Patience. And a bit of luck. I opened a Master lock with only 4 picks at skill level 34 last night. It can be done.

I also love the mini-game. I probably picked every lock in Fallout 3 and NV.

But I do agree with the OP. The Lock-picking perk tree is pretty much useless if you have the patience.

leave the lockpicking skill tree alone or ill call the giant.. he will club you to death mister Elfishgene. Just use what you like, noone is forcing you to do anything.

It's a fact that lockpicking is useless. Being able to pick master locks at level 1 is silly. I'll say it too.. make apprentice+ impossible to novice, adept+ impossible to apprentice and so on. Then only will it gain a real use...

I hated the minigame in Oblivion and I svcked at it. So I would just buy an insane number of lockpicks from the Grey Fox and spam the auto button. Not fun, not better than this. I was able to pick locks well in Fallout 3, so I appreciated them going to that method. The biggest differences being that in Fallout, if your skill isn't high enough, you can't try at all, and in Fallout, if your skill *was* high enough, it was easier than in Skyrim. The picks just break far more easily and more often, but I can still pick Expert (probably master, haven't tried since I realized I could definitely do an Expert one) after I go through 3-10 picks.

This is of course, just my opinion, but I really enjoy locking picking in Skyrim.

Again somebody else mising the point entirely!

It's a pointless waste of programming, it's useless, it's cheap and it fails in it's objective to create roleplay thief style gameplay.

Its kinda more of an emersion skill then anything.

When i finally make a close combat rogueish class I may take it just for a more sneaky feeling.

It's kinda a handful of classes are ehh to me (i feel gimped with out resist or being heigh elf) i still went with an imperial because in the description they are listed as a melee/caster class. Im lvl 36 on him and still have not used his voice skill.

The thing with lockpicking is that it's pretty limited as a skill, so to be fun, it needs to have SOME level of player interaction and skill, but to be balanced and make it so you actually have some reason to level, it needs to rely mostly on character skill. I don't think they've struck a balance here. If I were Bethesda, I'd make the locks get harder at a much steeper rate, and expert and master locks not even openable until you either reach a certain level or unlock a perk for it (which could require a certain level anyway).

At level 8 I opened a Master lock with 10 broken lock picks. Once you find the rough sweet spot you just need to keep making slight changes and try doing it very lightly.

Hmm yes you will break a pick or two to find the sweet spot, but not ten.

If you want the find the sweet spot without breaking any picks, that's what the perks are for!

I put 2 points into the 1st two perks thinking it worked like FO3 and that I would need them to open said locks. I REALLY wish I would not have wasted those 2 perks and I'll never do it again on a play through. IMO nothing in the lockpicking line is even remotely useful to me and I've sucessfully picked master locks with less than 5 pick breaks at lvl 35 so yah its def not worth the limited ammount of perks to waste on.

And this ^^

I was unlocking Master locks without a single perk. Then I did the thieves quest line and the whole tree became redundant forever. :/

As no one said that they picked master locks without breaking a single pick, it's pretty asinine of you to accuse someone else of not being able to read.

You just go really carefully, but you will still lose a lot of lockpicks. Tbh though, I think the skill list of Skyrim is a bit redundant, still. Lockpicking and Pickpocket should've gone into the same perk tree and called "Thievery" with the necessary perk tweaks.

Sneak skill is pretty solid, although I dislike the perk tree setup, needing Light Step and Silent Roll to become Shadow Warrior is a bit limiting IMO. For my playstyle, Both of those perks are utterly useless.

I think that Bethesda should've kept the inaccessibility of higher locks, NOT made all locks pickable by any nimwit. Just think of it in terms of realism. Nobody is able to pick a solid door lock on the first attempt, given enough lockpicks and/or time. They first need to understand the principle or rely on ridiculous luck.

Well when CK will be released there will be possibility make mod thats will add Skill requirements to locks thats will apply Before lockpicking minigame start e.g to try pick something you need know structure of lock first, otherwise you can spend some amount of lockpics to try discovery structure of lock and try open lock one level above your skill Agility + Luck check can be useful there to determine how much picks will be broken for testing purposes, since not only skills determine you character there is no attributes perhaps we can use perks for this check.

