should actually govern how easy it is.
I like the minigame because it feels like im doing something, but it was too easy and made skill level irrelevant.

But how will you make the skill level adjust the difficulty of a minigame so that it is actually equally adjusted for all - this, in addition to considering the different default lock difficulties (easy, normal, hard, etc). A minigame that relies on the players dexterity with a controller, or with a mouse and a keyboard can potentially only please one third of the audience - namely those who view it to be just fine. The rest, those who think it's too easy and those who think it's too hard, are always left out in the cold to just "deal with it". It also downplays the importance of the skill althogether. An autoattemptbutton isn't too good of a choice either, since it's basically cheating oneself if there is an easier, and more importantly, a certain way to open the lock right beside the "chance" of opening it - there's no reason to use the "chance" if the "certainty" is the other available option. A skillcheck would be fair trade for everyone regardless of the players dexterity with any given controller.

If anything, they should come up with a minigame that takes both, player and characterskill chances equally into account - or just make the minigames toggleable. Imo.

Oblivion's method may not be so bad if it's in realtime. Choosing to do an auto lockpick, which relies on skill, could be faster, and reduce the chance of being caught, but I would rather we return to Morrowind's system, or at least some new system that requires me to have skill.


I actually see no problem with being able to do this with all locks. Bashing = loud and noticable, so thieves would still rely on lockpicking, and higher level locks would require a higher level strength. Or whatever alternative we have with the attribute cuts.

I am amazed and confused by this new information.

I'm not really sure. Morrowind's was horrendous. Nothing like watching my character stab a door with a lockpick while invisible dice decide whether or not it works. Oblivion's was a little better. They were set similar to old Roman locks; but once you got the hang of the minigame, it was extremely easy, making the minigame pretty much pointless. Then there's the Skeleton Key...which I loved for making my life so much easier, but it pretty much made lockpicking a useless skill in Oblivion.

I voted for something new, but I'm not really sure what it should be tbh.