The way I thought locks should work in Oblivion.

1. I have an AXE!

2. hmm...this Dwemer lock looks and acts differently from this Imperial lock, and both are different in look and function from this Aelied lock. They require different tools.

3. I can't see inside this lock, but sounds and vibrations give me clues.

4. I am a wizard, and I can see inside the silly lock. My magic spell allows me to 'pick' the lock in a similar manner to a lockpick (which I don't need), at the cost of depletable mana.

5. I am a locksmith, I have trapped a lock with an alarm which can alert help. Poison pinpricks are so pasée. Were I a wizard, I would have the lock Summon monsters from the beyond to attack the intruder.

1. Lockpicking skill based on character skills/atributes (aka dice rolls). So no stupid minigames that ruin the game balance.

2. Unlock spells

3. Lockbashing ability. The downside would be the chance to break loot. Bashing would likely launch the trap if there was such. furthermore because it causes noise, bashing would likely atract guards. Maybe have few number of lockbashing related perks that allow bashing higher quality doors/chests and possibly lower the item breaking chance. Don't know thing which skill should govern these perks though, maybe the smithing skill.

Indeed, I can mash the X button on a 360 controller VERY fast. I could get into ANY lock, with ANY skill, in under 1 minute. It basically broke the security skill.

Because the tech didn't exist to do interactive non-dice-roll lockpicking until http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsfar?!? :blink: Amazing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Shock did it too, in 1994. When was Arena released? Oh yeah, 1994.

i doubt its gonna be like it was in oblivion, that was horrible, FO3 system worked fine, so something resembling that.

This.

Poison WTF??

I do not want a minigame based on real life skills or reflexes.
In an RPG I want lockpicking to be based off my characters skill, not how handy or fast I am with a button.

The Morrowind or Daggerfall systems were fine, a better animation for Skyrim maybe but no mingame please.

I think the mini-game itself broke the necessity of the skill. I could fairly easily unlock any lock whatsoever without any points in the security skill at all. I think the mini-game was way too reliant on the Player's personal skill to justify picking the security skill for your character at all. Basically, if you knew how to pick locks security wasn't necessary. If you did not know how to pick locks the skill wouldn't help you. Personally I'd like to see a system where the lock-picking would be nigh impossible to succeed with without the character skill to support the player's skill, much like how you in combat rely mainly on character attributes and skill, but player's skill influences the outcome nonetheless.

I think stripping the mini-game away would solve the skill imbalance, but it would be the cheap way out of it. I'd rather see them improve upon the lock-picking system. If they would further spice lock-picking up by having you acquire multiple different picks and various tools for disarming traps to make use of in the mini-game, they might actually make it interesting throughout the whole game rather than something that takes a full five minutes to grasp and master at which point the rest is just a bore. Basically, rather than collecting nondescript 'lockpicks', these picks would be of various shapes and sizes and have a variety of effects. I think with a bit of innovative thinking I think it could be turned into a proper, integrated part of the game rather than the imbalanced and tacked on mini-game it was in Oblivion.

Check this:

Maybe higher locks should have more protective pins, but a higher skill unlocks more of them automatically and you require to "especially concentrate" on less pins, meaning manually unlock in a mini game

For example-
Low lock, low skill: you have to do most or all manually because you svck at security and can't get them easily at first, but they are fewer cause the lock is low.
High lock, low skill: you have to do most or all manually because you svck at security and can't get them easily at first, but they are many and faster cause the lock is high so good luck on that.
Low lock, high skill: it is solved almost or completely automatically, because the lock svcks and has few pins and you're a king at locks. IF any, you may have to "concentrate" on one or two pins.
High lock, high skill: many are automatically solved, but a few fast pins are left because even if you're excellent at it, it's a good quality lock.

TaDa!

I thought Fallout's was easier too. I could never get the timing down on Oblivion's, but then timing is not really my strong point. Also the Skeleton Key is very powerful, if they include it again it should be very difficult to obtain. Make it feel like a real reward instead of a cheat.

I think they should make it so it's possible to pick really hard locks but extremely difficult.

oblivions lockpicking mini game was good but too easy, they need to make the keys randomized so you couldnt pridict were they fell.also they should make it so the better your lock picking skill the easier it is to pick locks.but they shouldnt lock it like fallout

[quote name='Xeivous' timestamp='1297028749' post='17135368']
I rather hated F3's lockpicking
and as another post said: "I have an axe."

Oblivion's mini-game just needlessly stopped time and threw in a mini-game.
I'm for brute force. If your axe isn't big enough to get in now, come back later...with a catapult if necessary. Down with locks.

One word: Morrowind

Kill the minigames, or at least make them like FO3 (in the sense that you need a certain skill level to make the attempt).

Lockpicking minigame in Oblivion was almost insultingly simplistic. The first couple of attempts were kind of fun, the next couple were a bit irritating, a little later you figured it out and from that point on, ALL characters could open EVERY lock.

Skeleton key is a non-issue, two lockpicks (one in reserve for if you fall asleep and break your pick) were enough.

