If you really want to...but its such a waste.

I wouldn't take that perk btw, "breaking" lockpicks on purpose is one of the only ways to skill up to 100.

Never had to put any perks in, don't mind the minigame, much better than oblivion's I can actually open locks now. I think Lockpicking could have been merged with Pickpocket, just call it something like Thievery.

Lockpicking is easy.

I havent put any perks on it, because I dont need to since its not that hard

The problem is you need too many perks elsewhere to waste them in lockpicking. The only way I'd waste perks in this skill is if they added a perk to pick the clothes off the female NPCs. Chastity belts? No problem.

I wouldn't say the problem is it being too easy. You never want to have a "minigame" on such a common obstacle that's a pain in the ass to do.

Lockpicking svcks for multiple reasons:

1. The perks are all worthless when you have 99+ lockpicks.
2. There's never anything truly remarkable behind locked doors and chests. Just randomly generated loot. You're not going to find the Ring of Khajiit in a locked chest.
3. Locked doors are almost always optional. If a door is locked in a dungeon 99% of the time it leads to a single room or dead end. If it doesn't then there's usually a key nearby to open it automatically.
4. Since you can't sell stolen goods unless you're part of the thieves guild or have a ridiculously high speech level and perks spent. There's really no point in running around town stealing stuff from houses to pawn off like you could in Morrowind.

You never want to have an impossible-to-pick lock at any stage of the game. Going through a dungeon once is enough. Backtracking to the same dungeon just to get one chest that likely respawned into something else is just too much to ask for. There should be other ways to open things though. Such as:

1. Magic can open locks again. The lowest level of the spell is loud and alerts guards and NPC's. The rest should be silent like 25-30 skill onwards. Also the weaker the spell and your skill in magic is the higher chance there is for the lock to permanently melt. Making it impossible to open with magic or lockpicks again.
2. You should be able to bruteforce doors and containers. Smashing them in with your fists or weapons. This can be used on melted locks as a last resort. But it's very loud and has the chance of breaking some of the items inside(obviously quest items are immune). The higher level you get in a melee skill the more accurate you are in hitting the object. Causing less items to be damaged or destroyed. Since you don't have to repeatedly bash it in and are more accurate you make a little less noise as well. But still just enough to alert anyone one or two rooms away.
3. Leave lockpicking in and make the perk tree actually useful somehow. But make sure it's always the stealthiest and safest way of opening locked things.

I don't need to put points into it but I do it anyway cause as a thief I feel like I have to.
Only good thing about the tree is the increased chance of finding treasure.
Quite frankly I find it ridiculous that you can lockpick a master lock with a low skill and no perks spent, it should be impossible.

This is how I feel about it as well.

As for the skill tree: I only put perks in it if the RP calls for me to do so, and very few actually do. I end up getting the Skeleton Key ASAP as I get tired of breaking picks, even though it's a good way to level the skill and there are more than enough picks available.

My Rogue never really put any points into Lockpicking. It's more fun and more challenging to just get 10 lockpicks and unlock doors with it.

]removed[

This is the first lockpicking mini game I have ever enjoyed. I hated it in Oblivion and Falllout 3.

Other: I have no points in the lockpicking tree but I feel neither negative or positive towards the minigame. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I dont, I'm in between, should be an option on the poll