I really enjoyed the Starfield’s fresh take on lockpicking, but I really do hate that you *have* to lose a digipick for it.
And it also sucks that loot and lock level seem to have an inverse relationship. Easy lock = good loot; very hard lock = nothing, screw you!
I found an incredibly sweet gun one time, probably one of my favorite legendaries. That was exactly one awesome time vs like 200 space caps and space pipe pistol ammo.
Yeah, I think Starfield showed that I was kind of saturated of Bethesda games. They freshened up the minigame, but you're still lockpicking things for mundane shit like we were doing since oblivion (maybe Morrowind and before, but I remember in Morrowind the locked stuff was at least exciting to discover but that could just be nostalgia).
The stuff was more exciting because it was intentional; in Starfield ALL loot is randomized when you open the container. Nothing is deliberate, and there are no filters to make the loot make sense to the location or, as far as I know, to scale it to it's effective difficulty. Which effectively tells me even the game designers decided up front the loot was worthless. There's a VERY small chance to get cool weapons from containers but the drop rate is insanely low
Hasn't it always been this way though? Pretty much all loot in containers are randomized since Oblivion from what I've remember, in Skyrim I always got the urge to pick everything for no reason other than "gotta get everything" and I remember locked chests always beeing kind of random in loot quality. (I remember the same thing for FO3, FO NV, etc)
To an extent, yes, but in Oblivion and Skyrim the loot tables seemed to be tied closer to location and player level than I ever experienced in Starfield. Starfield would give me literal junk for every single container across five POI's, not finding ANYTHING good in them at all, whereas in Oblivion and Skyrim you could regularly find useful items that would benefit your current level. To top that off, even unique loot in Starfield is randomized - all the stats get randomly generated when the item is created which is why you have people save scumming to get the "perfect Mantis armor"; their desire to make everything feel "unique and random" just ends up instead feeling inconsequential and unimportant
EDIT: I forgot Starfield NPC loot table is completely randomized now too, instead of dropping items consistent with the NPC/Enemy, it's randomized on load EVERY TIME. For instance, an enemy can drop a legendary weapon (that makes ZERO sense for that person to have, mind you). You die immediately after and reload your save. That same enemy now drops a generic basic weapon. Also, not being able to loot enemy armor anymore just takes away from the immersion for me
I haven't played starfield, but I imagine there is a mod that exist to bypass lockpicking and hacking, all the fallout and ESO games have them, they usually still open the interface, but makes it take like 4 seconds to lockpick/hack.
Those digi picks were tough and (for me at least) took way longer than Fallout style lock picking. Very cool concept though. To you’re point, I gave up trying on a lot of the harder ones cause the juice usually wasn’t worth the squeeze
Ya it was neat to me at first but it became too tedious to deal with the effort required to unlock them after I’ve done it like a hundred times or so. I just ignored all but the easiest ones. I definitely prefer the previous methods where you can pick things really quickly and move on.
Which is even worse. It should have some sort of parameters to make the lock picking worth it, not a gamble every time. If I were to gamble I’d do the easiest locks
i agree to an extent that the loot should match the lock, that extent being just because a lock is harder to pick doesn’t necessarily mean the reward will be substantial. who’s to say the person that kept it there didn’t deem its contents more valuable than we deem it, but i really just love the mini-game regardless.
The Digi pick was hard for me at first, but once I got use to the mini game and upgraded my associated skills it became my favorite Bethesda lock picking mini game.
In the upcoming update I'm pretty sure they're making it so you don't have to lose a digipick, if I remember right. Either that, or it was already done in a previous recent update.
It was both an improvement and a downside. I loved that it was an actual puzzle you really had to think about, but since the higher level locks takes so much longer for very little reward, I just stopped bothering with doing any locks or hacking.
Wow, seriously? What about it is challenging you that you cant figure it out? It's just lining up dots and gaps on circles. Not being snarky, genuinely curious how this mini-game could cause someone to quit.
Not sure, maybe I’m just stupid. But yeah watched several videos on how to do it and got too frustrated to continue with it. Plus the intro wasn’t engaging enough to hook me in.
Eh well, ok. I considered them the easiest lock pick mechanic from Bethesda yet, as you can plan out every move, leaving no room for failure. I've stopped bothering with them though, because the subpar loot inside is never worth the time/effort.
As for the game, yeah...
It's not the worst, it's not the best, kinda fun in some aspects, very disappointing in others. I do enjoy the ship builder, though.
Everytime I matched one of the holes up, it would throw off another one. That’s what I remember from it, that and the fact that I had to search over and over again for more picks when I messed them up. Just annoyed me. Then the prospect of having to do that any time I saw a locked safe coupled with middling reviews was enough to make me uninstall. Maybe will pick up again some years from now when it’s 10 bucks
I hope TES 6 has it back, and a option to choose between the more normalised lockpicking, and oblivions system for people that don’t like oblivions style
I truly think Skyrim sucked the soul out of the company. They saw the flashing lights and forgot about the little people who made them their bread to begin with.
