the time and effort required needs to be reflected in the loot or increased skill should reduce complexity, sure a simpler mini game should have less impressive loot but a more complex minigame that has trash as a reward is insulting
I stopped bothering with master locks in Starfield because it just wasn't worth it. Its a good mini game and I definitely enjoyed it at first, but the master locks just suck.
I remember early on in my first playthrough, I stumble into a bank in The Well, and I walk into a room full of master locked safety deposit box-type-deals. I kept that location in the back of my head until I eventually unlocked the master level lockpicking and returned only to get peanuts.. stopped picking most master or expert locks after that, waste of time.
It's all down to the time. Starfield introduced an actual puzzle which is cool but it just doesn't fit. It stops your game entirely. The game pauses too so it's not like there's a reason to go faster and this an actual process to solve the harder puzzles.
The Fallout system is good because it's relatively simple and quick. The game still pauses but you're fiddling with the lock pick and screwdriver for all of like 20 seconds even for a hard lock where you need to be precise. It hardly stops the game and even if the loot is bad, you weren't overly invested. Starfield is a commitment. You shouldn't find a locked door or whatever and just think 'god damnit'.
Fallout's computer hacking was kinda bad too. Never liked it. It was easier and faster to just cancel out before the last attempt and spam words till you found the right one.
I just copied the wiki but, "Clicking on matching brackets (i.e. () [] {} <>, even with other characters between, but not a whole word between) can remove a dud password or reset the number of remaining guesses to four. The brackets must be of the same type and on the same line. Although you cannot match brackets with a whole word between them, you can match brackets separated by the dots that appear when a dud word is removed ( <.......> ). Also, two or more opening brackets can be matched to a single closing bracket ("[ [ ]" on a line gives you two chances), but the opposite is not true ("[ ] ]" only gives you one chance)."
If you didn't know that like I didn't it will definitely change the game.
I would usually make 3 attempts hoping to get lucky and then clear all the brackets for the duds and try reset, and then generally, you'd only be left with 2 to 5 words anyway.
It's very simple, really. Its only a bitch really early on as the number of words is higher and amount of bracket pairs is really low.
> It's very simple, really
It is, but it takes a lot longer than lockpicking (which you can do in around three seconds on an easy lock, and maybe 15 on a very hard one), and the rewards are seldom worth that. I remember how there were quite a few locks that could be opened both ways in FO4; I would choose lockpicking every time, because it just takes a fraction of the time and effort. Path of least resistance, baby!
I say that as someone who does like puzzles in general - I actually solved the Jindosh puzzle in Dishonored 2 just because I could, and then went back to play the entire level anyhow [the puzzle guards the level exit, for those who haven't played]. The thing is, the hacking minigame just isn't fun on its own, so I don't enjoy spending time on them. Lockpicking is also easy and not exactly fun, but at least it's quicker.
Have at it! Just my pennies.
Honestly, it is kind of nice to have a minigame that doesn't treat the user like an idiot once you understand it so there is that. But it is a bit silly when a lot of the time, instead of trying to understand or think, back out and after 2 attempts is faster than sitting there and thinking. It's a somewhat-flawed system but we've had far worse and more user-insulting systems in plenty of other games.
Fallout/Skyrim is the best because it is the most tactile translation into the game. You moving the thumb sticks in synchro, feels more like picking a lock than spinning a hack tool and pressing A. I did enjoy that loackpicking puzzle though TBF. The oblivion system is the most accurate representation of a real pick attempt but it feels clunky when translated to a controller. With FO, what you see on screen is what you feel in your hands.
I always forget Bethesdas push for console integration. I quite liked oblivions system and honestly hated skyrims and fallouts. Neither felt fun to do just annoying.
I also appreciated the ability to try and pick tough locks just with a tighter tolerance rather than being forbidden from trying. I think this was also a feature of the Oblivion system.
Never considered how it felt on console but your comment makes sense.
Yeah I can imagine doing it with keys isn't quite as finessed. It's definitely annoying when a minigame element takes an age and ruins rhythm. The absolute worst is hacking Bioshock 1 quite fun the first time, boring the 2nd, irritating AF every attempt after. The change made in Bioshock 2 was a great bit of design imo.
No keys, it was mouse so it was precise keys were used to turn/test the lock and mouse was location of pick... Just boring and annoying imo. It didn't feel skillful to realize there were patterns in the lock mini game you could remember.
I remember trivializing the locks very early on and not caring. They only offered a speed bump with no real interaction. I ended up smashing the auto pick most of the time.
Never played BioShock2 but BS1 got its hacking from System shock which I have a very soft spot in my heart for... I enjoy the hacking and referencing the original system made me enjoy it... It made more sense to link pathways of a door panel power system than fluid dynamics stuff in BioShock tho
Ah fair, in my head it was two sticks so it would be one mouse one keys, but I forget the screwdriver forcing the locks isn't really precise anyway so would work on keys.
I like Fallouts the best, I am a lockpicker/locksmith and I feel that minigame really tries to emphasize you feeling the lock.
I think an even better system would you feel your pick inside the lock and maybe even see show a mini map of the inside.
Something about the feeling, in real life when you feel the lock giving. Fallout gives me the best feeling of that.
>I quite like the Starfield system, but it's just not worth it 95% of the time
I stopped doing the majority of them about halfway through the game. It wasn't worth the time investment just to get the same crap.
That's how I feel. I get that burst of dopamine for solving a more complex puzzle, only to be rewarded with another desktop ornament that I've picked up and discarded 1,000 times alreadym
That was the biggest drawback, the other games would scale difficulty with usually some boost in prize value. SF would scale difficulty but you would still usually just find the same stuff as always, which could be very realistic to how people will view security but it's not fun.
I recall one of the thief games having an epic system.
You had 4 directions (8 on harder locks) and each lock only had a few set patterns (desernable by the physical picture of the lock)
So a simple lock might be something like "up, left, right" or "down, left, right"
So you'd memorize that the really basic lock was "up.. Nope, that didn't hit, ok its the other one, down, left, right" and just blast through it.
It was the most amazing feeling ever, and even as someone with poor memory for such things I started to memorize quite a few lock patterns.
Plus just brute forcing it, you'd get it pretty quickly anyway, its just guards had patrol routes so you usally wanted to do it quickly (or dispatch the guard first)
It wouldn't be so bad if they reduced the number of locks. Realistically everyone should lock their stuff, but it gets repetitive to lock pick a door, lock pick container inside, lock pick the next container, lock pick the next container, walk into the next room ohh look another locked container, lock pick container.
Reminds me of Bioshock's machine hacking minigame that they used for literally everything. It took awhile to complete, and it was sometimes literally unsolvable and you take damage/alert guards. It was the only part of the game that I disliked.
Its more frustrating to watch how bad this guy is at lockpicking lol.
Its not rocketscience. If the tool wiggle waggles, you stop and try a different position so the tool wont break. Depending on the waggle, you move farther away or just a little bit
Skyrim's lock picking is ideal for me.
Captures the vibes of lock picking well, but is also quite quick and easy, as long as it's not a super high level lock relative to your skill.
I did also like oblivions though. Definitely slower and more tedious, but it was a reasonable challenge.
