Yeah it was discussed right above your post, lol. They will pick locks, but it has to be of their skill level, and they don't currently level with you.

If anything, its a perfect example of why the lockpicking perk tree needs improvement. They should improve it instead of holding back other features/abilities to make this one viable.

But lock-picking would still have its uses though. Bashing would be brute force, risk breaking your loot, put you in danger when bashing through a door with enemies waiting behind, make tons of noise, and you wouldn't even be able to bash through everything.



Oh the minigame is incredibly easy. They might as well give us a freebie. It takes no effort to have 99 lockpicks in your inventory, and open even Master locks within 2-3 attempts.

Its not a matter of difficulty. Its a matter of roleplaying, a matter of choice, a matter of STYLE. Have you ever read any books? Have you ever watched any movies? When do you see huge warriors have the delicate touch needed to open a lock. I should absolutely suggest bashing locks and unlocking spells because this is a game about choice, a game about designing your character, and designing his style. Forcing something this specific down my throat is substandard for an Elder Scrolls game.

As it stands, I can and do pick locks even on my warriors and spellcasters, and just use my brain to say, story-wise that he's kicking the door down, or using his magic abilities. But a bashing feature and magic spells are not difficult to code. I have sufficient experience in game design to know what this entails. Its also been modded into every single Elder Scrolls AND Bethesda-based Fallout games.

Even if they weren't going to add new ways to open locks, they should AT LEAST offer alternatives to getting objectives completed during broad-audience quest lines such as the one's I mentioned in my original post. ESPECIALLY warrior-based quests.

It has nothing to do with the difficulty, that's one of the damn problems with Lockpicking. It's WAY to easy to do because of the mini-game that doesn't even use the Locking Picking skill.

It has to do with ROLE PLAYING. :facepalm:

The complaint in this post is not about how easy or difficult to actually lockpick a lock is in this game. They are complaining (and I fully agree) that there is no other alternative to it like in other TES games....

I strongly believe the the main reason they did this is to force people to play with their lockpicking mini-game. Don't get me wrong, I love the little game, just hate that it is forced upon you in a game that's supposed to be more 'open concept'.

the other disapointment i usually get with opening master locks is thinking your getting something special once you open it only to find more lockpicks and a gem.

I couldn't agree more that there needs to be far more ways to complete objectives. Warriors being forced to pick locks is ridiculous. In fact forcing your character only one way to achieve something destroys RPing. Thieves Guild quests? Yes, lock picking and pick pocketing should be front and center. Companions and Mage's Guild? That's senseless and reeks of laziness.

It also points out a major flaw in the skill system in regards to quest design. You can't have a earn XP while you use a skill mechanic then force the skill on the player. No matter what kind of character you're trying to RP your lock picking and speech are going to 40-50 if not higher by level 25. You're then constantly subjected to NPC's dropping the "Gilded tongue" comment and thief comments. Speech should be a usable mechanic in dialog that goes up when you use it successfully not just because you unloaded loot. It's foolish. And no quests that aren't specific to thieves should force your character to pick locks as the only way to progress it.

Yeah, I never bother with Master locks anymore. I'm done with going through the effort to get 16 gold and a garnet.

Exactly. I just do not bother with opening locked chests anymore, just not worth it. I'd rather just gather mountain flowers brew potions and sell them for a lot more than whatever crapy loot is in Master locked chests.

Why all these newb garnet haterz! Omg! :wink_smile:

But yes, I do agree with the overall consensus here. It's not that a battle hardened war hero couldn't pick a lock, it's just that sometimes he'd like to put his foot through it and run cracking skulls so fast, that the last thing they hear is the thunder of the door being blown off it's hinges. Picking a lock doesn't give me that overall, "Killing with thunder" feeling I like my warrior to have.

Add skeleton key (which a single one exists in Skyrim) and credit card and they will have caught up with Nethack!

You're missing the point here. The point is that while yeah, lock picking isn't particularly hard, there's a few problems with it:

First, it does not merit its own perk tree. Lockpicking could easily fall under stealth.
Second, it does not support multiple playstyles. It forces thieves. If you want a perfect 0 Crime run, you're pretty much screwed. Why, because:
Third, sometimes it's forced on you, so even if you want to avoid it for Roleplaying Reasons, you can't.

Honestly sometimes like now, I'm just really lazy and use the tower stone

I think this is the base of the problem. How many people know how to fiddle with a lock and make it open? If *every* adventurer can just put something in a lock and jiggle it to make it open, why do they even have locks in Tamriel?