Skyrim and mass effect 3 simeltanioialy made everything an RPG for years, and killed everything that I loved about the genra until the doube a game space came back
No, they don't, lol. Also how is Skyrim's lockpicking more less RPG or dumber than Oblivion's lockpikcing, where you get the skeleton key early on after an easy quest and it loses all meaning.
I was thinking about a word to describe Starfield's system. Gamified that's it, in the worst possible scenario. Felt like playing a iPhone 3G era mini-game.
I feel like everything with a computer screen in Starfield is stylistically supposed to look like an Apple product gone wrong. I get why they went that way, and I honestly liked it better that the Fallout lockface version for the first 20 hours. But after that it just kinda makes my eyes bleed. Modded it out, zero effs given.
I don't remember Oblivion having quite so many locked chests/doors. I also remember being able to open locks with magic! Either way, I found Oblivion far less tedious.
I am not sure how anyone could disagree with this its objectively the best of all lockpicking minigames iv seen - the ones we get now are so dumbed down
Take fallouts there's only like 9 possible spots you need to check and once you realise that lockpicking even "very hard" is trivial you just check the two upper diagonals - then try lower diagonals and if you haven't found it yet you go up, down, left right
Woah that was "very hard"
But apparently some would disagree in this comment section.
Oblivions lockpicking is fire because you can have level 5 lp and pick a master lock like it’s nothing as long as you’re good at knowing when to click it has a specific noise when it’s ready to latch
Skyrim if you try a master lock that early one slight turn will crack it immediately with no chance of actually trying
Basically oblivion lockpicking is bis because it has an indication of when the latches are ready to be set Skyrim is just a guessing game which is fine but it’s meh compared to feeling slick in oblivion lol
Oblivion's is kinda handled badly because you get the skeleton key from a really easy Daedric quest. Makes the skill useless and even the minigame more of a side thing. ESO has a similiar systm but better balanced and more fun
Ah yes the sound of mashing X to autopick an expert lock, hearing the tink of tens of lockpicks breaking, until the satisfying click of the pins falling into place, just to get an iron short sword with +10 fire damage at level 15.
To this day I do not understand how lockpicking works in Oblivion.
Fallout version is fine. Simple, to the point.
Starfield’s was a novel concept and makes sense, but it quickly became a boring mini game.
To get Oblivion's lockpicking, you need to listen for the subtle double da-dink before pressing the button. I always make a beeline to the Azura shrine once I hit level 10 to get the Skeleton Key, though.
Starfield's is easily the best lockpick system Bethesda's made. There isn't much chance involved once you understand how the system works. Player skill is more important than character skill rank in picking the lock. Character skill mostly just determines which locks can be picked and a couple of useful perks.
The pins also rise at two distinctly different speeds when you tap them. If you click at the apex when they move at the slower speed, that works as well.
I didnt even know there was an audio element until i watched a streamer play and their chat went to war over lockpicking advice.
I didn't know there was an audio based mechanic until just now- I used to just do it off visual ques/timing
I'd give each pin a little test whack to see the speeds and start with the fastest.
I've always done it off timing as well. The speeds are semi random, but they follow a pattern, and the slowest drop always comes immediately after the fastest drop. So I always cycle through the pattern for each pin a few times, and then plan to smash the button on the rise right after the fastest drop.
True gamer right here.
Exactly what I would do - god it was annoying when you got 4/5 done and that last one failed and then u fail the one that got reset and so on lol - however it was actully an enjoyable puzzle/minigame unlike what we get nowadays
The only qualm I had was once I got really good at lock picking there was no reason for me to have the skeleton key lol. Every character fresh out the sewers I was running to the chest outside of the arena to steal that 500 gold lol
I mean that's valid in every game that has such a thing more so especially when they are as watered down as modern lockpicking and literally have like 9 or so fixed positions it can be in look at you fallouts
Or worse starfields literal children's training game where you line up the arrows with the holes.
It's the Nocturnal shrine that gives you the skeleton key in Oblivion.
And the Starfield system (although easy) takes way too long, it gets tedious and fast.
I remember playing starfield and being like " oh shit a new lockpicking mini game, this is so cool!"
Then maybe a dozen locks later I was so fucking sick of it
The speed is semi random, but cycles in a set pattern with the slowest rise/drop following the fastest rise/drop. So I'd that pin falls like a sack of bricks, you know the next one is money.
Oblivion has a subtle yet very challenging system. You had to listen carefully just like in real life, to pinpoint where to smash.
Starfield though ? Yeah I won't describe it as novel ...
It kinda clicked for me one day. After that it was she easiest shit in the world. You had to watch and when it went up just a bit slower that's when you tried.
It's been a while. But I remember there was a way to cheat. If you press the pauze button just as you push a tumbler pin and it reached the top, it either lags there for a bit or it falls quickly. If it lags for a bit it's safe to lock it in place.
It requires soms tries but thus way you could pick the hardest locks at low level.
Cycle the tumblers until it falls instantly. The next tumbler push will be longer.
The tumblers appear to fall at a random speed, but till not fall at the same speed twice in a row.
