Change the damn lockpicks!

Stranded_Napkin

Stranded_Napkin

Refugee
We were all happy when lockpicks were added to the game. It gives you options. Instead of spending the entire night tapping away at a safe, you could spend a bit of time picking the lock. The problem is that instead of your character learning anything from their experience with a particular lock, it jumps back to 4.5 every freaking time the lockpick breaks. I burnt through 21 lockpicks and never got the safe I was trying to crack to open. I get that it uses a random percentage to determine if it gets through, but the fact that it goes back to 4.5 even if the pick broke at 0.1 is stupid. That alone makes you burn through lockpicks like they're candy even with the perk fully leveled. This needs to be changed so that the timer/pick duration restarts where it left off. Either that or just take the damn things out of the game as their current implementation makes them useless.

 
the timer resetting is the last tumbler which you failed to actually finish falling back into place, that last tumbler doesn't just stay in place while you grab another pick, it has to be re lifted into place

it's realistic

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Agree totally with the OP. Suggestion to TFP:

Increase the effect per rank of Lockpicking perk, OR add repairable lockpick sets(with quality levels) that grant a bonus stacking with the perk. The original disposable junk lockpicks can be appropriately renamed improvisedLockpicks.

@Synvastian: Realistic would be the lock becoming permanently broken/jammed when you broke off a pick inside it, which would require the lock to be either repaired or destroyed...

If there were some form of minigame that allowed for player reflexes, it would make sense to lose progress on a failed attempt, but this is a perk check with almost no player agency.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
If there were some form of minigame that allowed for player reflexes, it would make sense to lose progress on a failed attempt
Click to expand...
I was thinking it could invlove some kinda minigame a lá

but not exactly the same. Maybe some kinda moving bar or something and you have to hit the green zone. And the locks can be random different levels of difficulty.
 
As there is no player agency (and that is a positive thing in my book, all lockpicking minigames I have experienced get on your nerves after the fourth time), a new lockpick attempt should automatically follow if a lockpick breaks.

It makes no sense breaking up such a sequence of lockpicking tries. It would save on a series of boring clicks and still result in the player paying the lockpick with the invested time.

 
This is not such a big issue. Once in a while I spend all my lockpicks on a single safe. 99% of the time I get it with 3 or 4.

When I don't get it, I can still just break it open... So I haven't even bothered to put points into Lock picking.

 
I disagree entirely with the way allot of people are choosing to frame the discussion. First, why does this even have to be a binary case? Second, just because the most easily recognizable cases of lock picking games have been drab and repetitive affairs in the most touted examples in fallout and elder scrolls =/= therefore ANY conception of how lockpicking minigame could be implemented and work for an active real time survival game such as this shouldn't even be considered.

In bioshock, for instance, you had a really awesome nuanced kinda hacking/unlock mechanic where you had to align the pipes before the liquid ran through to the end of the maze in time. For this game, I can imagine you could instead of having a typical bobby pin and screw turning game you could have perhaps ONLY for big gun safes and more secure storage disarm game for when its rigged such as at high security facilities and military bases. Meanwhile, all the low end desk safes and the like can just keep the dice roll system. Seems like a pretty effective solution, or at the very least; worked in as a temporary kind of fix :very_drunk:

 
Last edited by a moderator:
"Stranded_Napkin" was very unlucky with his attempt to use the lockpicks. For normal it is much easier.

But I agree, that it takes too long. Picking locks is waiting time and waiting time is boring.

I also agree to other commentators here, that minigames are stupid...

Another point in this discussion is that a save that has loot respawn is still opened but untouched. So you get good loot for free.

I suggest to decrease (maybe half) the average time it takes to successfully unlock a lock via lockpick, but replace the opened save after loot respawn with the locked save.

The average number of lockpicks you need right now is well balanced, so it would be good to increase the lockpicks in loot or reduce the average needed lockpicks per save in order to keep the balance.

Manually using another lockpick to contiue the process is even worse than a minigame. I support the idea of meganoth to automatically start a new lockpick attempt.

 
I have found myself dropping the use of lock picks after early game. Once I got myself a level 3 steel pickax, bunker buster mod for it and a couple levels of miner 69er I have gone back to breaking open a safe rather than going through the frustration of breaking multiple lock picks on each safe.

I hope the Pimps find a way to improve the system and make it more fun and useful even into mid and late game.

 
I have found myself dropping the use of lock picks after early game. Once I got myself a level 3 steel pickax, bunker buster mod for it and a couple levels of miner 69er I have gone back to breaking open a safe rather than going through the frustration of breaking multiple lock picks on each safe.I hope the Pimps find a way to improve the system and make it more fun and useful even into mid and late game.
Click to expand...
That is to be expected if you don't spec into the lockpick skill. Am endgame miner is better than a lockpick novice.

Balancewise it might be problematic that miner69 is too useful all around though. IMHO best would be that lockpicking a safe should give on average 1/2 item more than with breaking it open or reduce average quality because the breaking is more harmful to the contents.

 
I often find laying into it with a steel pickaxe is usually quicker than a lockpick and far less frustrating. I've never put points into lockpicking. 

 
It seems like the restarting timer could be explained 'naturally' by saying if a combination lock attempt failed you would need to restart back at the first number, but go through the first numbers faster.  With locks that utilize keys you have to remove broken pick parts before you re-attempt.  (And sometimes you might get a head start as you can re-feel where things were faster).

Meganoth has a point as well about people usually perk into mining which can help with 'mining' a safe (because mining can be used very 'broadly'), whereas very few perk into lockpicking (as it is very 'narrow').

Although there might be occasions where you haven't cleared all sleepers (like maybe you fell through a floor or something...) and you're hoping that maybe if you can get that safe open quietly, you might get something that could help the situation you might currently find yourself in.

I. myself, just experienced using 21 picks on a small wall safe and then the next weapon safe only used 1.  And the next weapon safe only used 1 as well.  Seems like it averaged out.  (I also feel that it could also be explained rationally.)

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top