Challenging lockpicking process

[Lephys]

Croikey, people... Croikey, o_o

 

It's quite simple.

 

Your character's skill with a sword determines whether or not he hits an enemy or misses, but it does not determine whether or not he kills an enemy based on a single command. You don't click "Kill," then target an enemy. No, you choose an attack, or an ability, or you issue a move command, and you continue doing this until the thing is dead. If you just issue move commands all day long, obviously the thing would never die. Your character would simply run around in circles, until he eventually died, DESPITE his copious amounts of character skill that allow him to dispatch the foe.

 

The same could feasibly go for lockpicking. A lock is not something you just hit or miss. When you fail to pick a lock, it's because you didn't successfully "solve" it, basically, which is MUCH more a mirror of killing an enemy in combat than it is of simply striking an enemy with a sword, or moving from point A to point B (a single move command) without tripping and falling.

 

If you don't want complex lockpicking, then awesome. No one said you have to like it and want it. But that doesn't change the fact that it makes perfect bloody sense, and that we're not psycho crackpots for suggesting it. Nor are we slapping character skill in the face, or advocating first-person shooter gameplay to take the place of lockpicking, or anything even remotely so radical.

 

If it doesn't make it into the game, for whatever reason, then no big deal. It's obviously not the end of the world. But, it's a completely arbitrary decision to have picking a lock be a single action, as directly decided by a skill-check roll (just like a single sword-swing in combat with an attack roll) instead of having it occasionally be more complex than that. It really is.

 

Your character's skill would present you with the available actions to be performed, and you, the player, would simply decide when and how to use them, EXACTLY as you do in combat. Yes, this means that, to some degree, your actions are affecting the effectiveness of your character's actions, despite their skill. The exact same can be said of combat! If you cast fireball on a single enemy, instead of a cluster of 7 archers, then you just made your character less effective than he probably would've been had HE gotten to decide the target. But he doesn't. He just either has the ability to strike a target with a fireball, or he doesn't.

 

Seriously... how many pages must we go arguing silly semantics of player "skill" and other such nonsense? Obviously, whatever we call it, the player affects how the characters do things, despite their skill values. And, obviously, that player "skill" shouldn't override that completely, just like nothing should override attack rolls and defense values in combat. No one is arguing to the contrary.

 

If you think the very idea of more-complex-than-a-single-action-skill-check/roll lockpicking is dumb and you hate it, then why not spend your time not-posting in this thread, and maybe constructively posting in some other thread about ideas you actually WANT to spend your time hashing out? Because I can't think of many things more pointless than telling people how much you hate ideas they aren't even advocating, regarding a topic you aren't going to do anything but assume the worst about.

[Umberlin]

There is so much hyperbole in this post I don't even.

Ah, the usual, "I have no legitimate counter, so I'm throwing around basic English 101 Elements of Arguments dismissals in order to lure the spotlight away from that fact" approach to discussion.

Also I challenge the claim that ARPG's are "more reliant on the player".

You can challenge it all you like. It won't make action RPGs into RPGs. At the end of the day most action RPGs rely so much on the player and twitch, and gut basic RPG elements to such an extent, that even, yes, as a sub-genre, they barely resemble the core RPG they spawned from. Everything and anything from, 'I can overcome the fact that my character can't pick locks by way of this mini game' to 'I can overcome my character's lack of accuracy with my own ability to make up for the numbers penalty' and more are reasons why action RPG elements, of all sorts, need to stay far and away from games attempting to be actual core RPGs, especially P:E which is attempting to be in the style of the old core IE RPGs.Yes, usually. Doesn't it make you wonder?

Yes, usually. Doesn't it make you wonder?

The only thing this conversation makes me wonder is, "why you're even here, other than to keep on insisting that an apple should be an orange?" People came here for apples, not oranges. P:E is an RPG, not an action RPG, and no one that 'actually wants P:E to be an RPG' will want or ask that there be elements that allow a player to overcome the skills, stats and other numbers of the character.

If you don't want complex lockpicking, then awesome. No one said you have to like it and want it. But that doesn't change the fact that it makes perfect bloody sense,

No, it doesn't make a lick of sense. The only thing that makes sense is you mousing over something locked, and ordering your character to go over and pick the lock. Their success or failure wholly up to their skills. No mini games. No twitch. No player input that allows them to overcome a lack of skill on the part of their character. These systems in every game I've come across that had them just let me, the player, go around with a character with nearly no, or completely lacking, lock picking ability but succeed against even the hardest locks. This is wholly unacceptable.