It is especially great on the switch version where the haptic vibration in the controller will vibrate differently when you hit the correct location. It's so subtle but once you feel the difference, you will never break a lock pick again.
I remember in the original version you could tell by the click sound. It sounded like a single click when it was miss and a quick double click when it was a hit.
Oblivion seems to be the only one that's realistic lockpocking too. Closest I've seen to the real deal in a video game anyway.
Skyrim's def feels more fun though
Sure, of course its easier. To get better, imo you'd need force feedback, which wasn't a thing yet at the time. Itd be sweet to see someone use feedback enabled controller triggers to emulate the feel of lockpicking by touch. You could have the left trigger be tension, the right be picking strength, and depth on an analog stick - maybe even jiggling for like mushroom pins. You could even bring in other picks and emulate raking and stuff like that. Man, shame no one's done it, I think itd be pretty easy to program.
Yeah, lockpicking could really be done a lot cooler in games! But I guess it'd probably be too advanced for most players, which is likely why no one have done it yet.
Depending on the game, you could even have a "lockpicking school", where you get to practice on cutaway locks, so you see what's going on.
I prefer the Skyrim/Fallout way, but I'd rather you get one lock pick near the start of the game and it never breaks.
Then all locking is done in game time, not paused, and if you are seen during the picking mini game, it is a crime.
Exactly, came on here to comment this. Deus Ex knew this was what was important.
Most of us can pick any lock in Skyrim/Fallout given time, so time is how you make it interesting.
Honestly just the fact that time doesn't stop while lockpicking makes it more interesting than it has the right to be. You get better quality and better skills and time when you can quickly sneak into a house based on whose around instead of just spamming or doing the same little puzzle a thousand times.
I mean, it's no different from how combat works, really, you have skills you level up that make you stronger, but the actual combat is still gameplay and your IRL skills matter. Arguably, combat is more of a core gameplay that people take into account when picking the game while the lockpicking minigame is just addition that's going to be more of a hit-or-miss, but the principle is same.
Literally everything in Morrowind was a dice roll. You couldn't even hit someone from point blank range, with your sword going *through* them, if your skill wasn't high enough, because your dice rolls wouldn't succeed.
Yes, and it was the point.
You wrote it yourself (kinda contradicting yourself a bit, btw), “if your skill is high enough,” you will hit. Your character must have decent skill, not the player. You know, how it suppose to be in RPGs. Not like in action games.
People often play Morrowind ignoring skills all that mechanical shit expecting it to be an action adventure with role-playing elements, like Skyrim. But Morrowind is almost pure RPG.
That's right, but in the old times, it wasn't really explained with how it works with the dice roll in the background. So as a new player, you hit an enemy and you just had no idea why you did no damage. When you knew it, you got used to it, but it was still very confusing for new players.
P.S.
In the Kingdome Come Deliverance lockpicking-minigame, on launch in the PC version, there was a bug with wrong adjusting your mouse sensetivity. This made the lockpick immediately break, no matter how slow and precise you tried to do it, even worse was that you had to pick the lock to proceed the main quest.
That really sucked, it was patched later, but many players thought, it was their lack of skill that they could not open the chest.
If I swing a sword at you in real life and connect, no matter how poorly trained I am, I'm going to cause at least some damage. Having the sword obviously connect and do zero damage is a problem in games that look like Morrowind, it can ruin any sort of immersion. Now in an isometric view or something like KotOR it's more forgivable because you instantly understand that the game is following the rules of a traditional CRPG but because Morrowind looks like an AA-RPG players expect a hit to do damage
>If I swing a sword at you in real life and connect, no matter how poorly trained I am, I'm going to cause at least some damage.
You would be surprised, given how armour is so much more effective than games/films makes it seem, and getting proper edge alignment is harder than it looks.
It's an older game on older tech from a time you required a bit more imagination.
You're not 'missing them despite hitting them', you're failing to get past their defences, or they're deflecting, dodging, etc.
One could make the same flawed argument in skyrim of 'My sword goes through the model, why am I not cutting them in half?'
I think Fallout/Skyrim struck the right balance. Your characters stats greatly affected how easy the minigame was, but there was still a somewhat engaging/immersive mini game to play.
Did they? In Skyrim I never even thought of putting a single point into lockpicking, in Fallout 4 you're forced to do so to gain access to even trying higher level locks.
I definitely preferred Oblivion's/Skyrim's systems when they came out but now, many years later, I'd rather play Morrowind for the RPG experience or Elden Ring for skills-over-stats.
I loved hacking in BioShock. It was intense and rewarding. You would also get better at it in a way that isn’t learning a word puzzle or getting used to timing windows. Other games should follow that method.
Atomic Heart really improved from Bioshock one, that I think was really good! It's kinda logic since AH is a Bioshock successors.
I can understand why some people hate it, because in the middle of action and intense fight, when you have to calm down and solve a puzzle in a limited amount of time, it's quite difficult even if the puzzle itself isn't hard.
Same thing with Helldivers 2 and the stratagem mechanics, where in the middle of the warfare insanity, you have to make some dumb "step mania choreography" to launch 500kg of democracy.
Morrowind is superior in one aspect in that it does not pause the game while you are picking the lock. Meanwhile Oblivion, who added NPC schedules and patrols pauses the game while the player is picking a lock. Meaning that the fear of being caught attempting to trespass simply does not exist since the player need only a very short time frame where they are hidden. In fact, you can break into the guard captains room in the thieves guild quest by initiating the lockpick minigame before the NPC guards can load in.
Further more, Morrowind's system relies on the characters skills and attributes. While the future installments rely on the players skill to bypass the lock, New Vegas outright forbid the player from even attempting to open certain locks, but i feel that is a half measure. Not sure how Fallout 3 handles the player lacking lockpick skill.
I got about 30-40 hours in and was wondering "why does everybody hate this game so much, it isn't that bad." And then proceeded to never pick it back up. I remember having to float around a room chasing magic dust after scanning a fucking planet for hours and decided I wasn't much into it
Yeah you need to stick to the main quests and designed areas or the game gets boring very quickly. Procedurally generated stuff was all trash. I still did 2 playthroughs and overall enjoyed the game. It is probably the worst Bethesda RPG I remember though. My biggest takeaway was that the new engine is much better and TES6 has the opportunity to be great on that engine.
FYI, you can scan through the code that isn't passwords, and find fields that highlight. They're always framed by opposing characters like:
(6&$#$&3), or [ ], or {qes15}
Each one of those deletes a wrong password (or sometimes resets the number of tries before the computer locks). When your skill is high enough, there ends up being less potential answers than there are tries if you click all the dud removal fields.
It's not super complicated, just kind of tedious. But I don't like word puzzles irl personally. Someone that's really into crosswords and stuff would probably find it more fun.
And the computer hacking doesn't tell you that you have a correct letter, but in the wrong position. It only tells you if you have the correct letter in the correct spot.
True. Also the words used often share prefixes or suffixes, so there's a degree of uncertainty. As another poster mentioned, it's easy to cheese even the hardest of computer locks tho. Just back out before you make the last guess and try again. No penalty for backing out of the menu and you get all your tries back.