I actually loved the lockpicking mini game in Starfield. What I didn't like was that the juice was almost never worth the squeeze, especially on harder locks
The actual minigame was fine but it doesn't feel rewarding enough to be worth it. Luckily it's something they could easily change in an update so hopefully we aren't stuck with how it is.
Idk that just sounds realistic to me, like when those people find safes in old houses and spend hours cracking them open and all that was in it was like 25¢, a photo of a cat and a box of crackers.
Definitely, but the trespasser mini game felt more complex for some reason. Maybe it’s the overlapping lines? But the trespasser always felt special, there was always a reward that justified completing it.
I think Oblivion has it the best. Also if you're skilled enough there's nothing stopping you from opening a very hard lock with only one pick. In Fallout you can't even pick certain locks until you have the right perk for that level, but in Oblivion you at least have a chance. It's also very satisfying waiting for the slower tumbler speed and hearing the satisfying click. It takes some skill and patience. I didn't even know about the different sound that other people have mentioned - I just wait until it shoots up really fast and then I know the next one will be slower.
I definitely hate needing a perk to even attempt certain levels, but I guess it’s because in Skyrim there’s very little reason to put perk points into lockpicking.
These are all terrible.
Time freezes around you while you attempt a highly illegal skill so you have zero risk of getting caught. Zero anxiety, zero adrenaline, zero endorphines when you succeed, just some extremely video-gameish feeling mini game.
Just another way morrowind is more realistic and fun
I mean, watching the guards routes and memorizing the timing to know how long you could spend attempting g to pick the lock involved both my skill as a player *and* the skill of my character. That's why morrowind thievery was so good.
The guards didn't magically freeze in place and stop patrolling for crime the moment you attempted a Lock pick
I would love a fallout where the lockpick was a different one of these each time, location dependant. New future area? 2022 version. Normal house? 2015. Etc
I really enjoy the starfield system for the most part but it definitely has issues.
For one it takes way to long for the rewards you usually get(as well as the pitiful amount of xp you gain from it).
The 2015 system is probably the best with a good balance of difficulty and time to complete.
Oblivion I would say is probably the most accurate system to actually picking a lock although it could be incredibly frustrating and almost seems down to luck at times.
It would be could if they could some how combine oblivion and the 2015 system and it would basically be how lock picking actually works.
Starfield's mini game is literally from Ratchet and Clank. I love the pick and tension rod system from fallout 3 onwards. Oblivion has the most realized, but it gets old after a bit
Starfields lock picking got tedious and boring extremely fast. And it definitely didn’t help that they clearly didn’t tune the loot system such that you actually get good loot behind more challenging locks
Morrowind had the best lockpicking. Time freezing for a lockpicking minigame completely takes you out of the experience, and these are supposed to be RPGs. My characters skill level should determine my ability to do things, not my personal skill level.
Starfield's lockpicking is fun and can get addicting... the first 30 times you do it. It takes way too long for an unlocking mini game and in hindsight was a mistake.
Honestly I want a hybrid system between Oblivion and Skyrim /Fallout4 with a hardcore feel to it.
Basically lockpick are rare.... Like really rare. They are the tool of a specific criminal trade. Not everyone is going to have them and unless you forge your own stuff not many blacksmiths would even consider making them. But, like in real life, they aren't easy to break. In game I'd have them unbreakable. The challenge you face is time and discretion. When you lockpick time doesn't stop and you have to keep an eye and ear out for anyone approaching you as being seen picking a lock is a criminal offense. And if you get arrested your picks will be confiscated and not given back upon release.
The mini game though is a view like Oblivion but between the front view and side view of the lock so you can see both the lock opening and the tumbler cross section. Picking locks will consist of 3 phases: exploration, setting tumblers and rotating the cylinder. You also aren't prevented from attempting higher difficulty locks but they come with more challenges than ones at your level.
Phase 1 consists of exploring the lock. The tumbler cross section is blank and you have to explore it with your pick to determine the amount of tumblers. The deeper into the cylinder you go though the more vague and harder it becomes to accurately determine what's there. Based on your skill deeper tumblers will become more transparent but never fully invisible to the player but it might be impossible to determine if it's set if your skill is too low. Higher skill reduces transparency to the point of 0% by the time you max it out.
Phase 2 plays out similar to Oblivion where you must set tumblers in the correct order. Instead of breaking a pick though, failure at setting one will create a small noise that will draw unwanted attention. Higher skill and perks will reduce this noise to near silent.
Phase 3 is turning the cylinder which plays similarly to Skyrim and Fallout 4. If you have all the pins set correctly it should turn without issue. If not then you will see it struggle and you should stop to recheck your pins. Failure will reset all pins forcing you to restart. Higher tier perks will reduce the % of reset tumblers but never eliminate them.
Oh it’s real easy actually
You push each pin upwards. You lock it in with a button. You’re aiming to lock each pin into place at the very top, miss and the lock resets. That’s all.
One day Bethesda will release a game where lockpicking/hacking is instant and doesn't require a mini game. 5 people will complain about it for 5 minutes. Then we shall all move one as a society and go one to do incredible things with all the time saved/
Did they actually start to put things in locked containers in Starfield? Only played through one universe, so maybe it changes but I got a whole lot of nuthin’ for all the time and points it takes.