 

The old IE RPGs didn't have these nonsense mini-games that 'always' end up exploitable allowing the player to circumvent character numbers. The old IE RPGs did it right. This is what I'm here for more of, and I'm here for that because that experience is exactly what Obsidian promised me. I'm not here for action RPG elements like lock picking mini games, that always end up allowing the player to ignore their character's lack of ability to pick a lock.

 

You can insist that won't happen 'til you're blue in the face, but, I'm sorry, you have no control over that. You're not the developer. Your insistance means less than nothing.

Edited February 27, 2013 by Umberlin

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

You're dodging. Try to back up your position that no skill is needed whatsoever to perform well in IE combat.

Well there is some skill needed. Being able to read, knowing how to operate a PC, and being able to interpret basic directions are required to play them. But no special skills that take 200+ hours to master are required to perform well in IE combat. Hell I breezed through on my first playthrough and I had zero hours worth of 2E experience at that point.

I see. So you could take a backseat while your character analyzes the battlefield and orders everyone around, leaving you to wonder why you didn't think of that. That would surely be better than playing. ô.ô

Yep. It also extends well beyond combat, to how likely the character will be to commit crimes and how they react to NPCs. Better yet, we can use the ability to comprehensively script character behavior to have more complex and dynamic AI, which could easily translate to better encounters and more NPC reactivity. I don't see how any one could be against that, especially since lack of reactivity and trash mobs seem to be the most reviled things in the world to some people.

[Lephys]

 

 

If you don't want complex lockpicking, then awesome. No one said you have to like it and want it. But that doesn't change the fact that it makes perfect bloody sense,

No, it doesn't make a lick of sense.

 

 

Since I've already explained exactly how it makes sense, and you haven't explained how my explanation was flawed, other than to simply claim it was... Please forgive me for not abandoning my current understanding of the topic and adopting your claim as truth.

 

And as this thread isn't about making sure everyone agrees what makes sense and what doesn't, I'll simply resume hashing out lockpicking ideas, I suppose.

[Sacred_Path]

Hell I breezed through on my first playthrough and I had zero hours worth of 2E experience at that point.

You breezed through BG2 or IWD2 hardly knowing what you're doing? And it took no skill whatsoever, other than reading? Interesting

That would surely be better than playing. ô.ô

Yep.

what more needs to be said? Edited February 27, 2013 by Sacred_Path

[Sacred_Path]

Ah, the usual, "I have no legitimate counter, so I'm throwing around basic English 101 Elements of Arguments dismissals in order to lure the spotlight away from that fact" approach to discussion.

LOL, no legitimate counter?

 

Me: "I think lockpicking should be more challenging than it was in IE. Maybe there could be a puzzle element."

 

You: "You want an ARPG! This game is not for you. Leave now and never come back"

You can challenge it all you like. It won't make action RPGs into RPGs. At the end of the day most action RPGs rely so much on the player and twitch, and gut basic RPG elements to such an extent, that even, yes, as a sub-genre, they barely resemble the core RPG they spawned from. Everything and anything from, 'I can overcome the fact that my character can't pick locks by way of this mini game' to 'I can overcome my character's lack of accuracy with my own ability to make up for the numbers penalty' and more are reasons why action RPG elements, of all sorts, need to stay far and away from games attempting to be actual core RPGs, especially P:E which is attempting to be in the style of the old core IE RPGs.

Good job not quoting the rest of my post, which you can't refute, obviously. Also, I repeat for the n-th time, the goal was never to make the player less dependant on character skill. You just like to put forth strawmen it seems.

The only thing this conversation makes me wonder is, "why you're even here, other than to keep on insisting that an apple should be an orange?" People came here for apples, not oranges. P:E is an RPG, not an action RPG, and no one that 'actually wants P:E to be an RPG' will want or ask that there be elements that allow a player to overcome the skills, stats and other numbers of the character.

Look, I try to come up with ideas for things that 1) I would like to see in the game and 2) that objectively improve the game. More in-depth skill resolution fits both. It adds more "gamey" aspects, that is, things that challenge the player in different ways (= allow you to become gradually better at them). If you're not as interested in the gamey aspects of P:E (because you're in i.e. for the story) then this might not matter much to you; you might even prefer the game playing itself to some extent (automatic skill resolution at the click of a button). That's cool, I just don't have the same preferences.