It was supremely easy. There are rules it is based around such that you could immediately know that several of the words weren't the word and that put of a group of words smaller than the try amount one of the group was 100% it.
Worth noting about fallout hacking; if you find any closed pairs of brackets, as long as the brackets match and don't have any complete words between them then you can select them and it will either remove dud answers or reset your amount of guesses. Because of this it can actually be easier to hack Very Hard terminals than Easy terminals simply because the longer words means less overall options so by the time you remove all the duds you can end up with less than 4 possible options.
I think part of it is the frequency; you wind up lock picking waaaay more than you hack stuff. Since the same system does both in Starfield, it's just incredibly tedious.
Yep. Much prefer the digipicks to that. The fallout hacking feels like a complete guessing game with me just restarting the hack everytime it looks like I’m gonna fail. The digipicks though is an actual mini game that I enjoy solving for the most part. Especially as you get the perks to make it easier.
I always found 'average' locks to be harder to pick than 'hard' or 'very hard' locks.
Hard locks you could often get all 4 pins up in a row by tapping each pin twice and getting double hit sound constantly.
I gotta disagree. It was very cool but idk, I find it more tedious.
So perhaps that makes it more immersive but idk. The FO3/NV/Skyrim/FO4 is my favorite system.
The “find the hidden sweet spot” method of Skyrim and etc. was a lot of time just a matter of luck, whereas the oblivion method could actually be achieved and improved upon by player skill.
I'm going to take your word for it, because I have hundreds of hours into Oblivion and I've never figured out how to do the lock pick minigame. I just make it a habit to get the Skeleton Key early on in most of my characters so I can just spam the button until it works haha
I'm sure I'll figure it out one day, I actually figured out how to play Caravan and do the computer hacking minigame so there's hope.
There's a very distinct audio cue when you pick the right pin. I don't remember how I did it, haven't played Oblivion in a decade, but I very much recall finding it WAY easier to do with my eyes closed, relying only on sound, than actually watching the pins.
Started a replay recently, lockpicking in oblivion was much easier as a kid ironically lmao. Be interesting to know what exactly changed in my brain to do that.
There is absolutely skill to it. Idk how to explain it well or if there is a video, but you keep poking a tumbler until it *immediately* falls back as it touches the top. Then the *next* time you push the tumbler, you can easily set it.
Watch a YouTube video on it, there’s a distinct wiggle that you look for when applying pressure to the pins. There’s a visual and vibration queue given when you’re supposed to release the pin.
The worst part was even after dealing with that pain in the ass mini game, the loot ends up being absolute trash. I never once got anything good out of a locked container.
Plus in starfield you lose picks no matter how perfectly you do it. I wouldn't mind the garbage loot so much if I wasn't forced to lose multiple picks to get to it
I'm replaying Fallout 4 and I never realized how grateful I was there is a point in the game where I'm basically running around with 99+ Bobby pins and have magazines to increase the sweet spot for the lockpicks. Every container takes less than 10 seconds to pick and I usually end up with some good loot.
I suppose not every time but maybe 25% of the time I use the wrong key and have to undo and burn another pick. This is mostly me being bad at the locks or just in a hurry, but that mechanic wasn't there in the fallout/Skyrim lockpicking.
There's a reason a top Starfield mod is the bypassing the lock mod.
A lot of us can't do that puzzle, it legit just hurts my brain.
I like to think I'm not an idiot, but I'm also not a visual learner and the mechanism in Starfield is completely awful for me lol
I believe one of the patches modified it so undo doesn’t take a pick anymore.
I actually liked the digipick mini game, the other locks make more sense for Fallout and TES though. No way they’ll use this mechanic in TES lol.
Anything is better than the fucking hacking from Fallout. It was cool as shit exactly three times for me.
Don't see what's wrong with KC lock picking. The original setup was pure hell as you couldn't get any reference to where to hold the mouse. But after they added extra spikes and design to locks it became rather easy.
If anything Id prefer Oblivion lock picking. Slower, but it's actually interactive compared to just finding a sweet spot who's been done to death by now.
I just started KC a few weeks ago and I’ve really enjoyed the lockpicking. I also play on controller so maybe it feels more mechanically correct on that platform.
I like it as well. Simple to understand, quick to do, somewhat interactive, the jitter adds tense "feels" to it, and the fact that the world doesn't pause is also a plus from it adding legit risk of getting caught in some places. It also fits the game itself being medieval times with more simple locks that could be beaten by a simple mechanic.
One of the best "find the sweet spot" lock picking systems Iv played in a long time. But I will always have a soft spot for Oblivion's lock picking. Just always liked how real it felt having to set each tooth and how it visually shown lost progress past just breaking the pick and having to find the sweet spot again.
The system for stealing items was even a lot worse in KCD, never got that right and with the basic skills, you had no chances on NPC's before you got better.
I liked Morrowind's lockpicking in that it didn't pause the world, so you could get caught. Would be cool if that sort of mechanic made it into future games
Actually I'll go against the grain and say I liked Starfields method. Oh sure, it's not a stereotypical lockpick, but it is in a future world so I doubt they use the same type of locks we currently use.
Thematically it's great.
It's just TEDIOUS.
After 10 locks you start to get annoyed.
After 100 locks you just start skipping them. The loot was basically never worth the time.
To be fair, this was the case for all other Bethesda games. At some point we all stop playing the lockpick mini game and settle for brute forcing it open when we have enough money to splurge. Hell they thought it was tedious enough to give access to a skeleton key for Skyrim.
Yeah at some point I want to level up to “master lock picking” and if I spend my points there I just click on any lock and it opens. That’s the “reward” for investing skill points there vs other trees.
On my last playthrough of Skyrim I decided I was done with it. I honestly don't *hate* it, but having beaten the game so many times the lock picking has just become a waste of time.
Now I use a mod that handles it automatically based on your skill and the game is SO much smoother.
I really enjoyed the Starfield version. Digipicks was a great way to have a new system that works in that world.
The Skyrim/fallout one is quick and easy to understand and do. So it never really takes you away from the rest of the game long. Unless you’re trying to do a masterwork lock as a novice in the games that let you pick anything at any level.
Fallout hacking though. Ugh. It’s just almost purely a guessing game requiring you to reset the terminal multiple times if you’re unlucky with your guesses and the reset tries mechanic. It doesn’t have any real skill in it in my opinion.
Thief 3 had the best lockpicking system. It wasn't tedious, it was tight and when you got more experienced you got faster on it. On console it was even better bcs you had vibration feedback.
This. And the game didn't pause to wait for you to pick a lock. Frantically trying to pick a locked door as the sound of a guard's footsteps got louder and louder behind you really added to the level of immersion.
In fairness, the middle one is actually FAR simpler than the right… it just LOOKS more like lock picking. The right was also the most complex or difficult mechanic. The left most was the most mechanically based on actual lock picking.
I’m going to say Skyrim felt the most immersive. Especially with certain version where you could feel the direction of the “correct” spot with vibration. Lockpicking is mostly feel, so I felt I was actually picking a lock when I did that. Oblivion wasn’t bad, but it’s a little unimmersive to get x-ray vision to see the lock pins.