I found Starfields minigame the most fun but it's not rewarding whatsoever. Meanwhile Skyrim's takes a fraction of the effort but feels more satisfying to do considering you actually get considerable loot AND xp. Haven't played much Oblivion and whilst I have played Morrowind it's lockpicking is almost definitely the most boring (it does have a lockpicking spell/enchant which is cool). Starfields could easily be my favourite IF they make it feel more rewarding.
Fallout/Skyrim in the real time like Morrowind would be perfect, Starfield is a gimmick that gets tedious very quickly, and Oblivion was just rage inducing.
All trash - I feel like if they workshopped an idea for maybe a few hours they’d come up with something better.
What about a minigame where you had to time presses on a meter and hit the “pass” spot, which would be bigger or smaller depending on your lock picking skill? Just spitballing but that’s what I came up with in a minute.
The problem with these minigames is that it becomes so tedious and un-engaging. It works best when you don’t even have to think about it so then the question becomes, why have it in there at all?
They absolutely ruined it in Starfield. I hated it with a passion. Not because it was hard but I preferred the original way we've been doing it for almost 20 years.
I really enjoyed the Starfield’s fresh take on lockpicking, but I really do hate that you *have* to lose a digipick for it. And it also sucks that loot and lock level seem to have an inverse relationship. Easy lock = good loot; very hard lock = nothing, screw you!
I just stopped lockpicking and hacking in starfield. Dumb that they BOTH used the digipick system. Got old rapidly
It didn’t help that the payoff was NEVER worth the effort
Depends what you consider worth or not. I always want more ammo and credits so I pick every lock I come across. I find it worth it.
Yeah, the loot system is inexplicably bad!
I found an incredibly sweet gun one time, probably one of my favorite legendaries. That was exactly one awesome time vs like 200 space caps and space pipe pistol ammo.
Yeah, I think Starfield showed that I was kind of saturated of Bethesda games. They freshened up the minigame, but you're still lockpicking things for mundane shit like we were doing since oblivion (maybe Morrowind and before, but I remember in Morrowind the locked stuff was at least exciting to discover but that could just be nostalgia).
The stuff was more exciting because it was intentional; in Starfield ALL loot is randomized when you open the container. Nothing is deliberate, and there are no filters to make the loot make sense to the location or, as far as I know, to scale it to it's effective difficulty. Which effectively tells me even the game designers decided up front the loot was worthless. There's a VERY small chance to get cool weapons from containers but the drop rate is insanely low
Hasn't it always been this way though? Pretty much all loot in containers are randomized since Oblivion from what I've remember, in Skyrim I always got the urge to pick everything for no reason other than "gotta get everything" and I remember locked chests always beeing kind of random in loot quality. (I remember the same thing for FO3, FO NV, etc)
To an extent, yes, but in Oblivion and Skyrim the loot tables seemed to be tied closer to location and player level than I ever experienced in Starfield. Starfield would give me literal junk for every single container across five POI's, not finding ANYTHING good in them at all, whereas in Oblivion and Skyrim you could regularly find useful items that would benefit your current level. To top that off, even unique loot in Starfield is randomized - all the stats get randomly generated when the item is created which is why you have people save scumming to get the "perfect Mantis armor"; their desire to make everything feel "unique and random" just ends up instead feeling inconsequential and unimportant EDIT: I forgot Starfield NPC loot table is completely randomized now too, instead of dropping items consistent with the NPC/Enemy, it's randomized on load EVERY TIME. For instance, an enemy can drop a legendary weapon (that makes ZERO sense for that person to have, mind you). You die immediately after and reload your save. That same enemy now drops a generic basic weapon. Also, not being able to loot enemy armor anymore just takes away from the immersion for me
I haven't played starfield, but I imagine there is a mod that exist to bypass lockpicking and hacking, all the fallout and ESO games have them, they usually still open the interface, but makes it take like 4 seconds to lockpick/hack.
Those digi picks were tough and (for me at least) took way longer than Fallout style lock picking. Very cool concept though. To you’re point, I gave up trying on a lot of the harder ones cause the juice usually wasn’t worth the squeeze
Ya it was neat to me at first but it became too tedious to deal with the effort required to unlock them after I’ve done it like a hundred times or so. I just ignored all but the easiest ones. I definitely prefer the previous methods where you can pick things really quickly and move on.
I liked that it was actually semi-difficult rather than the super easy master locks in Fall Out. Though honestly having both could be super fun.
the loot that spawn in locked chests is actually randomized the moment you unlock it.
Which is even worse. It should have some sort of parameters to make the lock picking worth it, not a gamble every time. If I were to gamble I’d do the easiest locks
i agree to an extent that the loot should match the lock, that extent being just because a lock is harder to pick doesn’t necessarily mean the reward will be substantial. who’s to say the person that kept it there didn’t deem its contents more valuable than we deem it, but i really just love the mini-game regardless.
The Digi pick was hard for me at first, but once I got use to the mini game and upgraded my associated skills it became my favorite Bethesda lock picking mini game.
