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[Mech#4]

I liked the one in Thief where you had 2 different lockpicks and you had to alternate between them to open locks. It was just holding the use key but made it a lengthy process which gave guards more time to come across you. PLus once you had unlocked a door part way, if you were close to getting caught, you could go hide and finish it later.

[Silverthrone]

But still, why have locks at all, then?

To gate off equipment/items if you're not running a thief build. If you're putting points into Lockpicking, you're making a conscious decision not to put them in, say, Speech or Energy Weapons or whatever (to use Fallout skills as an example). The items you get are a reward for investing into a non-combat skill.

But the player haven't really done anything, though, other than making that choice on the level screen. Gimping your character a bit for a bonus in loot as a reward just sounds odd. It's a neat little idea, I suppose, but the whole "less power now for more power later" could be done in so many other ways, I think.

I do see the point, now, though. I understand why people like it, it's certainly one way, but... Neh. Dun' loik et. :< Pure PC skillchecks never was my thing, even though they're probably the best system to use, sometimes.

Best lockpicking minigame I ever saw, I can't remember what the game was called. Basically, the lock difficulty was in percentages - for example, 70%. A 70% lock had a lock that had a 70% chance to jam if you failed to pick the lock. Once the lock was jammed, the only way to get it open was to break the lock, which alerted any nearby enemies. If you jammed the lock then you couldn't open it even with the key unless you break into it.

Oh, that's pretty elegant, that is. I quite like the jamming possibility, and a big reason is because I've always wondered how the locks keep working fine when I've shoved fiftysix picks in them and jiggled them around.

Thinking more about locks, I think that they're too often just a locked container in a safe(ish) room. I'd like more trapped locks here and there, for one. Look them over, find the clue, do some fiddling to disarm it and off we go. Gives that lock/trap a bit more to do in life than be a hindrance on a loot trough, and creates the need for some situational awareness.

I liked the one in Thief where you had 2 different lockpicks and you had to alternate between them to open locks. It was just holding the use key but made it a lengthy process which gave guards more time to come across you. PLus once you had unlocked a door part way, if you were close to getting caught, you could go hide and finish it later.

That would work pretty well, too, come to think of it. It'd Doing Something^tm and it's nicely tied to the threat.

[Persus13]

Weird, I don't really mind the locking minigame in Fallout/Skyrim. Especially in Fallout: NV where you need it to get some really good items.

The hacking minigame in Bioshock was super annoying though, mainly because of the timer.

[itisnotlogical]

I wish there were an advantaged to having a higher lockpicking skill in Skyrim. The Expert and Master locks just take a few more lockpicks until I find the right spot.

Fallout 3 and NV's minigame bothers me more though, because you can't even try if you don't have the required skill.

[miauw62]

In my experience, having a higher lockpicking skill makes the sweet spots significantly larger.

[Damiac]

If there's a time pressure (ME1 tried to do this, although the minigame was dumb and poorly explained) then I think it's a lot better.  If, for example, failing to open the lock meant it was jammed forever, then the minigame means something.  It's the minigames that do nothing except force you to play the minigame until you win that I have a problem with.  The punishment is more shitty minigame, rather than lost loot, hps, or whatever.

A skill check is fine too, as long as the skill in question has realistic viable reasons not to take it.  If it's like fallout, then you are stupid not to take the skills to let you open doors and hack computers, so those are more of a character level check than something some characters would have access to and not others.  If fallout had enough worthwhile skills and perks such that it was reasonable not to take the hacking or lockpicking skill in some cases, those skill checks would be a lot more meaningful.

I loved the oblivion lockpicking minigame... for the first 10 times or so.  Of course since you had practically infinite lockpicks after very early game, it just became an annoying waste of time.

As I said before, I think the Deus Ex hacking minigame was pretty close to what a minigame should be, but they missed a couple of points.  Just aborting when the security alert timer started getting low should not have worked, you should have gotten an alarm in that case.  Plus, saving should have been restricted to some degree so you couldn't just savescum them, but that's a much bigger issue than minigames in general (although it is very relevant, a fail condition doesn't matter if it just means you reload and spend 30 seconds looking at a loading screen).

The biggest issue with the various minigames like this is the punishment for failure is typically more minigame, rather than any consequence in the main game itself.  Nobody ever got locked out of a computer in fallout, nobody ever ran out of lockpicks and couldn't get that sweet treasure in oblivion. 

[Darkmere]

There was a mod for FO3 (and probably NV, I don't remember) called Explosive Entry that let you apply your explosives skill and weapons toward breaching locked doors and safes, with the risk that you destroyed the items inside. The [Requires a Key] locks couldn't be blown, so you couldn't bypass quests, and it was pretty safe to just nuke doors open, but I thought the janky alternative to lockpicking was very fitting, and trying to bypass 100-skills would almost guarantee their destruction, so it wasn't a perfect 2-for-1 substitute.

