I prefer a bland skill check. You have the skill, it opens. You do not, it does not open. The mini-game is fun the first time you do it just like most all games with mini-games built in in-lieu of in in-conjunction with a "skill check." The same can go for other games like Mass Effect 2 and their survey mini game.

The actual "ingame" skill or perks doesn't matter if you want to lockpick.

Oblivion's basic system was better (if you don't make use of the unbreakable lockpick)

I love the lockpicking in Skyrim, no longer is it a "Mash the X button time".

How so? With that, if your character was a master lockpick, but your hand/eye coordination was bad, then a Very Easy lock could still break lots of lockpicks. While if you WERE good at it, a level 5 or 15 Lockpicking skill was still a breeze to open Master Locks with.

I have a lockpicking skill of 40 in Skyrim - Master Locks are generally beyond my ability due to the narrow size of the point I need to find.

However, I believe they should have merged the two styles, so that you had to solve the minigame successively to pick the lock (No more than 3 times for a Master lock, though, and no more than twice for Adept and Expert locks)

I like Skyrim's better.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Skeleton_Key

That's the thing that would happen in Skyrim if it REQUIRED lockpicking perks: for 99% of the locks on the game there's no [censored] key.
I still have a hard time understanding that...

I agree. I also like how there's no auto chance feature. Skeleton Key + auto chance in Oblivion made the whole minigame worthless.

I find Skyrim's lockpicking significantly easier than Oblivion's, although in both cases the Skeleton Key renders the mini-game rather moot, but would much prefer it be based on character skill than player skill. I know that would seem 'bland' to a lot of people, since they weren't doing it themselves, but I feel that allowing the player to open the lock invalidates the point of leveling the lockpick skill. You see, a large part of the point of leveling skills is to show that your character is becoming increasingly proficient in those areas, and for that to have any meaning then those skills must be applied to the appropriate situations.

As such, I would like to see the mini-game removed completely and replaced with a skill check. You could still try any lock at a low level, but your chances of success would be pretty low. There would also be a chance to jam the lock, proportional to the difference between your character's skill level and the lock's difficulty level (Master locks have a 100 rating, for example). As a bonus, this could also be applied to any Unlock spell that gets added, whether via DLC or mod, since the check would be made after the spell is cast. Since it would be based on character skill you wouldn't need to keep buying progressively better Unlock spells, as the one you got/bought early on would improve as your Alteration skill did.

+2 definitely, for the love of my life i couldn't play that thing in Oblivion and i'm pretty sure i'm an average guy not a ret, still, the skyrim one is ok, i mean yeah, given enough time and picks, you can pick anything.

IMO they're both too easy. I like what Fallout did though you must be a certain level in lock picking to unlock certain lock difficulties.

Yes, and artifact breaks the minigame - But it's no better in Skyrim. You just can't auto-attempt your way to victory.

Can't go wrong with the classic method. I think the mini-game is a hopeless marketing ploy. It loses its novelty after the first couple of locks. You quickly realize it is more hassle than it is fun to open the billion chests, especially when there is only some linen and gear you have no use for in them...

Which is another reason I want it removed, since you can bet, with practically a 100% success rate, that the contents of a given container are nowhere near being commensurate with the lock's difficulty level if it's Adept or higher. Yeah, I have had exceptions to this, such as a Master-locked container in a Dwemer Ruin that gave me two high-end enchanted Ebony weapons, but those were with a level 50+ character whose loot tables were pinned to the high end, so hardly a standard case.

Really. I can pick almost any Skyrim lock first time without breaking a pick. Fallout 3 and NV have made me a skilled thief.

You have to have a delicate touch to move the lock without breaking the pick. Just tap the button a bit and with practice you can tell where the lock will open a bit then you can work on that, again very carefully and you will not break a pick.

Have yet to perk lockpicking in over 300 hours.

The lockpicking minigame is much easier for me in Skyrim than Oblivion which is good since I svcked at it in Oblivion but I'd still rather it depended on my characters skill more than mine.

Lockpicking
Save. Lockpick.

Have lockpicks left? Continue.
Do not have lockpicks left? Reload.

Pickpocketing
Save. Pickpocket.

Pickpocket item? Save. Repeat until you have all items you want.
Get caught pickpocketing? Reload.

Might as well make it a 100% chance or a skill check.

you mean thank the one (sithis is the only true god)

I still wish they had the auto attempt though

Skeleton key was my bestest friend in Oblivion

Not sure what the point of that was.

I can't do average locks in Oblivion.

myself, like many others, don't have the newest system, and don't really like watching slowly approaching game models on a black smokey background with a tip every dang time stuff doesn't happen the way i want, turning a nice afternoon into a fail

i prefer Skyrim

But you can spin those models around! I particularly like the khajiit model - she has a cute butt.

I've only played Fallout 3 and Skyrim (don't recall any such system in Morrowind), and I'm surprised to hear people say that Skyrim's is mostly luck. I love the amount of physical skill and deduction that's required to open tough locks without breaking the pick, and I've managed to open many without breaking a pick. I just check the neutral position, check the far left and right, and then move extremely slowly once I find the position, narrowing it down by the tiniest incriments.

I do like that you get a shot at it, unlike in Fallout 3, but I also think some of them should be next to impossible for me with my reasonably low skill. I'm talking instant snapping rather than the warning vibrations, that way finding that tiny sliver of space that'll unlock it would be almost out of the question.