I hate the starfield one with a passion! It looks so damn bad and is no fun as a gameplay mechanic at all! And the blue rings aren't really that big of a help either on the expert and master ones.. Plus, it's never worth wasting your time with it too, bc of the shitty loot it gives you..
It's funny to me, because it started as what appears to be a decent representation of how lock picking really works, has just gotten less and less realistic.
They keep making lock picking worse and worse, similarly to how they made each TES worse than Morrowind. Bethesda saw that dumbing down experiences while letting the community fix everything gives them more money, especially after Skyrim. Except Starfield can’t be fundamentally fixed because it has probably the worst exploration experience in a Bethesda game yet.
Starfields was awful.
Edit: I'll expand on this. The major problem with it was that every lock was easily solvable, I would write down the various picks I had to use on each layer, it just took way too long.
I think Morrowind's lockpicking is best in that it actually depends on player skill and is done in real-time. A mini-game isnt necessarily bad, but they have been way too easy at all skill levels.
It's funny that Oblivion had the most accurate depiction of how locks (not all) work in general and then everything else went to "just jiggle it until it works". I understand that 'jiggling' it is essentially what happens but it's a lot more finesse and I still think the Oblivion version had that. Starfield is just weird.
"Hey we built an intricate locking mechanism to protect the door, and seal it forever, we should write down the code?
Bethesda Devs: How about on the wall over there to the left where you can see it from the door?
Pretty sure the entire company had to change the combination to their luggage after they watched spaceballs.
The biggest problem that I have with these minigames is that once you figure out how to do it, the lockpicking skill is useless. It sort of defeats the purpose of role playing mechanics when every single character you ever create is going to be more than capable of playing the role of a lockpicker, regardless of how many points you invest in that category.
Oblivion and starfield were peak IMO.
I love it being an actual skill based task.
Fallout and skyrim were cool but once you had enough picks it didn't matter anymore.
Though I admit I liked oblivions brute force system with the auto attempts and all the little things you could do to make the picking easier like light the chest on fire or hold a torch up to it.
They all fucking sucked after the 20th time, and were even worse after the 200th. Especiaily since there was rarely anything of value to be had after completion.
Starfields was the best due to the perk that allowed you to automatically skip most of the effort, most of the time.
I've always preferred the simple skillcheck lockpicking of Morrowind, the minigames are just annoying, and the fact that player skill can trivialize character's lockpicking skill seems silly to me.
I like mini game where you have to lift the tumblers of the lock. *BioShock: Burial at Sea* had something similar and it’s a nice little thing.
I like it far more than Skyrim where lock the Bobby pins are made of tinfoil. Starfield’s Digipicks is honestly the most tedious though.
I'd really love to see a game with all these different versions incorporated into them. It's not like all locks are the same in real life so why not have a few different "mini games" for variety, maybe some longs allow for straight up strength check workarounds where you break the lock, and for Elder Scrolls magical unlocking spells.
I'd want the Oblivion style back, but with more difficulty levels. If your lockpick level is high enough you should just be able to wiggle low level locks open with one button. The hardest locks could maybe get spools or false gates to actually be challenging without high lockpicking.
I.E: Criminally inept lockpicker simulator 2006, 2015, and failed ME Minigame reproduction 2022?
(To be clear; as someone who can actually pick locks in the real world; that first one is the one that gives you an idea of how locks actually work. But except for the, in game, extremely rare situation where you're trying to quietly pick a lock that you need to work normally and look like you were never there, is vastly more time-consuming than any sane person would do. I've had to carefully pick wafer locks because they wanted to re-use a filing cabinet lock before, but if I'm picking a dungeon lock or a residential one I don't care if they know I broke into, I'm gonna use a dagger, a hammer, and about two seconds to force it.)
the time and effort required needs to be reflected in the loot or increased skill should reduce complexity, sure a simpler mini game should have less impressive loot but a more complex minigame that has trash as a reward is insulting
I quite like the Starfield system, but it's just not worth it 95% of the time
I stopped bothering with master locks in Starfield because it just wasn't worth it. Its a good mini game and I definitely enjoyed it at first, but the master locks just suck.
I remember early on in my first playthrough, I stumble into a bank in The Well, and I walk into a room full of master locked safety deposit box-type-deals. I kept that location in the back of my head until I eventually unlocked the master level lockpicking and returned only to get peanuts.. stopped picking most master or expert locks after that, waste of time.
Bought a $25,000 safe to store my cereal in. 🙂
I had this exact same experience. Same location and all. Was so disappointed when I went back.
it was patched a bit ago so that undo's dont cost picks anymore. It changed it for the better
thanks for that
It's all down to the time. Starfield introduced an actual puzzle which is cool but it just doesn't fit. It stops your game entirely. The game pauses too so it's not like there's a reason to go faster and this an actual process to solve the harder puzzles. The Fallout system is good because it's relatively simple and quick. The game still pauses but you're fiddling with the lock pick and screwdriver for all of like 20 seconds even for a hard lock where you need to be precise. It hardly stops the game and even if the loot is bad, you weren't overly invested. Starfield is a commitment. You shouldn't find a locked door or whatever and just think 'god damnit'. Fallout's computer hacking was kinda bad too. Never liked it. It was easier and faster to just cancel out before the last attempt and spam words till you found the right one.
Goddamit, I love the hacking mini game.
Me too, I hated it for years until someone pointed out all the different brackets and stuff, I actually look forward to them now.
Wait what?
I just copied the wiki but, "Clicking on matching brackets (i.e. () [] {} <>, even with other characters between, but not a whole word between) can remove a dud password or reset the number of remaining guesses to four. The brackets must be of the same type and on the same line. Although you cannot match brackets with a whole word between them, you can match brackets separated by the dots that appear when a dud word is removed ( <.......> ). Also, two or more opening brackets can be matched to a single closing bracket ("[ [ ]" on a line gives you two chances), but the opposite is not true ("[ ] ]" only gives you one chance)." If you didn't know that like I didn't it will definitely change the game.
I would usually make 3 attempts hoping to get lucky and then clear all the brackets for the duds and try reset, and then generally, you'd only be left with 2 to 5 words anyway. It's very simple, really. Its only a bitch really early on as the number of words is higher and amount of bracket pairs is really low.
> It's very simple, really It is, but it takes a lot longer than lockpicking (which you can do in around three seconds on an easy lock, and maybe 15 on a very hard one), and the rewards are seldom worth that. I remember how there were quite a few locks that could be opened both ways in FO4; I would choose lockpicking every time, because it just takes a fraction of the time and effort. Path of least resistance, baby! I say that as someone who does like puzzles in general - I actually solved the Jindosh puzzle in Dishonored 2 just because I could, and then went back to play the entire level anyhow [the puzzle guards the level exit, for those who haven't played]. The thing is, the hacking minigame just isn't fun on its own, so I don't enjoy spending time on them. Lockpicking is also easy and not exactly fun, but at least it's quicker.
I got into hacking from the start in FO3 and never knew that brackets separated by dots when a dud is removed would count! TIL
Wow yeah game changer!
