Do you guys feel like the lockpicking skill is worthless?The minigame too easy?I did never spend any points on that skill as soon as i figured out how easy it is to pick even master locks with enough picks.
I was able to pick master locks with 5-15 picks max,usually.
And since almost every bandit's corpse give you a lockpick it seems even more useless and not worth investing points in.I only ran out of picks once or twice with all my characters in over 250 hours.

A lot of posts saying the skill itself is useless, but that's not the case in and of itself. It is the mini-game that makes it useless. That and the fact that the random loot lists don't seem to take lock quality into account (or if they do, in a very singular manner). Make the mini-game ridiculous without the higher perks, actually figure the difficulty into the reward, just in a slight way will do, and the character is rewarded for investing in a non-combat, non-magical skill. The way it should be.

I find the perks useless. I have over 1500 picks on one character, and I can open most locks in under 10 tries even if I'm not being careful.

Yeah, not combining difficulty with reward, was stupid. When you're faced with popping 10+ picks to open a master chest and you know it's likely to only hold 7 gold and an iron dagger, not much incentive. Why bother.

Yes that's also a problem with chests and lockpicking.The reward is usually a rusty dagger and a couple of used panties.

That is honestly the most annoying thing ever.

It makes real world sense too (ok, fantasy real world if you get my drift. Damn, I mean it's more verisimilitudinous) . If you break into a merchant's safe, and find nothing but papers useless to you, fair enough, but which self-respecting ancient warlord used the strongest chest in his mountain lair to hide a silver ring and a cheap knife?

Maybe he originally had a Novice lock holding all of his money and Daedric weapons, but someone took everything valuable he owned, so he decided to spend the rest of his money and buy a Master lock. Unfortunately by that time, all he had left was the silver ring and an iron dagger, but he put it in there anyway, so the lock wasn't a total waste of money.

It is very easy to open locks which is a shame. And the rewards are terrible. Every Master chest I unlock has a few gold and if I'm lucky I might get an iron dagger as well. I remember when I was exploring dungeons and I'd find secret chests and that music would play, I'd open the Master chest to get a few gold and a potion. It was a real big let down.

The most rewarding item I got in a chest was my first Glass Bow. I was exploring underwater when I found a hidden chest and it wasn't even locked.

I have found a few other alright items in chests from Dwemer ruins but they weren't master locks. I got a +35% bow damage circlet and +30% bow damage elven gauntlets from separate expert locks once. But nothing that was ever really unique and special.

If you buy lockpicks from every merchant you find...sure...lockpicking can be easy.

But...if you use only lockpicks that you find lying around or only those that you pickpocket from people, then it's not quite as easy. Breaking lockpicks becomes a problem.

Doing it this way I find the perks are not a waste.

It's all how you play the game.

Yes it is much too easy. It takes about 10 lockpicks to open a master lock with no perks. Sure, it took me 10 lockpicks, but I opened it. That shouldn't be possible for someone with next to no skill in lockpicking.

As for the discussion of loot vs. difficulty of lock, I find that to be an issue too. It seems that the boss chest always has the best gear in it (and no lock). Really, having the random Expert and Master chests and doors having something thats better in/behind them would actually make the skill worthwhile.

It's easy but it's a hell of a lot better then Oblivion's "Mash the X Button" system.

The only reason I don't want difficulty increased is that we have no alternatives at the moment. You can't open chests with a spell or bash them open, you've got to use the Lockpicks.

I prefer Oblivion's system, but I had the timing there down to a science.

Yep I agree with this.

i'm sorry but I've played 260 hours as of this writing and I've never had a master locked chest give me 7 gold and an iron dagger. I always get several thousand gold worth of enchanted goods and potions and a fat chunk of gold on top of that. I am more then happy with loot vs effort in Skyrim.

yes it is worthless.

I never bought Lockpicks.

I always had at least 40+ on me at any given time, and I picked every lock I found.

The Lockpick Skill Tree is worthless.

I agree with the general consensus in this thread that chest rewards don't align very well with lock difficulty at all. Furthermore, I also agree that picking locks is very easy, just with the lockpicks I find lying around and with the natural skill increase of picking every lock that's pickable. I usually find my lockpick skill around 75 just from picking random chest locks by the time I'm level 30.

I do wish there was more point to the skill tree, by making the game harder.

I also wish there was more than one lock type to "pick," thus having more than 1 minigame. They already had a funny one for Oblivion, why not throw it in occasionally as well? Add in a third, maybe for combination locks, and you would be in business. Then you could have difficulty, and variety. Perfect for a skill tree.

Lastly, I wish there was an alternative to picking locks. Smashing them, or opening them with magic is a must, I think. However, I don't think either of those should be a "win" button either. Both should also involve a degree of difficulty, and possibly even mini-games of their own.


I completely disagree with this. I have never bought a lockpick in my life, and I have 124 right now. I've picked every lock I come across.

Although I do get nice items from Master chests at high levels the perks are totally not worth taking. They should have left it the way it used to be where you couldn't open the higher level locks unless you took the perk for them. Of course if they made you waste all those points and then gave you nothing in return, meaning trash in the chests, people would be pretty ticked about it.

Aren't you just a lucky bugger. Not my experience, after playing over twice that amount. Ok, so the 7g + iron dagger is a slight exaggeration, but I still rarely see any enchanted items or other valuable items worth over 100g, in most master chests. Lots of orcish daggers and elven guantlets and minor potions... yadda yadda. And gold being as easy as it is to build up, that kind of stuff doesn't pique much interest in me. I think every master chest should at least have some kind of blue in it, even if it's just a low grade set of leather boots with a minor enchant on them. At least *something* worth glancing at for a second or two. So rarely happens.

That sounds terrible I guess I really got lucky them, Of course now that I said something my next chest is going to be filled with garbage! Great!!!!

The lockpocking perks, in my opinion, are best saved for theif characters at higher levels, but only the four perks that make the locks easier to pick.

To easy yes. Skill useless.... with no perks there is a small difference trying to open a lock at level 100 vs level 15... but not much of one. So yes, useless.

Lockpicking is just stupid, it's all luck. Either you'll hit the sweet area, or you won't. There is no compromising on the higher levels. Sure, it encourages you to level up lockpicking, but its not worth the skills because you can just buy picks and try your luck.

I'am not sure if we play the same game.. but the rewards i usually get are far,faaaar away from your loot.Sure sometimes you get steel plate armor boots with fortify sneak and such things. But overall it's not worth lockpicking chest.