As Barney Calhoun from HL correctly quotes in the title, "With that much security there must be something good in there. Go for it Gordon..."

I want address an annoying problem that always bugged me in Oblivion. As the quote suggests, when you see a storage container or door with a hard or really hard lock on it you'd expect something of value on the inside for your troubles of getting to it. But several in instances in Oblivion I would finish of the Marauders in a dungeon or sneak into to someones house to find some sort of chest or container with a Very Hard Lock on it. Upon taking the time and precious picks to crack it open, what do I find? That for some reason the homeowner thought it necessary to put a Very Hard Lock on to protect his broomstick, course linen shoes, and clay pot. It's equally frustrating to go through the trouble for only 16 gold and some wheat grain.
I don't know if it was done like that on purpose or if what npc's keep in there homes is random, but that shouldn't be done in Skyrim. Generic low worth junk should be stored out in the open or in barrels, cupboards, desks, pantries, etc. where they belong. If a character is wealthy then you'd expect him to keep his few hundred pieces of gold or unique weapons/items in their harden chests, and their miscellaneous junk where it belongs. Even poorer characters should have at least gold and a piece of jewelry/expensive clothes in their locked containers since it's all they have.
Discuss and share your opinions on the matter.

I came in here expecting this to be PSN related...

I agree, the harder the lock, the more worthy the reward.

Lol.


As for the OP, It's not an issue that has escaped the community and the Team. Fallout 3 made great strides to improve the overall quality of the static loot in the game, and the overall viability of the "Thief" type character.

Agreed I did this many a time, break my picks getting in to a very hard locked chest only to find a pair of buckled shoes, a potato and some course linen pants

It's not just even with the thieving though. Your right, FO3 did have more more rewarding things in harder locks and rarely had a hard lock yield just a few caps and a sensor module. But I never really focused on thievery in the FO series since it's a nuclear apocalypse and everybody's poor and don't have much.

They learned a lot from Oblivion, no wonder why I loved Fallout 3 so much.
They'll make it even better with Skyrim.

They were hiding the potatoe of course

Haha. That's true. I hate wasting 10 lockpicks trying to pick a 'very hard' lock to find some silverware.

to fix this problem just get the skeleton key!!! well at least in oblivion!!!

Well, it's still a problem when your level isn't high enough to do Nocturnal's quest yet.
And even with the skeleton key, it's still upsetting to bust open a crate or chest with a hard lock thinking there's good loot inside but only finding potatoes and corn.

Most definitely.. Other Bethesda games turned me into more of a Garage Salesman rather than a rich S.O.B after unlocking heavy duty locks. Made me sad.

I really hope they improve the stealth/ thievery system in Skyrim. In the last two TES games they were both flawed, but I perfered Morrowinds to Oblivions because at least in Morrowind there was something worth stealing. In Oblivion all the cool stuff in the display cases was fake, talk about a slap to the face.

Honestly, I'm not expecting it. Why? Because this thread reminded me of all the 100-skill locks in Fallout3 that had crap inside them. :sadvaultboy:

THIS!
I forgot to mention that load of bs, thanks for reminding me. Sometimes walking into the fighter's or mage's guilds and picking those cases only to find replicas was purely rage inducing. And all of em with hard or very hard locks, so when I see what's inside I think "ooh, these must be the real deal & expensive with that kind of security". Then I open them and think "I wasted a good 9 picks for this?!". Just the other day I was playing my latest character and opened a case in a fighter's guild building that had a piece of clothing in it. I thought it was some kind of enchanted finery with cool powers and value, turns out it was just a simple plaid shirt.
Seriously, put that in you drawers not your display cases!!!

Agreed. Hard locks should be rare and be protecting great loot.

That is why most of us didnt really care for Oblivion and liked MW better. OB wasnt polished and felt kinda blah. The little things go a long way and definitely make a game Epic when they devs take the time to go the xtra mile with this type of thing. I also hated the lack of fun and thought out designs that were in MW like the Faction vaults. I remember the first time i looted house Redorans vault and was like, "damn, that was awesome!!" i reloaded and did it again..and again.. But to reply to the OP, i am in complete agreement. I hope that with this many people on the dev team it will be amazingly thought out and done right!! The harder the lock the better the loot. In most cases

What does that have to do with Bethesda getting better at making it? Just because you didn't fully experience it doesn't diminish their improvements nor does it preclude the use of or further improvement of those mechanics in Skyrim. :mellow:

Completly agree ! It did feel like you were loosing your time with that lockpick mini-game to get more than often some unvaluable scraps. Even if the chest had like 100 golds, it's nothing compared to the 3000+ gold of most special weapons/armor you'd find on any brigands that you'd take out in like 3 hits.

Definitely. Oblivion had way to many hard locks with crappy treasure.

I agree. But then again, this is just one thing on the long list of things wrong with thieving in OB.

I installed a few overhaul mods for Oblivion and I'm not sure which one is responsible for this, but there are very hard chests in each dungeon now that are trapped with magical runes. Inside almost every one, I've found some cool new unique items, like runeskulls, named magic items or magic tomes that grant a new spell.