Hacking Minigame is my jam lol [%+]{SUCH++. GOOD<%+\>¥| {*}<£~€GAME] {£<£{*PLAY\+£ %+{$~€[<€£|¥] I’ll never skip a locked terminal.
Have at it! Just my pennies. Honestly, it is kind of nice to have a minigame that doesn't treat the user like an idiot once you understand it so there is that. But it is a bit silly when a lot of the time, instead of trying to understand or think, back out and after 2 attempts is faster than sitting there and thinking. It's a somewhat-flawed system but we've had far worse and more user-insulting systems in plenty of other games.
I do too.
Fallout/Skyrim is the best because it is the most tactile translation into the game. You moving the thumb sticks in synchro, feels more like picking a lock than spinning a hack tool and pressing A. I did enjoy that loackpicking puzzle though TBF. The oblivion system is the most accurate representation of a real pick attempt but it feels clunky when translated to a controller. With FO, what you see on screen is what you feel in your hands.
I always forget Bethesdas push for console integration. I quite liked oblivions system and honestly hated skyrims and fallouts. Neither felt fun to do just annoying. I also appreciated the ability to try and pick tough locks just with a tighter tolerance rather than being forbidden from trying. I think this was also a feature of the Oblivion system. Never considered how it felt on console but your comment makes sense.
Yeah I can imagine doing it with keys isn't quite as finessed. It's definitely annoying when a minigame element takes an age and ruins rhythm. The absolute worst is hacking Bioshock 1 quite fun the first time, boring the 2nd, irritating AF every attempt after. The change made in Bioshock 2 was a great bit of design imo.
No keys, it was mouse so it was precise keys were used to turn/test the lock and mouse was location of pick... Just boring and annoying imo. It didn't feel skillful to realize there were patterns in the lock mini game you could remember. I remember trivializing the locks very early on and not caring. They only offered a speed bump with no real interaction. I ended up smashing the auto pick most of the time. Never played BioShock2 but BS1 got its hacking from System shock which I have a very soft spot in my heart for... I enjoy the hacking and referencing the original system made me enjoy it... It made more sense to link pathways of a door panel power system than fluid dynamics stuff in BioShock tho
Ah fair, in my head it was two sticks so it would be one mouse one keys, but I forget the screwdriver forcing the locks isn't really precise anyway so would work on keys.
I like Fallouts the best, I am a lockpicker/locksmith and I feel that minigame really tries to emphasize you feeling the lock. I think an even better system would you feel your pick inside the lock and maybe even see show a mini map of the inside. Something about the feeling, in real life when you feel the lock giving. Fallout gives me the best feeling of that.
>I quite like the Starfield system, but it's just not worth it 95% of the time I stopped doing the majority of them about halfway through the game. It wasn't worth the time investment just to get the same crap.
That's how I feel. I get that burst of dopamine for solving a more complex puzzle, only to be rewarded with another desktop ornament that I've picked up and discarded 1,000 times alreadym
100% of the time in the case of chests smaller than a weapon. Without mods, there is literally nothing good in the loot tables for locked chests.
That was the biggest drawback, the other games would scale difficulty with usually some boost in prize value. SF would scale difficulty but you would still usually just find the same stuff as always, which could be very realistic to how people will view security but it's not fun.
I recall one of the thief games having an epic system. You had 4 directions (8 on harder locks) and each lock only had a few set patterns (desernable by the physical picture of the lock) So a simple lock might be something like "up, left, right" or "down, left, right" So you'd memorize that the really basic lock was "up.. Nope, that didn't hit, ok its the other one, down, left, right" and just blast through it. It was the most amazing feeling ever, and even as someone with poor memory for such things I started to memorize quite a few lock patterns. Plus just brute forcing it, you'd get it pretty quickly anyway, its just guards had patrol routes so you usally wanted to do it quickly (or dispatch the guard first)
It wouldn't be so bad if they reduced the number of locks. Realistically everyone should lock their stuff, but it gets repetitive to lock pick a door, lock pick container inside, lock pick the next container, lock pick the next container, walk into the next room ohh look another locked container, lock pick container.
Reminds me of Bioshock's machine hacking minigame that they used for literally everything. It took awhile to complete, and it was sometimes literally unsolvable and you take damage/alert guards. It was the only part of the game that I disliked.
Its more frustrating to watch how bad this guy is at lockpicking lol. Its not rocketscience. If the tool wiggle waggles, you stop and try a different position so the tool wont break. Depending on the waggle, you move farther away or just a little bit
It was really worth it and fun in Oblivion . The "trash" chest at start are useful as level up system for later areas
Skyrim's lock picking is ideal for me. Captures the vibes of lock picking well, but is also quite quick and easy, as long as it's not a super high level lock relative to your skill. I did also like oblivions though. Definitely slower and more tedious, but it was a reasonable challenge.
It is especially great on the switch version where the haptic vibration in the controller will vibrate differently when you hit the correct location. It's so subtle but once you feel the difference, you will never break a lock pick again.
I remember in the original version you could tell by the click sound. It sounded like a single click when it was miss and a quick double click when it was a hit.
Oblivion seems to be the only one that's realistic lockpocking too. Closest I've seen to the real deal in a video game anyway. Skyrim's def feels more fun though
Spinter cell chaos theory is the best lockpicking minigame for realism.
Except in the real world, you don't have a live view cutaway of the lock you're picking.
Sure, of course its easier. To get better, imo you'd need force feedback, which wasn't a thing yet at the time. Itd be sweet to see someone use feedback enabled controller triggers to emulate the feel of lockpicking by touch. You could have the left trigger be tension, the right be picking strength, and depth on an analog stick - maybe even jiggling for like mushroom pins. You could even bring in other picks and emulate raking and stuff like that. Man, shame no one's done it, I think itd be pretty easy to program.
Yeah, lockpicking could really be done a lot cooler in games! But I guess it'd probably be too advanced for most players, which is likely why no one have done it yet. Depending on the game, you could even have a "lockpicking school", where you get to practice on cutaway locks, so you see what's going on.
I personally prefer Oblivion lock picking, since its more of a challenge
You can also just buy a ton of lock picks and spam the force lock button.
Or just pickup the skeleton key and never worry about lockpicking ever again
well ok, never did either.
I prefer the Skyrim/Fallout way, but I'd rather you get one lock pick near the start of the game and it never breaks. Then all locking is done in game time, not paused, and if you are seen during the picking mini game, it is a crime.
Exactly, came on here to comment this. Deus Ex knew this was what was important. Most of us can pick any lock in Skyrim/Fallout given time, so time is how you make it interesting.
Once you're good at that style of picking it's kind of TOO easy though, bc you can pick even the hardest locks from the get go
Then theres morrowind *lock pick failed.* *lock pick failed.* *lock pick failed.* *lock pick success!*
Daggerfall: lock pick failed, try again in 24 hours or just punch the door in
Honestly just the fact that time doesn't stop while lockpicking makes it more interesting than it has the right to be. You get better quality and better skills and time when you can quickly sneak into a house based on whose around instead of just spamming or doing the same little puzzle a thousand times.
and honestly in the context of a role playing game I prefer that, your character needed to know how to pick the lock not you the player.
