Problem is that gimping Unlock to a degree where the Lockpicking skill is not useless, would make the Unlock spell useless. Consider the simple scenario where Meya the Mage comes to a locked chest and cannot open it with her spell. Meya will have to either pass it by or pull out a lockpick. I'm pretty sure most players would pull out that lockpick. And if that is the end result anyway, why not just start there?

I think lockpicking is not balanced due to one simple reason: If a player reaches a lock that he or she cannot open, most will be annoyed, and they definitely will not return when they get good enough, because the loot is seldom worth it. Perks are not balanced because the only real mechanic they have to work with is the annoyance of the mini game. Had lockpicking been a real-time roll taking e.g. 1½ second per attempt, with the perk giving autosuccess and only taking ½ second, most thieves would find the perks pretty useful.

As long as you are not in combat, magicka regen is not really a problem. If you have enough magicka to cast the spell, you can do it.

Edit: Fixed a few spelling goofs.

There is a thing called balance. You need to have a certain degree in your game or a desaster will occur.

It has nothing to do with balance. Bringing back unlock spells wouldnt unbalance anything anyway.

Skyrim is about options. Isn't that why they constructed that HUGE map to explore? The idea "you do it your own way" is kind of the point. I would like to have the choice of walking by that chest, writing a note in my journal/diary about it and then be able to return when I think I might be able to open it.

It's bizarre and stupid. The actual effect is in the game, why isn't it a spell!?

And why can't I lock bash, bethesda? Why must my warrior be forced to go through that [censored] [censored] lockpicking mini-game ripped from Fallout just to get some loot?! [censored].

EDIT; Child-friendly forum for an M Rated game huh.

You're right, because it's already unbalanced. btw I was just responding strictly to your statement you made before.

It annoyed me too.
I'm looking forward to the day when the unlock spells are returned to the alteration school, and lock bashing is also put in via mods.

Why they're not there in the first place boggles the mind. It's very jarring having to use lockpicking with all class archetypes when it's out of character so I can open doors and chests. Each 'class' should have its own method to deal with locks.

Why would a mage use a pick to open a lock when they can use alteration?
And why would a warrior use a pick when they can simply smash the lock with their axe etc.

Maybe early on it would be like that. Later you wouldn't have lockpicking high enough to do it and you probably would have Alteration high enough assuming you actually used the school for multiple things (which would be the only reason why you went with it instead of lockpicking).



Lockpicking perks increase gold in chests, can get you better items found, etc. They could be modified to do this even more. I do agree that it is a bit lame some perks ONLY deal with minigame annoyances. Of course, there are a number of perks like this in the game. As an idea the perk system is awesome, but some of the particular implementations need a bit of work.



Which is my point. You make the cost of the spells require that you have a lot of magicka and either equipment or perks to be able to be cast. If you don't want to invest in your magicka pool and spellcasting, then you should be opening locks the old fashioned way. Right now this would work perfectly except for the fact you can make all spells of a given school cost 0 mana. That's a small loophole, but it is no bigger than others in the game and no reason not to have unlocking spells.

Most spells in Skyrim that are designed to be used a lot give very little xp, such as magelight.
If the xp gain from open lock spells is low I think your ideas would make a good mod for Skyrim.

Unlock spell plays like reg. lock pick mini game but uses magicka (based on skill lvl of alteration) and if fail could hurt you?
cool perk for lock picking "use dagger"
If this is in then i can rp my lazy mage only uses magic for everything doesn't carry things use tele for moving objects
for bashing we need weapons degreadtion so that could go down or stamina (if stamina fail could hurt you?)

Yeah one would think that due to how easy it would have been to have an open lock spell in one of the magic schools Bethesda must have a pretty damn good reason for not including one in the game right?


Let me ask you this genius, lets say you have a choice between a skill devoted purely to opening locks and a skill that includes the spell to open locks as well as many other spells, from a purely tactical point of view which skill do you think would be the smarter skill to take?

Now lets break it down even further, in order to pick locks with the skill devoted purely to picking locks you need to carry around lockpicks and succeed at a minigame where if you fail eats away at your supply of lockpicks, however in order to open locks with the magic school that contains not only open lock spells but many other useful spells you merely have to cast the spell and off pops the lock costing the player nothing but sweet regeneratable mana, does that really seem "Balanced" to you?

Now if you want an open lock spell then the construction kit will be released soon and you can mod in any exploits you like, however open lock was removed from the vanilla game for a reason and that reason is that the open lock spell makes the whole lockpicking skill superfluous, you may not agree however this is not an opinion but an unadvlterated fact.

First, lockpicks aren't a real issue. They are cheap and easy to get. Also, perks allow lockpicking to get you more items, more gold, and keys. I'll grant that the current perks could be better. However, I'd also add that lockpicking isn't dependent on perks to work nor does it require any investment in stamina or magicka. If magical lockpicking required high levels of magicka and some perks to cast the spells, then I think it would be balanced since it would simply be something not everyone could really do. It also would be unable to benefit from the gold, item, and key perks of lockpicking.

Maybe I'll look into modding when the CK comes out. Make it so the lockpicking perks are better and give you more free stuff, and add magical lockpicking that requires magicka investment. Overall though, it isn't like this is something that Bethesda couldn't have easily done (say more gold and better items for each perk in lockpicking in addition to what they already do). So there's no really good reason why magical lockpicking isn't in the game.

