That's real funny that you bring up Mass Effect 2. Now that was a real system of a useless time sink that served no purposed but to ... well, time sink. Personally, lockpicking is a far cry from watching paint dry and it's not something that takes a long time in any case, it's a quick in and out ordeal. Linking all those activities together is just a fallacy.

Well, I guess we can agree to disagree then. Fortunately for me, Bethesda seems to be on my side of things.

Combat in Morrowind was like this. Landing a sword hit and dealing out damage was only dependent on your characters' skills in the weapon used. That is why you could swing away with a sword in Morrowind at low levels and barely land any hits. They tried to do this with a hit box in this game. However, what I am talking about is the minigame removes any and all needs to work on a lockpicking skill if the player can overcome the character's limitations. That is not Role Playing.

themagician- when you say that the scroll series has never been like that you are completely wrong. most of morrowind, including, combat, spell casting, lockpicking, etc. was completely based on character skill.

I could pick every lock no matter the level on the first time, every time, in Oblivion simply by listening to the clicks. This lockpicking in Skyrim is more like luck than anything. The higher level locks break if you mess up twice, but it's impossible to know where to guess so you can't be skilled at it, you can only get lucky.

I don't mind it enough to complain, it just means a lot more picks get bought.

Actually the two are quite alike. They are both secondary mechanics implemented to give the player the illusion that they themselves have control over mining/lockpicking both of which yield like results. Materials from mining are used to provide upgrades. Chests and doors contain loot. Probes take a few seconds to find and scan to receive the materials, as does lockpicking. You just have to do the same. repetitive. actions. over and over. How do you not see lockpicking as the same as ME2s surveying? If not surveying it is the same as lining up the text strings to "hack" aka lockpick things. SAME EXACT THING.

THERE IS NO CHALLENGE IN LOCKPICKING. I know I can open any chest. Completely trivial. It is a shallow, repetitive, and boring system that loses its novelty the moment you open your first chest or door.

I don't think people are getting the point I'm trying to make, which is that the lockpicking mini-game is essentially the same as real-time combat only in an immature stage of development.

Then Bethesda should remove the Lockpicking skill/levels from the game as it does not matter to the character's outcome in picking a lock.

You keep stating things as if they are an absolute and as if they are fact. That's simply not true. You kept stating the end results of the activity, but not the execution, something which I find quite flawed in your argument. Yes, surveying for minerals yielding materials for upgrades. Chests and doors contain loot. That's the end result. You're overlooking the middle.

The execution of the ME2 surveying is nothing more than a point and click time sink that takes far longer than a few seconds, especially if you want to gather enough materials to buy the appropriate amount of upgrades. I've picked a ton of locks and I haven't even spent a fraction of the time doing so when compared to the immense amount of time needed to mine for minerals/upgrades.

Maybe you don't like the execution of lockpicking in Skyrim, I do, personally. However, you can tailor your argument to anything, really. Combat. The same repetitive actions over and over. It's the same as ME2s surveying.

I am not commenting on how someone should feel about seeing their character's sword hits miss, I was responding to the post that said combat skills did not matter in earlier TES games.

Bottom line, if my character's lock picking skills are 24 (combining skills and tools), then they should not be able to open a level 25 lock. Period.

Did you even play ME2? The Surveying worked as you would respond to mineral levels based on cursor position, when you found the optimum level you clicked. Lockpicking, you move your cursor to respond to the clicks and at the optimum point you pick the lock. They are exactly the same. Regardless of that however, it truly does amaze me that you can like the lockpicking system. It does not change or offer any sort of challenge you have to respond to unlike, in your example, combat which changes as the computer AI responds to you, and you it.

RPGs are built around algorithms and skill checks. This is not a new concept. Skill level determines effectiveness. When it comes to Lockpicking or Pickpocketing however, there is no grey area. You either pick the lock or lift an item - or you don't. The problem with the current system is that it takes player skill level almost completely out of the equation. They tried to introduce a mini-game that places focus on player skill level (for Lockpicking anyways). It is my opinion that when it comes to mini-games or secondary mechanics, they often-times become highly repetitive and more of a burden than they are fun. The reason this occurs is that normally these secondary mechanics are not treated with the same attention primary mechanics like combat for example is. This leads these "mini-games" feeling like afterthoughts. It is my opinion that you either introduce a mechanic that is not repetitive, non-challenging, and non-interesting OR you revert entirely to the classic system. Regardless, player skill should have a larger impact on how effective you are at picking a lock. The most obvious would be the complete inability to unlock certain tiers of locks until you had an adequate skill level.