 

I would even say that my own immersion is enhanced by more detailed skill resolution. In IE games, you never even saw a representation of the lock on the screen; you just got a text message. That made for a very "meta" feel. Anything that makes the player feel that he's moving through a complex world is preferrable to that. Another example, we might have an idea of what the Alchemy skill does because we read the description; still, clicking on a button and then having a potion identified is completely meta. I've described in this thread my idea of how I'd rather see that skill being played out.

[JFSOCC]

 

 

You can say what you want about Skyrim, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, but at least they still require a player to operate the basic mechanisms! Hey, I haven't even looked at it like that before. Thanks, I guess.

Because they aren't RPGs. They're action RPGs (and the RPG portions remaining are just BARELY there, especially in regard to nonsense like Mass Effect). Get that through your head. Action RPGs are not RPGs. The difference is obvious an action RPG is more reliant on the player, but it's an entirely different genre for that reason. Obsidian, by their own description of P:E, are making an RPG. Not an action RPG, just an RPG. That means the twitch elements, and elements that let the player overcome the numbers - like lockpicking mini games - have no place here.

 

The character picks the lock. Not you. Their skill matters. Not yours.

 

If you're looking for that sort of nonsense, games like Mass Effect are perfect for you, but if that's the sort of game you want then why in the name of everything and anything are you looking at an actual RPG in the style of older RPGs more true to the RPG concept than modern 'supposed' RPGs? It's like you've gone on a forum for an FPS and complained that it doesn't have enough RTS elements.

 

 

How about this.

Josh before mentioned as an example for a shortfall of skill, a player could have lockpicks.

this comment was controversial enough to let that thread go on for ages.

 

What if the minigames are possible for any lock where you have a small (very small) skill shortfall.

In this case, it's still your character stats which determine what's possible, but for the most difficult tasks you can take over your character and do it. I see your heckles rising, but bare with me. You're playing that character, after all, and the option to play the minigame is only available because the skill shortfall is so small. (so determined by the character's stats)

 

IE: if a lock requires 20 skillpoints to open, and you have 17, you can't open the lock. If you have 18, you can do a very difficult minigame, if you have 19, you can medium-hard minigame, and if you have 20 the lock opens no problem, no minigame.

 

This would solve the pacing on minigames (not having to play a stupid game for EVERY GODDAMN LOCK) while still allowing you to enjoy a fun challenge if you so choose. Since this only allows for a small skill shortfall, it's entirely likely that you can also decide just to come back later when your skill has increased, in which case you can also avoid the minigame if you don;t care for it.

So you'd have the elements of challenge, the ability to choose how you play, while respecting the limits of your character's ability.

[Sacred_Path]

IE: if a lock requires 20 skillpoints to open, and you have 17, you can't open the lock. If you have 18, you can do a very difficult minigame, if you have 19, you can medium-hard minigame, and if you have 20 the lock opens no problem, no minigame.

Also, this would give those that hate on minigames a way to minimize those (I ain't even trolling ).

 

Of course there's a lot of prejudice because such things have rarely been done right. A terrible minigame is still a terrible minigame, no matter if you can bypass it. Also having to take a specialized locksmith with you everytime would be an offense. The thing is I don't think that we're doomed to only seeing terrible examples of this; I'm trusting these guys that they can come up with something that people would warm to. Heck, I even think that my hackneyed example of an improved lockpicking interface would add some fun.

[Jenda]

I would still prefer something more akin to the strategical and tactical decisions made in the "combat minigame", such as selecting the type of lockpick or method of lockpicking to be used.

 

Perhaps a reasonable compromise would be a system that still leaves lockpicking as a single click-roll action, but allows modifiers to that roll, much like weapon choice and attack type modifies the results of combat (or even the results of a single sword swing). For example:

 

Different locks have different difficulty ratings, and perhaps a few other attributes (like size, age, complexity or design). When picking a lock, you could choose from a variety of lockpicks, each of which would give a certain numerical bonus to your lockpicking "roll" (the bonus could be the same for all locks, or different for some - a basic lockpick would give +2 to any lockpicking roll, and a dwarven lockpick would give +1 for most locks, but +7 on dwarven locks, a thick, strong lockpick would give a -3 bonus on complex locks, but +5 on old or rusty locks, etc.). Additionally (and optionally), you could further modify this with a few choices of lockpicking methods (pick lock, force lock, etc.)

[Lephys]

How about this.

Josh before mentioned as an example for a shortfall of skill, a player could have lockpicks.

this comment was controversial enough to let that thread go on for ages.

 

What if the minigames are possible for any lock where you have a small (very small) skill shortfall.

