I know the lockpicking is being looked into for being tweeked, but i kind of wish this particular mini game would be scrapped all together for a new one. I to find the lockpicking to be very annoying, and tedious at best, but what truly annoys me is that the devs talk so much about how they want the game to be like real life and yet the lockpicking system is absolutely nothing like real life.
First off lockpicking takes time, and patience, something the mini game does not allow you to have, you must be quick or you lose.
Secon lockpicks were not even the main way of opening locks in this time period. This is mainly because lockpicks only really worked on certain types of locks, and even then the other two main methods were far more effective and universal. The two main methods for opening a lock were breaking them and using skeleton keys.
The increased shaking as you get near the end also doesnt fit at all, your hands dont just suddenly start shaking all over the place.
A far more realistic and interesting system could be made, one where you use sound and maybe some visual cues (rumbling for controllers would work, but this would leave out PC players). This is what you actually use when picking a lot, sound and feel, not sight.
At this point even oblivion had a more realistic lockpicking system, and that game gave you a magical inside view of the lock.
A far better system would actually be one that doesnt use lockpicks at all, but instead uses the two methods that were most common for the time. It could be a mixed system. When you first start out you have only the option of breaking locks, this can be a rather loud process so the mini game becomes about minimizing the amount of noise you make so that you dont alart the entire building that someone has broken into something. As you progress through the game you would begin to find skeleton keys, there would be multiple types to find if you want o be able to open basically any lock with them. The mini game then changes up a bit, you now have the option to try out the skeleton keys you have, you now must try and choose the correct key for the type of lock you are dealing with, however messing up will make some noise but more importantly it will waist some time (no actual timer, but it does wait your actual time, meaning someone might come along and catch you). A perk could even be added where you begin to notice certain markings on locks to help you as the player narrow down which skeleton key you should try. If it turns out you don’t have the correct skeleton key, then it is back to breaking the lock (or you could just break the lock from the start if you dont want to or need to try the more silent skeleton keys).
Such a system would be far more interesting to use, and would fit the time period far more accurately. You could even add in for soecial chests that there a a bunch of fack key holes on the chest, which was common practice back then. This practice was not so much meant to stop a theif, but rather it was meant to waist a large amount of their time so they would hopefully be caught. Though this could just be an interesting addition to the syatem i mentioned.
I dont expect these kind of changes to be made instantly, i know that there are many other issues that definitely take priority right now. Thisbisnjust something that me and at least some other feel should be add onto the list of things to do, it just doesn’t have to be at the top of that list by any means.
A more realistic and interesting system can fairly easily be made. Many have done it before with tumbler lock systems, and with just a little effort and creativity the same can be done for this time periods lock systems as well.