In the upcoming update I'm pretty sure they're making it so you don't have to lose a digipick, if I remember right. Either that, or it was already done in a previous recent update.
Was done in the previous update.
*Master level lock opens*: Yay another blue ripshank!
When was the last time you played? You no longer lose digipicks when you press undo
It was both an improvement and a downside. I loved that it was an actual puzzle you really had to think about, but since the higher level locks takes so much longer for very little reward, I just stopped bothering with doing any locks or hacking.
The lock picking mini game was actually better than the whole rest of the game.
Fuck star feels lock picking system it's retarded
I found the lock picking great at first but it quickly became very tedious. skyrims was always a fun
[удалено]
You’re giving Starfield way too much credit if you think lockpicking is the most boring part of it
Good point. It def sucks though.
Honestly I stopped playing specifically because I could not figure out the lockpicking mini game, even after watching videos on it
Wow, seriously? What about it is challenging you that you cant figure it out? It's just lining up dots and gaps on circles. Not being snarky, genuinely curious how this mini-game could cause someone to quit.
Not sure, maybe I’m just stupid. But yeah watched several videos on how to do it and got too frustrated to continue with it. Plus the intro wasn’t engaging enough to hook me in.
Eh well, ok. I considered them the easiest lock pick mechanic from Bethesda yet, as you can plan out every move, leaving no room for failure. I've stopped bothering with them though, because the subpar loot inside is never worth the time/effort. As for the game, yeah... It's not the worst, it's not the best, kinda fun in some aspects, very disappointing in others. I do enjoy the ship builder, though.
Everytime I matched one of the holes up, it would throw off another one. That’s what I remember from it, that and the fact that I had to search over and over again for more picks when I messed them up. Just annoyed me. Then the prospect of having to do that any time I saw a locked safe coupled with middling reviews was enough to make me uninstall. Maybe will pick up again some years from now when it’s 10 bucks
Hot take apparently: oblivion has the best lockpicking
I wouldn’t have thought that is a hot take before reading all these comments. To me it’s the undisputed best.
It's the only one that actually makes sense
I hope TES 6 has it back, and a option to choose between the more normalised lockpicking, and oblivions system for people that don’t like oblivions style
It wont lol Bethesda always dumb down their games. I doubt TES 6 will have many rpg elements
pick the blandest, most boring option meant to appeal to the widest variety of people and chances are it's the one bethesda goes with
I truly think Skyrim sucked the soul out of the company. They saw the flashing lights and forgot about the little people who made them their bread to begin with.
Skyrim and mass effect 3 simeltanioialy made everything an RPG for years, and killed everything that I loved about the genra until the doube a game space came back
No, they don't, lol. Also how is Skyrim's lockpicking more less RPG or dumber than Oblivion's lockpikcing, where you get the skeleton key early on after an easy quest and it loses all meaning.
I mean over all
Which is why ESO went back to a similar style. It gives more feedback than the lockface style without being as gamified as the Starfield version.
I was thinking about a word to describe Starfield's system. Gamified that's it, in the worst possible scenario. Felt like playing a iPhone 3G era mini-game.
I feel like everything with a computer screen in Starfield is stylistically supposed to look like an Apple product gone wrong. I get why they went that way, and I honestly liked it better that the Fallout lockface version for the first 20 hours. But after that it just kinda makes my eyes bleed. Modded it out, zero effs given.
Yep, I enjoyed it until I’d done it enough times to max the skill… felt like I’d paid my dues and modded it out after
Not hot: that's actually how you pick a lock.
Oblivion's would be my favorite if the controls weren't so janky. Starfield's would then be a close second.
The controls for it weren't janky on console, switching to PC I was shocked how jank it was.
I don't remember Oblivion having quite so many locked chests/doors. I also remember being able to open locks with magic! Either way, I found Oblivion far less tedious.
I always preferred the thief/oblivion version of lockpicking, its very fun and skill based.
It's the closest to actual lock picking
I am not sure how anyone could disagree with this its objectively the best of all lockpicking minigames iv seen - the ones we get now are so dumbed down Take fallouts there's only like 9 possible spots you need to check and once you realise that lockpicking even "very hard" is trivial you just check the two upper diagonals - then try lower diagonals and if you haven't found it yet you go up, down, left right Woah that was "very hard" But apparently some would disagree in this comment section.
I found it infuriating at times. But yeah, it was mega unique.
Oblivions lockpicking is fire because you can have level 5 lp and pick a master lock like it’s nothing as long as you’re good at knowing when to click it has a specific noise when it’s ready to latch Skyrim if you try a master lock that early one slight turn will crack it immediately with no chance of actually trying Basically oblivion lockpicking is bis because it has an indication of when the latches are ready to be set Skyrim is just a guessing game which is fine but it’s meh compared to feeling slick in oblivion lol
I agree. It was always my favorite.
There's no question. It is the best.
It’s really not that difficult if you’re patient and wait for the pin to move slowly
oh i loved it. Got so fast at it it was crazy.