Also, lockpicking perk tree is useless. Just reiterating that. I can think of at least half a dozen other interesting trees that could go there for thieves. It just reeks of "well, we need 6 so... here's this." Bethesda, I am disappoint.

I find this game is an excellent piece of work, but I find that many stones turned reveal a missed opportunity or a botched job.

This isn't to say I hate this game. 160+ hours is proof enough of how much I adore it. But its far from perfect, and I hope Bethesda choose to really push the enveloppe for the next installment. I have a feeling they were content to sit on their laurels for Skyrim. Its definately a better game than Oblivion, but its not all that it could have been. And when I say these things, keep in mind that I have a realistic view of game design, understand many of the limitations, and have enough experience (however not professional) to know have an idea of the effort they've already put in Skyrim.

I find that there is a certain sense of complacency in the way Bethesda as a developper do things. While Todd Howard is not representative of the entire team, I get that same sense from him in his interviews. He's happy with what they got, and doesn't quite grasp that there's so much more they could be realistically doing,

I agree with the op to a point. Warrior quests should not require lockpicking skill to complete. In fact, NO quests which aren't for thief type characters should require lockpicking to complete. They're usually pretty good at it but maybe they fell down on the warrior quests.

1. The immediate solution should be to insure that you don't need lockpicking skill to complete a warrior quest. If you're rescuing someone either they are NOT in a locked cage, or the key is available. I think they just messed up on that one.

2. That said, in almost all quests Bethesda DOES seem aware that not everyone is developing lock pick skill. If something is locked it either isn't essential to the quest, there's another way around which doesn't require picking the lock, or there's a key somewhere.

3. That said, it is NOT hard to get enough lockpicking skill to get by in most cases. I'm playing a 2-handed warrior type and I refuse to spend perks in lockpicking. I just pick up lockpicks whenever I run across them and practice when I run into locks in dungeons. I don't spend a lot of time on it. At level 32 I can pick adept locks pretty reliably and have picked a few expert locks.

4. I like the idea of being able to bash. Do like Baldur's Gate and give a chance that the contents will be ruined if you do so. Then don't put anything crucial in a locked container which doesn't have a key available.

Its definately the current work around. You can open Adept-level locks with 15 in lockpicking. So the times you do run across an essential lock, you can do it. And I've yet to see an essential lock higher than Adept level.

But its a less than optimal work around. From a gameplay mechanic, it is. It works. Its not game breaking. From a roleplay mechanic, and this is a roleplaying game, its a poor design choice.

You know, there's kind of a running joke my friends and I have. That is "It's a bethesda game, so you'll want to take lockpicking." It seems every bethesda game you fight through a horde of monsters and the reward chest is.. locked.

I agree with this.
Also, if memory serves me well, I think that there was something similar in Arena/Daggerfall where you could bash doors and stuff.

Heh... funny how many people call Skyrim to be perfect and give it perfect 10/10 when it's actually not that special and in fact deserves 7/10.
Still, lots of it's flaws can be fixed if Bethesda decides to do so and it could easily reach 8.5/10 or even 9/10.
And no, mods should not do it!
Mods should not be there to fix crap Bethesda screwed up!
They should be there to bring their own new ideas and make game richer instead of fixing broken things.

I noticed a serious lack of keys in many places. Makes me wonder how they locked those places in the first place. I'd definitely be interested in a mod that hides keys in clever locations (or inventories) to open the many chests and doors without keys. Especially in towns I think this could be really great if done properly.

Simply because someone isn't happy with something, doesn't mean they're whining. Stop trolling. This is a Discussion.

On topic. I would have liked a bust lock perk or option for my brute warriors. That's my opinion. Therefore, if you take said perk, you simply open the lock with maybe chance of destroying something like in NWN2.

You don't need a lockpick to open all locks. There are spells and scrolls that can be used. Warriors can use Scrolls and have no skills in magic.

For all the research I've done there are no Open Lock spells in Skyrim like there were in Oblivion and Morrowind.

If I'm wrong and there is an alteration spell for it, I,ll be damned happy for my spellcaster.

I think I'm going to take a stab at the lockpicking tree

Scrolls? My level 60 mage has yet to find one, and there is the Tower stone that will allow you to unlock any lock once per day. What spells are you referring to?

Just a confirmation, there are no Open Lock spells available in Skyrim.

The only alternative is the once-per-day ability of the Tower standing stone.

It really does seem like Bethesda, for some reason, thought it was utterly nessecerary to the integrity of the game to force us to play their lockpicking game.

At least there's not any computers hack :hehe:

But yeah, this lockpicking minigame has annoyed me since FO3.