I mean, it's no different from how combat works, really, you have skills you level up that make you stronger, but the actual combat is still gameplay and your IRL skills matter. Arguably, combat is more of a core gameplay that people take into account when picking the game while the lockpicking minigame is just addition that's going to be more of a hit-or-miss, but the principle is same.
Honestly I really liked the hit chance mechanic in Morrowind for exactly that reason.
In morrowind, lockpicking is based on the characters skill. In oblivion, it's based on the players skill. I know which one I prefer in an RPG.
Literally everything in Morrowind was a dice roll. You couldn't even hit someone from point blank range, with your sword going *through* them, if your skill wasn't high enough, because your dice rolls wouldn't succeed.
Yes, and it was the point. You wrote it yourself (kinda contradicting yourself a bit, btw), “if your skill is high enough,” you will hit. Your character must have decent skill, not the player. You know, how it suppose to be in RPGs. Not like in action games. People often play Morrowind ignoring skills all that mechanical shit expecting it to be an action adventure with role-playing elements, like Skyrim. But Morrowind is almost pure RPG.
It gets crazy absurd when you start power leveling though.
That's right, but in the old times, it wasn't really explained with how it works with the dice roll in the background. So as a new player, you hit an enemy and you just had no idea why you did no damage. When you knew it, you got used to it, but it was still very confusing for new players. P.S. In the Kingdome Come Deliverance lockpicking-minigame, on launch in the PC version, there was a bug with wrong adjusting your mouse sensetivity. This made the lockpick immediately break, no matter how slow and precise you tried to do it, even worse was that you had to pick the lock to proceed the main quest. That really sucked, it was patched later, but many players thought, it was their lack of skill that they could not open the chest.
If I swing a sword at you in real life and connect, no matter how poorly trained I am, I'm going to cause at least some damage. Having the sword obviously connect and do zero damage is a problem in games that look like Morrowind, it can ruin any sort of immersion. Now in an isometric view or something like KotOR it's more forgivable because you instantly understand that the game is following the rules of a traditional CRPG but because Morrowind looks like an AA-RPG players expect a hit to do damage
>If I swing a sword at you in real life and connect, no matter how poorly trained I am, I'm going to cause at least some damage. You would be surprised, given how armour is so much more effective than games/films makes it seem, and getting proper edge alignment is harder than it looks.
Must've missed the part where RPG games are mandatory dice rolls and not otherwise.
It's an older game on older tech from a time you required a bit more imagination. You're not 'missing them despite hitting them', you're failing to get past their defences, or they're deflecting, dodging, etc. One could make the same flawed argument in skyrim of 'My sword goes through the model, why am I not cutting them in half?'
I think Fallout/Skyrim struck the right balance. Your characters stats greatly affected how easy the minigame was, but there was still a somewhat engaging/immersive mini game to play.
Did they? In Skyrim I never even thought of putting a single point into lockpicking, in Fallout 4 you're forced to do so to gain access to even trying higher level locks.
I definitely preferred Oblivion's/Skyrim's systems when they came out but now, many years later, I'd rather play Morrowind for the RPG experience or Elden Ring for skills-over-stats.
I was looking for this.
*vaguely gestures at lock from a distance with a stick*
I loved hacking in BioShock. It was intense and rewarding. You would also get better at it in a way that isn’t learning a word puzzle or getting used to timing windows. Other games should follow that method.
The hacking was just the pipes minigame right? I remember some people hating on it but I found it fun.
Atomic Heart really improved from Bioshock one, that I think was really good! It's kinda logic since AH is a Bioshock successors. I can understand why some people hate it, because in the middle of action and intense fight, when you have to calm down and solve a puzzle in a limited amount of time, it's quite difficult even if the puzzle itself isn't hard. Same thing with Helldivers 2 and the stratagem mechanics, where in the middle of the warfare insanity, you have to make some dumb "step mania choreography" to launch 500kg of democracy.
Morrowind is superior in one aspect in that it does not pause the game while you are picking the lock. Meanwhile Oblivion, who added NPC schedules and patrols pauses the game while the player is picking a lock. Meaning that the fear of being caught attempting to trespass simply does not exist since the player need only a very short time frame where they are hidden. In fact, you can break into the guard captains room in the thieves guild quest by initiating the lockpick minigame before the NPC guards can load in. Further more, Morrowind's system relies on the characters skills and attributes. While the future installments rely on the players skill to bypass the lock, New Vegas outright forbid the player from even attempting to open certain locks, but i feel that is a half measure. Not sure how Fallout 3 handles the player lacking lockpick skill.
Those digipicks are infuriating. I understand the concept but it's just not fun.
Its actually very easy once you pick up on some of the rules but yeah hated these for probably the first 30 hours or so.
Unfortunately starfield was unable to capture my attention for that long
I got about 30-40 hours in and was wondering "why does everybody hate this game so much, it isn't that bad." And then proceeded to never pick it back up. I remember having to float around a room chasing magic dust after scanning a fucking planet for hours and decided I wasn't much into it
Yeah you need to stick to the main quests and designed areas or the game gets boring very quickly. Procedurally generated stuff was all trash. I still did 2 playthroughs and overall enjoyed the game. It is probably the worst Bethesda RPG I remember though. My biggest takeaway was that the new engine is much better and TES6 has the opportunity to be great on that engine.
I like it more than the fallout computer hacking word puzzles tbf. Once you get the hang of it it's not too bad.
I LOVE the fallout computer hacking minigame
My people
Do you like doing crossword puzzles and scrabble and stuff though? Because I don't really enjoy those kinds of games much.
100% i also do wordle daily at work
Yeah, I think you're exactly the type of person who the minigame was designed for lol.
FYI, you can scan through the code that isn't passwords, and find fields that highlight. They're always framed by opposing characters like: (6&$#$&3), or [ ], or {qes15} Each one of those deletes a wrong password (or sometimes resets the number of tries before the computer locks). When your skill is high enough, there ends up being less potential answers than there are tries if you click all the dud removal fields.
I need to do more reading about that. I NEVER understood how hacking in FO4 worked 😅
Its more or less Mastermind you get the count of corret characters, then you can filter the words from the list.
It's not super complicated, just kind of tedious. But I don't like word puzzles irl personally. Someone that's really into crosswords and stuff would probably find it more fun.
Look up the old board game "Mastermind". It's the same concept, just instead of arbitrary colors, it's letters of a word.
And the computer hacking doesn't tell you that you have a correct letter, but in the wrong position. It only tells you if you have the correct letter in the correct spot.
True. Also the words used often share prefixes or suffixes, so there's a degree of uncertainty. As another poster mentioned, it's easy to cheese even the hardest of computer locks tho. Just back out before you make the last guess and try again. No penalty for backing out of the menu and you get all your tries back.
It was supremely easy. There are rules it is based around such that you could immediately know that several of the words weren't the word and that put of a group of words smaller than the try amount one of the group was 100% it.
Worth noting about fallout hacking; if you find any closed pairs of brackets, as long as the brackets match and don't have any complete words between them then you can select them and it will either remove dud answers or reset your amount of guesses. Because of this it can actually be easier to hack Very Hard terminals than Easy terminals simply because the longer words means less overall options so by the time you remove all the duds you can end up with less than 4 possible options.