In this case, it's still your character stats which determine what's possible, but for the most difficult tasks you can take over your character and do it. I see your heckles rising, but bare with me. You're playing that character, after all, and the option to play the minigame is only available because the skill shortfall is so small. (so determined by the character's stats)

 

IE: if a lock requires 20 skillpoints to open, and you have 17, you can't open the lock. If you have 18, you can do a very difficult minigame, if you have 19, you can medium-hard minigame, and if you have 20 the lock opens no problem, no minigame.

 

This would solve the pacing on minigames (not having to play a stupid game for EVERY GODDAMN LOCK) while still allowing you to enjoy a fun challenge if you so choose. Since this only allows for a small skill shortfall, it's entirely likely that you can also decide just to come back later when your skill has increased, in which case you can also avoid the minigame if you don;t care for it.

So you'd have the elements of challenge, the ability to choose how you play, while respecting the limits of your character's ability.

I like this idea. Alternatively, maybe the range doesn't have to be quite so small, and you simply need fewer lockpicks if you take the time to do the minigame, or more lockpicks (relative to the gap between your skill and the lock's difficulty) to "instantly" pick the lock?

 

There was already talk of avoiding the "try to pick lock... fail... broken lockpick... try to pick lock again... fail... broken lockpick... try to pick lock again" scenario, by eliminating the time-based multiple attempts, and simply having all the rolls happen "at once" and just determine how many lockpicks it took your character to pick the lock.

 

Well, maybe the only advantage the "minigame" gets you is that you can sometimes pick a pickable-yet-difficult lock with fewer lockpicks.

 

Even if we do it this way, these principles remain:

 

1)You shouldn't be able to even attempt locks that are far enough beyond your character's skill (10 points? *shrug*). So, there's no "I'm using my player skill to do things my character can't do, LOL!" situation.

 

2)Locks that are at-or-below your character's current skill should be instantly pickable(or maybe 5-10 points below, depending on how you want the range to work... maybe -10 is easiest, at-skill is medium, and +10 is hardest, for lock difficulty relative to skill?). Or, in the case of the minigame-versus-number-of-lockpicks implementation, at a certain point, there would BE no need for the minigame, as it would never take more than 1 pick to pick the lock. (although, maybe people could optionally still choose to utilize the minigame, if you're going to make one for each lock anyway?)

 

3)The minigame shouldn't involve control over actions that your character's skill should determine the speed/deftness of. It should only involve decisions and direction of your character's actions/tools.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

You breezed through BG2 or IWD2 hardly knowing what you're doing? And it took no skill whatsoever, other than reading? Interesting

Well I did know what I was doing, but that is most likely due to the fact that I took half an hour to read the manual. You'd be surprised how much reading the manual makes things easier.

what more needs to be said?

Well, you could apply that comprehensive scripting to the toolset and create dynamic modules. Also how NPCs think could now apply to combat as well as dialogue. Hell, most areas of the game would improve by having comprehensive behavior scripting.

[Sacred_Path]

Well I did know what I was doing, but that is most likely due to the fact that I took half an hour to read the manual. You'd be surprised how much reading the manual makes things easier.

I think I contracted derpes just from reading your last posts

Well, you could apply that comprehensive scripting to the toolset and create dynamic modules. Also how NPCs think could now apply to combat as well as dialogue. Hell, most areas of the game would improve by having comprehensive behavior scripting.

For NPCs and monsters, yes. For the player character, not so much.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I think I contracted derpes just from reading your last posts

Funny, I almost caught nonenglishspeakeritis from you. If I hadn't used protection I might be dropping periods, forgetting how to use spaces, and misspelling words. ITDS really suck balls don't they?

For NPCs and monsters, yes. For the player character, not so much.

Then you agree that comprehensive scripting is a good thing, and that allowing the player to test it out by using it on a PC is fine?

[Sacred_Path]

Funny, I almost caught nonenglishspeakeritis from you.

Location: Houston, Texas

Yee-haw!

Then you agree that comprehensive scripting is a good thing, and that allowing the player to test it out by using it on a PC is fine?

The only thing I said that comes near to that is that more reactive NPCs are good (gasp). As for less player control = better, you probably won't find anyone who agrees with that.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Yee-haw!

I'm surprised you managed to spit out the sauerkraut long enough to post that.

The only thing I said that comes near to that is that more reactive NPCs are good (gasp). As for less player control = better, you probably won't find anyone who agrees with that.

