I've just noticed that the lockpicking skill goes up every time I break a lockpick as well as when I open a lock. So my skill is going up when I esentially fail.

Is it supposed to be that way or is it a bug? Seems stupid to me if it's not.

You are learning from your mistakes. When you break a lockpick you get a lot less of a skill increase than when you are successful. I think the current system is fairly balanced as far as getting skill-ups from it goes.

yea you get a little experience. i equate it to your guy thinking, oh so i shouldnt push quite that hard or something like that

The only problem with the lockpicking is that it's actually too easy - for me at least. I haven't put a single perk into lockpicking, yet I can open a master lock with no more than maybe four broken picks, five tops.

I really hate how that sounds like bragging. Anyway, it really isn't - I think this is possibly one part of the game they genuinely made a little too easy. Lockpicks are easy to find - which makes sense - but you just don't need that many. I've got well over 100 of them and I rarely break them even without any perks in the skill. They might have wanted to have made it a bit harded to give the lockpicking perks some value.

I wouldn't mind having a different set of locks, you may laugh but mystery case files the mulgrave incident had really good lock system on it and I found it the most fun lockpicking puzzle system out there.