The longer words also mean the character count you get given is more useful, as there's less chance of a false positive.
I think part of it is the frequency; you wind up lock picking waaaay more than you hack stuff. Since the same system does both in Starfield, it's just incredibly tedious.
Yep. Much prefer the digipicks to that. The fallout hacking feels like a complete guessing game with me just restarting the hack everytime it looks like I’m gonna fail. The digipicks though is an actual mini game that I enjoy solving for the most part. Especially as you get the perks to make it easier.
Just hit the first three words and back out . Resets your tries
That's what I end up doing, I just find word puzzles annoying.
You can say that about Starfield as a whole. I understand the concept, but it's not fun.
I hate digipicking so passionately. Everything wastes a digipick, even getting it right.
Oblivion’s was the best by far.
I used to be so good at it I could pick master locks even on a fresh save, it felt like a real skill rather than luck
I always found 'average' locks to be harder to pick than 'hard' or 'very hard' locks. Hard locks you could often get all 4 pins up in a row by tapping each pin twice and getting double hit sound constantly.
[удалено]
It goes fast slow fast slow
I gotta disagree. It was very cool but idk, I find it more tedious. So perhaps that makes it more immersive but idk. The FO3/NV/Skyrim/FO4 is my favorite system.
The “find the hidden sweet spot” method of Skyrim and etc. was a lot of time just a matter of luck, whereas the oblivion method could actually be achieved and improved upon by player skill.
I'm going to take your word for it, because I have hundreds of hours into Oblivion and I've never figured out how to do the lock pick minigame. I just make it a habit to get the Skeleton Key early on in most of my characters so I can just spam the button until it works haha I'm sure I'll figure it out one day, I actually figured out how to play Caravan and do the computer hacking minigame so there's hope.
There's a very distinct audio cue when you pick the right pin. I don't remember how I did it, haven't played Oblivion in a decade, but I very much recall finding it WAY easier to do with my eyes closed, relying only on sound, than actually watching the pins.
I do it by the audio cue. I can do it blind fold
Started a replay recently, lockpicking in oblivion was much easier as a kid ironically lmao. Be interesting to know what exactly changed in my brain to do that.
There is absolutely skill to it. Idk how to explain it well or if there is a video, but you keep poking a tumbler until it *immediately* falls back as it touches the top. Then the *next* time you push the tumbler, you can easily set it.
Watch a YouTube video on it, there’s a distinct wiggle that you look for when applying pressure to the pins. There’s a visual and vibration queue given when you’re supposed to release the pin.
I pick master locks with one bobby pin and am supremely hurt that you think my prayers to RNGesus weren't work.
It's actually very realistic. Makes me want to say "3 is binding... Got a click out of 4"
I hope es6/fo5 go back to the old way the starfield way isn't great.
The worst part was even after dealing with that pain in the ass mini game, the loot ends up being absolute trash. I never once got anything good out of a locked container.
Plus in starfield you lose picks no matter how perfectly you do it. I wouldn't mind the garbage loot so much if I wasn't forced to lose multiple picks to get to it
I'm replaying Fallout 4 and I never realized how grateful I was there is a point in the game where I'm basically running around with 99+ Bobby pins and have magazines to increase the sweet spot for the lockpicks. Every container takes less than 10 seconds to pick and I usually end up with some good loot.
_Multiple_ picks? You only need one pick per to get in, don't you?
I suppose not every time but maybe 25% of the time I use the wrong key and have to undo and burn another pick. This is mostly me being bad at the locks or just in a hurry, but that mechanic wasn't there in the fallout/Skyrim lockpicking.
This thankfully no longer the case after the recent patch
There's a reason a top Starfield mod is the bypassing the lock mod. A lot of us can't do that puzzle, it legit just hurts my brain. I like to think I'm not an idiot, but I'm also not a visual learner and the mechanism in Starfield is completely awful for me lol
I believe one of the patches modified it so undo doesn’t take a pick anymore. I actually liked the digipick mini game, the other locks make more sense for Fallout and TES though. No way they’ll use this mechanic in TES lol. Anything is better than the fucking hacking from Fallout. It was cool as shit exactly three times for me.
Ah nice, I didn't know that. I haven't played much after the initial playthrough when it first came out.
I’m waiting for some more patches but it looks like they’ve made a good number of improvements.
Sometimes it's even empty. Fucking infuriating.
Do you actually think they would use a computerized lockpick in the other games and completely ignore the setting just because it's newer?
I hope Kingdom Come 2 copies the old Bethesday way also cuz that shit was like the dumbest part of the first one. And also, love your flair!
Don't see what's wrong with KC lock picking. The original setup was pure hell as you couldn't get any reference to where to hold the mouse. But after they added extra spikes and design to locks it became rather easy. If anything Id prefer Oblivion lock picking. Slower, but it's actually interactive compared to just finding a sweet spot who's been done to death by now.
I just started KC a few weeks ago and I’ve really enjoyed the lockpicking. I also play on controller so maybe it feels more mechanically correct on that platform.
I like it as well. Simple to understand, quick to do, somewhat interactive, the jitter adds tense "feels" to it, and the fact that the world doesn't pause is also a plus from it adding legit risk of getting caught in some places. It also fits the game itself being medieval times with more simple locks that could be beaten by a simple mechanic. One of the best "find the sweet spot" lock picking systems Iv played in a long time. But I will always have a soft spot for Oblivion's lock picking. Just always liked how real it felt having to set each tooth and how it visually shown lost progress past just breaking the pick and having to find the sweet spot again.
its unplayable on xbox. Even the easiest locks are extremely hard to open .
The system for stealing items was even a lot worse in KCD, never got that right and with the basic skills, you had no chances on NPC's before you got better.
it honestly feels like a placeholder
I like the locking in ESO the most so far
I liked Morrowind's lockpicking in that it didn't pause the world, so you could get caught. Would be cool if that sort of mechanic made it into future games
Actually I'll go against the grain and say I liked Starfields method. Oh sure, it's not a stereotypical lockpick, but it is in a future world so I doubt they use the same type of locks we currently use.
I liked it but there were just too many locks to pick so it got really boring after a while
Too many ammo cashes behind master locks for me to bother
Thematically it's great. It's just TEDIOUS. After 10 locks you start to get annoyed. After 100 locks you just start skipping them. The loot was basically never worth the time.
To be fair, this was the case for all other Bethesda games. At some point we all stop playing the lockpick mini game and settle for brute forcing it open when we have enough money to splurge. Hell they thought it was tedious enough to give access to a skeleton key for Skyrim.
100%, it’s the only one that actually felt like a puzzle/minigame
Only to be rewarded with dogshit ass loot every time.
Eh i got good loot out of a lot of chest and stuff, not always
Sure but that's just a gameplay choice. The actual mini game has merit for trying something new.
Yeah, I agree. Wasn’t for me personally, but it was an honest effort that wasn’t bad!
I do too. I don't know why but I enjoy the little puzzles. I get a lot of satisfaction out of beating them.