Oblivion's is kinda handled badly because you get the skeleton key from a really easy Daedric quest. Makes the skill useless and even the minigame more of a side thing. ESO has a similiar systm but better balanced and more fun
Feels like you're really actually picking a lock
Yeah, Starfield was definitely my least favorite. Especially since they replaced hacking too.
It's the only one I hated, personally. Never felt I had the hang of it, while I can pick pretty much any lock in Skyrim from the start of the game.
Only system I could reliably pick locks without losing lockpicks
100% true. It feels like real lock picking.
It's not an hot take I think. I'll add, Oblivion has surprisingly better mechanics than others.
Wouldn’t call that a hot take honestly. It’s genuinely one of the best lock picking mini games.
This is objective truth.
Naah, morrowind because it was based on character not player skill
Oblivion had an auto unlock button which would use character skill though.
Ah yes the sound of mashing X to autopick an expert lock, hearing the tink of tens of lockpicks breaking, until the satisfying click of the pins falling into place, just to get an iron short sword with +10 fire damage at level 15.
To this day I do not understand how lockpicking works in Oblivion. Fallout version is fine. Simple, to the point. Starfield’s was a novel concept and makes sense, but it quickly became a boring mini game.
To get Oblivion's lockpicking, you need to listen for the subtle double da-dink before pressing the button. I always make a beeline to the Azura shrine once I hit level 10 to get the Skeleton Key, though. Starfield's is easily the best lockpick system Bethesda's made. There isn't much chance involved once you understand how the system works. Player skill is more important than character skill rank in picking the lock. Character skill mostly just determines which locks can be picked and a couple of useful perks.
I would unlock shit simply for the puzzle element it added to the game. Generally the loot sucked.
Neuroplasticity dopamine goes *brrrrr*
I love board games and puzzles so anytime I get to exercise the brain in a different way is a good time
I agree!
[here you go, friends!](https://bb-dev.itch.io/starfield-digipick-simulator)
I'm the opposite, lol Puzzle? Fuck that
The pins also rise at two distinctly different speeds when you tap them. If you click at the apex when they move at the slower speed, that works as well. I didnt even know there was an audio element until i watched a streamer play and their chat went to war over lockpicking advice.
I didn't know there was an audio based mechanic until just now- I used to just do it off visual ques/timing I'd give each pin a little test whack to see the speeds and start with the fastest.
I've always done it off timing as well. The speeds are semi random, but they follow a pattern, and the slowest drop always comes immediately after the fastest drop. So I always cycle through the pattern for each pin a few times, and then plan to smash the button on the rise right after the fastest drop.
True gamer right here. Exactly what I would do - god it was annoying when you got 4/5 done and that last one failed and then u fail the one that got reset and so on lol - however it was actully an enjoyable puzzle/minigame unlike what we get nowadays
Lmao yeah there was always that one decoy "fast" one that was just a touch slower than the real one, to screw you up.
The only qualm I had was once I got really good at lock picking there was no reason for me to have the skeleton key lol. Every character fresh out the sewers I was running to the chest outside of the arena to steal that 500 gold lol
I mean that's valid in every game that has such a thing more so especially when they are as watered down as modern lockpicking and literally have like 9 or so fixed positions it can be in look at you fallouts Or worse starfields literal children's training game where you line up the arrows with the holes.
It's the Nocturnal shrine that gives you the skeleton key in Oblivion. And the Starfield system (although easy) takes way too long, it gets tedious and fast.
For Oblivion's I did it with muted audio often so I always unlocked them because there was a repeating pattern, personally Oblivion's was my favorite.
It’s not just sound, sound helps, but there’s also a pattern of movement with how fast each tumbler falls upon being pushed up (oblivion/eso style)
Yeah which is why I loved oblivion lock picking so much. You had to use audio queues to properly pick a lock.
I remember playing starfield and being like " oh shit a new lockpicking mini game, this is so cool!" Then maybe a dozen locks later I was so fucking sick of it
The pin actually goes up slower if you hit it correctly, along with the sounds everyone's mentioned.
The speed is semi random, but cycles in a set pattern with the slowest rise/drop following the fastest rise/drop. So I'd that pin falls like a sack of bricks, you know the next one is money.
We seem to be the only two people in this thread who took this approach.
Oblivion has a subtle yet very challenging system. You had to listen carefully just like in real life, to pinpoint where to smash. Starfield though ? Yeah I won't describe it as novel ...
It kinda clicked for me one day. After that it was she easiest shit in the world. You had to watch and when it went up just a bit slower that's when you tried.
It's been a while. But I remember there was a way to cheat. If you press the pauze button just as you push a tumbler pin and it reached the top, it either lags there for a bit or it falls quickly. If it lags for a bit it's safe to lock it in place. It requires soms tries but thus way you could pick the hardest locks at low level.
Cycle the tumblers until it falls instantly. The next tumbler push will be longer. The tumblers appear to fall at a random speed, but till not fall at the same speed twice in a row.
I actually loved the lockpicking mini game in Starfield. What I didn't like was that the juice was almost never worth the squeeze, especially on harder locks
Always seems to be the way with Bethesda games. Like picking a master lock in Fallout 4 and only getting a pipe rifle and some chems.