Locksmithing is too easy and a joke without putting even one perk in the skill tree. Also the loot rewards from picked chests arnt that great anyway

I personally don't care one way or another. In DAO and DA2, I took advantage of Lockbash and/or Unlock spell mods because there were chests that I needed to get into, and my thief d/n always cut the snuff. Here, I have yet to find a lock that I can't open, with the help of a multitude of picks, some gear and infinite patience. As far as role-playing goes, I believe we sometimes take purity too far. I view what happens at Helgen Keep in the beginning as a tutorial in lockpicking; that is, I learned how to do it. It doesn't matter that i'm a mage or a paladin; I'm now a mage or paladin that knows how to pick locks. Will I ever spend a point in lock-picking. Absolutely not! That would be OOC.

im glad they took it out. in previous games you had a choice between lockpicking or security and an entire magic school that not only let you unlock things without using up lockpicks but also came with tons of other nifty spells. if you designing a character why wouldnt you pick the magic school thta lets you do the same thing as security and also has additional spells like shield, waterbreathing etc.

also, you dont even need it anyways because in both oblivion and skyrim you can pick any lock at any level and lockpicks are cheap and plentiful.

im of the school that certain things should only be obtainable by a character that specializes in that area. i wouldnt mind having low, mid level lockpick spells but the hardest locks should only be opened by someone who specializes in them. otherwise someone could make a killing selling cheap master unlock scrolls to everyone making locks utterly useless.

i would actually like to see lockbash for low end locks just like you can open up cheap locks in reality fairly easily. higher level locks should be impossible to bash though since i would assume they are of tougher metals.

Look buddy, those perks that give a small chance to find more gold or slightly better armour mean precisely dip when compared to all the extra spells and effects one can get in a school of magic, also when you say keys I seriously hope you arent refering to the wax key perk? Oh yeah thats real useful, get a key to the door that you just picked? You dont need a [censored] key as the door is already unlocked, not to mention you only get the key if there is actually a key item for the door in the game so most locks give you dip.

As I said earlier you can mod in whatever you damn well like, you could make a mod that allows you to fart rainbows for all I care however the fact is open lock spells make the lockpicking tree superfluous, that is why open lock spells werent put in the game and that is why they probably wont return in future games either.

Agreed man... I WANNA USE MAGIC TO UNLOCK CHESTS, NOT LOCKPICKS.

And feather being removed, good lord don't get me goin...

yea, I was kinda shocked at the missing unlock spells since my warrior deals in no magic except what`s ready made already by other wizards. When I had no lockpicks it did put me in a bit of a bind.

I was further surprised when I attempted to bash the lock and realised that doesn`t work.

Guess i`l have to wait for modders to make the bash-lock mod... again.

Encharion is also right about the ockpick skill making no difference. I was pretty amazed when I managed to unlock a MASTER lock with barely any lockpick skill. It was finnicky, but i did it.

For me its just a roleplaying aspect. I wouldn't have even minded if they made some sort of magic "lockpicking" minigame. Instead of a graphic with lockpicks it was some subtle manipulation hand gestures that mimicked pretty much the same effort on the part of the player. That way, the could still have the same level of "challenge" to a player.

However, its not like too many people actually put perks into lockpicking skill tree anyway so what exactly was the harm?

Do you Beth Defense Crew guys think about your responses before you type them?

50% isn't a small chance regarding items. I suppose the key thing isn't that big of a deal since it requires a perk that seems to let you pick in plain sight (which is not insignificant). Could the lockpicking perks be better? Yes, certainly. However, the changes needed are not remotely hard to conceive of. Again, lockpicking is also a skill that anyone could make use of in any character build. If lockpicking spells existed, then they'd have specialized requirements that not anyone could make use of, so there'd still be a perfectly good reason to invest in lockpicking (e.g. it wouldn't require perks or any build particulars). That said, lockpicking would certainly be helped by having worthwhile perks, but I don't think that's necessary for lockpicking spells to be balanced -- it is only necessary for lockpicking perks to be balanced.

I choose what my build would choose. I roleplay in an RPG. I dont do what works the best, whats most practical, min/max. This is an RPG. a build that uses alteration, uses alteration, a build thats good at picking locks, uses lock picking. Its not about JoAT action game play.

It has nothing to do with balance, and wouldnt be unbalanced in any way if it were brought back.

And thats your opinion, not a fact. lol at newbs that dont know the difference.

They already have the effect. It will just take 10 minutes tops to create the spell book for it. No it was by design.

First, open lock spells would make the standing stone itself pointless.

Second, they don't want to trivialize the lockpick skill and perk tree itself. Assuming as a thief, you spend all that time leveling lockpick to 100 and don't waste perkpoints on it, you are still faced with the lockpick minigame, on which the master level lock will still cost you 3-5 lockpicks on average.

Now compare that to an unlock spell which bypasses the minigame all together and is just a small faction of the uses of the Alternation school which also increase armor, paralyze enemies and grants waterbreathing. You should figured out no thief will actually bother with lockpick skill itself should the spell be available.

So no, the absence of unlock spell is not due to time crunch nor streamlining. It is due to balance. They rather make alternation skill a little more useless than make the lockpick skill completely useless.

Bah, i'm glad they eliminated it.

It was really stupid in Morrowind where magic could accomplish everything in the game, making the non-magic choice basically worthless.

IT's funny how many whiny threads there are about lack of consequences in Skyrim, but this is an example of (mild) consequences of going with a straight mage play style..and people raise the roof about it. Pantywaists.

I don't agree with the removal of Open Lock but I'm not missing it, Lockpick is pretty easy to use unless it's a Master Lock.