So you think that more reactive NPCs are good, but want to deprive people the ability to test how comprehensively they can script NPCs for modules? That sounds like a great idea. Edited February 28, 2013 by KaineParker

[JFSOCC]

I thought the ability to script responses for my companion characters in combat using the tactical slots was pretty much one of the few interesting things Dragon Age Origins had to offer.

[Lephys]

I thought the ability to script responses for my companion characters in combat using the tactical slots was pretty much one of the few interesting things Dragon Age Origins had to offer.

 

Yep. If only they hadn't been so limited for seemingly no reason (your party member can only automatically react to FOUR different sets of factors before their brain overloads, until they gain some levels? Really...?!). Heh. AND, if they had actually provided a lot more complex and comprehensive list of options for response criteria.

 

But, yeah, I really liked the idea. It was a good change from the simple "Aggressive, passive, defensive" options games usually give us. It just felt horribly incomplete.

 

It's actually really useful when various abilities have several different forms of utility. For example, maybe chain lightning does the most damage, obviously, when more targets are close to one another. BUT, maybe lightning also is more effective when enemies are in a puddle, or when they're suffering some other status effect. So, you can properly set your chain-lightning-wielding companion up for whichever playstyle you're using for your party. Maybe you just want them to toss it every time enemies are clustered, for maximum per-target damage, or maybe you have your characters built to frequently use combo effects (your magic folk summon puddles, and/or bind enemies in metal wire, and/or bestow electricity-effectiveness-boosting status effects) and you want them to save their mana (or, in the case of P:E, spell "ammo") for those combo scenarios for maximum effectiveness, and completely ignore simple groupings of enemies (unless you manually direct them to cast it, then).

 

It was a little improved in DA2 (I think they at least did away with those infernal slot limitations... mostly), but there was still room for improvement.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Lephys

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I thought the ability to script responses for my companion characters in combat using the tactical slots was pretty much one of the few interesting things Dragon Age Origins had to offer.

Agreed. As far as party AI goes, it is one of the best implemented(aside from the level determinant limitations and lack of certain options).

 

However, I am also talking about behavior outside of combat. Being able to completely script the PC from the start of the game would be incredibly cool, because you could see how their personality influences combat tactics and what decisions they would make. You could use this to script more dynamic foes and NPCs in modules as well.

 

However, until that option exists, the player should have absolute control of the PC.

[Sacred_Path]

Not to bug anyone but the topic is lockpicking, not combat. Scripting the PC for automatic skill resolution would make for the most anti-climactic game ever (and yes I'm aware NWN2 characters would i.e. disarm traps when they encountered them; I think that proves my point)

[Dragoonlordz]

Lockpicking as more than just one click I am all for (stats, skill based maybe even puzzle). but your idea I think takes bit too far in the complex direction.

[Umberlin]

and you haven't explained how my explanation was flawed, other than to simply claim it was...

Absolute nonsense laced with either outright lies or a complete inability to read. I've given exact explanation multiple times, in nearly every post in this thread covering:

 

1. Why I think such things don't work in the games they're in.

Where? In posts where I admit, that even games in which such systems 'do' have a place (not this game, and not this genre) I point out actually flaws in the system. In some cases I've pointed out a person being able to pick even the master locks in the game, without having more than the starting points in lock picking. I've also given an opposite example of a game (in another thread unfortunately) where a system was so flawed that even though the character had significant lockpicking skill, they were still failing on an easy lock because the mini-game was so convoluted and flawed at a base.

 

2. Examples of those games, the particular systems, and in addition explaining why they don't work.

Where? In posts where I talked about games like Skyrim or Mass Effect, and those are not the only examples out there, that use mini-games and other systems in order to allow the player to take part in these activities. In theory it's fine, and in an action-RPG like Skyrim maybe it even has a place, but the end result of these things is that a player can still exceed the limitations of their numbers in some way. Even the most careful of these systems I've come across have still, likely unintentionally, left room for the player to wiggle out of the limitations the numbers are meant to set in place.

 

3. Why I don't think such systems have a place in an actual RPG.

In posts where I talked about places these systems do actually exist, and why they're other genres entirely or a sub-genre of RPG. I've gone onto explain, using Obsidian's own words, the intent of P:E and how such systems differ from that provided intent. Not my intent. Obsidian's intent.

 

4. Examples of how such systems negatively effect the intent of the numbers that define your character in an RPG.

Where? In several posts where I explained the purpose of the numbers, why they're there and how they help you define the character and challenge you to actually play the role defined by the numbers (the role of the character). I've even have given examples of games that were hurt by allowing players to exceed the numbers limitations.