And making it more difficult isn't really the answer, as at some point the player will still figure it out, at which point it makes no difference anymore.

Different characters should play differently, that's part of what makes RPGs interesting.

No more [censored] minigames. All based on skills, a thief must use his security skill, a mage may use a spell (but this should be limited, very hard lock should be opened only by thieves), a warriom may try to bash a container or a door. But I hope they got rid of those minigames.

The thing is, I think that applies more generally to a lot of places where Skyrim will try (as Oblivion did before it) to balance player skill with character stats - combat most notably. Theoretically, a skilled player could defeat enemies with much higher stats than his character. Skyrim/Oblivion attempt to solve this by making your character so ineffective against higher level enemies, and making there be a very small margin for error. This makes it a chore to try to beat enemies this way. It takes the fun out of the game - you're better off leveling up and then coming back.

So I think similar could be done for lockpicking. Make it difficult enough, and make there be enough of a cost to stuffing up, and that should discourage people from trying to lockpick "out of character", as it were. Oblivion's was too easy, and there was no cost if you stuffed up. This won't entirely remove the possibility of highly skilled players being able to open locks far more difficult than their character should be able to open. But TES strategy for dealing with a lot of these sorts of things seems to be to just try to discourage the player from doing it, rather than straight out preventing it. I think that's a reasonable balance.

Oh - and just make sure to keep the auto-attempt option, if you want the dice-roll option. Then everybody wins, I think.

I want the locks to be harder to pick. But I still would like to be the skeleton key to still be in the game. Maybe if the lock pick system was slightly more like that of fallout 3?

Most complaints seem to be that it is based on the player’s skill rather than the characters.
The options for dealing with this seem to be make the mini-game progressively easier with higher skill, so it is possible to be done, but less likely.
The other route is to do away with the mini-game and implement dice rolls with skill benefits.

Ok, now my idea is that instead we still do away with the mini-game, instead basing the lockpicking process on time, the more skilled the character the less time it takes them to open the lock, with difficulty ramping the time requirement up.
So maybe an easy lock takes a novice 8-10 mins game time to open, a harder one half an hour, so that even a novice could theoretically open a very hard lock; but it would take the better part of a week to open.

You don't actually have to sit there for the process it should be similar to waiting with time passing for the character (possibly showing them getting more and more frustrated the longer it takes), but they have the risk of being caught or interrupted.

I voted for easy since that is what the skeleton key is for anyway (to make the lockpicking easy).

Oblivion's lockpicking minigame gives us transparency for free and it is all about agility(of player) and luck. In my opinion, the skill should determine how much we can see the mechanism itself revealing more pins for longer duration with higher the skill. More like feeling the pins multiple times and understanding the pin types which only our characters can do, we align things accordingly then ourselves. More like a memory game instead of agility(for player skill).

And off course it should be realtime.

This applies to persuasion minigame too. We are given the working approach for FREE then forced to use wrong approaches even though we know the right approach. To catch those hints should be the minigame. The higher the skill the higher the amount of hints during/after dialog.

And disposition number should be hidden completely. We should be able to tell it.

I liked Oblivion's system though I agree lock difficulty really didn't mean much. If you don't like the skeleton key just don't do the quest, or keep the key hidden away somewhere after getting it. I'll echo the same thing I say on many other topics: something shouldn't be removed/crippled because you personally fear you'll lack control to avoid it. Since the key has been in the last several games, I'd suggest people that don't like it avoid looking it up entirely to at least delay the temptation.

I actually enjoyed the minigame so I never used the skeleton key that I recall.

The lockpicking in FO3 was just a different animation, using a newer type of cylinder lock, instead of the old "tumbler" designs. That modern type of lock wouldn't be at all "fitting" in TES. In OB, the actual difficulty of the lock didn't vary by much, if at all, with difficulty, other than by adding more "layers" of tedium. In FO3, the biggest functional change was adding a minimum requirement, but it still didn't make a "Hard" lock noticably harder than a "Medium" lock.

To make Lockpicking skill actually meaningful, the speed and sensitivity of the tumblers should reflect the DIFFERENCE between your character's Lockpicking skill and the lock's difficulty. A skilled thief attempting to open an easy lock should be almost automatic, and the tumblers should react lethargically, almost as if they're in thick syrup. A novice thief attempting to open a difficult lock should be faced with an almost instantaneous snap-back of the tumblers, making it all-but impossible until your skill improves. It shouldn't stop you from trying something far above your level, if you really want to go for that off-hand chance that you can get it "just right", but it really should be close to pointless to try. When the game tells you "you don't have the skills to try", as in FO3, that's immersion breaking.

Oblivion's locks were about in the proper difficulty range for when your character skills match the difficulty of the lock. Problem was, it was that way no matter what your character's skills were.

None of the poll choices really address the point; making them all harder or all easier just ignores the underlying problem that your character's skills don't make any difference.

Why don't people learn to put other as an option with polls. I want no stupid mini game and to use perks/skill to be able to open locks.

I don't care as much about the difficulty, my main concern is that it be in real time so there's some suspense to it as you risk being caught.