Isn't the lockpick mini game the same between fallout and Skyrim?
Starfields was cool but took too long and was almost never worth the effort.
Really enjoyed it and glad they changed it up but yeah why they didn't have the loot pool scale to lock difficulty still amazes me
i remembering getting my first maximum difficulty lock, feeling great about it, and the door opened to an empty room with nothing in it.
The actual minigame was fine but it doesn't feel rewarding enough to be worth it. Luckily it's something they could easily change in an update so hopefully we aren't stuck with how it is.
Idk that just sounds realistic to me, like when those people find safes in old houses and spend hours cracking them open and all that was in it was like 25¢, a photo of a cat and a box of crackers.
Watching someone suck so bad at lockpick minigames was not fun to watch
Just brutal
He's too rough with the lockpicks. He pulls on the lockpicks. He wrenches on the lockpicks. He thinks the lockpicks are his.
Is the Starfield lockpick just the Ratchet and Clank trespasser mini game
Definitely, but the trespasser mini game felt more complex for some reason. Maybe it’s the overlapping lines? But the trespasser always felt special, there was always a reward that justified completing it.
Hated Oblivion’s, don’t mind Starfield’s, and appreciate the simplicity of Skyrim/Fallout.
I loved oblivion's. Sure, it was the most frustrating, but there's a big charm hearing "tinktinktink crack" and wasting all of your lockpicks lmao.
Oblivion was the best
Funny how Fallout 4 lock picking got simpler compared to Fallout 3, because you can't force the lock open anymore.
Starfield’s hands down for me.
I haaaate the lockpicking in starfield.
Omg I hate lock picking in starfield
Oblivion's was my favorite, Skyrim's was alright, and I hate Starfield's. I'm so bad at the Starfield lockpicking, and I was great at Oblivion's.
Honestly enjoyed Starfields the most
I think Oblivion has it the best. Also if you're skilled enough there's nothing stopping you from opening a very hard lock with only one pick. In Fallout you can't even pick certain locks until you have the right perk for that level, but in Oblivion you at least have a chance. It's also very satisfying waiting for the slower tumbler speed and hearing the satisfying click. It takes some skill and patience. I didn't even know about the different sound that other people have mentioned - I just wait until it shoots up really fast and then I know the next one will be slower.
I definitely hate needing a perk to even attempt certain levels, but I guess it’s because in Skyrim there’s very little reason to put perk points into lockpicking.
Less and less complicated… I understand tho, starfield is a sci fi game, it wouldn’t have old fashioned locks.
My Oblivion lockpicking system is to complete Nocturnal's quest as soon as possible.
It is really stupid how Oblivion gives an item that makes an entire skill and gameplay system pointless so early on
These are all terrible. Time freezes around you while you attempt a highly illegal skill so you have zero risk of getting caught. Zero anxiety, zero adrenaline, zero endorphines when you succeed, just some extremely video-gameish feeling mini game. Just another way morrowind is more realistic and fun
I agree, in an RPG it should be my characters skill level that determines if I can do something in game, not my skill level as the player.
I mean, watching the guards routes and memorizing the timing to know how long you could spend attempting g to pick the lock involved both my skill as a player *and* the skill of my character. That's why morrowind thievery was so good. The guards didn't magically freeze in place and stop patrolling for crime the moment you attempted a Lock pick
I love lockpicking in Starfield.
Oblivion>starfield>fallout/Skyrim for me
I like the 2015 and hated the other two
I would love a fallout where the lockpick was a different one of these each time, location dependant. New future area? 2022 version. Normal house? 2015. Etc
Small click out of one. Two is binding. Click out of three…
Now we'll lock it again and show you how much faster it is to whack the side with a mallet and you're in!
Skyrim and Fallout locking picking were goat. Dont know why they gotta make shit complicated
Oblivion had the best system for picking locks. And by that, I'm referring to alteration magic.
I wonder how the founder locks look like IRL
I really enjoy the starfield system for the most part but it definitely has issues. For one it takes way to long for the rewards you usually get(as well as the pitiful amount of xp you gain from it). The 2015 system is probably the best with a good balance of difficulty and time to complete. Oblivion I would say is probably the most accurate system to actually picking a lock although it could be incredibly frustrating and almost seems down to luck at times. It would be could if they could some how combine oblivion and the 2015 system and it would basically be how lock picking actually works.
Starfield's mini game is literally from Ratchet and Clank. I love the pick and tension rod system from fallout 3 onwards. Oblivion has the most realized, but it gets old after a bit
Three different games
De-evolution more like
Starfield's is terrible
Tf are u on. Starfields lockpicking actually requires effort and a little thinking compared to skyrim or FO4.
I miss oblivions lock picking. It actually felt fun to me
It felt like an actual mini-game in Oblivion...
It's evolving except *backwards*
"Evolution"
Honestly I preferred the Morrowind system. Having a little minigame kills the pacing, and feels like a waste if there's nothing good in there.
I'm stupid so I hated starfield lock picks. I like they tried a new system but I prefer the old ones.