I am not sure how this is hard to follow. Do you honestly find lockpicking to be fun in this game? I mean really? Do you like watching paint dry? Do you like surveying for materials by shooting probes ad nauseum in ME2?

I am not commenting on how someone should feel about seeing their character's sword hits miss, I was responding to the post that said combat skills did not matter in earlier TES games.

Bottom line, if my character's lock picking skills are 24 (combining skills and tools), then they should not be able to open a level 25 lock. Period.

So do you think that Fallout 3 had a more 'RL-RPG' element in regards to lockpicking than Skyrim?

You're right. If my character is level 5 and I encounter a level 25 monster, my character should just drop down dead in his tracks. Period. Who wouldn't want to play that kind of game?

Exactly, that Level 25 enemy should kick your level 5's butt all the way back to the opening dungeon. And then laugh at you while it dances on your character's corpse.

I could pick every lock no matter the level on the first time, every time, in Oblivion simply by listening to the clicks. This lockpicking in Skyrim is more like luck than anything. The higher level locks break if you mess up twice, but it's impossible to know where to guess so you can't be skilled at it, you can only get lucky.

I don't mind it enough to complain, it just means a lot more picks get bought.

If you level to a higher lockpick skill, it becomes "easier", meaning you have more "wrong" tries before the lock breaks your pick. I can usually get 4-5 tries on a master lock before it breaks my pick, which helps a little. A master lock will still eat a handful of lockpicks though, but this is to be expected, since it will also pretty much guarantee a levelup once you do guess the right spot. If I am patient, I can typically open a master-level lock in about 4-6 lockpicks worth of attempts. Which is fine considering that you can usually loot more than 30 gold worth of stuff from master-lock-level chests.

As to the mechanics of the game, it provides a small mini-game within the game, and it responds to patience and dedication well (the more you practice it, the higher the level, the easier to pick the locks, and eventually you graduate to the blissful ability to NEVER break a lockpick!), as any skill will do, both in a game, or in real life...

what must be taken from this thread is that bethesda did not put much effort into their lockpick system. they definitely didn't advance it.
they've taken an important skill from their previous games and regressed it. that's what's disappointing.

and, the fact that the groundwork was already laid out before them from previous games and that it's quite easy to come up with fresh ideas, it is unacceptable.

this is exactly what i and others mean when we toss out the phrase, "dumbed-down." and, despise the terms, mainstream, streamlining, accessibility, etc.
it shouldn't be a hard position to comprehend.

what must be taken from this thread is that bethesda did not put much effort into their lockpick system. they definitely didn't advance it.
they've taken an important skill from their previous games and regressed it. that's what's disappointing.

and, the fact that the groundwork was already laid out before them from previous games and that it's quite easy to come up with fresh ideas, it is unacceptable.

this is exactly what i and others mean when we toss out the phrase, "dumbed-down." and, despise the terms, mainstream, streamlining, accessibility, etc.
it shouldn't be a hard position to comprehend.

to have the consequence of an entire skill and perk system be related to the number of picks broken should end the argument once and for all.

What bugged me the most about FO3 was your skill had to be at 25, 50, 75 or 100. Anything in between just did not matter so it was a race to each level with no intermediate benefits like the other skills gave your character.

Where Fallout 3 really fell short is removing the tools that could leverage skills and Luck should have been a factor or more of a factor. Say the character was at a skill of 23 and the lock was at 25 but their luck as at 8, then they might get lucky and be able to open the lock but if their luck was at 5 then no go or they would break a lot of picks trying. Same if they happened to have a Master level lockpick, they could open a lock that they were not skilled at raw, but the tool could help them some. In other words, like Morrowind.

And in circles we go. You keep saying it was regressed when you just mean, it's not the way I like it so therefore I feel it's regressed. That's nonsensical to be perfectly honest. And often times people use the term "dumbed-down", mainstream, and streamlining incorrectly and in an attempt to sound "cool" and because "everyone else is saying it".

But what I never understood was why so many people's first reaction is to remove the mechanic entirely and reject it for being 'not RPG' enough. That doesn't make any sense to me. Improve the mechanic. Make it as much fun as the combat. The real regression, to me, is to eliminate the mechanic. That is unquestionably a step backward. That is unquestionably 'dumbing' the game down by not attempting to make a more sophisticated game. Fixing it is the forward step.