Notice how in this thread people are weighing the pros and cons of being able to get access to the loot in chests vs spending that perk point on something else.

That is perfect. I almost want to see a mod where locks are reworked - you are never prevented from completely a quest, but if you want access to all the treasure, you have to pick up lockpicking.

Just like in Fallout it was a trade off - do I want science so I can hack this terminal and turn their turret against the enemy, or do I want to shoot my way through?

Casualization. Not necessary a bad thing all the time, but in this case, you completely eliminate the usefulness of the skill by allowing anyone to open any lock at any time. That was a mistake. Also, same thing with speech and pickpocketing. Intimidate and gear > speech skill, and you never need to actually succeed in pickpocketing anything to do all of the content.

iirc - the unfortunate reality of the fallouts was that there was NEVER any significant loot behind those uber locks. I would hate to see that happen here.

No freaking way. I HATED that system in FO3. Simply awful that I can't even attempt to pick a lock simply because my level is low. Absolutely ridiculous to even consider implementing that again.
Regarding what I have put into bold, now how would you feel if you just spent the past 5 perks to get into that door and you find absolutely NOTHING lootworthy. I would be incredibly pissed

i would say that locks should only be pickable if you have the required skill level like in fallout 3. however i dont think you should require the perks simply because thats 4 perks you would have to use no matter what. even if you dont use it for the vanilla game i guarantee that modders will be coming out with quest mods that have masterlocks on half their loot. i wish there had been a seperate security skill that encompassed lockpicking, trap detection and trap disarming as well as setting traps for use against mobs. it really annoys me that i see bear traps all over and yet i cant pick them up and use them myself. one of the most fun aspects of the game is going dungeon diving and trying to kill as many mobs with the existing dungeon traps. i loved setting booby traps in fallout NV and thats just one more thing missing from skyrim because apparently not one person ever played fallout NV.

It seems like a valid change, but there are several factors different between Fallout and Skyrim that make this idea not work.

In Fallout, you assign skill increases at levelup, and in Skyrim you either have to train them, (horribly expensive after 50 skill), or increase them by practicing the actual skill. Since the perks have skill requirements, a change like this would pigeonhole everybody into training and perking locksmith or getting shafted out of treasure. So you would either have to pay trainers fortunes to get the skill - to get the perk, or you would have to grind grind grind on a source of easy locks to build the skill.
I have to say I don't see this working. I was sad to see the open-lock spell go.

Actually you can. You can't carry them in your inventory but you can open them and place them yourself.

I love lockpicking as it is. I found that I'm very good at picking locks. I hated the fallout system because guess what, when I go through somewhere I generally don't go back if I don't need to. So when I found a door I couldn't open, I just never opened it. Also I like to role play in this game, so I like that the game works with me on that, meaning I say no to myself instead of the game.


Also this.

The idea is ridiculous because. last I checked, nobody made anyone put a perk point there. arbitrarily demanding it be harder/impossible for certain players to open certain locks unless they blow perk points on something already declared to be uninteresting (the lockpick tree) is a ridiculous notion.

Another reason this idea wouldn't work...

Bethesda no longer hand place much of anything. Not since Oblivion.

Go ahead and put 4 perks into Lockpicking, the final perk only unlockable with 100 Lockpick.

Oh yay! Now you can finally open those Master locks you've been wondering about!

What's this? 14 Gold, Fine Hat, Basket, Bone Meal, and a Spoon?

>.<

That's a good idea but first there should be good items if there is a master lock otherwise it's still not worth it.

Exactly. Who is sitting around with a notebook to jot down the exact locations of every door they come accross that they can't open, so that when they somehow gain enough lockpick points by picking a half-million low-level locks and then blow those single perk points per level gain on lock picking increases?

And also exactly for the point about the loot quality. The knock-your-socks-off loot pieces are few and far between in the random chests. If I had to blow 5 levels worth of perk points to open a chest in some randy location that has a flawless garnet, 17 gold pieces, a broken steel sword handle and a pair of fur shoes in it, I'd be pissed

A good idea in principle, but in Fallout 3 you can increase your Lockpicking skill when you level up. In Skyrim, your Lockpicking skill increases as you open locks, so you might find yourself in a situation where you have, say, 49 Lockpicking and no Novice/Apprentice locks to train on.

Implementation of the FO3/F:NV pick/hack system in Skyrim would svck. Making a skill mandatory is never a good idea, and that's exactly what gating the ability to pick locks would do to Lockpicking.