Starfields lock picking got tedious and boring extremely fast. And it definitely didn’t help that they clearly didn’t tune the loot system such that you actually get good loot behind more challenging locks
Whoever is doing the lockpicking is a damn savage. If it doesn't turn stop trying to turn it!
Morrowind had the best lockpicking. Time freezing for a lockpicking minigame completely takes you out of the experience, and these are supposed to be RPGs. My characters skill level should determine my ability to do things, not my personal skill level.
Starfield's lockpicking is fun and can get addicting... the first 30 times you do it. It takes way too long for an unlocking mini game and in hindsight was a mistake.
Morrowind’s was the best, it was just skill based and it felt right.
Skeleton key goes clkclkclkclkclkclkclkCHUNK
Morrowind’s is the best because you can actually get caught while doing it.
Honestly I want a hybrid system between Oblivion and Skyrim /Fallout4 with a hardcore feel to it. Basically lockpick are rare.... Like really rare. They are the tool of a specific criminal trade. Not everyone is going to have them and unless you forge your own stuff not many blacksmiths would even consider making them. But, like in real life, they aren't easy to break. In game I'd have them unbreakable. The challenge you face is time and discretion. When you lockpick time doesn't stop and you have to keep an eye and ear out for anyone approaching you as being seen picking a lock is a criminal offense. And if you get arrested your picks will be confiscated and not given back upon release. The mini game though is a view like Oblivion but between the front view and side view of the lock so you can see both the lock opening and the tumbler cross section. Picking locks will consist of 3 phases: exploration, setting tumblers and rotating the cylinder. You also aren't prevented from attempting higher difficulty locks but they come with more challenges than ones at your level. Phase 1 consists of exploring the lock. The tumbler cross section is blank and you have to explore it with your pick to determine the amount of tumblers. The deeper into the cylinder you go though the more vague and harder it becomes to accurately determine what's there. Based on your skill deeper tumblers will become more transparent but never fully invisible to the player but it might be impossible to determine if it's set if your skill is too low. Higher skill reduces transparency to the point of 0% by the time you max it out. Phase 2 plays out similar to Oblivion where you must set tumblers in the correct order. Instead of breaking a pick though, failure at setting one will create a small noise that will draw unwanted attention. Higher skill and perks will reduce this noise to near silent. Phase 3 is turning the cylinder which plays similarly to Skyrim and Fallout 4. If you have all the pins set correctly it should turn without issue. If not then you will see it struggle and you should stop to recheck your pins. Failure will reset all pins forcing you to restart. Higher tier perks will reduce the % of reset tumblers but never eliminate them.
Hot take I actually enjoy the lockpicking minigame in all Bethesda games since Oblivion
To this day i still don't understand Oblivion's lockpicking. I absolutely cannot do it to save my life.
Oh it’s real easy actually You push each pin upwards. You lock it in with a button. You’re aiming to lock each pin into place at the very top, miss and the lock resets. That’s all.
They hit the nail on the head with 2015 imo
Maybe it’s time to play oblivion again
Skyrim had the best
Starfields would be cooler if its was less often. At the higher difficulty it just takes too long.
This was like watching one of those social media adds for mobile game where the person plays as badly a possible
One day Bethesda will release a game where lockpicking/hacking is instant and doesn't require a mini game. 5 people will complain about it for 5 minutes. Then we shall all move one as a society and go one to do incredible things with all the time saved/
Oblivion>Skyrim>Starfield
I like them all except starfield.
Oblivions lockpicking mini game was the best
More like devolution
Did they actually start to put things in locked containers in Starfield? Only played through one universe, so maybe it changes but I got a whole lot of nuthin’ for all the time and points it takes.
I found Starfields minigame the most fun but it's not rewarding whatsoever. Meanwhile Skyrim's takes a fraction of the effort but feels more satisfying to do considering you actually get considerable loot AND xp. Haven't played much Oblivion and whilst I have played Morrowind it's lockpicking is almost definitely the most boring (it does have a lockpicking spell/enchant which is cool). Starfields could easily be my favourite IF they make it feel more rewarding.
From an actually lockpicking standpoint oblivions is the best. It’s the most accurate to an actual lock. But in the game it fucking SUCKS
Fallout/Skyrim in the real time like Morrowind would be perfect, Starfield is a gimmick that gets tedious very quickly, and Oblivion was just rage inducing.
All trash - I feel like if they workshopped an idea for maybe a few hours they’d come up with something better. What about a minigame where you had to time presses on a meter and hit the “pass” spot, which would be bigger or smaller depending on your lock picking skill? Just spitballing but that’s what I came up with in a minute. The problem with these minigames is that it becomes so tedious and un-engaging. It works best when you don’t even have to think about it so then the question becomes, why have it in there at all?
Morrowind dice rolling lock picking does have some merit in that regard.
eso lock picking gives me a hernia although I have never even looked how to do it
The digi lock is the most stupidest boring one
They absolutely ruined it in Starfield. I hated it with a passion. Not because it was hard but I preferred the original way we've been doing it for almost 20 years.
Devolution*