Shame the better all-around explosives weapons are plagued by bugs that the construction kit can't fix.

[Shadowlord]

As I said before, I think the Deus Ex hacking minigame was pretty close to what a minigame should be, but they missed a couple of points.  Just aborting when the security alert timer started getting low should not have worked, you should have gotten an alarm in that case.  Plus, saving should have been restricted to some degree so you couldn't just savescum them, but that's a much bigger issue than minigames in general (although it is very relevant, a fail condition doesn't matter if it just means you reload and spend 30 seconds looking at a loading screen).

Unless I'm misremembering, Deus Ex's hacking consisted of a "Hack" button which worked 100% of the time, along with a security timer which counted down to an alarm while you were reading emails* (the time until it went off depended on your computers skill). Of course, you could often find the username and password and avoid the timer.

* if it was a security terminal, you'd finish reprogramming the cameras and turrets before you ran out of time anyways

[Niveras]

Spoiler: Star Wars: The Old Republic (click to show/hide)

Are you kidding me? What's next, pay to see numbers on health bars, damage? Because I can conceivably see that happening now.

I bet if I posted on their forums about what a terrible idea this is, the response would be "it's a great game, just sub dood." That's not the point. If you're going to inconvenience free players to such an extent just so subscribing is an attractive option, then keep your game sub-only.

I'm not even sure when they changed this. I'm sure it wasn't always this way - when my sub expired years ago, I remember being annoyed that things like dye-match and hide-helm options were now locked, but I figured that was okay, they're just cosmetic. I don't remember losing hotbars, which I would have noticed - I definitely had abilities there, because my keybinds for those bars are still present in my config settings.

Thought I'd try TOR again just to fill my time but that nope.jpg'ed me right out. ~$2.00 USD for a hotbar? For an interface element? I don't think so.

[Darkmere]

Heh. Remember the tomb raider DLC that basically unlocked jumping? Yeahhhhhh....

[itisnotlogical]

If there's a time pressure (ME1 tried to do this, although the minigame was dumb and poorly explained) then I think it's a lot better.  If, for example, failing to open the lock meant it was jammed forever, then the minigame means something.  It's the minigames that do nothing except force you to play the minigame until you win that I have a problem with.  The punishment is more shitty minigame, rather than lost loot, hps, or whatever.

A skill check is fine too, as long as the skill in question has realistic viable reasons not to take it.  If it's like fallout, then you are stupid not to take the skills to let you open doors and hack computers, so those are more of a character level check than something some characters would have access to and not others.  If fallout had enough worthwhile skills and perks such that it was reasonable not to take the hacking or lockpicking skill in some cases, those skill checks would be a lot more meaningful.

I loved the oblivion lockpicking minigame... for the first 10 times or so.  Of course since you had practically infinite lockpicks after very early game, it just became an annoying waste of time.

As I said before, I think the Deus Ex hacking minigame was pretty close to what a minigame should be, but they missed a couple of points.  Just aborting when the security alert timer started getting low should not have worked, you should have gotten an alarm in that case.  Plus, saving should have been restricted to some degree so you couldn't just savescum them, but that's a much bigger issue than minigames in general (although it is very relevant, a fail condition doesn't matter if it just means you reload and spend 30 seconds looking at a loading screen).

The biggest issue with the various minigames like this is the punishment for failure is typically more minigame, rather than any consequence in the main game itself.  Nobody ever got locked out of a computer in fallout, nobody ever ran out of lockpicks and couldn't get that sweet treasure in oblivion.

ME1's hacking minigame was awful. Both of them were, actually; the one with the circles and the one where you just have to guess the buttons until you get it right. Neither of those things even pretend like they're related to "hacking", they're just crappy games like you'd get on a pre-smartphone cell phone.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Heh. Remember the tomb raider DLC that basically unlocked jumping? Yeahhhhhh....

What.

I require proof.

[Shadowlord]

Heh. Remember the tomb raider DLC that basically unlocked jumping? Yeahhhhhh....

Is that something I should remember? I have no tomb raider DLC and jumping works just fine.

[Darkmere]

Ah, I was thinking of Pay $1 to climb rocks. It lets you jump from higher up, I think that's where I got that.

You can also Pay to be able to headshot, apparently. Or Pay for a silencer. Even Pay for target highlighting?

[UXLZ]

and couldn't get that sweet treasure in oblivion.

Sweet treasure? What sweet treasure? That game didn't have sweet treasure.

That brings me into the next point, Level Scaling enemies/loot/everything in Open-World RPGs. Seriously, fuck it. Oblivion was absolute ass because of it, Skyrim was slightly better because it was more restrictive on the ranges of scaling but it's still awful.

Artefacts in Morrowind felt like Artefacts. Artefacts in Oblivions felt like shitty steel swords with maybe a soul trap enchantment or something.