How about this formula:

0-24   skill points: Novice level          Very Easy Lock       or try pick Easy Lock25-49 skill points: Apprentice level    Easy Lock               or try pick Average Lock50-74 skill points: Journeyman level  Average Lock           or try pick Hard Lock75-99 skill points: Expert level          Hard Lock                or try pick Very Hard Lock100    skill points: Master level         Very Hard Lock        or try pick Need Key Lock

Additionally nice to add Traps and Alarms to locks above easy, what can be triggered if Character will fail check or broke his lockpick one or few times.
Effect of traps can vary from poisons thats paralyze, drain health, stun magicka and silence, explode with elemental damage as rune spell, summon hostile enemies, create loud alarm noise thats attract enemies to locked container position.

Another addition is ability bash lock with weapon and use weapon weight+strike damage versus lock level,
open lock with Open spell thats require both hands to be charged and drain magicka in proportion to lock level
Door bash shout thats is addition effect to Unrelenting Force at full charge
All this options are loud and unstealth almost always trigger traps and alarms so lockpickig still will have advantage over them.

Hope Creation Kit release is close.

I can break 20 lockpicks on it. Doens't make it hard. All I need to do is buy from an infinite pool of lockpicks 100 with me and I can open all locks.

However, what makes the lockpick skill completely useless is the skeleton key.

The lockpick skill tree would become a lot more useful if:

1) lockpicks were rare
2) after you break x number of picks, the lock becomes jammed, and impossible to open
3) the game simply doesn't let you pick expert locks without having the expert skill (I know people loathe this option, but it makes sense. If you don't know the first thing about how a complicated lock operates, how do you expect to pick it?)

I would also like to see bashing added to the elder scrolls game. Smashing a chest open will more than likely destroy the objects inside, but every so often you'll be able to salvage something. You can attempt to bash doors in, but you lose the element of surprise due to the noise. They could also include different door strengths. Simple pine doors would be easy to bash open, oak and metal doors next to impossible.

Liking this as well ^^

Some nice thought going into a few of these posts! Are you listening Bethesda?

Problem with lockpicking is that without even actively looking for them, I can have 70+ lock picks within a few hours of play. Give me a master lock, and I can figure it out on 10 skill without breaking more than 5-10 picks. No challenge.

Locks definitely need skill requirements, which I'm looking forward to with the release of the CK.

Indeed.

All they really need to do is what the guy suggested earlier in the thread and make it so the tumblers reset if you break a pick.

That way anyone could theoretically still pick master locks but odds are you'll break all your picks before you do if you're not skilled.

You could argue the whole lockpicking skill is now completely worthless since its play skill based; I think its pretty easy at least even if you break a pick or two.
Maybe someone should repurpose it for a custom skill.

If you fail at subtle movements there's a cheat mod on nexus for the lockpicking minigame.

I love that everyone who posts these "Lockpicking is pointless," topics doesn't pay attention to any of the perks in the tree that don't read "Makes X easier to open."

This. The Oblivion system was good, because it was based on the player's skill with the lockpicking system. The security skill was just an aide on the side. However, Skyrim lockpicking is nigh impossible if you lack lockpicking perks/low lockpicking skill, because it's mostly chance.

Easy, quicksave, try to pick from the middle, it broke? Now try, 1 oclock, it broke? Now try 2 oclock, it broke? Continue on. You ran out of lockpicks? Reload!
But honestly, at one point you'll have so many lock picks that it won't matter if you break 20 so later on you don't even need to save and reload.

And I fully agree with the OP.
The skill tree is absolutely pointless.
There are two perks I found interesting, 50% chance for special items and twice as much gold.
But other than that the tree is so ridiculously easy that spending point in it is wasteful.
If you have a hard time getting adjusted to the lockpicking system then work on it, try to figure it out, trial and error, but for the love of Bruce Willis do not spend any points in that skill tree, it isn't worth it, not even for roleplaying.

[edit]
I've never failed to pick a lock, and by that I mean I've never thought it's been so hard that I gave up and moved on.
The most picks I've failed on one lock is 9 to 12 on a Master lock.