There are two things that need to be done first before you can actually work on making the Lockpicking tree interesting:

-remove the minigame entirely and have character skill, rather than player, skill be the determining factor
-add a chance to permanently jam the lock when a pick attempt fails

These two changes make the 'improve pick chance' perks look a lot more appealing, since odds are high that you will break a Master-level lock, rather than picking it, if you attempt one at low skill. As for the 'crappy loot behind Master lock' problem, have perks that do things such as insuring that higher-difficulty locks are concealing something actually worth the risk of breaking the lock to obtain. Another perk (potentially with multiple ranks) could reduce the jam chance, while yet another could give you the ability to try to clear the jam, and so on.

A couple of concessions I'd make: Novice-class locks would never jam, and there would be no leveled locks. The latter are anathema to me anyway, I find it incredibly stupid when increasing my overall level makes locks progressively harder to pick, even when I've been raising my Lockpicking skill the whole time.

How exactly are you going to level lock picking if you can't access the lock? LoL

Incredibly obvious to me : leave the skill tree alone, it's fine. The problem is the actual lockpicking itself, just too easy.

It was entirely player skill based; it was the same mini-game we have now. The difference being you could not even ATTEMPT to pick unless you had the required skill

0-24 = Very Easy, 25-49 = Easy, 50-74 = Average, 75-99 = Hard, 100 = Very Hard.

In FO3 it was "okay" only because of the limited content and places that required higher level lockpicking. But New Vegas had so much stuff that was essentially locked out to players using certain character types.

I would also like to mention here that FO1 and 2 also allowed you to bash or blow up doors using a crowbar or explosive device, respectively. You could bash open doors/chests in Arena and Daggerfall, as well. They removed bashing open doors/containers in Morrowind and has not come back

I strongly dislike the X amount to pick lock style used in both Fallout games.

My own suggestion is to immediately reset the lock positioning after a failure, and each perk adds another failure before the lock resets. i.e. 2 points in the Lockpicking perk allows for up to 3 attempts before it is reset.

This allows locks up to Expert to be semi-reliably done even without investment, but Master locks would be extraordinarily difficult to manage without the perk points.

I like it better when I always have a chance of opening a lock.

I do agree lockpicking tree is my least used one, no matter what class I run. I would sooner have had a Necromancy tree than a Lockpicking one.

You can also kill a giant with a wood axe and a one handed skill of 1, but who wants to? Lots of stuff is possible without perk investment, just not as easy.

The problem is Bethesda tried to stereo type the 3 classes (mage, fighter, thief) with 18 skills but the thief skills fall short and they were probably grasping at straws to come up with decent perks to round out thieves. They should have kept the same skills from Oblivion and forget about the whole standing stones and left birth signs in the game. Giving lockpicking its own perk tree was ridiculous. They could have merged pickpocketing/lockpicking into one general thieving skill and added athletics which covers jumping, falling and run speed and h2h and the game still would have had 18 skills but be 10x better.

Here's what they really ought to do. Merge Pickpocketing and Lockpicking into a single skill called Larceny, and bring back athletics/acrobatics as a thief skill that allows you to climb sheer surfaces, double jump, and other sorts of stuff.

The problem with level dependent locks is that quest related items would have to be unlocked. That would make some quest kind of stupid. The problem with locks in a game like this is that there is a competing philosophy. The driving philosophy of the game is "freedom to act" and the driving philosophy of a lock is "restriction of access". These two really can't coexist peacefully... you're going to have to deal with some degree of conflict. What we have is a good compromise which is making neither side truely satisfied.

Sometimes I level up from lockpicking. I hate this. Sometime I prefeer to increase 1 level in archery and invest in archery perks.
The idea of lockpicking annoys me. I'm really thinking about leaving my lockpick skill in 100. Just to not be bothered with level ups.

they should just take out all the perks that make certain locks easier and keep the ones that give you better loot.

I agree whole heartly.

Right now the lockpicking skill is useless as is the associated perk tree. I shouldn't be able to pop a master lock with only 15 skill, yet I do it over and over and over again. My skill is now at almost 50 and it's no easier, because of not using perks, and it's no harder. The skill and the perk tree has been reduced to useless.

Bethesda forgot the "Role" in Role Playing when it comes to the broken Lock Picking game.

imo id say it would be better if it actully went to the fallout system, you dont need perks to pick it just the skill, so novice apprentise adapt expert master, so every 20 levels you progress you can pick harder locks, picking perks for each level shouldnt just make it easyer, it should auto pick the lower level of lock, then youd actully have insentive to level and perk the tree. im never touching
it as is.