love the lockpicking hate the terminals ^^

they're both unnecessary and don't offer any challenge, but I think they are still better than having a boring animation over and over

I remember Assassins Creed Black Flag where you had to watch the same animation each time you captured a ship... it's way more annoying that way

How, pray tell, are you supposed to increase those skills without actually performing the act? I preferred the way they did it in the TES games as your skills increased the more you did it. In Fallout it doesn't even require that. All you need is the perk (depending on your perception and your level). Seems like a bit of a cheat, so maybe it's best that you actually have to do the act.

The same way you can learn how to control turrets and robots from a terminal. Read a magazine.

Ah, but the weakness there is that you need to have the science and robotics skills in the first place or your reading of the magazine is pointless. If you're an idiot, you're still not going anywhere. Okay, unless you have the Idiot/Savant Perk, but that's something else completely and makes a really annoying sound!

After hacking THOUSANDS of terminals over the last few Fallout games I can honestly say it is rather depressing when ever I do one.

I don't think it matters what kind of mini game you come up with, considering the HUGE number of terminals and locks that have to be hacked/picked it is going to become boring. On the other hand I would hate just a straight up skill check. The only answer I can think of is to have many types of locks and many types of terminals, each with their own mini game. Outside of that idea I draw a blank. Darned if you do and Darned if you don't.

The mods that 'auto-pass' you through these minigames, if you have the correct level of perks/ability, are the closest thing there is to a straight-up skillcheck for them. Works for me.

yup, playing cards/dice/ect is good flavor in games. Would also make the luck stat more useful imo.

I'd prefer there be an auto attempt feature like in oblivion. Maybe have it use your luck stat + skill/perk level to determine success. Actually if they could just find a new hacking minigame i would be happy. Its half the reason i used Nick

I'd be fine with the mini games if they were more entertaining. Dunno how a new hacking system would work, but as far as lock picking goes, they could emulate several real life lock picking methods, and types of locks, such as (Note: I am by no means an expert at lock picking, all the information I got from a neat youtuber called bosianbill)

• https://youtu.be/pU9MB5XPsp4?t=34s


• https://youtu.be/C1n8itKkmC8?t=2m10s


• https://youtu.be/b1h1qWbjggk?t=2m16s


• http://imgur.com/a/tfGKm


• https://youtu.be/rDju9bBFvA4?t=1m25s


• Cutting the Shackle


• https://youtu.be/ZOK3Fl2voqI?t=4m40s

With this system, the player can pick a variety of locks with different methods to crack them to keep things interesting since the lock difficulty is determined by the complexity of the lock, rather than an arbitrary skill requirement. This also mean that a player can pick a lock at ANY level provided they have the correct knowledge. Not only that, but since you can use a variety of methods to approach a lock, you can try a new angle of one part is too difficult for you. So if traditional picking is too difficult for you to do and the shackle is too strong to cut with the players tools, you can try shimming it. This also opens up different types locks to attack, for instance, you can cut the shackle on a padlock or rapp it, but those methods obviously won't work on a door or safe lock.

In addition, higher perception can give you more valuable information about the lock you are attacking, so you don't have to try out each method to see what it's vulnerable to. Such as if it has weak shackle that can be cut, or is unshielded (vulnerable to bypassing), what the lock/parts of it are made out of, such as having a zinc housing (has low melting point and vulnerable to blow torching), that this padlock has a ball bearing in it's locking bar (make it unshimmable), how many pins it has, (less pins faster to crack) and so on. They can even reward the player more XP for cracking a lock using a harder method, so if you really good at traditional picking, you can use that to gain more XP than if you were to say, blowtorch it.

One could argue that this makes lockpicking even more tedious, by my counterpoint is that with this system, you also have several even easier methods at your disposal to break a lock. even if you aren't good at lock picking, you can still use the blowtorch/cutting methods if applicable. And like how many essential locks for a quest are novice difficulty, they can always have those vulnerabilities. Make it so it gives out much more XP for picking harder locks/using more complex methods. Such as a 3 pin lock will give out less XP than a six pin lock, and easy methods such as blow torching or cutting can give less XP than harder ones like traditional picking and making a bump key. So players can be rewarded for their time and patience with much more XP if they were to say, pick a lock anyways even if it could be cut open.

Don't Randomly pick your first word. The first choice is pretty important. What you want to do is skim the list of items for commonalities. Particularly the first few and last few letters.

To try and help some people having a hard time with hacking. I just jumped in game and saved before I did a master hack. Re-hacked the same terminal 3 times & wrote down my choices and why I chose it. Tossed each attempt in a separate spoiler tags to condense the post. What I'm hoping to illustrate here is how picking a good first word simplifies the game very quickly.

the first time I came across a locked terminal on FO4, I seriously let out a depressing sigh of disappointment that it was the same as the previous 2 games...

they aren't pointless, if your skill isn't high enough [have the rank in perks] you can't even access the lock or terminal, they have the mini game for roleplay purposes, i suppose you can just be able to open up or access the terminal based on skill level/perk ranks but it adds to the roleplay and there are some people who give up if they can't get the lock so your persistence does pay off, i find em both easy but i still like em.

Some of the respondents on this thread should collaborate on writing a hacking guide.

I'll never understand why Beth ignores some of the basic life blood basics of the franchise like gambling I know games evolve, however, I feel some aspects of the FO spirit have been ignored to the detriment of the mass consumer gaming theory. I love FO4, but feel it could have been way better in certain areas.

Maby they plan on an underwater casino dlc. Reward can be a working harpoon, and a place to sleep with the fishes.

That would be awesome, but Beth doesn't seem to want to touch gambling . . . maybe someone there has an addiction

As I see it, the problem with the minigames is that they get old as you level up and play the game for a while. An easy solution would be to make the final level of the hacking/lockpicking perks get rid of the need to actually lockpick/hack. That way players could earn the ability to get rid of the games if they want or keep the games by not leveling the perk all the way.

I ge the point that they can get tedious over time and the fact that hacking terminals has been spoiled a bit by being able to just rety as many times as you like now but, I do enjoy the miniggames.

The animation getting ino the computers is a bit slow and clunky and they operate slowly even when skipping. I think they'd be more tolerable if they made it a bit quicker?

However, I enjoy the games, sorry!

Meanwhile Witcher3 made the minigames into full fledged games within games (see Gwent).

The lockpicking and hacking are very well done in Fallout 4. Especially compared to something just bizarre like the conversation wheel thing from Oblivion. However I get what you mean. There's a point where it becomes drudgery (the hacking moreso). I appreciated the "auto attempt" for lockpicking in Oblivion.

I stopped putting points into hacking or lockpicking on my third character. You don't need them anyway, they are just nice extras for people who enjoy them.

The biggest challenge with loot in this game is how to NOT get overwhelmed by the insane amount of it, not with how to find more.

You look to me like a Gwent aficionado. Up for a round?

Gwent is awesome.

Hell no, need more minigames. I'd like to see caravan or a boston equivalent fleshed out like gwent is in the witcher 3.

Lockpicking gets on my nerves. Thankfully it's easy to accrue 99999 billion picks. Hacking is simple and I actually enjoy those.

Also, I miss playing Caravan.