 

5. Explaining why assurances that, "surely this time one of those mini-games (etc) can be done right this time." do not assure me of anything.

Where? In the post where I outright inform you that you are not the developer, and cannot control the quality of such attempts, therefor your assurances mean less than nothing. The amount of games that have gotten these lockpicking mini games wrong works against any assurance you could give me, I have absolutely no reason to think that this time would be an exception and that magically the lockpicking mini-game would miraculously be perfect here.

 

6. That Obsidian have already done lockpicking systems well.

Where? In the IE games, in a successful way that does not break the relevance of the numbers through the manner in which they already exist in the exact brand of games P:E is attempting to replicate. And they did this, successfully, without the need for nonsense mini-games or action RPG elements. It's not just a matter of, "don't fix what isn't broken" it's also a matter of, "don't fix what worked perfectly in its own right, and worked perfectly toward ensuring you play within the limitations of the character - ensured you were playing a role."

 

I have talked about these things multiple times thoughout this thread. If you are unaware of them, them it's your own fault - but it's through no lack of my attempting to give you, or anyone else, explanation for my thought pattern. If you were aware of these explanations, then you have simply outright lied about my lack of expalantion, making you a complete waste of my time.

 

Consider yourself put on ignore either way, I have no time to waste on someone that  won't read - and then claims I haven't said exactly what I have said. Let alone if you did read it, and simply lied about seeing no such explanations to make it look like I'd said nothing.

. . .

Considered yourself put on ignore as well. The forum will be much improved for the lack of your visual presence.

[Lephys]

Absolute nonsense laced with either outright lies or a complete inability to read. I've given exact explanation multiple times, in nearly every post in this thread covering:

 

Negatory, Ghost Rider. What you have explained are reasons why specific implementations of more-complex-than-a-single-click lockpicking are flawed, and how certain facets of them don't make sense.

Case and point:

 

1. Why I think such things don't work in the games they're in.

Where? In posts where I admit, that even games in which such systems 'do' have a place (not this game, and not this genre) I point out actually flaws in the system. In some cases I've pointed out a person being able to pick even the master locks in the game, without having more than the starting points in lock picking. I've also given an opposite example of a game (in another thread unfortunately) where a system was so flawed that even though the character had significant lockpicking skill, they were still failing on an easy lock because the mini-game was so convoluted and flawed at a base.

 

I already stated that lockpicking should be limited by character skill (i.e. if your character skill is 40, you can't attempt locks beyond 50, etc.), and that the minigame should only represent relatively difficult locks (i.e. if your character skill is 40, there is no minigame for locks of difficulty 40 and below... you simply pick them).

 

Even though I've been ignored (literally), apparently, by Umberlin, maybe some other naysayer will see this and actually realize the fact that the system has potential beyond what specific implementations have already been made in other games. *shrug*

Edited March 2, 2013 by Lephys

[Sacred_Path]

Considered yourself put on ignore as well. The forum will be much improved for the lack of your visual presence.

lol.

 

But picking one of your points (not that the others are better argued):

3. Why I don't think such systems have a place in an actual RPG.

In posts where I talked about places these systems do actually exist, and why they're other genres entirely or a sub-genre of RPG. I've gone onto explain, using Obsidian's own words, the intent of P:E and how such systems differ from that provided intent. Not my intent. Obsidian's intent.

I'd be really curious to see what statement from OE can be obstrued to mean that in-depth skill resolution goes against their "intent".

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

You know, I never will understand how telling someone that your ignoring them is such a big threat.

 

Anyways, I think that to make lock-picking more interesting, they could require the use of thieve's tools(which should not be a single use item like in NWN(2), but rather a relatively expensive item that can be used multiple times), and have a chance to destroy the tools and/or destroy the mechanism that allows the chest to be opened. It could function exactly as the hit system does, a "miss" would be something breaking, a "graze" would be failing to open the lock, and a "hit" would be opening the lock. That way, the result is still determined by a RNG, but the PC has to gamble against losing a valuable(and expensive!) tool if they repeatedly try to open a chest that is almost impossible with their skill level.

[MattH]

It should be intuitive and short and not put the player under pressure of quick reactions. I can't stand minigames in RPGs, even if they're meant for diversion, making money and making it overall more "realistic". I guess different quality of lockpicks would be ok, but dividing it up in different stages of different skills seems to be getting out of hand.

Edited March 3, 2013 by MattH