Across all platforms, many players complain about lockpicking.
here is a simple idea to slightly alter the visuals only, which leaves the actual lock picking mechanic as it is, but which reflects lock quality and player skill. It also provides a little bit of an interesting graphic.
Instead of the graphic of the mini-game being as it is, provide a backdrop for the lock graphic. As it is now, you can ‘see through’ it.
On this backdrop, generate a visual feature. The actual aesthetics could be anything. For my example, I’ll use a backdrop that looks like roughly cast iron.
On this roughly cast iron backdrop, randomly generate an additional feature set. Again it could be anything, visually, but for my example I’ll use rust spots.
Now what you’d see is the lockpicking minigame, with a roughly cast iron background, with visual cues in the form of the rust spots. These visual cues provide a ‘target’ for you to keep the dot near or even on. As the lock rotates, so do those features on the backdrop.
On a low-level lock, the rust-spot features are more in number and possibly even larger. As the lock level goes up, the density of the features goes down and maybe they even get smaller.
As the lock level improves, the backdrop could change too, from roughly cast iron to smooth iron to good quality steel.
This is a dynamic twist on mods such as ‘sectorial lockpikcing’ that might allow a touch more graphically interesting mini-game, and provide a better chance at even learning how to play the minigame well. Until you find a master lock that is just a silver background with no visual cues at all; and when you can do that one, you know you and Henry know something.