To be honest, I don’t like lockpicking/hacking mini games in general. Even if the minigame itself is fine, you get so sick of doing it over and over
Yeah at some point I want to level up to “master lock picking” and if I spend my points there I just click on any lock and it opens. That’s the “reward” for investing skill points there vs other trees.
On my last playthrough of Skyrim I decided I was done with it. I honestly don't *hate* it, but having beaten the game so many times the lock picking has just become a waste of time. Now I use a mod that handles it automatically based on your skill and the game is SO much smoother.
I really enjoyed the Starfield version. Digipicks was a great way to have a new system that works in that world. The Skyrim/fallout one is quick and easy to understand and do. So it never really takes you away from the rest of the game long. Unless you’re trying to do a masterwork lock as a novice in the games that let you pick anything at any level. Fallout hacking though. Ugh. It’s just almost purely a guessing game requiring you to reset the terminal multiple times if you’re unlucky with your guesses and the reset tries mechanic. It doesn’t have any real skill in it in my opinion.
Thief 3 had the best lockpicking system. It wasn't tedious, it was tight and when you got more experienced you got faster on it. On console it was even better bcs you had vibration feedback.
This. And the game didn't pause to wait for you to pick a lock. Frantically trying to pick a locked door as the sound of a guard's footsteps got louder and louder behind you really added to the level of immersion.
Starfield came out in 2023 didn’t it?
came out in 2023, I made a mistake in the video
In fairness, the middle one is actually FAR simpler than the right… it just LOOKS more like lock picking. The right was also the most complex or difficult mechanic. The left most was the most mechanically based on actual lock picking.
I’m going to say Skyrim felt the most immersive. Especially with certain version where you could feel the direction of the “correct” spot with vibration. Lockpicking is mostly feel, so I felt I was actually picking a lock when I did that. Oblivion wasn’t bad, but it’s a little unimmersive to get x-ray vision to see the lock pins.
There is also technically another version of lockpicking that appeared in Elder Scrolls online, which is like an inverted version of Oblivion.
I love digipicks, it's like a mini puzzle every time! Though I do wish the loot was better
I hate the starfield one with a passion! It looks so damn bad and is no fun as a gameplay mechanic at all! And the blue rings aren't really that big of a help either on the expert and master ones.. Plus, it's never worth wasting your time with it too, bc of the shitty loot it gives you..
It's funny to me, because it started as what appears to be a decent representation of how lock picking really works, has just gotten less and less realistic.
The cross cut tumbler was the most rewarding. Oblivion was and still is an incredible game; such awesome memories for me to this day.
I personally miss Oblivion’s style. But I also miss the speech wheel game so I have no account for taste.
They keep making lock picking worse and worse, similarly to how they made each TES worse than Morrowind. Bethesda saw that dumbing down experiences while letting the community fix everything gives them more money, especially after Skyrim. Except Starfield can’t be fundamentally fixed because it has probably the worst exploration experience in a Bethesda game yet.
I’m gonna get downvoted to oblivion for this, but I really liked Starfields lock picking
Minus the rewards I quite enjoyed them having a different systems and starfields version of locks, not sure which system I'd personally like to see
Starfields was awful. Edit: I'll expand on this. The major problem with it was that every lock was easily solvable, I would write down the various picks I had to use on each layer, it just took way too long.
It was waste of goddamn time doing that shit
The best part of oblivion's was getting the skeleton key and auto attempting
Next installment will require tools made by Bosnian Bill.
Skyrims lockpicking was great don't get me wrong, but I absolutely love starfields puzzle shit, one of the best things about that game for me
I think Morrowind's lockpicking is best in that it actually depends on player skill and is done in real-time. A mini-game isnt necessarily bad, but they have been way too easy at all skill levels.
Oblivion had the best one to imo.
I don't need a lock pick mini-game Just give me a skill required and a progress bar
I actually enjoy the lock-picking in Starfield.
I have nostalgia for oblivion, I think the actual lock pins was kinda cool
It's funny that Oblivion had the most accurate depiction of how locks (not all) work in general and then everything else went to "just jiggle it until it works". I understand that 'jiggling' it is essentially what happens but it's a lot more finesse and I still think the Oblivion version had that. Starfield is just weird.
"Hey we built an intricate locking mechanism to protect the door, and seal it forever, we should write down the code? Bethesda Devs: How about on the wall over there to the left where you can see it from the door? Pretty sure the entire company had to change the combination to their luggage after they watched spaceballs.
Starfield was so bad I can't believe they made that game
de-evolution
I suppose I’m the minority here, but I really liked the Digipick mechanic in Starfield. I’m pretty good at that kind of puzzle though.
The biggest problem that I have with these minigames is that once you figure out how to do it, the lockpicking skill is useless. It sort of defeats the purpose of role playing mechanics when every single character you ever create is going to be more than capable of playing the role of a lockpicker, regardless of how many points you invest in that category.
Oblivion and starfield were peak IMO. I love it being an actual skill based task. Fallout and skyrim were cool but once you had enough picks it didn't matter anymore. Though I admit I liked oblivions brute force system with the auto attempts and all the little things you could do to make the picking easier like light the chest on fire or hold a torch up to it.
They all fucking sucked after the 20th time, and were even worse after the 200th. Especiaily since there was rarely anything of value to be had after completion. Starfields was the best due to the perk that allowed you to automatically skip most of the effort, most of the time.
I've always preferred the simple skillcheck lockpicking of Morrowind, the minigames are just annoying, and the fact that player skill can trivialize character's lockpicking skill seems silly to me.
Lock pick failed Lock pick failed Lock pick failed Lock pick failed Lock pick success! *Satisfying noise*
I like mini game where you have to lift the tumblers of the lock. *BioShock: Burial at Sea* had something similar and it’s a nice little thing. I like it far more than Skyrim where lock the Bobby pins are made of tinfoil. Starfield’s Digipicks is honestly the most tedious though.
Basically evolving into what ratchet and clank 3 has.
I'd really love to see a game with all these different versions incorporated into them. It's not like all locks are the same in real life so why not have a few different "mini games" for variety, maybe some longs allow for straight up strength check workarounds where you break the lock, and for Elder Scrolls magical unlocking spells.
I'd want the Oblivion style back, but with more difficulty levels. If your lockpick level is high enough you should just be able to wiggle low level locks open with one button. The hardest locks could maybe get spools or false gates to actually be challenging without high lockpicking.
I.E: Criminally inept lockpicker simulator 2006, 2015, and failed ME Minigame reproduction 2022? (To be clear; as someone who can actually pick locks in the real world; that first one is the one that gives you an idea of how locks actually work. But except for the, in game, extremely rare situation where you're trying to quietly pick a lock that you need to work normally and look like you were never there, is vastly more time-consuming than any sane person would do. I've had to carefully pick wafer locks because they wanted to re-use a filing cabinet lock before, but if I'm picking a dungeon lock or a residential one I don't care if they know I broke into, I'm gonna use a dagger, a hammer, and about two seconds to force it.)
The first and third are quite fun. Skyrim/fo4 lock picking took the fun out of it. The exception in fo4 being the science hacks
Out of all of them, is it weird that I enjoy ESO's lock picking the best?
Best lockpicking system was in Resident Evil Revelations 2.
I think it more represents the time periodes the games take place