The Oblivion Overhaul mod incorporated a few consequences for going the Bashing route to opening chests that were nice. It made the whole process incredibly loud, so bashing a lock could turn enemies from far away hostile, you had to have a certain amount of strength to bash some locks, and the weapon you used to bash the lock had an influence on the difficulty, and it didn't disarm traps so that bashing a trapped lock would almost always result in pain. I hope that mod was one of the ones the devs looked at for ideas.

This thread reminded me of the Hillsfar Lockpicking game
http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/253765-hillsfar-commodore-64-screenshot-the-lockpicking-mini-games.png
Basically you had a time limit to pick the lock, after which the guards would be automatically alerted to your presence.
You also had to choose the correct tool for the tumbler.

I can envisage a similiar system, in which your security skill determines the length of the timer, and the number of tumblers you can actually see.
It would work like this:
1. Enter the minigame: The timer starts very slowly (representing an casual appraisal of the lock without looking to suspicious)
2. As soon as you place a pick into the lock the timer speeds up.
3. After placing all the picks in the lock and attempting to unlock it the door will either unlock or you will fail. Penalties for failure include losing precious time and the chance of a lockpick getting stuck or breaking in the lock.
4. If the time runs down someone is alerted of your presence. In cities most likely the guards, in dungeons a random encounter probability or even a trap in the lock going off. Possibly even snapping or damaging the last pick you used?

a Higher Security skill will affect this mini game in the following ways:
More time on the clock
You can see more of the tumbler patterns in the lock, or you can see more tumbler patterns at once.
Less chance of breaking a pick, getting a pick stuck in the lock

I don't much care what sort of mini-game there is in the game for lockpicking, so long as there's a way to bypass it entirely if one chooses.

To me, the entire point is not that I become skilled at picking locks, but that my character become skilled at picking locks. Ultimately, all I want is to click a button or select a lock with a particular lockpick equipped or whatever, then have the game do a skill check and determine whether my character's skill is sufficient to pick the lock.

I thought the lock picking in Oblivion was fine and would like to see it return in skyrim.

Hear hear!

Excellent minigame... been mentioned many times; but so far only by me (that I've seen). :foodndrink:

I liked that the thief could lose lockpicks (break them), and it might just prevent them from opening the lock until they acquired new picks :thumbsup:
I didn't like that locks don't work that way. :thumbsdown:

I also liked that the task was on the clock, and lock complexity made it ever more difficult. It would be neat to have knock rings, but might be even more interesting to have them limited to a certain amount of tumblers... This could lead to needing to pick a few open before using the knock ring.

Uh... dude, you do realize the level of difficulty in performing lock picking in a real time world, surrounded by danger or people can make life as a thief incredibly difficult and forces you to get the job done right, really fast.

Seriously, if your trying to get into a building, and guards are walking all over you would have to react very quickly between patrols, and hope one doesnt go off his or her patrol and spot you. I dont care how stealthy you are, lock picking in noisy and puts you in plain sight in a door.

I can see like a hardcoe mode like something from Fallout: New Vegas going into Skyrim, where the lockpicking becomes real-time, you need to eat and drink daily to keep your health in the world, and all healing effects become heal over time rather than instant.

But unless your a real-hard core fanatic on real world interactions and dynamics, no way this just makes being a thief about a 1000% more difficult then it needs to be...

Would it be better, sure, again in a hardcoe mode where it can be actively disabled if it becomes really annoying.

I think the idea of Mini Games in an RPG is contrary to playing a Role Playing Game. My characters stats, skills and condition should be the only determining factors in the success or not of lock picking or any other activity like this. When the player's skills become more important or can override the Character's skills, then the Role that we spend time and effort creating diminishes. I mean why even have a Lockpick skill for the Character?

Morrowind was the last TES game where Lockpicking even made sense to me as far as a game goes. Could they have improved it with a lock bash for high strength? Sure. Make it real time so you can be attacked while trying to pick the lock? Sure. But no mini games ever again, To that end, get rid of the 25/50/75/100 level locks. Put them back at the various levels like they were in Morrowind.

Vampire:Bloodlines used http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Animation2.gif to pick locks as the determination of whether it would unlock the door. :tops:

The linked GIF is funny in that its an endless fail , but the PC has less than 5 points in lock picking... They know almost nothing of locks, so this is how it should be when they try to pick open one. :shrug:
(*Its also 311KB).

Agreed (completely). :thumbsup:

I think lockpicking can be about character's skill and still be a minigame where player actively participates. I am thinking the memory games like this,

http://www.mathsisfun.com/games/memory/index.html
(play in different levels.)

Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywRDBM9py6o

In Oblivion all tumblers were one type, at the same height and clearly visible. Isn't the skill detecting the right type of tumblers? In a memory game spirit, I think about binding the amount(time and quantity) of revealing of different type of tumblers based on character skill, leaving matching it to player skill.

Lockpicking and mini-games in general so far have been less about challenge and in J.E. Sawyer's words,"To put the physical interaction in player hands to be more meaningful vs a skill/stat check"

I'd say the mini-games all might need a little more depth or be changed.

I thought Bethesda handled comp terminals in Fallout 3 well and New Vegas fixed players logging and relogging into terminals and random clicking passwords(Not really. But tried.)

Deus Ex HR takes things a step further and makes it all real time plus inputs viruses.

You get what I mean.

I remember a door in Morrowind that was underwater. It was trapped and I didn't have anything to defuse it so I just thought ok I'll take the damage... paralyze trap, underwater